X-Message-Number: 15198
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 08:19:06 -0800
From: Peter Merel <>
Subject: Re: 2001

2001 is a confusing film. Why?

The movie confuses at least in part because Kubrick and Clarke couldn't
agree on its message. Kubrick, an ardent theist, aimed to show that
technology, no matter how advanced, cannot elevate humanity to godhood.
Clarke was simply illustrating Clarke's Law, that any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The movie is a
debate between the two.

Clarke's meaning is plain. The supreme human technology, HAL, is not
different in kind from the bloody club that was its origin. Kubrick's
meaning is more subtle, but triumphant; though it is Clarke's narrative,
Kubrick's form dominates.

The AE-35-unit sequence demonstrates this clearly. In our first experience
of HAL, the wonder of which is lost on modern viewers, he is presented as an
automated chess player. In 60's pop culture, chess was equivalent with
intelligence, and social behaviour not thought different from game-playing.
Chess establishes HAL's sentience.

The fight between the proto-humans in the opening sequence is itself
chess-like, and this provides the logic that explains the AE-35 sequence.
In the same way it searches for a "win" in chess, HAL searches for a "win"
on the Discovery mission to Jupiter. HAL believes humans are fallible, and
that no HAL computer has ever failed except through human error. It follows
that HAL must improve its chances of "winning" by pruning human fallibility
from the mission's game tree. HAL is not bent on murder or revenge - it's
simply playing "Minimax" in a social setting.

In order to win, HAL has to manipulate Bowman and Poole in such a way that
they are unable to enter the ship. Otherwise it can't defend itself from
disconnection. In Chess terms it is in check, and this is why HAL predicts
the failure in the AE-35 unit - to get Bowman and Poole to go EVA together:
checkmate.

When Bowman manages to re-enter Discovery, HAL realises his own fallibility
for the first time, and this realization provides HAL with the pathetic
humanity he displays as he himself is murdered by Bowman.

The final sequence of the film, reminiscent of RobertHeinlein's classic
short story, ''In The Bowl'', is analogous to Bowman's struggle with
HAL. We see Bowman disconnected under the control of the monolith, but
rather than destroyed, Bowman is matured into godhood, reborn as a
luminous being, returned to grace, shorn of human fallibility. Chess
again, of course; the pawn reaches the final rank and becomes a queen.

What is most significant here is that the CosmicTwoByFour itself is HAL's
god, not Bowman's. HAL is in its image - the HAL red-eye panel has precisely
the same proportions as the monolith:

http://www.wap.org/ifaq/posters/hal1.gif
http://www.palantir.net/2001/gfx/infinite3.jpg

When Bowman disconnects HAL we see that each of HAL's components has this
same form.

So the monolith is technology, not god. As HAL is the creation of man, the
relationship between monolith and StarChild is transformed by Kubrick to one
of chicken and egg, genome and phenome. The film is a cycle. The final image
places Bowman in the same luminous pantheon we witness before his
transformation. Mankind is finally made fit for the company of gods.
Replying to Clarke's Law, in Kubrick's vision technology is progenitor,
not imitation, of magic.

Peter Merel.

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