Stanley Kubrick’s epic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in Washington DC on 2 April 1968. It is partly based on the novels The Sentinel and 2001 a space odyssey by Arthur C.Clarke. The film deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life and also featurs some fantastic classical music including The Blue Danube by Strauss and Also Sprach Zarathustra.
It starts In an African desert thousands of years ago where a tribe of ape-men is driven away from their water hole by a stronger more aggresive rival tribe. A few days later They wake up to find a featureless black monolith before them. Guided by the monolith, they evolve and learn how to use a bone as a weapon and a tool, and use it to hunt for food, defeat their rivals and reclaim the watering hole.
A few thousand years later a Pan Am space plane is carrying Dr. Heywood Floyd to a space station orbiting Earth for a layover on his trip to Clavius Base, a United States outpost on the moon. his Soviet scientist friend and her colleague (Leonard Rossiter) ask about rumours of a mysterious epidemic at Clavius. However, Floyd discovers that the epidemic is actually a cover story for something far stranger. He is summoned to a secret meeting of base personnel, and learns that His mission is actually to investigate a recently found artifact buried four million years ago on the Moon. Floyd and others discover another mysterious monolith identical to the one encountered by the ape-men.
Eighteen months later, mission pilots and scientists Dr. David Bowman (Kier Dullea) and Dr. Frank Poole, along with three other scientists in cryogenic hibernation are traveling to Jupiter aboard the United States spacecraft Discovery One. Most of Discovery’s operations are controlled by the ship’s computer, HAL 9000, Hal states that he is completely foolproof. However Hal seems reluctant to inform them of the purpose of the mission. After a technical glitch Mission Control advises the astronauts that Hal may have started malfunctioning. However Hal insists that the problem is due to human error.
Eventually Bowman and Poole Become so Concerned about Hal 9000’s increasingly erratic behavior, that they decide to disconnect HAL9000. However HAL9000 is equipped with a defence mechanism and before they can act HAL9000 takes control of the ship with tragic results. Bowman tries to rescue Poole, however Hal 9000 refuses to let Bowman back on board Discovery One. So Bowman is forced to take drastic measures to gain entrance and attempt to deactivate HAL…
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