kashif77 said:
2001 : A Space Odyssey
Very artistically directed movie ... the visuals are stunning and the music chilling.
However the plot is a complete stinker .. way to vague and open to interpretation.
i have heard that from people who have not had an opportunity to read the book. i highly recommend it. but nonetheless here is a quick guide to 2001 A Space Odyssey.
the opening sequence with the apes denotes a period of fragile balance where the ancestors of humanity were suspectible to their environment such as diseases, predators, lack of nutrition etc. It was in this period of uncertainity, the first monolith appeared. and the appearance of the monolith inspired in those apes a revolution. they began to have creative thoughts and for the first time identified a bone as a possible weapon (the whole deal with the ape banging the bone on the stone) which they then used to defend themselves, hunt animals for food and therefore establish their supremacy in the food chain, permitting humanity to evolve.
the appearance of that monolith inspired in human beings a change, and it would bring about significant leaps in intelligence which would prove decisive at different stages of our evolution. the first appearance established us a the most powerful and intelligent predator.
the second appearance: TMA 1 (Tycho Magnetic Anamoly 1), found on the moon inspired the next significant leap in human intelligence, symbolized by the construction of the spaceship Discovery. The objective of this Discovery was to investigate a signal that had been sent by TMA 1. turns out, TMA 1 when it was discovered was burried under the lunar surface (artificially burried) and when it was dug up, and exposed to sunlight, it emitted a brief signal directed towards one of the moons of saturn. in the movie, the signal is directed towards one of the moons of jupiter. it became rather obvious, that the second monolith was supposed to be an alarm or some sort of alert signal. i.e. when humanity has advanced to the level of exploring its satellite, it would inform on humanity to the creators of the monoliths.
discovery sets of for jupiter and it is here where the problem occurs. the crew of discovery is not informed of its mission, i.e. explore the destination of the signal from TMA 1. the crew is told it is merely sent to explore jupiter and its moons, but its autonomous computer: HAL 9000 developed by "dr. chandra" at university of chicago, is the only entity (if it can be thought of as one) which is aware of the true objective of the mission: explore the signal's destination.
the computer, programmed to be logical and honest begins to experience a contradiction when it has to disemble to the crew while maintaing a secret agenda. this causes it to suffer a conflict and in this conflict, it turns on its crew, murdering them when it feels that its very survival is under threat.
however, dave bowman proves to be more than HAL 9000 and he assumes control of the ship, and he then encounters the TMA 1's signal's destination: a giant monolith between the orbits of jupiter and one of its moons. he goes to explore the monolith when the next stage of human evolution occurs (as it always has whenever it comes in contact with a monolith). this stage requires a almost pseudo devine evolution where dave bowman transends from a mere human body to a "star child". a star child who is no longer limited to its human body, and has incredible material power to manifest objects and events. and this star child (the ultimate stage of human evolution) then watches over the earth as a guardian.
in the book, there is an emminent war between united states and soviet union and the star child manifests its desire which disables and renders ineffective all the thermo nuclear weapons the two countries has pointed at each other, thus removing a major threat to humanity.
the movie might seem a bit obscure and ambigious to first time viewers since it was directed at the same time as the book was released. arthur c clarke had a vision and he shared it with stanley kubrich who then used his own creativity to create the movie (possibly the greatest sci fi movie ever made) and released it along with the book.
issed: . Such a boring film 
!!!!!!!!!............. But thank God as it took only one-and-half hours..... 
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