My first draft for 2001: A Space Odyssey

Caley Savoie
Eng 103-80
Tess Evans

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey was written and produced by Stanly Kubrick in 1968. This film was released to the United States on April 6th, 1968. This science fiction film stars Keir Dullea, who plays the key role of Dr. Dave Bowman. There are many other important roles in this film also, such as; Gary Lockwood (Dr. Frank Poole) and Douglas Rain who is the voice of the supercomputer HAL 9000. The film begins in the desert surrounding a tribe of apes who seem to discover a monolith deliberately placed there. Being curious they begin to investigate this new discovery. One apes uses a bone and uses it to beat another ape, he quickly learns that this can be used for other things. This is where we find the first tool and evolution takes its place in the movie. After many years of evolution man uses these tools to make it to space and that is where this film starts to accelerate.
Dr. Floyd takes a trip to the moon where they have discovered another monolith that they assume was intentionally set there by an extraterrestrial over four million years before. About a year later there is another space mission, to Jupiter. There are six crewmembers including Hal 9000, three of which are in hibernation. Dr. Bowan and his crewmember begin to feel as if Hal is making too many mistakes and they decide to disconnect him. What they don’t know is that Hal read their lips and is aware of their plan. Hal turns off the life support of the three hibernating crewmembers and Dr. Bowman is the only one left. Once he finally disables Hal he finds out the true meaning of the mission to Jupiter. When he arrives on Jupiter he finds himself in a room aging at an incredible rate where he finally reached his demise.
This films starts out with no dialogue for almost thirty minutes, which makes it hard to follow. Instead of having dialogue Kubrick uses intense music to portray a message, which could be a good thing or bad thing for the viewer. Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star stated, “Kubrick’s sci-fi opus is the ultimate think piece, meant to spark wonder and confusion in patient viewers. Hardly anything in the film is definite or succinct. Open-ended speculation and deep thinking are embedded throughout. Part space opera, part cinematic symphony and part horror story, this film is a shape-lifting painting.” I would have to agree with what he says here, it is definitely a think piece film. There is no way to understand this completely without watching it more than once. The intense music played over and over without any dialogue for long periods of time, makes the viewer think more about what is going on in the film. Emanuel Levy from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association wrote, “Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey caused incredible culture shock in 1968.” He said many things about how viewers really enjoyed the film, because of all the future references made in it. Within his review he summarized that this movie made an impact on our culture that will never be forgotten. I chose to use Levy’s review because someone in my generation would not understand the impact on culture, in the same way that someone who saw it in 1969 would.
In this film Kubrick tried to be as accurate as possible with what they believed space would be like. I liked that fact that when something dramatic happened there wasn’t a huge explosion, it was just quiet, making it more dramatic I think. This film can be very hard to follow, especially when there is no dialogue and the viewer is really forced into paying attention and thinking on their own. I enjoyed this film because I think I grasped the main point of it. When the first apes found the first tool it was great. After many years of evolution I believe that man has became greedy with the power of tools. Dr. Bowman finds that to be true, because he started out with using technology and in the end his life was ended by technology. It’s hard to believe that Kubrick made this film in 1968, when all the scenes seem so relevant in the present.