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Owlwise's Replies
I'd also point out that other animals do have their own intelligence, and more than a few can make & use simple tools, such a birds not only using but shaping sticks to get food.
I sometimes wonder if the aliens actually kickstarted human intelligence in the film, or was it simply that the presence of the monolith was enough to spark the innate curiosity of the hominids to greater wonder?
Agreed. I think Clarke tried to explain too much in his novel. Others of his, such as The City and The Stars, offered mysteries, explained some of them, but ended by having those explanations open up even bigger mysteries left answered. Perhaps unanswerable, in fact. And that book was better for it. Kubrick made the right choice in leaving much unexplained.
As someone who saw the film when it first came out, I agree that the LSD myth is largely that: a myth. Yes, it happened a few times. But drugs were never as prevalent as younger viewers today seem to think. They were part of the zeitgeist, but it was the zeitgeist itself that was opening & expanding the minds of so many people then. The decade was alive with new ideas, old ideas revived, new possibilities, new perspectives & philosophies (and old ones too); there was incredible synergy everywhere, as can be seen in the explosion of new styles & approaches in all of the arts, in attitudes, in cultural mores. It wasn't unique to that time, as it's happened many times in the past: the Romantics, the Transcendentalists, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Symbolists, Dada, Surrealism, the Existentialists, the Beats ... of course, drugs have always been part of such things, but not the necessarily the primary driving force. They're an adjunct, not a source.
I don't see how any other ending would have worked as well. A pat explanation would have completely negated the sense of Bowman (and the audience) being confronted with something utterly beyond all human comprehension.
Unless the alien power simply sped up time for Bowman, so that his lifetime & transformation took place in the few minutes that we saw onscreen. It's open to many possibilities ... which is what I love about the film.
I've always wondered about that myself. If the power behind the monolith could transcend normal space-time to bring Bowman across the universe (so to speak), couldn't they just as easily control the flow of time for him in the white room?
Well said!
And we could use a little more mind-blowing these days, too. :)
It could be read that way. But it could also be read as a cautionary tale about David's enjoying women for his pleasure, without considering that one of them just might be a crazy stalker who won't take no for answer.
Interestingly, when he was no longer a regular on the series, his occasional appearances later on were much better. He seemed more like a normal young man, certainly smart, but not some super-genius. If only they had written his character that way from the start ...
While I'm the first to admit that nostalgia lends a certain golden glow to those days, what you're saying is still so true. Listening to a great FM station was almost like having a secret world that each person shared with the DJs; but at the same time, you knew that there were so many others who felt the same way. A good DJ could create an ongoing ambience that opened & expanded the imagination, taking us to some other, better place for hours ...
That was my overall take on it, anyway. And maybe they wanted a basically average, representative human being, rather than someone especially & unusually gifted, indicating that they felt that as a species, humanity as a whole was ready to take the next step?
Yes, I saw the "zoo" as being more of a comfortable & reasonably familiar habitat for Bowman while he was undergoing his transformation. The alien intelligence apparently wanted him to be at ease, not frightened or overwhelmed after his shattering journey—perhaps out of consideration for a less advanced creature, perhaps because it helped with the transformation, or perhaps even both?
Beautifully said. Perhaps the OP hasn't experienced the sort of deep, all-encompassing love that Robin & Marian had; if he's fortunate, maybe he will one day. Then he'll be able to understand the beauty & passion & depth of this film's ending.
No, Robin is given a peaceful death by the woman who loves him more than life itself, and he has the wisdom to recognize the rightness of it for both of them. No more struggling against increasingly doomed odds, no more growing older & being broken by both Time & the cruel, power-driven times ... but the two of them passing into legend together, with full knowledge & gratitude for their lives & their mutual love.
I agree with you completely here. While the seminal short story & the book written concurrently with the making of the film are solid & enjoyable work from Clarke, Kubrick is working as a visual poet, which enables a more transcendent experience than prose can offer. While Kubrick & Clarke worked out the basic narrative between theme, each one then took it in the direction that best suited each one's artistic needs & desires.
The "zoo" was Clarke's take on it, as the novel was his version of the story. Kubrick left it more to the imagination of the viewer, but it was obvious that Bowman was being observed & was undergoing a transformation. Was it a lifetime? Was that lifetime compressed into just a few moments? Did human concepts of Time even apply there? Clarke told a specific story, Kubrick went farther than that & offered an experience that offered more. Yet he made it clear that the unseen alien presence had changed Bowman, enabling his evolutionary growth to another, higher level of being. Kubrick simply told it in visual poetry, rather than prose. Those are two very different approaches, each one valid ... but I think Kubrick made the wiser choice. All that the viewer needs to know & understand is given in that ending, which is to be experienced & felt, rather than read & interpreted as a text is read & interpreted.
I've never taken your posts to be indicative of low IQ. If the ending doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. Different tastes, different likes & dislikes, nothing more.
Christopher Nolan would be artistic death for a remake of 2001. And you might as well repaint the Sistine Chapel, or rewrite Mozart, as remake 2001. It doesn't need to be remade & it'll never need to be remade.
Everything the viewer needs to know is there in both the beginning & the ending. It's not spoon-fed, but films from that time (my own youth) seldom were. The viewers were assumed to be smart & aware & capable of reading the visual language of the film, without having everything spelled out for them.
I understood the ending without reading the book. So did a great many others. Kubrick trusted his audience to think & extrapolate while immersed in the experience of the film.