A Space Odyssey first draft

Tessa Stech

Tess Evans

Eng. 103

30 Nov. 2009

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey is a science-fiction movie that came out in 1968 showing the evolution of the human race. It was based on a book written by Arthur C. Clarke named The Sentinel and has three main characters: Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea), Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), and Dr. Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester). The popular movie was directed by Kubrick and won him Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. It also won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Despite these great awards and nominations I would have to disagree with all of them. I believe that the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey is not worth the nominations that it was nominated for because it is not that great of a film.

A Space Odyssey was directed by Stanley Kubrick and consisted of four parts: The Dawn of Man, untitled, Jupiter Mission (18 months later), and Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. In The Dawn of Man a shrewdness of apes find and are fascinated by a monolith. They also find a skeleton of a large animal and use its bones as weapons, signaling the advancing of minds. Untitled is the section of the movie where Dr. Floyd travels to the moon and meets with the advisors from Clavius who say that a second monolith has been discovered. Dr. Floyd travels to see the second monolith and as the sun hits it sets off an ear-piercing screech. The scientists follow the screeching sound to Lapetus, which is a moon of Saturn.

The movie then leaps forward 18 months into the third section entitled Jupiter Mission. Five astronauts are aboard a spaceship, three of them in hibernation. The sixth member of the crew is an artificially intelligent computer nicknamed HAL. In the end HAL kills all members of the spaceship except for one, Dr. David Bowman. Mr. Bowman disconnects HAL at the same time that a message from the control center on Earth comes on telling them the real reason they’re on the trip. The fourth increment, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite is Bowman’s travel where he finally lands on Jupiter and he sees himself as an old man and as a fetus being re-born.

Out of 141 minutes the movie consists of only 40 minutes of dialogue. In my opinion this is not enough to keep my attention and keep me interested enough in the movie. To some people the lack of dialogue might leave more time for their imagination to run wild and keep them interested. In our generation all of the movies have a lot of dialogue and if they don’t have a certain amount then they are not considered a good movie to most people. Because of the lack of dialogue the movie also seems to be slow-paced. It seems like it takes forever for anything interesting to actually happen.

Another aspect of this movie that I dislike is that after watching it one time you can’t get the true meaning of everything in the movie. This movie has so many symbols, such as the “star child” at the very end, you have to look them up and read about them before you actually get the whole affect. While some may think that this is a good way for you to work your brain, when I watch movies I like to relax and not think too hard about what I’m watching. “Watching this film needs two qualities that aren’t found in people unless they are among the most sophisticated: patience and a willingness to think” (Berardinelli). Although Berardinelli has a different opinion about the movie than I do I still agree with his statement that he made when reviewing the movie.

In conclusion I did not like this movie because of the lack of dialogue and the idea of thinking and doing research in order to understand a movie. This movie would probably be enjoyable by older people and people who like to think about what they are watching.




Works Cited
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Warner Bros. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.
2. Berardinelli, James. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.
3. Dirks, Tim. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). AMC Film Site. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.
4. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 30 Nov. 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.