Vatican Films Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey

It was this Millennial’s first viewing of the film, released in 1968, but it still felt familiar – possibly due to the many references made to 2001 in various media, as well as the inspiration it lent to subsequent films in the genre. For example, Kubrick employed a long shot of a space ship slowly moving across screen nearly a decade before Lucas did the same with the Star Destroyer in Star Wars: A New Hope. 

2001: A Space Odyssey feels like Kubrick had several ideas for movies and smudged them all together for a nearly 3-hour adventure that alternated between gripping and arduous. Beginning with the “Dawn of Man,” Kubrick spends the first 20 minutes on a tale of a group of apes who are inextricably changed after coming in contact with a mysterious black obelisk. 

Like the apple in the Garden of Eden, the obelisk grants the apes knowledge that leads to changes in their lifestyle, like eating meat, using tools and weapons, and growing beyond what they were before the obelisk found them. This transitions to the future, in which man has conquered space and begun developing a civilization on the moon. The plot really gets going when a second obelisk is discovered under the lunar surface and when it is determined that this obelisk is sending signals towards Jupiter, an interplanetary voyage is begun. 

It’s not until the ship is far from Earth that the AI system, called HAL, malfunctions and kills all but one member of the crew, Dave. Nearly marooned outside the ship, Dave has to risk his life to get back aboard and shut down HAL, all the while HAL begs Dave to stop with a dispassionate monotone. Once Dave has finished this task, he arrives at Jupiter only for the movie to devolve into a psychedelic nightmare of fast moving colors, trippy landscapes, and a curious room in which Dave ages rapidly before returning to a fetal state. 

Especially in the end, the film feels as though it really wanted to say something that it was too scared, or otherwise incapable, to make into a coherent message. Every time it seems to be coming to some sort of epiphany, it only creates more questions to go unanswered before it simply ends, leaving the viewer about as confused as Dave was.

The film imaginatively predicted several important technological advances way back in ‘68, like televisions on the backs of plane (or in this case spaceship) seats, watching the news on a tablet while one eats dinner, video calls from a space station (although Kubrick did not predict the demise of phone booths), and the ever watchful presence of artificial intelligence. As we become more and more reliant on AI as a society, one can only hope it does not turn out the same way HAL did.

Furthermore, the film presents a future in which humans are dominant, but nothing seems as though it was designed for humans. While the movie is mostly set in a futuristic world with high levels of technology, not one thing looks designed for human comfort, from the horrible pink “chairs” on the space station, to the pods in which the astronauts sleep. Everything is too clean and sterile, like trying to live in a museum.

There is also a certain discomfort that the viewer experiences as well. The confined nature of a space ship gives a claustrophobic feeling and the unorthodox camera angles, while imaginative, can make one feel rather dizzy. While the spinning of the camera explains how the ship is rotating to produce artificial gravity, it also disorients the viewer. This could be symbolic of the disorientation experienced by the characters, but it is at the expense of the audience’s comfort. 

In Popcorn with the Pope, author Andrew Petiprin describes 2001 as “Like looking at a painting or listening to a piece of music, it suggests deep meaning without offering any obvious conclusions.” While the film is certainly full of epic shots – to expand on Petiprin’s sentiment – it is like an experimental painting that art students can appreciate for its technical value, but few would actually want adorning the walls of their home.