Skip to main content

2001: A Space Odyssey Notes



2001: A Space Odyssey 
- Beginning shows a desolate planet
- inhabited by monkeys 
- monolith – monkeys are fascinated by this foreign object 
- monkey playing with bones 
- monkeys are very humanlike
- fast-forward - humans with advanced technology in space – spaceship, futuristic clothing
- voice and facial recognition – foreshadowing technology … now something so common that our phones have this feature
- picturephone – facetime
- film was made during cold war – Russian 
- food trays
- iconic soundtrack
- not one person of color
- US – discussing an epidemic 
- Something buried 4 million years ago
- Was it put there on purpose or not?
- Land on moon to find the same monolith from the beginning of the film 
- HAL – artificial intelligence. Controls the spaceship. Claims to be foolproof, but that foreshadows the opposite
- Hibernating humans 
- Hel – Hal (metropolis) 
- Hal – IBM (international business machines)
- Hal is suspicious of the mission 
- Hal claims to have never made a mistake – blames everything on human error
- Hal’s eye 
- the men being to question Hal and think there is something strange about him
- they don’t want to continue letting Hal be in control – but realize that he controls the whole ship 
- Hal can read their lips – overheard their plan to disconnect him
- HAL severed Frank’s oxygen tank and he dies in space
- Silence in space when he dies
- Humans in hibernation – turns off the machines so they die 
- Hal does not allow Dave reentry to the ship 
- A lot of the shots are from the character’s point of view
- Dave enters through manual emergency hatch 
- Inside the brain of Hal
- Hal seems to have emotions – I’m afraid
- Dave disconnects Hal 
- Shots of dave’s eye – parallel to hal’s eye 
- The travel ages him 
- Dawn and dusk of man – beginning and end of movie
- Monolith beginning and end 
- Symbol of baby in the wound at the end of life to bring full circle 



 

Comments