2001: A Space Odyssey is a great but flawed movie

2001: a Space Odyssey is a story about monoliths. The monoliths are the macguffin that drives the plot forward, starting with the first monolith that taught ancient proto-humans how to use a club for hunting and war. This journey continues to the end, when the spaceman is led by the last monolith into a Windows 98 screensaver and transforms into a giant space baby.

I overall liked the film and its contribution to science fiction, but there are some problems. For one, 2001 is what should have been a 90 minute plot that clocks in at almost three freaking hours. And it doesn’t help that all the characters have the personality of a potato, which btw isn’t coincidental. Arthur C. Clarke was one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time, but couldn’t write people or dialogue to save his life.

My other issue with 2001 is that it is more like an anthology of several different stories strung together by the monoliths. I guess that was literally the point, but it is weird to watch.

First there’s that stuff with proto man who figures out that hitting other people on the head makes them stop moving. In a single day, humans go from being a weak species preyed on by larger animals to the apex predator on Earth. But not just against other animals, but against each other. From that point onward, humans would murder more fellow humans than any other creature. This was easily the best scene in the movie, but was so fixated on inter-human war and aggression I really felt odd not seeing this theme ever really touched on again.

It would have actually been an appropriate movie to heavily bring up nuclear war, especially since the second monolith buried on the moon was designed to be found after humans cracked the mysteries of the atom and invented space travel. The creators of the monoliths introduced the concept of war to humans, so they could have anticipated that after discovering atomic energy, humans would use it to annihilate themselves as a species unless they were quickly ushered to the next stage of evolution. Yes, I know this idea can be inferred from the movie as is, but dialogue could have been used as exposition to create a sense of urgency, rather than just showing people having long conversations about nothing in particular.

Instead of that, there’s the bit about science man who misses his daughter’s birthday, though it has no relation to the rest of the story and is never mentioned again. What was even the point of that 20 minutes of screentime except to show that some people have daughters and miss their birthdays, and also Russians exist and talk to you sometimes? My nuclear war idea would have fit into this time slot nicely, and been a lot more interesting.”Oh by the way, NATO and the Soviet Union are on the verge of annhilating each other over some completely ridiculous dispute in East Asia.” So now, flying to Jupiter isn’t just an interesting thing to do, the survival of the human race is at stake. Just the anticipation of meeting alien life could convince the idioticly aggressive humans to hold off on shooting nuclear missiles at each other until the space men can report back on what they found.

Then there’s that scene when ChatGPT decides to kill all the space men. This part was cool, but felt extremely out of place in the movie. Humans literally invented artificial life that feels pain and fear, and capable of consciously committing murder to save itself? This would be the single greatest achievement in all of human history that at least equals the importance of the monoliths, but the movie doesn’t treat it as important. It’s like the science man scene. Okay here’s when ChatGPT tried to kill everyone before being killed itself, then this extraordinary incident is just never mentioned or contemplated on again.

And finally there’s the last scene when space man meets the final monolith which takes him through a very long acid trip which is probably cool to watch while high on drugs but tedious when you’re sober. He becomes an old man, dies, rebirths as a giant space baby, and returns to earth. Like the rest of the movie, this is very cool, but only cool, and that’s kind of a problem for a movie that is so masturbatory in its sense of self-importance. This is apparently important, but WHY is it important? Because the director said so?

Watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on Amazon Prime

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through product links and web banners. Click here to navigate to the Amazon storefront.

Ian Kummer

I now have a new YouTube channel that I will use to upload videos from my travels around Russia. Expect new content there soon. Please give me a follow here.

Also feel free to connect with me on Quora (I sometimes share unique articles there).

---