2001: Clarke and Kubrick

When Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was released to audiences in 1968, many critics praised the film for its realistic depiction of space exploration. This is not without warrant. 2001 explored the future of space travel with the same meticulous attention to detail that fans of Kubrick's work have learned to recognize and have grown accustomed. The film was bold in its intellectual leap into our evolutionary past, and it dared to shed light on such present-day realities as artificial intelligence. In both its cinematography and classical score, many claimed 2001 was a masterpiece that would continue to intrigue audiences for many years to come.

Not all audiences were captivated by Kubrick's vision, however. Some protested that the film lacked clarity and revolved around a discontinuous plot that culminated into an equally incomprehensible conclusion. Rock Hudson, for example, literally "stormed out of the premier complaining, Can someone tell me what the hell this is all about?" (Clarke xvii). The lack of dialogue and lengthy shots, albeit artistic, only add to the confusing nature of the film. This article will attempt to compare and contrast a few elements that characterize 2001. A particular emphasis will be placed on Arthur C. Clarke's literary interpretation, which was written congruently with Kubrick during filming. It is hoped an analysis of Clarke's novel will offer some insight into the complexity of the film.

The story begins in the Pleistocene environment of our early ancestors. We are introduced to a tribe of fifty or so "man-apes" who are led by a vigilant and cautious dominant male, appropriately named Moon-Watcher. This name is worth note, as it foreshadows events to come in the following chapters:

"Of all the creatures who had yet walked on Earth, the man-apes were the first to look steadfastly at the Moon. And though he could not remember it, when he was very young Moon-Watcher would sometimes reach out and try to touch that ghostly face rising above the hills." (Clarke 9)

It appears that, since the very beginning, humans yearned to reach out and touch the stars. This is a key component of 2001. It suggests an evolutionary progression, and although evolution itself is not a linear process, there is a certain degree of wonder in the above citation. It states that our earliest ancestors were curious creatures that contemplated the universe and their place in it. Even before their contact with the alien monolith, the man-apes were predisposed to receive the knowledge and know-how that would be offered them.

In regard to technology - a chief component of human societies and cultural advancement - Clarke states:

"Perhaps, given time, they might by their own efforts have come to the awesome and brilliant concept of using natural weapons as artificial tools. But the odds were all against them, and even now there were endless opportunities for failure in the ages that lay ahead" (24).

These lines encompasses the realism of 2001. Our human ambition and yearning to understand our place in the world is not one undertaken without struggle and hardship. In the ages that lay ahead, our ancestors faced difficulty after difficulty, and there was ample room for mistake. The success of the human species was not guaranteed in Clarke's vision. We could just as easily have failed. Nevertheless, generation did succeed generation, and "unlike the animals, who knew only the present, Man had acquired a past, and he was beginning to grope to the future" (Clarke 36). After centuries of intellectual darkness, the appearance of the monolith propels humankind forward. It is interesting to notice that Moon-Watcher becomes conscious of the realization that, in order to touch the Moon, "he must find a high enough tree" (Clarke 9). Perhaps the monolith is representative of that tree, since the alien intelligence behind it provides an evolutionary kick-start toward the technological advancement that follows: "They could never guess that their minds were being probed, their bodies mapped, their reactions studied, their potentials evaluated" (Clarke 14).

TMA-1 (Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-One), the second monolith, is discovered three million years later in 1996. Initially, it was buried beneath twenty feet of moon surface, but magnetic surveys of the region revealed an intense, concentrated field that could not be correlated to natural, geologic processes. Clarke describes TMA-1 as a "vertical slab of jet-black material, about ten feet high and five feet wide. [...] It was impossible to tell whether it was made of stone or metal or plastic - or some material altogether unknown to man" (83). This is significant. Both the date and the enigmatic nature of the monolith's composition state that it was not human made. Further, within the context of the story, it places the monolith's origins during the exact same period in which Moon-Watcher and his tribe had "chanced" upon the first. It appears that the man-apes' evolutionary journey, thus far, had been successful. This is by no means the end, however. As Dr. Heywood Floyd and his scientific team arrive at the location of TMA-1, it emits a radio transmission, harkened by sunlight hitting its surface for the first time in three million years. In this regard, the second monolith can be viewed as the next step of humankind's technological and cultural advancement. It symbolizes and acts as a beacon towards something greater. Upon its discovery, via space travel, it is realized that Moon-Watcher and his tribe have given birth to generations of innovative scientists who, in their endeavor to understand, have physically reached out toward the stars. Though ignorant of the monolith's intent, something had occurred upon Dr. Floyd's arrival, and it is quite extraordinary. Human progress had been acknowledged by the alien intelligence in the form of a signal sent to the outer solar system:

"Some immaterial pattern of energy, throwing off a spray of radiation like the wake of a racing speedboat, had leaped from the face of the Moon, and was heading out toward the stars." (Clarke 104)

In the year 2001, eighteen months later, human progress continues. Discovery launches with a component of five men (three in suspended animation) and HAL (a Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) and follows the signal to Japetus, the third largest moon of Saturn.(1) It is here that David Bowman discovers the Star Gate, which is the third monolith, and the next stage of evolution:

"The Star Gate Opened. The Star Gate closed. In a moment of time too short to be measured, Space turned and twisted upon itself." (Clarke 255)

At this point, it is obvious that the final scenes of Kubrick's film are not so clear to most audiences. Without having read Clarke's novel, many see HAL's disregard for human life, for example, as an attack against our reliance on technology in the modern age. However, HAL is not simple technology. HAL is a form of artificial intelligence that appears to be capable of experiencing human emotion. When HAL is asked to conceal the truth of the mission from Bowman and Poole, the intensions of HAL's creators backfire. Deception is not part of HAL's programming. It is not something HAL can reconcile: "Even the concealment of truth filled him with a sense of imperfection, of wrongness - of what, in a human being, would have been called guilt" (Clarke 191). This is not to mention that HAL feared disconnection: "This was the equivalent of Death. For he had never slept, and therefore he did not know that one would wake again" (Clarke 193).

Returning to the evolutionary implications of 2001, HAL could very well be representative of our own advancement, in which the creation (in this case, HAL) begins to resemble and mirror the mind of the maker (both ourselves and the alien intelligence behind the monoliths). Again, it must be remembered that the HAL 9000 was not merely a machine that computed heuristic functions. HAL exhibited a humanness and flexibility that exceeded its initial programming. The point here is that the products of our technological endeavors do appear to experience their own states of evolution and change.

In regard to David Bowman's metamorphoses into the Star-Child, little can be said without having read Clarke's further novels. Unfortunately, the conclusion of both the first novel and film are entirely too open-ended for proper analysis. Finally, what or who is the alien intelligence behind the monoliths? This is a question that has puzzled those not familiar with the novels for nearly half a century. It is felt that Arthur C. Clarke answers this question best when he states:

"They were lords of the galaxy and beyond the reach of time. They could rove at will among the stars, and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their origin, in the warm slime of a vanished sea. And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so long ago." (246)

Works Cited

Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: Penguin, 1968.

(1) "Stanley decided to rendezvous with Jupiter, whereas in the novel the spaceship Discovery flew on to Saturn, using Jupiter's gravitational field to boost it on its way" (Clarke xv).