The original story is called The Sentinel.
2001: A Space Odyssey
- Thread starter Sentience
- Start date
Yeah, I'm not going to argue against what you're saying, but I have a couple of observations.
1) In the film, the the TMA-1 Monolith sends the signal to Jupiter only after Floyd touches it. I think one definite possibility is that direct human contact is what triggers it, not simply, say, exposure to sunlight.
2) Complicating that interpretation, it would appear that the Sun is close to coming up at the TMA-1 base. You can see that the day/night terminator is very close to the installation when the moon bus lands, although when the bus lands the Monolith is still definitely in the dark. Then after it sends the signal there is a jump in time showing the Sun over the Monolith with the Earth, echoing a similar scene during the Dawn of Man segment with Sun and Moon, which was at dawn, interestingly giving "The Dawn of Man" a double meaning.
All this does not prove but IMO it suggests that that the Sun is coming up when the moon bus lands. Even though direct sunlight does not AFAIK strike the TMA-1 Monolith, one could argue that somehow, maybe even just because of the timing, it's not Floyd touching it but rather it being exposed near the time of sunrise that triggers the signal.
Astronauts enter pit, examine artifact, which emits electronic sound when it is hit fully by sun for first time. (It had been dug up during 14-day lunar night.) It was coincidental that sound was emitted at moment of photography scene. Monolith was sun-powered-triggered device programmed to send to Jupiter message that it had been uncovered. There was no sound on Moon; astronauts heard it in their radio receivers.
(From a photo caption in Jerome Agel's The Making of Kubrick's 2001)
Thanks.
While I suspected that that could have been intended or even scripted for the film, that's not what made it to be shown on screen.
The bus landing:
https://i0.wp.com/caps.pictures/196/8-space-odyssey/full/2001-space-movie-screencaps.com-4784.jpg
It's still too early before the sun makes it in; the Monolith is well below ground level even:
https://i0.wp.com/caps.pictures/196/8-space-odyssey/full/2001-space-movie-screencaps.com-5138.jpg
Still no sun down in there:
https://i2.wp.com/caps.pictures/196/8-space-odyssey/full/2001-space-movie-screencaps.com-5336.jpg
Obviously later (a week, maybe?):
https://i2.wp.com/caps.pictures/196/8-space-odyssey/full/2001-space-movie-screencaps.com-5355.jpg
Well, if you take the sequence literally. Kubrick was employing a bit of dramatic license.
House cats are barely tame--I firmly believe that, unlike dogs which are entirely domesticated--cats are wild animals by nature. I wouldn't want to be around anything larger than a house cat.
Ooh...! Good points! I concede to them. Maybe it's a combination of your ideas and @scotpens. Either way, it makes the trigger a bit more foolproof than my original thoughts.
I'm sorry for the bump, but I had a thought:
In 2010, the crew are all using Soviet equipment (the suits and pods) aboard a Soviet spaceship. Russian technology is very clunky, crudely built, lots of hard lines, built only for function and not form. That's why the Leonov's pod, for example, looks like something out of a horror movie - it's not designed among clean, efficient, aesthetically pleasing lines like American technology (i.e. the Discovery and its pods). So that's why the suits in 2010 are all so ugly - they're what came with the Leonov.
It's also why the Leonov's control room is so massive with all of those endless rows of colored lights and switches. The inside of Soviet spacecraft is just as inefficient as the outside!
In 2010, the crew are all using Soviet equipment (the suits and pods) aboard a Soviet spaceship. Russian technology is very clunky, crudely built, lots of hard lines, built only for function and not form. That's why the Leonov's pod, for example, looks like something out of a horror movie - it's not designed among clean, efficient, aesthetically pleasing lines like American technology (i.e. the Discovery and its pods). So that's why the suits in 2010 are all so ugly - they're what came with the Leonov.
It's also why the Leonov's control room is so massive with all of those endless rows of colored lights and switches. The inside of Soviet spacecraft is just as inefficient as the outside!
Last edited:
You mean in 2010? Aren't they ALL wearing suits from the Leonov (even Floyd, Curnow and Chandra)?
I don't see the Russians allowing the American crewmen to bring their own spacesuits...
The Americans and Soviets are both wearing more-or-less contemporary-looking (to 1984) space suits from their respective countries. It's a bit off that they'd let the Americans bring their own suits (they'd need a separate set of tools, spare parts, air filters or other consumables) rather than just using Soviet-issue suits, but it also doesn't make sense that that the 2010s-era USSR would have two very distinct types of suits, one of which looked like an old American suit.
Maybe Peter Hyams just thought it would be too distracting to have American and Soviet crewmen wear vastly different styles of spacesuits. 
Peter Hyams should have had Scheider, Lithgow and Balaban wearing the iconic spacesuit design that we do see Dullea wearing.Maybe Peter Hyams just thought it would be too distracting to have American and Soviet crewmen wear vastly different styles of spacesuits.
Maybe Peter Hyams just thought it would be too distracting to have American and Soviet crewmen wear vastly different styles of spacesuits.
If you want to argue from a realistic point of view - it's also impractical to have two different technologies on board, with separate replacement parts and specialized tools. It's not logical to have to train the crews for both suit styles, i.e. maintenance and usage when space and time are at a premium with these starships.
Would have been better to limit the mission to one technological base that is consistent throughout and as the Americans were guests onboard the Leonov they were in no position to make demands. I'm sure they inspected the russian technology and found it to be sufficient even if they thought theirs was better.
It blew my mind when someone pointed out that the Moon/TMA-1 sequence still falls under "The Dawn of Man" ... you don't get a new section title until after that. It's ALL the Dawn of Man. We start off with hominids throwing their toys up in the air and poking around a monolith trying to figure out what it is. Four million years later, a match cut shows that we're still throwing our toys up in the air and poking around a monolith.
Does that mean your sun/moon/dawn thing has a triple meaning? Or still a double? Or just one meaning after all?
Fair enough, but it adds a lot more for me when looked at the other way. Four million years ago the monolith prods Moon-watcher and the others into understanding tool use ... and by 2001, all we've achieved is to make bigger and fancier tools, some of which can destroy us. Q would be facepalming if he watched this movie.
Dave Bowman has to resolve his personal situation without the use of any fancy tools at all, showing the monolith-folks (and Q) that we may FINALLY be ready to progress beyond the Dawn of Man — that is, learn about something more than tool use. Notably, once he does, he's still shown as a child. But presumably he can begin to mature.
I didn't come to any of these conclusions; read them all elsewhere. But the whole movie took on new meaning after that.
Q would have said:
Dave Bowman has to resolve his personal situation without the use of any fancy tools at all, showing the monolith-folks (and Q) that we may FINALLY be ready to progress beyond the Dawn of Man — that is, learn about something more than tool use. Notably, once he does, he's still shown as a child. But presumably he can begin to mature.
I didn't come to any of these conclusions; read them all elsewhere. But the whole movie took on new meaning after that.
I mean, unless you count the space pod.
Right, the thing he has to leave behind before he can help himself.
Maybe it isn't right to say "without the use of any tools", but he does have to leave them behind before confronting HAL with his bare hands. And HAL is the biggest tool of all. So to speak.
Maybe it isn't right to say "without the use of any tools", but he does have to leave them behind before confronting HAL with his bare hands. And HAL is the biggest tool of all. So to speak.
He used a tool, but I don't suppose you would consider it a "fancy" one.
Similar threads
