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February 12, 2005
2001: Explained in a Flash
2001: A Space Odyssey had an enormous impact on me as a child. It wasn't until I was in college that I began to appreciate this film's deeper undercurrents.
Here is a nicely done flash animation in 4 parts (just like the movie) that offers up an explanation of the film. They did a really good job, except in my opinion they missed the biggest metaphor of all - the sexual/spiritual one. Here's my explanation.
The Discovery ship represents the pinacle of mans technological achievment - a phallic vessel from which it ejaculates the sperm-pod containing mans best DNA - Dave Bowman, who then enters the labial-vaginal stargate. Along the way 'Dave the sperm' experiences orgasmic psychedelic splendor culminating with germinating union with the ovum of motherly higher intelligence - resulting in Dave's death and rebirth - conception of a new being, humanities next stage in evolution - the starchild. Sprach Zarathustra!
Here is a quote from my old (1994-98) website, (archived here).
Seeding space with our phallic vehicles, we oursleves perhaps have already been seeded, are already embryonically becoming that creature who will enter the labial stargate in apotheosis to concieve yet another being...
In this metamorphosis, we are forcing ourselves like the birth of a butterfly, to continually mutate and reprogram our conceptions of the cosmos. In spite of psychocultural forces, we are creating a radically in-process, holistic open-system cosmology... an infinite noosphere awaiting our imagination...
Nice piece, but I think it missed a point. HAL behaved the way s/he did because of conflicting programming. I've always felt HAL represented an evolutionary child, trying to reconcile conflicting inputs from the mother/father. Our ability to create an AI that maybe made the leap to intelligence was the indicator that we were ready for our own next step in evolution, guided by our mother/father.
The tools argument seemed off the mark. HAL needs an artificial environment (the ship) to exist, just like us.
It seems to me that many are too ready to insert a protagonist/antagonist struggle into the story. I really don't think it's a necessary plot structure.
don`t we all have to reconcile conflicting programming?not only from parents,but school,religion,government and the like.hal,like any technocrat,works perfectly until asked to exhibit flexibility.i like the phallic/ejaculate model.it works well to lend insight into the ending of the movie.an artistic representation of the process of being born again.
Posted by: alistair at February 21, 2005 02:56 PMI think a good place to start to understand the film is with the novel (and its sequel) which reads quite a bit more straightforward and less impressionistic than the film (too be expected, really, from the contrasting styles of Asimov and Kubrick).
Its been a while but my recollection is that the starchild symbolized the technologically mediated birth of Jupiter as a small star (by increasing its mass sufficiently to start self sustaining thermonuclear fusion), thereby transforming our solar system into a bianary star system increasing the oppurtunities for life. Nothing more mystical than that, at least as far as Asimov was concerned.
Naturally, that doesn't limit our interpretations of the film, nor, for that matter, does Kubrick's interpretation of the novel. I have seen the film several times and I have always held any concrete interpretations in abeyance. It has always felt fundamentally irrational, or maybe hyperrational, and in that sense evocative. In hindsight I like to interpret the monolith as McKanna's transcendental object at the end of time, though that could not have been Kubrick's intent.
Posted by: MrNeutron at February 22, 2005 02:11 PMI think a good place to start to understand the film is with the novel (and its sequel) which reads quite a bit more straightforward and less impressionistic than the film (to be expected, really, from the contrasting styles of Asimov and Kubrick).
Its been a while but my recollection is that the starchild symbolized the technologically mediated birth of Jupiter as a small star (by increasing its mass sufficiently to start self sustaining thermonuclear fusion), thereby transforming our solar system into a bianary star system increasing the oppurtunities for life. Nothing more mystical than that, at least as far as Asimov was concerned.
Naturally, that doesn't limit our interpretations of the film, nor, for that matter, does Kubrick's interpretation of the novel. I have seen the film several times and I have always held any concrete interpretations in abeyance. It has always felt fundamentally irrational, or maybe hyperrational, and in that sense evocative. In hindsight I like to interpret the monolith as McKanna's transcendental object at the end of time, though that could not have been Kubrick's intent.
Posted by: MrNeutron at February 22, 2005 02:12 PMSorry for the double post.
Also, A.C. Clark, not Asimov. Duh.
Posted by: MrNeutron at February 23, 2005 10:24 AM