2001: A Space Odyssey.Info

The Story and Meanings Note: I decided to not use my previous format of re-telling the story and then go into the meanings. This part of the film is elusive enough where you have to get into the meanings right away because the story is the meaning. Humankind, represented by David Bowman, has overcome obstacles for 4 million years. The final obstacle was to demonstrate inventiveness and the will to survive against his own tools. We have come to the final chapter of the story. We have now reached Jupiter where lies the ultimate destination of the 4 million year odyssey. The third and final title reads: "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite". We hear the hum of Ligeti's Requiem and we know from past experience, that another monolith has been discovered. There it is, floating amongst the moons of Jupiter. Unlike its predecessors, this monolith is on its side, at least in respect to our viewing angle (in space, there is no up or down). There is a shot of the Discovery approaching

The Story A fuming David Bowman marches from the emergency airlock to the main airlock, up the ladder and to the central computer room. Dave is now clad in full EVA gear with the front control box, air tank, and helmet. The helmet, which he obviously got from the emergency airlock is green - meaning he is in a color mismatched space suit. All we hear is breathing and the hiss of air flowing - not footsteps. This would indicate that the air has been removed from Discovery and we are only hearing what Dave hears. As Dave moves through the airlock, Hal demands "Just what do you think you're doing Dave?" Dave ignores Hal as he continues. Considering what he has just been through, his intentions are obvious, he is going to disconnect Hal. His strong breathing and silence indicates he is focused and is not going to listen to Hal try to talk him out of it. Hal continues and tries to reassure Dave that whatever the problem was, it is gone now and everything will be as it was

The Story The sound of breathing and the view in space indicates a second EVA. When we see Bowman in the Discovery's command seat, we realize it is Frank Poole that is performing this one. Poole, we know, is out to replace the second AE-35 unit with the original, allegedly defective one. The yellow spacesuited Poole pushes himself out of the pod and floats toward the antenna complex just as Bowman had done earlier. At the point where Poole appears to be halfway between the pod and the antenna, the pod suddenly rotates one hundred and eighty degrees. The arms stretch outward and it begins to move forward. Here, we clearly see for the first time, that there is a red eye of Hal on the front of the pod. The breathing stops abruptly and Poole and the pod are seen spinning off in different directions. Poole frantically tries to re-attach his severed air hose. Seconds later, Poole is no longer moving as he had failed to fix his air supply. Bowman has rushed to the pod bay. He asks Hal if

The Story The background hum of Discovery resonates as the screen goes to black leaving a cliffhanger for the audience to ponder. They'll have time too as the film goes to intermission. As mentioned in The Film Begins , Stanley Kubrick maintained the general format of a typical MGM movie. Here, he gave us the intermission. Usually, intermission comes a bit past the midway point of the film where all the characters and plot lines are firmly set. This is the case here. Now the audience gets a breather and can take a bathroom break or take the opportunity to get more popcorn. There is also opportunity to digest the events that led up to this point and think about where this is going. For first-time viewers of 2001, very few will make the connections of how the Cold War and concern for security and secrecy are contributing to the drama at hand. However, many may think about what Hal is really up to and how Frank and Dave, having such limited capabilities against such a seemingly omnisc

The Story In the pod bay, Dave is examining the retrieved AE-35 unit with an electronic circuit tester. Frank and Hal watch. Dave appears to be completely absorbed in his examination. Frank is hunched over and appears to be watching Dave but he noticeably moves his eyes and stares at Hal. The testing goes on and all we hear is the sound of the testing equipment against the hum that is always present on board the Discovery. There is a noticeable sigh and then Dave finally breaks the silence with "Well Hal, I'm damned if I can find anything wrong with it." Hal responds "Yes...It's puzzling...I don't think I've seen anything quite like this before." Hal then suggests putting the unit back to let it fail and diagnose it after that. He then mentions that they could afford to be out of communication for the short while. In the centrifuge, Frank and Dave are watching a transmission from Mission Control. They agree with Hal's suggestion of putting the or

The Story "During the past few weeks, I've wondered if you might be having some second thoughts about the mission." Hal informs this to Dave Bowman. Hal goes on to point out there are some "extremely odd things about this mission". Hal gives specific references to rumors about something being dug up on the Moon, the tight security during training, how the other astronauts (Hunter, Kimble, and Kaminski) were trained separately, and how they were placed aboard Discovery already in hibernation. Dave appears thoughtful during all this and concludes that Hal had opened the conversation in order to work on the crew psychology report. Hal admits that was what he was doing. Before he can say much more, he reports to Dave that he detects a fault in the AE-35 unit. The conversation is forgotten as a faulty AE-35 unit is serious. From the computer displays, we can see it has something to do with the antenna complex that allows communication with Earth. Since the complex is