Evaluation First Draft

Evaluation First Draft
12/02/09
Zhang, Xuan
2001: A Space Odyssey is a very classical and great science fiction film and also be considered as the ancestors of science fiction film. But it is also seen as the most difficult film and the most boring film. As to me, I really appreciate his imagination about space, human evolution and technology used in his film, but the long and difficult film really makes hard to focus.
This 1968 film was directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Arthur C. Clarke. The film today is recognized by many critics and audiences as “one of the greatest films ever made”. This film got four nominations and finally won one for visual effects. This film has three main characters: Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman, Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole, William Sylyester as Dr. Heywood R. Floyd. It was consisted of four plots: the dawn of man; the lunar journey in 2000(untitled); Jupiter mission, 18 months later; Jupiter and beyond the infinite. As to his imagination and design and music in this film, I really appreciate it.
The first plot brought us to the African desert and a tribe of herbivorous apes. They were finding food and did not know how to use tool. They found a black monolith; and one monkey was fascinated by this and finally knew how to use a bone as a tool and weapon. In the second plot, a similar monolith was found in lunar and it sent signals to Jupiter. In the third plot, a spaceship named Discovery One was bound for Jupiter. It contained 2 astronauts, Dr. David Bowmanand Dr. Frank Poole, and 3 other astronauts in hibernation and also a super intelligent computer HAL 9000. Finally, they conflicted with HAL and HAL killed everyone except Dave. He at last disconnected his power and HAL stopped. During the fourth plot, Dave arrived at Jupiter, but he became old and being a fetus again.
This film was released in 1968 but provided us a visual feast and a lot of surprise. This film was long and hard to understand, but it gave us so much space to think. In the film, Kubrick used a very solemn genre to show it and talked a serious topic about the human development and future. He wanted to tell people more, but different people had different views towards it. So this film seems more like a multiple choice to people and is worth seeing again and again. In this film, he also made some imagination, such as the super intelligent computer would overcome and conflict with human beings, human would land on lunar and Jupiter, the shape and functions of spaceship and so on. All of these could be seen as a miracle in science fiction.
Kubrick wanted to show us many things and let people to think more. The mysterious black monolith appeared three times during the film. And every time it appeared, people’s situation would improve. First time it taught herbivorous apes how to use tools, second time it hinted that people should explored outer space, third time it made Dave to become a fetus. Kubrick seemed to want to show that people’s wisdom also needed the help of outside. Also, the super computer, it was clever than human. It brought up a very severe question, what was the degree of human’s dependence on tools and how we controlled to not exceed that degree. If we exceeded, maybe we would be destroyed by the tools.
Though the short dialogue and tough meanings makes me hard to focus, the visual feast and thinking outweighs that. In general, this film is worth seeing and thinking again and again. The director wants to show us more than we get. The serious questions about human development should be considered seriously.
Works Cited:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_(film)
2. http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html