Filed under: Films
It took me three separate intervals to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey but I finally finished it. I’m rather confused. I know I didn’t hate it but that might be because the soundtrack was perfect. The actual film however, I don’t know. I’m still trying to understand what just happened. I think Kubrick really wanted to fuck with everyone and let the film be impossible to interpret. Impossible is wrong – there’s just an infinite amount of possible meanings for this movie and my head hurts.
I found an article that explains the movie if anyone else feels like they wanted the Cliff Notes.
Plot Summary
(please note that director Stanley Kubrick decided to make this movie primarily a visual/subjective experience, and many of the plot details found in the script/novelization are not obvious from viewing the movie)
Four million years ago, an extraterrestrial intelligence decides to tinker with the evolution of man, leaving behind 3 tall, black, rectangular devices (“monoliths”), one near a settlement of primitive man-apes in Africa, one on the moon, and one in orbit around Jupiter. The first monolith mysteriously teaches the primitive man-apes to kill animals for food, saving mankind from extinction. By the year 2001, man has reached the point where there is now space travel, space stations, and settlements on the moon. The 2nd monolith is discovered buried beneath the lunar surface. A spaceship is sent to Jupiter to investigate the destination of a signal sent by the monolith. Most of its crew are in a state of hibernation, except for astronauts David Bowman and Franke Poole. During the lengthy voyage, the onboard HAL 9000 computer apparently malfunctions, and in order to protect itself from being shut down, it successfully kills everyone except David Bowman, who deactivates the computer. Bowman goes out in a one-man craft to investigate the 3rd monolith in orbit around Jupiter. This monolith acts as a stargate which hurls Bowman across the universe to the Alien homeworld. Bowman spends the rest of his life in some earth-like rooms, where he is basically a zoo exhibit for the Aliens. As he nears death, the aliens transform him into a new type of being and return him to Earth. Like the man-ape of 4 millions years ago, a brand-new world of possibilities await…
Marc Martin http://ufoseries.com/films/2001.html
