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| 2001: A Space Odyssey is based on a short story by Arthur C. Clarke
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| It is the year 2001. An expedition to Jupiter is launched, tracking the appearance
of a radio signal from a mysterious black monolith found on the moon.
With the aid of an intelligent computer, HAL, a spaceship crew sets out on a quest.
On the way to Jupiter, HAL goes berserk and kills all the members of the crew, except
for Bowman. He deactivates HAL, enters Jupiter's orbit to investigate the slab,
and mysteries unravel.
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| Keir Dullea (Dr. David 'Dave' Bowman): Commander of the spaceship in 2001.
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| Gary Lockwood (Dr. Frank Poole): an astronaut. He didn't make it to Jupiter·
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| Douglas Rain (HAL 9000): HAL comes from the name IBM, with all the letters displaced by one letter.
It is the computer that guides the crew onto Jupiter. HAL could never lie to humans,
and administered psychological tests to determine if the crew was in danger of
jeopardizing the mission.
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| William Sylvester (Dr. Heywood R. Floyd): a government man who is sent to
investigate after the mysterious object is found on the moon.
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| 2001 is full of relative themes and imagery relevant to our class.
The initial setting of the movie, which extrapolates human beings from apes,
is in itself controversial, but expands our horizons on what we view to be true
in our world. Humans are the higher intelligence in the world, and it, coupled
with consciousness, is what makes us different from animals and inanimate objects,
such as computers. Speaking of computers, HAL is a good example of the human/computer
relationship. It is eventually outsmarted by 'Dave' after its attempt to wipe out the
entire crew. HAL is the ultimate human tool, a machine that extends human capacity in
many directions and that is also able to think on several levels simultaneously.
However, HAL is still not able to think on a human level with how other human beings'
thought processes. He cannot penetrate their consciousness in ways that humans can,
and is thus defeated by 'Dave.'
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| The ending of the film is rather ambiguous, and gives the metaphor of rebirth.
It leads us to believe that there is much more to us and the world we exist in then
just earth, the moon, and the sun. There may be some form of higher power of which
we do not know, or some people think they know but do not understand. Much like the
world we live in today, with the internet, computers, and information technology paving
the way, we will expand our horizons into a new dimension.
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