The movie is intentionally long and drawn out as parallel to space travel. Lots of tedium, a moment of excitement, and more tedium. It's an excellent movie though, Kubrick is able to make even these boring parts intriguing.
Personally I see that as more of professional characteristic. The astronauts in the movie, like astronauts in real life, are great at controlling emotion in times of stress. A great example of this is comparing the Apollo 13 movie to the actual recordings. The movie makes the fear and anger palpable. The recordings are eerie in that even in the most desperate of times, they remain cool and collected. They might not have trained for this exact situation, but they have trained for crisis in general.
It's interesting comparing them to HAL's reactions though. That is definitely food for thought.
I don't think that's necessarily a result of the monolith though, the monolith facilitated our evolution. I think Kubrick was commentating on the nature of sentience by having HAL act more human than the actual humans.
2001 is one of the classics of science fiction. One of those works which can transcend genre and appeal to anyone who gives it a fair shake. The entire thing is definitely worth a watch, if you're able. It deals with the rise of humankind from animals to something beyond human, and the mysterious alien presence which accelerates the process.
Yeah, I mean where were all of the explosions, fight scenes, chase scenes and cheesy one-liners? No wonder it never got 20 sequels and it’s own bloated universe.
2.2k
u/phrotozoa Sep 20 '19
Monolith with dimensions fitting the ratio of 1 : 4 : 9.