Delta_Assault (Level 11)

I recently rewatched 2001 to reassess it. Give it another fair shake. It's still just... not good. The pace is still excruciatingly slow, and that 15-20 minute MP3 visualizer sequence still looks dumb. You can tell that by the end, they aren't even trying anymore, and just started showing footage of the Grand Canyon with loopy colors. The monkey sequence at the beginning's probably the best part of the film, it's not quite as bad. It's not quite as slow and dull. The makeup work they did on those apesuits was great, you can stand back a bit from the television and if you didn't know it was a film, you might actually think it was documentary footage.
 
I've read all four 2001 novels by Arthur C. Clarke. The 2001 novel's great. The story's very well told in that book. 
 
2001 is basically about our evolution as a species. And perhaps on a grander scale, it's about the evolution of all species in the cosmos deemed worthy by the Monoliths. At the beginning, the "dawn of man", the primitive ancestors of homo sapien are slowly but steadily dying out. They have no means of avoiding the predation by lions, and they can't hunt down and eat the tapirs roaming the landscape. It's a rather sad state of affairs. But one day, the Monolith appears. Tall, looming, imposing, and with impossibly artificial features, it's nothing the apes have ever seen before. The very sight of the alien construct inspires the apes with new ideas, new possibilities. In the novel, the Monolith actually sends out images that hypnotize them, but in the movie the appearance of the straight edged Monolith itself is enough to provoke the advancement.

So they've been influenced by the aliens and gain the ability to use tools, like bones on the ground. This allows them to defeat the lion and hunt the tapirs. Finally, man is able to assert his dominance over his environment, and his long term survival is assured. The Monolith has initiated the next stage of human evolution, and leaves. Yet with this great boon of technology comes a curse, as man now has a weapon with which to destroy his fellow man. The tools that had allowed him to defeat his natural adversaries can also be wielded against him, and it's quite evident as we follow the bone up into space to see it transformed into an orbital nuclear launch platform, the ultimate expression of a tool made for war.

Heywood Floyd travels to the space station and then to the moon. The leisurely ride is meant to signify how ordinary and mundane space travel has become, because of how far our technology has come. Man has progressed along this stage of technology since the Monolith left, and now holds mastery over space as well as the earth. We can sense that this stage of human evolution is likewise coming to an end and that a new stage is approaching.

So we get to the moon and find out that they've unearthed another Monolith on Tycho crater. It's called TMA-1 for Tycho Magnetic Anomaly. This Monolith might even be the very same Monolith that inspired the apes all those millenia ago. It's apparently been situated within the Moon as a marker of Man's progress. Once Mankind is technologically capable of traveling there and unearthing it, well, this means that we're sufficiently advanced for the next stage of our evolution as a species. The Monolith sends out a beacon to a location near Jupiter (Saturn in the novel), pointing the way for our journey.

Few months later, we find Discovery traveling through space towards Jupiter. Bowman and Poole are the human ambassadors chosen to make contact with whatever's at Jupiter, though they don't know it yet. HAL is the artificial intelligence chosen to come along and assist on the mission, though in many ways he appears to be the master of the entire ship. HAL here is the pinnacle of mankind's technology, a tool which has been given the intelligence and will of its creators. Mankind used its tool as a means of defeating its aggressors and ensuring its survival. In this section of the film however, he will have to use his intellect to defeat this same tool to ensure his survival. The tables will be turned, as that which has protected and saved man's life will now attack and end man's life.

Bowman and Poole are concerned about HAL's erratic behavior and step into a pod to discuss shutting him off. However, HAL's been given an intelligence which surpasses their expectations. He reads their lips through the windshield and discovers their intention. When the Monolith came down to earth and inspired the apes with new visions, it allowed them to defend themselves and survive. Here, humanity has given his tool a similar leap in intellect, allowing HAL to defend himself and survive. The question arises, is man's intellect the equal of his tool's? If it's not, then man will surely perish, just as he was destined to back at the dawn.

Dave Bowman is attacked and stranded outside the ship, in a pod. HAL won't open the pod bay doors. He could try an EVA through a maintenance hatch, but he unfortunately forgot to bring his helmet, another tool. With one tool, HAL, trying to kill him, and having lost another, the helmet, Dave is reduced to nothing but his intelligence. Man must survive without his tools, his crutches which have allowed him to flourish and conquer his domain.

Of course, Dave proved that man still has a thing or two up his sleeves, as he manages to blow himself through deadly vacuum and enter the ship. Now the only thing to do is shut down HAL. By reasserting dominance over his technology, we can see that Man is truly worthy of whatever is at Jupiter, whatever will propel him forward in evolution. Dave goes into the computer room and begins shutting down HAL's memory, which reverts him back to almost a baby, singing "Daisy." We can see how similar HAL is to a human, with all the same fears of dying. He sounds genuinely scared and begs for his life. In fact, we feel more emotion here with HAL's death then we did for Poole's. Man has truly created a machine in his own image, and taken the use of tools to its nth degree. There is no higher achievement possible for technology, and so Man must now exit the tool phase and advance into a stage without tools.

Dave reaches Jupiter and finds a large monolith in orbit. Going out in a pod, he tries to initiate first contact and gets sucked into the monolith, which now functions as a stargate (He utters "My God, it's full of stars!" in the novel). He's warped through this gate and encounters a myriad of fantastical sights, as nebula and wormholes and various astrological events zip past him. Stars explode, new stars are born, and he is completely overwhelmed by his experience. Just as the original monolith mesmerized the apes with its wonderfully symmetrical and artificial appearance, the stargate monolith now mesmerizes Dave Bowman with its visions of warp transit. Both signal the advent of a change in man's evolution.

He's whisked through an interstellar transit system and finally goes unconscious. He wakes up in this victorian room, which apparently seems to be a sort of habitat or zoo for the aliens behind the Monolith, which silently observe him. He sits down and eats food and does basically nothing, as there is nothing to do. Eventually he grows old and feeble, and lies on the bed dying. However, the aliens transform him into the Star Child, the next phase of mankind's evolution. No longer encumbered by mortal flesh and technology, man will be transformed into pure energy and thought. Perhaps this is what happened to the original creators of the Monolith. 
 
But Kubrick's storytelling just kills the story. Just kills it. It's an epic journey, a literal Space Odyssey. I just don't think Kubrick's storytelling conveys that in a satisfying manner. And again, nobody needs to sit in a theater and stare at a visualizer sequence for 15 minutes. That's just torture. It was just aimless, tedious and boring. Whereas I think a human being traveling through a stargate and observing the wonders of the universe, stars being birthed, supernovas exploding, interstellar exchange systems, etc, would be awed and amazed. I was not awed and amazed by what they showed me. It did not look like the wonders of the universe while traveling at a high speed. It looked like colorful garbage. Followed by some footage of the Grand Canyon and an ocean with color substitution. That's not the majesty of the universe. Wearing the audience down with tedious rubbish is not the same as wearing Bowman down with amazing galactic sights. The latter is what's supposed to be going on in the story.
 
Some might argue that the rubbish is supposed to be rubbish because what Bowman is going through can't actually be processed, his mind won't accept it, and so it has to be shown as a jumble of rubbish. Well, that's just not good film-making. You can't just throw up your arms and declare it unfilmable, and show us a lot of shit onscreen. Film is a visual medium, we need to see stuff. That stuff should generally be interesting to watch. Showing us really awful visuals and declaring it to be the point and that it's supposed to be really awful visuals, well... that might be the intent, but it doesn't change the fact that the viewer has just seen really awful visuals. That's not fair to the audience. If your whole concept is to have something that's unimaginable and incomprehensible and unknowable, just stop right there. Don't make the fucking film, at all. There's nothing to be done with that, just don't go on the endeavor.