On Viewing 2001: The First Transhumanist Film

The Atlas Society ^ | November 20, 2015 | Edward Hudgins

[Mellonkronos]

[If you're into science fiction or into a lot of the new scientific breakthroughs, you'll probably find this interesting!]

On Viewing 2001: The First Transhumanist Film

By Edward Hudgins

I recently saw 2001: A Space Odyssey again on the big screen. That's the best way to see this visually stunning cinematic poem, like I saw it during its premiere run in 1968. The film's star, Keir Dullea, attended that recent screening and afterward offered thoughts on director Stanley Kubrick's awe-inspiring opus.

He and many others have discussed the visions offered in the film. Some have come to pass: video phone calls and iPad tablets, for example. Others, sadly, haven't: regularly scheduled commercial flights to orbiting space stations and Moon bases.

But what should engage our attention is that the film's enigmatic central theme of transformation is itself transforming from science fiction to science fact.

From apes to man

The film's story came from a collaboration between Kubrick and sci-fi great Arthur C. Clarke. If you're familiar with Clarke's pre-2001 novel Childhood's End and his short story “The Sentinel” you'll recognize themes in the film.

In the film we see a pre-human species on the brink of starvation, struggling to survive. An alien monolith appears and implants in the brain of one of the more curious man-apes, Moonwatcher, an idea. He picks up a bone and bashes in the skull of one of a herd of pigs roaming the landscape. Now he and his tribe will have all the food they need.

We know from Clarke's novel, written in conjunction with the film script, that the aliens actually alter Moonwatcher's brain, giving it the capacity for imagination and implanting a vision of him and his tribe filled with food. He sees that there is an alternative to starvation and acts accordingly. The aliens had....

[DHerion]

While somewhat interesting the film is really a big bore. The film should have been cut by 50%.

[IronJack]

I have to agree. Yeah, I get it. It’s cerebral. So is “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” And they’re both boring as hell.

[dmz]

I have to agree. Yeah, I get it. It’s cerebral. So is “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” And they’re both boring as hell.

<><><><

going to have to disagree with you on the 2nd part.

Reading Nietzsche is a lot of things, boring is not one of them. JMO.

[alexander_busek]

Consider the typical sci-fi films of the 50s and 60s: Monsters in rubber costumes, rocketships suspended on marginally visible wires "whooshing" audibly through space, rayguns, musical scores dominated by theramins, space stations manned by square-jawed jocks named "Steve" and "Bill" wearing gray-flannel spacesuits and making condescending remarks about the "four-eyed female scientist," overly earnest narrators making pronouncements about the "far-flung year of 1975" - and then consider "2001: A Space Odyssey." The only other films that came close to it were "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Forbidden Planet." The opening credits, alone - with the alignment of the Moon, Earth, and Sun to the overture of Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" - surpassed anything which the genre had offered up till then.

I concede that, if you were expecting and demanded a traditional story with a plot that was wrapped up neatly by the end, it wasn't the movie for you. But please allow at least that it was in a class by itself.

Regards,

[wagglebee]

While somewhat interesting the film is really a big bore. The film should have been cut by 50%.

That could be said about pretty much every movie Kubrick ever made.

[camle]

nobody ever mentions the starchild. it even conflicts with the sequels 2010 and 2060, where dave bowman visits his mother in her nursing home, etc..it is a concept that has always been underplayed...

imagine looking up into the night sky and seeing a giant embryo...

[alexander_busek]

Reading Nietzsche is a lot of things, boring is not one of them. JMO.

I think that he was referring to the famed musical score - the overture of R. Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" - not Nietzsche's book (but whose themes are mirrored in the movie).

"Drei Verwandlungen nenne ich euch des Geistes: wie der Geist zum Kameele wird, und zum Loewen das Kameel, und zum Kinde zuletzt der Loewe."

Das Bild des Kindes als Ausgangs- und schliesslich wieder Endpunkt der ewigen im grossen Bogen verlaufenden Entwicklung des Individuums. Diese Vorstellung fuehrt dann irgendwann zum fast schon utopisch zu nennenden Uebermenschen, der alle menschlichen Schwaechen, d. h. bei Nietzsche Krankheiten und Abhaengigkeiten, ueberwunden hat.

-Wikipedia

Regards,

[sparklite2]

I saw 2001 in a theater when it was first released. A group of friends got whacked out and sat together. During the stargate sequence, we were all blown away. One of the girls in our group was sitting in front of me. She turned around to me and said, “I love you,” then turned back around and watched the rest of the movie. I can’t even remember who she was...

[Mellonkronos]

The original “Day the Earth Stood Still” as well as “Forbidden Planet” were really great science fiction movies from the pre-2001 days. Interesting stories. “Forbidden Planet” was from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”

The remake of “Day” was really leftist nonsense. Klaatu was more like a robot. But the worst thing is he wanted to kill all humans because we were polluting or exploiting the Earth. In other words, a planet without humans where weeds could not have their rights violated would be worth killing ever baby and other person on the planet. I didn’t see many reviewers pointing this out. Must have all been Al Gore lovers.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

In the first part of the movie, when the pre-human, after killing his adversary, tosses the bone in the air and instantly it becomes the spaceship, sends tingles down my leg each time I see it - the entire history of human tool utilization in a single instant.

The second part, with the various ships traveling to the moonbase to the "Blue Danube," also touches me for its sheer beauty, grace and movement.

The trip to Jupiter with "Hal" is a bore.

The end sequence with all those slitscreens and colored oil-in-water shots, was 30 minutes of my life wasted.

But the closing scene - the "star-child" will stay in my mind forever.

All-in-all, the movie is a Classic, best appreciated on a big screen with no commercials.

[martin_fierro]

The First Transhumanist Film

Bollocks.

[Zeneta]

Wow !!

Really?

Where can I see this “Classic” film?

[dainbramaged]

Our high school Aerospace Science class went on a field trip to see 2001 when it was first released. Fantastic film, though some parts are a little drawn out - Kubrick was a genius IMHO.

[Cecily]

Exceptions:

Dr. Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange
The Shining

[Kirkwood]

I didn’t find any of it boring. I found it fascinating. You have to read the book though to understand the final scenes in order to realize it is a film about God. Some people understood it, but many left the theater wondering what happened.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I firmly believe that in another 200 years, Kubrick will still be studied as one of the masters of film.

[discostu]

Some people just don’t like movies that want you to think. Momma always said only boring people get bored.

[Fred Hayek]

You left out Full Metal Jacket.

[IronJack]

I can read the Russians (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nabokov) before the Germans (Hesse, Nietschze, Kant, Heidegger). Have you ever tried to hack your way through Habermas? I’d rather remove my own spleen!