‘.. history and fiction have become inexplicably intertwined..’ –Arthur C. Clarke
‘2001: A space odyssey’ is a well-known title in the movie and book lover community. It is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest science fictions of all time. The title keeps recurring at the top of almost all the science fiction rating lists. But why? What is so special about the movie?
Incredibly slow but very realistic; at the same time it has the ability to induce trance – this is what I was thinking while watching the movie. I did not realize the weight of it until I read the book. I was spellbound after reading it. The effect of the movie or the book is so powerful that it makes a man wonder about his very existence. There are very few novel inspired movies which are as good as the original novels. ‘2001: A space odyssey’ is one of them.
The facts revolving around the 2001: A space odyssey is an example of the perfect surreal mix of fact and fantasy. In August 24, 1989; Arthur C. Clarke wrote, ‘2001 was written in an age which now lies beyond one of the great divides in human history’. Historically the movie is very significant. It was the last space travel movie shot before men actually landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins had already seen the movie when they left for the moon.
The first men ever to set eyes upon the dark side of the moon were the crew of Apollo 8. And they were tempted to radio back the discovery of a large black monolith (as shown in the movie). But of course they were refrained from this childish act.
Later, almost uncanny instances of nature imitating art were revealed. In 1970, the command module of Apollo 13 was named Odyssey. Just before the explosion of the oxygen tank which caused the mission to be aborted, the crew had been playing Richard Strauss’s ‘Zarathustra’ theme which is the opening sound track of the movie. Immediately after the power loss, Jack Swigert (NASA astronaut and crew of Apollo 13) contacted mission control and said, ‘..We’ve had a problem’. These exact words were pronounced by the protagonist, Hal of 2001: A space odyssey on a similar occasion. ‘I still get a very strange feeling when I contemplate this whole series of events- almost, indeed, as if I share a certain responsibility’- said Arthur regarding the Apollo 13 incident.
In the movie, the third confrontation between man and monolith was among the moons of Jupiter. When 2001 was written (in the mid-sixties), Jupiter’s moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto were mere points of light in the sky detected by the most powerful telescope. But within fifteen years, they were worlds. One of them, Io was found out to be the most volcanically active body in the Solar System. The similarity between the actual movies from the camera of Voyager 1 (the farthest human-made object from Earth, launched to study the outer Solar System) and Jupiter sequence from the 2001 movie fascinated Arthur.
In Chapter 35 of the book, Arthur described the discovery of the Saturnian moon (also known as Iapetus or Japetus) as a brilliant white oval with a tiny black dot at the center, which turns out to be the monolith. And when Voyager 1 transmitted the first photographs of Saturnian moon, they disclosed a large clear-cut white oval with a tiny black dot at the center. As soon as Carl Sagan (American Astrophysicist) saw these photographs, he sent a copy to Arthur with a short note saying, ‘Thinking of you’.
However, at the premier of the movie, there were 241 walkouts and it was heavily criticized. According to the New York Times, the movie was 'Somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring'. Newsday's view was, 'Superb photography major asset to confusing, long-unfolding plot'. But, confusing people was precisely what Arthur C. Clarke was intending to do- 'If you understand 2001 completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered'- said Arthur.
Published:
http://bdnews24.com/entertainment/2014/05/21/arthurs-odyssey
Reference:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/space-odyssey-kubrick-science-fiction
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/oct/16/top-10-sci-fi-movies
2001: A Space Odyssey the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey the book (Author’s note)
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