Tags
1960's, 2010: the year we made contact, AI, astronaut, classic, classic movie, computer, HAL, Jupiter, long, movie, movie review, sci-fi, sci-fi classic, space, Stanly Kubrick, TCM
Kept hearing about this movie and how people parody it so much. Wasn’t until I saw it on TCM a long time ago thought it was an experience, like most of Stanley Kubrick’s works. To some of the modern audiences, it may seem slow in some parts and there’s this black screen for a few minutes until the opening credits appear.
The movie starts off with the beginning of man and this black monolith and what it might do or posses. Then the movie fasts forwards to the retro-future of 2001 at the Jupiter mining station where they find either the same or a different monolith. Someone tries to touch it and the monolith makes this ear piercing noise.
Then it goes to this astronaut coming from earth as well as some other people to see what happened to the Jupiter mining crew. There are all these scenes of this spaceship going to the orbital station, then the moonbase, and then the spaceship for the long journey to Jupiter. The ship these astronauts are on has an AI computer called HAL, some for astronauts in cryogenic suspension, and some onboard astronauts to help supervise the whole ship for the ride. Then the onboard astronauts watch this interview about the journey, HAL, and the astronauts in cryogenic suspension. Also how when you are in cryogenic suspension it’s basically a dreamless sleep.
HAL at some point goes crazy and thinks the astronauts are a threat and kills one of them by jettisoning him out into space. HAL thinks he was just lighting the load and the other astronauts try and turn him off. Another one of the astronauts get’s killed and the lone astronaut turns him off. Though in doing so I think turned the power off and the astronauts in cryogenic suspension die as well, which is just a terrible way to die.
The ending though is a bit trippy and had to be explained to me later on. There’s also a sequel that was made in the 1980′s called, 2010: The Day We Made Contact, that movie also explains why HAL went crazy.
Besides that, this movie is a classic by all means and you should give it a watch when you can.