The Monolith

[Iceman]

I very much enjoyed the 2001 & 2010 movies and wondered if anyone knew if there was supposed to be a specific thing that the monolith was supposed to be...was it a representation of God or just totally left up to the imigination of the viewer...any thoughts?

[kiwi_2005]

Are you talking about A Space odessy 2001 / 2010 movies. The monolith to me was just a square thing floating around which just annoyed me with the movie, What is it? Why is that stupid thing in this movie please i hope the astronauts blast it out of the sky. The Apes failed too. My conclusion is some alien race left it on earth and in space. Not a representation of God.

[Christopher Snow]

I think it's largely left up to your own mind...and perhaps to what influences you entertain re: Science and math.

As best I remember the proportions of said monoliths were always 1-3-9. 1 thin by 3 wide by 9 long. A clear mathematical relationship between the three faces/sides.

The SIGNIFICANCE of said relationship was never explained, as far as I knew, except for the obvious one: It was significant simply because it EXISTED--it was clearly a mathematical (intelligence derived relationship), and not just a random one.

To put it another way (for those who might have missed it: An astronomical object with proportions 1:3:9 MUST be the product of an intelligent force...and really cannot be the product of random nature.

Kubrick hardly went out a limb to explain it here, BTW...he just took it for granted that the observation would be made.

Well, I just made it, even if those thousands who preceded me all whiffed (and I'm sure most of them did not).

---

Having said all that^...IMO, 2001 was mildly overrated. And 2010 was well UNDERRATED, by the same token.

2010 certainly did deliver in suspense and involvement.


CS

[A Very Super Market]

I think Stanley Kubrick smoked so much sh*t that he thought the monolith was Bette Midler and Jesus with a mulatto baby.

[Fr8monkey]

@ Christopher Snow - Actually the dimentions are 1:4:9... 1 squared, 2 squared and 3 Squared... a sign that intelligent beings made it.

I read the book (I have a first edition) and in it the ship went to Saturn and the Monolith was in orbit around Titan. In the 1960's, Titan was thought to have an atmosphere resembling Earth in the distant past.

The monolith was a tool of aliens that boosted Creatures into sentience and giving them an evolutionary jump start.

[Skybird]

If there is one film on earth that is really fully open to interpretation, then "2001" and it's black monolith. ;)

And if it were different, it wouldn't be so fascinating. Maybe considering then not wanting to get the ultimate answer too hard...!? What you think in thoughts about it, maybe is not so important. How it made you feel, and jumpstarted your imagination - maybe that is what counts. - "Imagination is more important than knowledge" (Einstein) :lol:

More recomended Kubrick movies are "Shining" and the usually underestimated "Eyes Wide shut". The latter also gives you the illusion that maybe you could know - but indeed it is just your own imagination. I can't stand Tom Cruise - but the movie stayed on my mind for the rest of the week after I saw it.

[SteamWake]

I hear its full of stars. ;)

[Tchocky]

Could call it an evolutionary accelerator, put there by the same force that lifted Bowman and Hal.

[Frame57]

I had to do a book report on this back in the 7th grade. Pretty sure the book leads one to conclude the monoliths are precisely "evolutionary accelerators".

[Blacklight]

This is a topic I know a LOT about as 2001 is my favorite movie ever.

I read the books. According to 2001, the Monoliths represented an alien technology or intelligence WAY beyond our understanding. The one on the Earth kick started human evolution. The one on the moon waited there for humans to gain the technology to find it and sent the message that the humans had reached that ability to the one in orbit around Saturn (It was Saturn, not Jupiter in the book). The giant one in orbit around Saturn (or Jupiter in the movies) was a star gate to a higher plane of being. Kind of the final evolutionary step.. and also... after Dave Bowman was transformed by his passing through the stargate, the technology and intelligence of whaterver created the monoliths were still beyond his understanding.
So the monoliths pretty much represent some kind of unknown HIGHLY advanced intelligence. They could be machines. They could be the new form of the race that created them (Dave Bowman saw the entire evolution of the alien race that spawned them when he entered the stargate. The movie kind of glossed this over with a psychadelic lightshow). They are some strange kind of unknown that mankind will never be able to grasp.

The monolith from the moon, after tons of experiments were done on it, was cemented in the ground standing in front of the United Nations building as a symbol to say "Humanity needs to be united because we aren't alone" and it worked. There was pretty much world peace after the events of 2010. Also, they discovered the monolith buried in Africa as well in an archeologica dig.

We will never truely know exactly what the monoliths are. Arthur C. Clark never wanted us to know. They are beyond any understanding that we may ever have.

[Skybird]

What makes you so sure that you speka of the monoliths in plural? ;) I personally always considered them to be one and the same.

Both views are highly subjective opinions only, of course - and necessarily.

I would remark that the film is not basing on Clark's book, but a short story by Clark, called "The Sentinel". The novel was written by Clark AFTER the movie was made. It also seems to me that Clark was not pleased with kubrick's open ending, open to speculation and mystic interpretation. Thus in his later novels "2010" and "Odyssey III" he gave almost boring, causal, rational explanations for example for the behavior of HAL. Clark was a rational, science-oriented man, basing in the fields of engineering very much. This is what also formed his style of Science Fiction. I think regarding the monolith, he and kubrick were a bit apart.

On the other hand, Clark did not deliver any explanation in his novel "Rendezvous with Rama" as well, so maybe my view of Clark does not do him justice. so understand this also to be my very subjective opinion only. "The truth, as always, will be far stranger" (Clark). :lol:

[Frame57]

I think Kubrick makes great films. The Shining was mentioned and i recall that Stephen King was not happy with Kubrick's version of it, but I thought the movie was terrific.

[SUBMAN1]

A lot was cut out at the last minute in 2001 that explained all that. The director was late for another movie project and just chopped the hell out of it before cutting and running. Mr. Clark was non to happy either.

-S

[Subnuts]

A lot was cut out at the last minute in 2001 that explained all that. The director was late for another movie project and just chopped the hell out of it before cutting and running. Mr. Clark was non to happy either.

-S

Stanley Kubrick never had any intention of including expository scenes to 2001, and none of the scenes edited from the movie after it premiered were really "explanatory" ones. Besides, Arthur C Clarke was heavily involved in the film's production, the book wasn't actually published until six weeks after the movie was released, and Kubrick was too much of a perfectionist to "cut and run." He made only 14 movies from 1953 to 1999 - hardly someone in a hurry. He'd film 50 takes of someone opening a door. Not exactly a careless director who'd run wild in the editing room before skedaddling off to his next production.

[FIREWALL]

It was a big Hershy bar and let it go at that. :D

[Diopos]

Arthur Clarke: 3001 The final Odyssey
check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=496941#Film.2C_TV_or_theatrical_a daptations

[SUBMAN1]

Stanley Kubrick never had any intention of including expository scenes to 2001, and none of the scenes edited from the movie after it premiered were really "explanatory" ones. Besides, Arthur C Clarke was heavily involved in the film's production, the book wasn't actually published until six weeks after the movie was released, and Kubrick was too much of a perfectionist to "cut and run." He made only 14 movies from 1953 to 1999 - hardly someone in a hurry. He'd film 50 takes of someone opening a door. Not exactly a careless director who'd run wild in the editing room before skedaddling off to his next production.
I have to disagree. He axed 29 minutes from the original without A. C. Clark's input. Clark was said to be very disappointed in his selections too leaving a lot unexplained in the theatrical version.

-S

PS. Here is an example:

James Randi later recounted that upon seeing 2001 for the first time, Clarke left the movie theatre during the first break crying because he was so upset about how the movie had turned out.

[Skybird]

A lot was cut out at the last minute in 2001 that explained all that. The director was late for another movie project and just chopped the hell out of it before cutting and running. Mr. Clark was non to happy either.

-S

Stanley Kubrick never had any intention of including expository scenes to 2001, and none of the scenes edited from the movie after it premiered were really "explanatory" ones. Besides, Arthur C Clarke was heavily involved in the film's production, the book wasn't actually published until six weeks after the movie was released, and Kubrick was too much of a perfectionist to "cut and run." He made only 14 movies from 1953 to 1999 - hardly someone in a hurry. He'd film 50 takes of someone opening a door. Not exactly a careless director who'd run wild in the editing room before skedaddling off to his next production.

Correct. Kubrick was a hardcore perfectionist, who did not evade a single confrontation with anyone about how he wnated things being done - and getting it done exactly the way he wanted it. This director took no prisoners, and accepted no compromise - even to the consequence of not doing a film he knew he had not the technical means to make it real, or to competently direct it himself himself - like "A.I.", which he offered to Spielberg instead, after having delayed the project for many years until technology was capable to fulfill the visions he had on his mind - and then running out of time, and knowing he could not competently direct these technologies himself.

If there is one totally uncompromising filmmaker ever - Kubrick is it. And he was like that already in hios very first work ever, where he indicated to a famous cameraman who used a different optic than Kubrick wanted that if he ever questioned Kubricks technical and optical understanding again he could go looking for a new job. Since Kubrick was a nobody at that time and that cameraman was famous in business, this was remarkable. The result proved Kubrick right, and his choice of lenses and visual compositions is never careless or not delivering the effect Kubrick was after, which shows a deep and thorough insight in and understanding of what different lenses do and do not for a given perspective.

The cameraman never dared to question Kubrick again.

there is a interesting 2-hour documentation that was published after Eyes Wide Shut, which treats all his films and the hostory behind their making. It was very entertaining and insightful at the same time. If one is interested in Kubrick's pefectionism and work, this is a good start. Maybe someone knows the film I mean and can give the title.

[SUBMAN1]

You should try reading my posts before commenting on them. Not getting them from a reply. You are missing half the information.

-S

[Iceman]

Wow..thks for all the replies...at least I am not alone in liking these two movies...the first one was trippy when i watched it...the breathing scene when the guy was in space made me start breathing just like him..it was what hooked me on it...thought it was great movie making and use of sound and visuals.

I'll buy the jump starting theory and multiple hershey bars being found in different places...especially since at the end of 2010 it flashes over to a scene of some supposedly pre-tropic type of planet and suggests the same scnario will again begin,.,,,anyways thks for all the replies and I will have to see the other movies mentioned I don't think i have...thks again simmers.:up:

[Iceman]

Wow..thks for all the replies...at least I am not alone in liking these two movies...the first one was trippy when i watched it...the breathing scene when the guy was in space made me start breathing just like him..it was what hooked me on it...thought it was great movie making and use of sound and visuals.

I'll buy the jump starting theory and multiple hershey bars being found in different places...especially since at the end of 2010 it flashes over to a scene of some supposedly pre-tropic type of planet and suggests the same scnario will again begin,.,,,anyways thks for all the replies and I will have to see the other movies mentioned I don't think i have...thks again simmers.:up:

[Sailor Steve]

As Subnuts pointed out, the book wasn't published until after the movie was released. What no one has mentioned is Arthur C. Clarke's original short story, The Sentinel, published in 1951. In the original story the object discovered is a pyramid, which is irrelevant to this discussion; but in the story the lunar explorers turn off the continuing beacon, and the story ends with speculation as to the nature of the race who put it there:

"It was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young."

A very good story which might have made a great Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode. The movie? I love it for the possibilities it presents, and its taking of pre-CGI effects to the limit. But speculating on what it means is, to me, fruitless, as I don't think Clarke or Kubrick had any idea themselves beyond posing questions with no answers.

While Clarke might have disliked the end result, he was still willing to appear in 2010, the sequel.

[Sailor Steve]

I'll buy the jump starting theory and multiple hershey bars being found in different places...especially since at the end of 2010 it flashes over to a scene of some supposedly pre-tropic type of planet and suggests the same scnario will again begin,.,,,anyways thks for all the replies and I will have to see the other movies mentioned I don't think i have...thks again simmers.:up:
You need to read the book. That is exactly what's going on, and he explains much this time around.

[goldorak]

I have to disagree. He axed 29 minutes from the original without A. C. Clark's input. Clark was said to be very disappointed in his selections too leaving a lot unexplained in the theatrical version.

-S

PS. Here is an example:

James Randi later recounted that upon seeing 2001 for the first time, Clarke left the movie theatre during the first break crying because he was so upset about how the movie had turned out.

Actually the film makes much more sense without explanatory details. You could watch the film from beginning to end without paying attention to the dialog and still you would understand it all. 2001 is a visual fest, dialogue is really secondary in this masterpiece.

[Diopos]

Arthur Clarke: 3001 The final Odyssey
check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=496941#Film.2C_TV_or_theatrical_a daptations

Excuse me for quoting myself! :doh: But instead of assuming what Arthur Clarke was thinking about the Monolith(s) why not have a look at the link above. It's a summary of "3001 The final Odyssey" the final word on the Monoliths. Final indeed, because as you know Clarke died recently. Great guy! :yep:

[TLAM Strike]

According to 2010 (the book) it was an Von Neumann Probe. Basicly an Alien automous swisis army knife.

[goldorak]

Excuse me for quoting myself! :doh: But instead of assuming what Arthur Clarke was thinking about the Monolith(s) why not have a look at the link above. It's a summary of "3001 The final Odyssey" the final word on the Monoliths. Final indeed, because as you know Clarke died recently. Great guy! :yep:

There is no final word about the Monolith. Either you subscribe to Clarke's rationalistic point of view, or you prefer Kubrick's mystical open endness.
Really the film is not about the Monolith at all, think of it as a macguffin.
The film really is about humanity, and our place in the universe. If you replace the Monolith with a higher being, or God does it change the nature of the film ? I don't think so. 2010 and 3001 are not to be considered sequels to 2001. :damn: :damn:

[Diopos]

Excuse me for quoting myself! :doh: But instead of assuming what Arthur Clarke was thinking about the Monolith(s) why not have a look at the link above. It's a summary of "3001 The final Odyssey" the final word on the Monoliths. Final indeed, because as you know Clarke died recently. Great guy! :yep:

There is no final word about the Monolith. Either you subscribe to Clarke's rationalistic point of view, or you prefer Kubrick's mystical open endness.
Really the film is not about the Monolith at all, think of it as a macguffin.
The film really is about humanity, and our place in the universe. If you replace the Monolith with a higher being, or God does it change the nature of the film ? I don't think so. 2010 and 3001 are not to be considered sequels to 2001. :damn: :damn:

Just reminded Clarke's view! And I certainly did not comment on the artistic content of either his books or of the films! I don't "analyse" art.
BTW I prefer "Kubrick's mystical open endness" as you say...
No need to bang your head though! :D

[Skybird]

What no one has mentioned is Arthur C. Clarke's original short story, The Sentinel, published in 1951.
Read thread again! :D

[SUBMAN1]

I have to disagree. He axed 29 minutes from the original without A. C. Clark's input. Clark was said to be very disappointed in his selections too leaving a lot unexplained in the theatrical version.

-S

PS. Here is an example:

James Randi later recounted that upon seeing 2001 for the first time, Clarke left the movie theatre during the first break crying because he was so upset about how the movie had turned out.
Actually the film makes much more sense without explanatory details. You could watch the film from beginning to end without paying attention to the dialog and still you would understand it all. 2001 is a visual fest, dialogue is really secondary in this masterpiece.I agree with this. it is the best space movie thus far, bar none. Just a lot is left to the mind to interpret as - WTF? is the best way to put it.

-S

[AngusJS]

I seem to remember that in the novel 2001, the Monolith does some things which were a bit silly. For instance, it displayed a bullseye, and telepathically got the primates to try and hit it by throwing rocks. This was to train them to use tools and start them off on the path to homo sapiens.

I'm glad that wasn't in the movie. I still love Clarke though, "Childhood's End" and "Rendezvous with Rama" being my favorites.

And 2001 is one of my favorite movies. I had the opportunity a few years back to see it on the big screen, something I highly recommend.

I love the scene right after the intermission, where the Discovery silently, slowly floats past the camera, to the mournful music of Khachaturian. Kubrick rocks. :rock:

It's forty years after the film's release, and I can't think of any film (besides maybe 2010) that has achieved such a realistic presentation of space travel. Even Apollo 13 had @#%$ sound in space. :nope:

[FIREWALL]

How many eggheads can you fit into a carton ?:p ;)

[Stealth Hunter]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/685461/the_original_2001_a_space_odyssey_in_5_seconds/

:lol:

"Whoa."

[Subnuts]

It's a black thing.

You wouldn't understand it.

[Dowly]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/685461/the_original_2001_a_space_odyssey_in_5_seconds/

:lol:

"Whoa."

:rotfl:

[Blacklight]

I love the scene right after the intermission, where the Discovery silently, slowly floats past the camera, to the mournful music of Khachaturian. Kubrick rocks. :rock:


This is why whenever I fly in the Orbiter space sim what I have LOTS of really beautiful classical music in the music folder. As soon as my craft breaks out of the atmosphere, I get stuff like "The Blue Danube". (I DID have to include Bowie's "Space Oddity", Elton John's "Rocketman", and :up: Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" in there too.)

[longam]

It's a black thing.

You wouldn't understand it.
harrrrrrrr

Ipodolith maybe?

http://regmedia.co.uk/2006/08/09/mcody_m20_bg.jpg

[TLAM Strike]

It's forty years after the film's release, and I can't think of any film (besides maybe 2010) that has achieved such a realistic presentation of space travel. Even Apollo 13 had @#%$ sound in space. :nope: Check out Serenity. The sequince introducing the ship is not only lovely but does it quite realisticly. The ship glides sliently across the screen the jet engines tip down as a wind like sound can start to be heard then the engines kick in and the ship bursts in to the flames of rentry.

[UnderseaLcpl]

It's forty years after the film's release, and I can't think of any film (besides maybe 2010) that has achieved such a realistic presentation of space travel. Even Apollo 13 had @#%$ sound in space. :nope: Check out Serenity. The sequence introducing the ship is not only lovely but does it quite realistically. The ship glides silently across the screen the jet engines tip down as a wind like sound can start to be heard then the engines kick in and the ship bursts in to the flames of reentry.

Serenity=Awesome:up: