“2001: A Space Odyssey” Revisited

When I first watched the mind-boggling science fiction movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ I was baffled by the final scene. If you have never seen this movie, I have to warn you that this is not the normal action-packed science fiction movie.  Forty-four years later, this film stands separate from all the science fiction thrillers put out since 1968. And in my mind, this film remains a unique classic.

The movie begins with a bunch of apes who learn how to use bones as weapons after encountering a strange monolith. It then moves forward to modern times.

The mystery in Space Odyssey surrounds a monolith buried in the moon’s surface that is responsible for cutting off communications. It is determined that the monolith was deliberately buried there 4 million years before it was discovered by Dr Heywood Floyd and his crew. While they are there, the monolith emits a signal which terminates near the planet Jupiter.

The spaceship named Discovery is sent to Jupiter to find what or who received the signal sent by the monolith. This spaceship is controlled and monitor by a Hal 9000 computer which has both emotions and survival instincts.

The first crisis in the movie is the malfunctioning of the Hal 9000 computer.  But even this crisis is not presented in the exciting form typical of most science fiction movies.  

Space Odyssey: 2001 moves at a deliberately slow pace and tells a story in pictures.  The music accompanying the story is excellent. The scenes are awesome when one considers the filming technology in 1968 when this movie was made.

Many view this movie as a story about evolution. But it is much more than that. It is a story about an alien who learned to exist as inert gases in outer space. The alien intended to perform one experiment soon as man was ready for it. That experiment was to convert a human being into the alien. 

The conclusion in the book spoke about the new alien child visiting the planet earth. The movie concludes with this scene. In the book, the following narrative is included: “He is now the master of the universe, but he does not know what to do with it. He has plenty of time. He’ll think of something.”