Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory 170
| Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory | |
| author | Leonard F. Wheat |
| pages | 162 |
| publisher | Scarecrow Press |
| rating | 7.5 |
| reviewer | Cliff Lampe |
| ISBN | 081083796x |
| summary | And you thought *you* was a crazy sumbitch |
The Scenario
There are times when you read a book and think the author has it dead wrong. Then are times when you suspect he is right, and that thought scares gives you the cold shakes. Wheat's analysis of 2001 is exactly like that. No, this is not another whiney look at the sad differences between Kubrick's vision of what this year would be like and the McDonald's sponsored nightmare of reality television, boy bands and public disinterest in science that we ended up with. This is much crazier than that. Leonard Wheat examines 2001 from the perspective of three different allegories: the Odysseus myth, man-machine symbiosis and the Nietzschean Zarathustra legend.Wheat is a retired economist, who has a doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard. That in itself does not qualify him to review old movies, but it does say he's used to pretty rigorous analysis. His book is an examination of the movie rather than the book. He points out that the movie was based on a Clarke short story, and the book came after the film. This being the case, Wheat is very centered on Kubrick's vision of the story rather than Clarke's. He uses scripts, director's notes, and some interviews to provide evidence for some of his claims.
So what are those claims? Alot of it makes good sense. For instance, Dave Bowman relates to Ulysses (a reknowned bowman in the myths). He goes on a long voyage and loses all his crew. Pretty neat so far, but Wheat tends to go to far in some oif his claims. Here's an example:
"In the next scene, the moon monolith scene, it becomes evident that TMA-1 symbolizes the wooden Trojan Horse: hence, we are looking for hidden meaning that refers or alludes to the Trojan Horse. And that meaning can be found in TMA-1. Spell out the figure '1' and you get TMA-ONE. These letters, like the last nine in Frank Poole, can be rearranged to form an anagram. In this case, the anagram is "No Meat." A wooden horse has no meat on its skeletal framework."
You had me at "Bowman". *sniff* But the whole "No Meat" thing is just a skoach over the top. It stays pretty topsy-turvy. For example, in the discussion of the man-machine symbiosis allegory, Wheat claims that HAL represents a new type of human called homo-machinus. I don't usually quote this much in a review, but you need to hear this from the horse's mouth. In this next passage, he is showing the anthropomorphism of the HAL-Discovery by claiming the six rockets at the back of the ship, encased in three hexagonal casings, have meaning.
"But why the hexagons? Why not circles or squares or nothing? When I was growing up in the 1930's, which is the same time Kubrick was growing up, most reasonably modern houses had white tile bathroom floors. The tile, in vogue from the turn of the century through World War II, were hexagons, one inch across and fitted together in a honeycomb pattern. The rear-end hexagons are bathroom tiles! They symbolize bathrooms. Hal-Discovery has three bathrooms, one for each mouth. And what is the only being that uses bathrooms to answer the call of nature? Homo sapiens. Once more we see that the intelligent spaceship is a humanoid." Yeah, I know.
There's much, much more where that came from. The thing is, these allegorical statements do make sense. I can see 2001 on a level as being a retelling of the Odysseus myth, and on another level being a moralistic story about the dangers of increasingly blurred lines between the mechanical and the biological. Hell, science fiction is littered with similar stories, and Kubrick is not usually without some sort of moral framework. The Zarathustra allegory obviously fits as well. The death of God, the realization that all humans could become god (or Star Children) as well, the whole schmeal. The problem is that one gets so caught up in the loony evidence like that presented above that it becomes easy to lose track on how cool the idea really is.
It reminds us how good human minds, especially smart ones, are at finding patterns in crazy shit. Reading this book you are impressed with two minds: Kubrick's and Wheat's. Wheat has the premise that Kubrick was so wicked smart that these long strings of meaning are not only possible, they are a sure thing. You also come away with the sense that Wheat is a pretty smart man himself. This book goes too far at times, but is worth reading. One thing's for sure, you'll never watch 2001 again in the same way.
Note: There is a very nice Post-It on the book I was sent saying the cover showing the HAL2000 red eye is a cover designer's screw up. I believe that, since after having read the book I doubt Wheat could have ever missed something as simple as Hal's name. Must kill him every time he looks at the cover in fact.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Even a broken clock is right occasionally (Score:1)
Not to worry. There are two convenient explanations for this, which you are free to adopt under any open content license of your choice. The first is the simple one alluded to in the subject I chose: if the author tosses out enough crazy ideas, it becomes almost a certainty that some will hit home. And now that I think about it, this blends continuously into the other explanation I'm offering you. At the other end, he started off with one or a few reasonable insights, then fell down the rabbit hole while looking for more. Or somewhere in between. Maybe he's mostly kooky but not so far gone that he doesn't see, in some fashion, that some of his ideas are more sensible than the rest (though that needn't be how he characterizes them), and so he has pushed them harder, making it look like he started out fairly sensibly and got weirder later.
Or maybe the slash-a-dot-a review just makes it sound much stranger than it is... though if the author actually said some of the things that were quoted that seems pretty unlikely.
A sweet retired professor goes quietly bonkers (Score:1)
Re:Original Short Story! (Score:1)
Published in several short story collections, as well as 'The Making of Kubrik's 2001' and 'The Lost Worlds of 2001' [along with portions of early drafts of the scrips and plot ideas]
Just one correction... (Score:3)
ttyl
Farrell
Acording to the short book... (Score:1)
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:2)
sci fi (Score:2)
About the earliest example of science fiction literature that I can think of is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. If you think of it, that story is THE basis for all science fiction.
In essence, science fiction is about humanity, and it's "progress" from the dark ages to some futuristic point, via technological innovation, and how that technological innovation impacts humanity, and humanity's way of thinking.
Obviously, Frankenstien talks about how this one doctor, way ahead of his time in the field of medicine, devising a method to bring people back to life, but he could not just leave it at that - because if he brought one person back to life, then things would be great and all, but he could not be a "creator" of life. So he built one out of spare parts. It was human pride that screwed Dr. Frankenstein up, because there were aspects to life that he didn't understand, the soul, etc. And as it turned out, the creature had the mind of a deranged madman, murderer, who didn't even know who or what he was, because he was made of parts of many different people. Now, I'm not saying that "it's all about mankind messing with things we do not understand - " it's more along the lines of the tradition of the great Greek tragedy, man falling before his pride.
Pretty much every AI story out there is basically a rip off of Frankenstein. Yes, including the Matrix.
Even when science fiction appears to be about some other topic, like alien invasions, etc. it's still about humanity's advancement. Now that our great thinkers have discovered other stars, and other planets, and have theorized what life on these other planets could be like - and thus, have created new life, have become the creators. And in most cases, this whole alien mythology stems from that concept.
Star Wars, of course, does not fall under the category of "Science Fiction" when you think about it. It's really not at all about "the impact of technological advancement on humanity". It's a new genre, well, not new, it's Flash Gordon warmed over. Fantasy in a Sci Fi setting.
My point is, after Frankenstein, it's pretty much all been done before.
I, for one, cannot wait, for the well-done movie version of "Ender's Game".
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:2)
While I haven't seen any comments from Pink Floyd members about this, according to Alan Parsons, the recording engineer on Dark Side of the Moon, the "Wizard of Oz" thing is utter nonsense--they never talked about it during the recording.
(And, yes, that's Alan Parsons of the Alan Parsons Project.)
Re:BOWMAN TMA-ONE = MAN, TO BE WOMAN (Score:2)
Re:what about Zarathustra? (Score:2)
If Kubrick had made 2010, I bet Bowman wouldn't have beeen standing around saying "Something wonderful is about to happen" -- he would be making himself the leader of Earth or something.
Re:Just one correction (Score:2)
Now 2010 was all ACC's -- and guess what -- none of the higher themes were there -- it was just a 1950ish pulp science fiction story more or less ripped off from "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Re:How to over extend yourself: (Score:2)
And they are right, if they mean the "Honest Abe" fellow who supposedly fought the South out of righteous anger over slavery, rather than a typical scheming politician who professed whatever beliefs he thought would get him elected. Even "historical" figures tend to become mythological constructs in time.
Re:(BOWMAN TMA-ONE = MAN, TO BE WOMAN) == Anagram (Score:1)
Turambar
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Common sense is not so common.
--Voltaire
Re:NO MEAT, HUH? (Score:1)
At least, that's what Art told me.
Re:Um, aren't we forgetting something here (Score:1)
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
Doesn't this sort of... meditative for lack of a better word, art ever happen to anyone else?
Yes, of course, I would wager that the best pieces of art usually happen this way. In music especially, for me. It's when I'm not even thinking of the key changes and my fingers seem to take on a life of their own that the best sounding riffs flow forth. Just tapping into the Universal Mind, man. ;-)
Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:1)
(and can you really die from being shot in the heel?) I guess Achilles was hit in the heel by a large bomb or something..
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:3)
Stonehenge is a similar story - people ooing and ahing and scratching their heads over why the stones are arrmaged like that - til they realise some guys with big ropes and a lot of time on their hands put them like that in the 19th century.
Kubrick was making a film - not starting a religion - even though the story has western religious overtones. The hexagons were hexagons becuase they tesselate nicley to form a strong structure (and the model designer probably thought it looked nice).
As for all that winamp screensaver stuff at the end - I often wonder if film makers and authors just invent this stuff and let the auidience invent the meaning afterwards. Imagine the script meetings:- "hey lets put in some wierd lights and stuff with some footage of a unborn baby - that'll really throw them"
I wouldn't be suprised if bronze age man didn't randomly distribute axe heads just to confound Time Team.
I'm off to bury 4 elephants and a karaoke machine in my back yard. Let's see the Wheats of the far future figure THAT one out
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:1)
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:1)
Morn also had the running gag that, while he never said anything on camera, he apparently talked people's ears off off camera. This is something like the running gag on Cheers where Norm's wife was never seen. (Or Maris (sp?) on Frasier is never seen, either.)
DS9 had lots of interesting gags like this, and it wasn't just some tripped out way of keeping Morn's actor for getting paid for talking. ;) For example, watch the real tribble episode, then watch it where DS9 travel back in time. In the real episode, there are two guys in the lineup after the fight, where Kirk talks to them, with a red uniform, and no one in the fight had one. This is a fairly common nitpick. Well...in the new timeline...O'Brien is wearing a red uniform, and in the fight, and in the lineup! Granted, it doesn't fix anything, cause there's still another guy, but I suspect they gave him a red uniform specifically to have fun with that nitpick.
-David T. C.
Re:That's evidence? (Score:1)
I do not understand this comment. Isn't that like saying 'Watch those Jews grovel once I've cornered the market on pork.'? ;)
-David T. C.
thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:2)
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Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
What do you mean he swears it off? He says specifically in a preface or something in one of the books I read where he talked about writing the book, and how hard it was with little money, and that he couldn't think of names for characters, and just happened to be using a Fabercastle (i think that's it) pencil and Montag paper. Ray Bradbury right out said that's where the names came from.
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
What i was trying to say was that while, yes, absolutely, artists use symbols and allegory (both consciously and unconsciously) in their work, its not ridiculously vague and disassociated the way the bathroom tile thing would be. Or the anagrams. Unless it's a pattern with that particular artist, I wouldn't buy an anagram. And there would be far more effective ways to call forth the image of a bathroom than through the shape of tiles in a certain demographics' homes at a certain time. To an artist, such a solution would be inelegant because it wouldn't trigger any subconscious response in the audience -- you can make people think of hell and the devil without being direct, but to think of a bathroom, you need more than the shape of a single tile. A PATTERN of tiles might do it -- and that would be interesting as a device, to make HAL vaguely resemble a bathroom wall. It would be something the audience would never quite put their finger on, but would bring out the idea.
But, as a rule, few artists would be so vague unless it was a private joke (and private jokes are usually the first "hidden" things to ever get found!)
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Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
That's why i was specifically speaking as an artist, not as a viewer. It's not at all uncommon to look at a piece I did years ago and see things that i put in them without realizing consciously at the time I had done so. I don't know any writers or artists who don't have similar experiences with their own works.
There's just too much going in to be aware of it all -- that;s part of why even the most talented creator needs experience, because you have to be able to do a lot of it without thinking, so you can focus on the things you need to consciously.
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Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:5)
Its not at all unusual for another artist to look at some work and point out something to me that, once it is said out load, is obvious I put in there subconciously/unconsciously.
Once you've been doing it long enough, every writer and artist is doing half of their work without conscious thought -- its only afterwards that they realize they were subconsciously running a parallel to the Iliad or the Bible (at which point they will usually go through and clean up the references or eliminate them).
That said, its usually easy to tell what is REALLY there vs being coincidental.
For example, Mark twain, despite his protestations to the contrary, clearly wrote with meaning, and had social allegory and commentary, it was never simply "a tale".
I find anagrams HIGHLY unlikely to be meaningful unless the author is in the habit of doing them, as most writers pick names from people they know or from historical/literary sources. If you showed me that EVERY name in a story had an anagram, and that as a group the anagrams were meaningful, I'd buy it. One or two out of many characters? coincidence, especially when it comes up with something dorky like "no meat".
Show me another story by Clark or Kubrick with many meaningful anagrams and I'd be willing to believe they were hiding them here.
As for the hexagonal tile, geez, don't get me started. I don't know how much this Harvard guy has ever done creatively, but there are about a million hexagonal symbols that would be pulled up before bathroom tiles. If Kubrick had a meaningful story in his life with a bathroom tile, maybe I'd buy it, but without that evidence, I'd be much more likely to attribute the shape to a carbon atom (foundation of life!) or a honeycomb (bees) -- a hive mind, nature's workers, collectively peaceful and necessary for life, but with a surprising sting when riled! That's a lot closer to HAL in the story then a third-generation bathroom metaphor.
Geodesic domes are based on hexagons, and are usually the basis of sci-fi colony designs. The shape itself seems very "sci-fi" just because of this history, so maybe that's the only association. Compare that to round shapes (as the head of the Discovery), which are associated with Russian spacecraft. having both shapes might just be a visual way of showing the ship comes from more than one design sensibility, a collaboration between nations.
But I'd want to see something to indicate Kubrick was involved in that production design decision to even worry about meaning behind the arrangement of engines.
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Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:1)
There are MANY times the beat of the music intersects with film cuts and/or matches up with the beat of the dancing on-screen. It still MEANS nothing.
Oh, and Devo's "Freedom of Choice" LP goes well with the old Snorks cartoon, too.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:2)
The Star Trek series' do this too. For instance, on the TNG Enterprise's bridge, the names of the writers and directors and so forth are on the dedication plaque.
Or in a Deep Space Nine episode, there were two agents from Starfleet who were investigating a time travel incident. Their names were Dulmer and Lucsley. (Anagrams for Mulder and Sculley, of X-Files fame of couse
Speaking of anagrams... (Score:2)
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Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:1)
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Anagrammatic (Score:1)
Why just the last nine? After all, all of "Frank Poole" could be "Ankle Proof" or "Freon Polka", obviously what Clarke intended, while the last nine merely give us "Pork Alone." Or "Poor Ankle", or "Penal Rook", or "Nap Looker" or
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:3)
I think sometimes things take on a life of their own, and our input into the work is just a means to the end, where we really had no idea that the end would turn up as it did.
Sometimes when drawing or painting my mind will be a complete blank. I'm not always thinking that "this X needs to be more like N because of Y". Even when writing. The words sometimes flow out without my thinking much about them. I can look back at things I wrote 10 years ago and be uncertain whether that was really me who wrote that or someone else.
Doesn't this sort of... meditative for lack of a better word, art ever happen to anyone else?
Re:Scaring the masses with arbitrary interpretatio (Score:1)
Is it open source?
But seriously, I collect books by kooks (and thus, Bible Code is one high on the list when I find a 2nd-hand copy), and a tool like this would be a great adjunct to the book. If you know anywhere I can get this, a URL etc. would be muchly appreciated.
Re:The author's name is also an anagram (Score:1)
An on-topic post, yet one addressing a common trollish theme! You, my friend, have won my respect and admiration.
The "Trojan Horse" might not be so far-fetched. (Score:3)
While I think that the "NO MEAT" anagram probably takes it too far, there is reason to believe that the Monolith might symbolize a Trojan Horse. Anyone who has read 3001: The Final Odyssey might remember that the monolith was ultimately destroyed by introducing a Trojan Horse (the computer program variety) into its system. A lot of people are saying that the author is reading too far into 2001 -- but given the fact that "Odyssey" is included in the title, not to mention the "Bowman" name and the plot parallels, it's perfectly reasonable to draw Odyssean parallels. Writers don't do these things by accident, folks.
Cheers,
IT
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:1)
dave "hmmph"
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:1)
dave
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:1)
See http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/index.html
dave
Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:2)
Anyone care to fill me in on the secret?
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:1)
We picked a movie from his collection at random (Slackers) and a CD from his collection at random (Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique) and played them at the same time.
Eerily, they meshed exceedingly well. Thus, we must conclude that the Beastie Boys had Slackers in mind when writing that album: surely not too far fetched, if you think on it. ;)
They really did work together. The Pink Floyd thing really is coincidence. Pick a movie and CD at random and watch...
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:2)
A similar story by Asimov has a scientist bring Shakespear back from the past, but he fails a class on himself and commits suicide in a fit of depression. (IIRC: was more than a few years ago)
I just saved money :-) (Score:3)
For an author as "educated" as he seems to be (on paper), your review shows him pretty much inventing a lot of history, and on the thinest foundation.
So this fellow is an expert in economics and government, eh? If that is truly the case, that explains a lot about the state of our government and economy...
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
Kubrick used them all the time! Just to give a few after a few minutes of Googling:
You might not accept all of these examples. Fair enough. I know many of them aren't anagrams per se, but puns, allusions, and so on. So be it. I hope the pattern is clear enough all the same. Kubrick infused his movies with a lot of word play, and this all contributes to the larger meaning of each film. Did he do it deliberatey? I don't doubt that at least some of it was deliberate, but I also accept that a lot of it was probably done unconsciously -- the meaning may be there but perhaps not deliberately so. That's fine with me. But it's there all the same. That's what makes his films great.
As for the hexagonal exhaust thing, well, I can't really comment much on that one. It's worth noting though that, as the movie's FAQ [krusch.com] page notes, food is a big symbol in 2001. The early apes feast on raw meat, while the early space travellers have increasingly bland foods, up through the pastey goo that Discovery's crew gets. It's not unreasonable to take that thread a bit burther & comment on how the 2nd monolith had "no meat", or about Discovery's "anus". Certainly our overreliance on technology is a big theme, and the fact that space travellers need machines even to eat & defecate is a very potent symbol to work into a movie like this.
Cut the guy some slack. I haven't read the critique in question, but this review & these comments are being way too harsh. Kubrick's films in general, and 2001 in particular, are a rich source of allegory. Just because you only wanna dwell on the techno-nerd aspects doesn't mean that the larger themes aren't there. Come out of your cubicle & look at the bigger picture. One of the articles on the Kubrick FAQ [krusch.com] draws comparisons between the director and James Joyce, and they seem to be about spot on to me. Among other parallels, it cites a common use of puns (cf. examples above et al), encoded meanings (POE from Strangelove, "NO MEAT" from 2001, etc), portmanteau words (compound or layered meaning), and of course both of them set their masterpieces against the Homerian epics.
Is it too easy to find these kinds of patterns everywhere? I dunno, maybe, but who cares? Patterns are fun! Whether or not they were "deliberately placed", like the lunar monolith (a ha! another one!), they exist and are being found. Deny them if you want to, but it's much more fun to try to figure out what they mean.
Unfair criticism! Give Kubrick a chance! (Score:2)
Kubrick used them all the time! Just to give a few after a bit of Googling:
You might not accept all of these examples. Fair enough. I know many of them aren't anagrams per se, but puns, allusions, and so on. So be it. I hope the pattern is clear enough all the same. Kubrick infused his movies with a lot of word play, and this all contributes to the larger meaning of each film. Did he do it deliberatey? I don't doubt that at least some of it was deliberate, but I also accept that a lot of it was probably done unconsciously -- the meaning may be there but perhaps not deliberately so. That's fine with me. But it's there all the same. That's what makes his films great.
As for the hexagonal exhaust thing, well, I can't really comment much on that one. It's worth noting though that, as the movie's FAQ [krusch.com] page notes, food is a big symbol in 2001. The early apes feast on raw meat, while the early space travellers have increasingly bland foods, up through the pastey goo that Discovery's crew gets. It's not unreasonable to take that thread a bit burther & comment on how the 2nd monolith had "no meat", or about Discovery's "anus". Certainly our overreliance on technology is a big theme, and the fact that space travellers need machines even to eat & defecate is a very potent symbol to work into a movie like this.
Cut the guy some slack. I haven't read the critique in question, but this review & these comments are being way too harsh. Kubrick's films in general, and 2001 in particular, are a rich source of allegory. Just because you only wanna dwell on the techno-nerd aspects doesn't mean that the larger themes aren't there. Come out of your cubicle & look at the bigger picture. One of the articles on the Kubrick FAQ [krusch.com] draws comparisons between the director and James Joyce, and they seem to be about spot on to me. Among other parallels, it cites a common use of puns (cf. examples above et al), encoded meanings (POE from Strangelove, "NO MEAT" from 2001, etc), portmanteau words (compound or layered meaning), and of course both of them set their masterpieces against the Homerian epic poem.
Is it too easy to find these kinds of patterns everywhere? I dunno, maybe, but who cares? Patterns are fun! Whether or not they were "deliberately placed", like the lunar monolith (a ha! another one!), they exist and are being found. Deny them if you want to, but it's much more fun to try to figure out what they mean. I'd be willing to give this book a shot, if it could go any deeper than the critical interpretations I've already read on Kubrick & 2001.
Hell, the Slashdot groupthink crowd has dismissed it, so it must be good! ;)
Re:Unfair criticism! Give Kubrick a chance! (Score:2)
Re:Unfair criticism! Give Kubrick a chance! (Score:2)
End of official "Reply." Now, here are some Kubrick word-play names to add to your list:
Put them all together and you get "Helen and Wooden Horse Reflect Troy's Downfall."
Dave Bowman:
Dave is short for David, who slew the giant Goliath by planting a rock in his forehead. Dave Bowman slays a giant (Hal-Discovery) by attacking the brain inside Discovery's forehead.
Bowman literally means bowman and refers to Odysseus, who was a renowned bowman.
Frank Poole: [F]rank Poole is a "90 percent anagram" in which the last nine letters can be rearranged to form the phrase "[W]alk on rope." This phrase alludes to Frank's role as the symbol for Nietzsche's rope dancer, or tightrope walker.
HAL 9000:
HAL is the letters IBM retreated one notch back down the alphabet. On the man-machine symbiosis allegory the HAL-IBM connection symbolizes the synthesis of man (Hal, a man's name) and machine (IBM, a machine's name). In the Zarathustra allegory, HAL-IBM refers to Nietzsche's idea that man created God in his own image. IBM symbolizes the idea that Hal-Discovery (God) was created by man, as all machines are, and HAL (a man's name) symbolizes the idea that God is the image of man. Arthur Clarke denies that the name Hal involves symbolism, but on pages 72-75 of my book I give six reasons for believing Clarke is wrong.
9000 refers to the first 9000 years of history in the mythological history of the ancient Persian religion Zoroastrianism--the 9000 years that precede the arrival of Zarathustra, who arrives in 9001, the first year of the tenth millennium. Hal and Dave Bowman arrive at the same time, so the "9000" in Hal's name describe's Dave's (Zarathustra's) arrival time too. In the film's title, 2001 symbolizes 9001: the first year of one millennium symbolizes the first year of another.
Elena: Elena, the name of the female Russian scientist Heywood Floyd meets on the space station, is Russian for Helen. Elena symbolizes Helen--Helen of Troy. Her presence inside the slotted female space station identifies her with the female partner in the copulation between the phallic earth shuttle (male) and the space station. Floyd, who symbolizes Paris (Helen's seducer) at this point, was inside the shuttle, identifying it with Paris.
TMA-1 = TMA-ONE: This name is an anagram whose letters can be rearranged to form "No Meat." TMA-1 is the name of the moon monolith, which symbolizes the meatless (wooden) Trojan Horse.
AE-35: I didn't include this one in the book, because I wasn't certain enough of my interpretation. But AE seems to stand for AEolus, king of the winds, whose winds cause trouble for Odysseus. And the 35? A hurricane is the epitome of wind. And the Hawker Hurricane, the famous British fighter plane from World War II, is associated with the number 35 in three ways: (1) The plane was first test flown in '35 (1935). (2) The original plane had a ceiling of 35,000 feet, although later models got up to 36,000. (3) The prototype Hurrican was labeled F.36/34, the two numbers of which average out to 35. Meanwhile, the AE-35 unit causes trouble for Bowman (it leads indirectly to Poole's death), just as Aeolus's winds causes trouble for Odysseus.
I hope you find this information useful, or at least interesting.
Sincerely
Len Wheat
Allegory? (Score:4)
Ready? The reader's expected response to the author's "NO MEAT" hypothesis would be "GET REAL". The letters in "GET REAL" can be rearranged to spell "LARGE ET". This obviously signifies the subconscious expression that the author is, in fact, an oversized being from outer space.
Maybe I should publish a book called "Leonard F. Wheat's "Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": A Triple Allegory": A Space Allegory".
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Re:Thus Spake Zarathustra was the real message (Score:1)
Doesn't he actually say that "Man is a rope, tied between beast and superman"? I don't think that the superman was meant to replace God, since the problem with God was that we looked to Him rather than to ourselves.
As to your interpretation of the end of the film, it seems to overlook the importance of the willing of the eternal recurrence, a concept which calls the whole notion of the superman into doubt; the whole point of the "Soothsayer" (TSZ II.19) is that his truth shatters Zarathustra's great hopes for mankind.
That being said, your interpretation of the end of the film could work if it were split from Nietzsche and expressed in terms of messianism (not necessarily religious; Marx and Hegel's end of history is messianism), which ushering in a new world cannot be described adequately to the old. Of course, Nietzsche would say that messianism in all its forms, Zoarastriansim, Judaism, Christianity, Enlightenment, Hegelianism, Marxism, etc., is a desire for an other world or a behind-the-world (Hinterwelt), and thus a manifestation of the spirit of revenge which will be overcome by willing the eternal recurrence.
As to this whole business about koans, while Nietzsche did respect Buddhism more than Christianity (he thought he was the first European to understand Buddhism), it was not his end-goal, nor was anything like it. The crisis of the West was the decadence of the old slave morality; Buddhism was the decadence of an old master morality, but it was decadence all the same. Buddhism, too, remained something to be overcome for Nietzsche.
Re:Thus Spake Zarathustra was the real message (Score:1)
I meant that Nietzsche does not intend for the superman to replace God as the object of our worship, i.e., the superman is not to be some higher power toward which we look for guidance and/or salvation. Man must become the superman, must become God by doing what God has done, but in so doing he abandons his relationship to anything God-like; man must not become to the superman what he formerly was to God, but he must become as God is to Himself. And since the God which Nietzsche attacks is defined by our relation to Him, viz. He is a separate Entity that embodies our desire for a moral, i.e., a just, world, the amoral superman cannot be an ersatz God. I think we are in agreement on this point, but that there was a difficulty in communication.
A quibble for a quibble, superman is the correct translation of Uebermensch; Kaufmann abandoned it in favor of overman because of its association with the comic book hero, not because it more accurately described the intent of the German. Myself assuming a higher degree of literacy in those interested in Nietzsche, I prefer the more accurate rendering of superman and superhero for Uebermensch and Ueberheld.
And here's a superfluous quibble: Zarathutra did not kill God; the Ugliest Man did. Of course, you could say, a la Stanley Rosen, that everyone in Part IV represents some part of Zarathustra, and thus that in a sense it was Zarathustra who killed God, but then you would have to say that Zarathustra also served God until the end and seeks the hermit to serve Him still (for he would also be the last Pope). I myself think that God is already dead by the action of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the death of God representing both the crisis and the greatest opportunity of Modernity: since the death of God allows us to devolve into last men (for they, too, look to nothing beyond themselves), it also holds out the possibility of the superman.
Re:Thus Spake Zarathustra was the real message (Score:1)
As to the proper rendering of Uebermensch, this, too, seems a pointless quarrel. Overman has become acceptable in some circles because of the efforts of Walter Kaufmann, with whose translation I have a number of problems (e.g., Stein der Weisheit as philosopher's stone, Es ist der gute Krieg, der heiligt jede Sache as the good war hallows any cause, etc.). Kaufmann's reasons for preferring overman are not based on fidelity to the German, but are in order to avoid the snickering of those readers for whom Nietzsche expressly did not write over the word superman. I would have used Uebermensch in my original post, but that might have been taken as too elitist for our democratic /. community; most people know superman, and there is no linguistic reason not to prefer it over overman.
I find your last point the most interesting. The problem with saying that Zarathustra killed God as the ugliest man killed God is that the ugliest man does so out of a spirit of revenge: Zarathustra has overcome the spirit of revenge, nauseating as such a process may be. The question then remains whether Zarathustra could kill God out of a motive other than the spirit of revenge; the text suggests that this is impossible, for the desire to kill God is a desire to punish that which torments you (as we see in TSZ IV.7). This is where Nietzsche's historicism comes into play: Zarathustra cannot do what he does unless God is dead, but he cannot be the one to kill Him (for the aforementioned reason). Zarathustra, like Nietzsche, is only possible after the death of God, just as it is only now that the Uebermensch is possible. There can be no Nietzsche unless there is first a Schopenhauer.
Lastly, I have two issues of protocol. I would suggest that we continue our correspondence over email (my address is encoded, but not hidden), since I imagine that this story will soon be archived; in any case, we are now in the realm of offtopic moderation. Secondly, I try to follow the rule of always assuming that your interlocutor knows what they're talking about and letting them themselves prove otherwise; I hope my arguments are sufficient to reveal any profound misunderstanding and that they do not require a sentence to that effect. I do not use words, the meaning of which I do not know; speaking both German and English, I feel able to use ersatz intelligently in both (and Uebermensh, for that matter!).
That having been said, I look forward to any further thoughts you may have on Nietzsche.
Re:Thus Spake Zarathustra was the real message (Score:1)
I suppose that my reading of Nietzsche also disagrees with Kubrick's; I can accept that you have properly interpreted the relevent scenes from 2001, but I don't think we can take Kubrick's vision as indicative of Nietzsche's thought. It's been at least eight years since I've seen it, so I'll yield to your knowledge of the film.
While your appraisal of the ugliest man is correct, I would say that his motive for killing God is vengeful; the problem of all human society is that it is founded upon the spirit of revenge. The ugliest man does not mind a God who sees his strength and beauty (though the ugliest man, as ugliest man, has neither), but rather is ashamed of his weakness. The spirit of revenge is an outgrowth of weakness: we take revenge on those who hurt us, i.e., who reveal us to be hurtable, to be weak. But as you said, that the ugliest man kills God out of revenge does not prove that Zarathustra does so for the same reason.
God is a conjecture: to kill God means to kill this conjecture. To kill God is to induce disbelief in others, just as to create God is to induce belief in others. When gods die, they die many deaths. The ugliest man killed God, the last pope watched him choke on pity, and Zarathustra inherits a world in which his "ghost" has died. It is only those men lower than Zarathsutra, higher men as they may be, that kill God.
Few people have the strength to kill God as you suggest that both the ugliest man and Zarathustra do. Killing God means acknowledging the result of a slain God: Shopenhauerianism or Zarathustrianism (I don't say Nietzscheanism because I don't think he was strong enough to will the eternal recurrence, as his later works show). Modernity is full of "atheism", but it has yet to come to terms with the death of God; modernity does not believe, but it lacks the strength to actually kill God. Indeed, no one is able to live Zarathustra's life: this is the problem of decadence.
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:1)
Your post's hidden message was intentional. To be more in line with the story, if every capital letter spelt your message that would be more intriguing.
> You can find hidden meaning in anything, if you spend enough time looking for it.
The book "Godel, Escher, Bach" talks about this: Interpretation lies in the intelligence of the observer. Are there universal meanings, or is it just symantecs.
*shrugs*
Re:And the disinterest in meaning, too.... (Score:1)
between prescriptive and descriptive lexicography,
but, suffice to say, you shouldn't stop resisting
a solecism just because it has achieved sufficient
market penetration to be noticed by a soi-disant
authority. Parallels to a certain software ven-
dor are left as an exercise for the reader...
And the disinterest in meaning, too.... (Score:2)
All together now: "uninterested" == a lack of fascination; "disinterested" == a lack of personal motive.
For example: "The public's uninterest in science is caused, not by disinterest -- since science affects it deeply -- but by a lack of understanding..."
Re:The "Trojan Horse" might not be so far-fetched. (Score:2)
The Zarathustra reference is very deliberate. In fact, the opening theme by Richard Strauss is called "Also Sprach Zarathustra," after the book by Nietzsche.
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what about Zarathustra? (Score:1)
There's the tone poem of the same name by Strauss played at the beginning, the whole Superman [ecu.edu] theory of those who have 'overcome' humanity to evolve to a higher consciousness.
Surely these analogies were better discussed in the book?
Re:what about Zarathustra? (Score:1)
The 'will to power' is a really strong theme throughout 2001, along with the corollaries of 'beyond good and evil' and the whole ubermensch thing.
so many quotes that can seem relevant...
I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves. Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
from Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, p.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann transl.
Re:Whoa there, let's get a grip. (Score:1)
The Numbers of God [greatdreams.com]
Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:2)
I think you have to just leave that one as a coincidence.
Right now, though, I'm reading that paper you linked to, and I'm kicking myself for so obviously missing it. I wonder if maybe I haven't seen the movie since I read Zarathustra for the first time.
Hey timothy ... (Score:2)
--
Lord Nimon
Five words: (Score:1)
"More teen bimbo hay time!"
(Or these five: "I emit mere booby anthem.")
(....so very, very bored....)
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
Popeye was definitely vegetarian-oriented. Popeye the sailor - girlfriend's name is Olive Oyl. Eats spinach and gets strong. Popeye, if I'm not mistaken, is a kind of bean as well. Then there's Sweetpea, and ultimately, there was Wimpy, who eats hamburgers (a guy who eats hamburgers is called Wimpy, is fat, and constantly have financial problems, hmmm....)
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:3)
Dark Side of the Moon, not The Wall, sucka. I pity the foo who's never watched Wizard of Oz timed to Dark Side. It's nothing at all like these whacky theories discussed in the review. Also, the song Echoes, on Pink Floyd's Meddle, is specifically timed to the Jupiter and Beyond The Inifinite sequence in 2001. No coincidence there.
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:4)
I find that a good rule of thumb is that most of the time when the author is thinking about something wacky like making names into anagrams, he tends to do it compulsively rather than just once or twice. If names are significant, for instance, he'll use a group of names that have related significance- all names of saints, or characters from some other work, or the like. If you wind up finding one interesting anagram, one name that's a biblical reference, and one odd similarity to some other work, the chances are that it's just the analyst looking too deep. And, quite honestly, most authors aren't going to bury this stuff too deep in the first place. They put it in there to be, after all, so making it so obscure that it takes ages and ages to notice pretty much defeats the point.
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:5)
Of course some time these things are most certainly conscious. In the X-Files, for instance, they love to have clocks pointing to 10:13 because Chris Carter's production company is named Ten Thirteen. They'll also name minor characters after regular posters on the X-Files newsgroup. That kind of thing is actually comparatively common, a kind of insider's joke.
What is even more wild is that once in a while a TV show will do something even more radical deliberately. I saw a very, very interesting art exhibit at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art. A group of artists had convinced Aaron Spelling to let them insert various symbolically significant props into the show. There was a pillow that showed up in some bedroom scenes, for instance, that had pictures of condoms all over it. Every container of alcohol that appeared in the season when they were doing this was redone to make it symbollically linked to its role in the plot. When somebody did something stupid after drinking, for instance, their beer cans were of "Be Wiser" rather than "Budweiser". After appearing there, they were moved to the top shelf of the bar that served as a hangout for the characters. More amazingly, the height of stacked glasses and pitchers on the middle shelf of the bar formed a bar graph (and the pun was deliberate) of average per-capital alcohol consumption in the U.S. since the revolution, and the bottles on the bottom shelf were matched with the next shelf up and had labels relevant to public perceptions and attitudes toward drinking at that time. It was pretty amazing, especially considering that the viewers had pretty much no chance of figuring all that stuff out.
The take home lesson, though, is that sometimes people really do hide things in TV shows.
Re:Dark Side of the Moon (Score:2)
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:2)
BOWMAN TMA-ONE = MAN, TO BE WOMAN (Score:5)
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:4)
Similarly, if we find a man named Balthazar in a novel and later on meet his two buddies Melchior and Gaspar, then we're more likely to flag it as a biblical reference; if the Balthazar is isolated it could more likely be that the author pulled it out of a baby book or telephone book. Sometimes the opposite happens: Fahrenheit 451, a novel about a society without books, has two characters named Montag (a paper manufacturer) and Faber (a pencil manufacturer). Bradbury swears it off as a coincidence! But how do we know for sure...?
Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:5)
Coincidence? Probably. You can find hidden meaning in anything, if you spend enough time looking for it. This post is no exception.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
Um, aren't we forgetting something here (Score:3)
C++ programmers do it with class.
Perl hackers do it quick and dirty.
Thus Spake Zarathustra was the real message (Score:3)
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:3)
A few other things in the movie about this.
1. The child travelling down the road to hell (the long hallway sceens on the tricycle)
2. Multiple murders in differnt time frames.
3. Pictures on the walls: Both having images of previous caretakers and in the end with the picture of Jack.
4. Many of the cut scenes in the end. Particularly the man in a yellow dog suit giving a blowjob. According to kubrick the dog was very symbolic but I think it coulda been cut and I never woulda known.
Just a little evidence that Krubrick was a crazy enough guy to do something like what the book is saying. After typeing all this out I still gotta agree that the bathroom tile thing is a little bit off.
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:3)
Every container of alcohol that appeared in the season when they were doing this was redone to make it symbollically linked to its role in the plot.
$ ln -s alcohol plot ;-)
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daed si luaP (Score:2)
1. The book is not based on the film. It was released later, but both projects were developed at the same time, with lots of cooperation between the two.
2. Kubrick was reading a lot of Jung at the time, so a lot of the shapes did matter... just not the ones that this reviewer seems to be focused on. The Pod looks like an egg because Bowen is soon to be "born" as the Star Child. (Hence, the stargate scene, which is essentially passage into the "womb".)
3. HAL was, by far, the most human personality on board the ship. This was to show that man had become more machine-like as machines began to seem more human.
4. Yes, the voyage was based somewhat on Homer's Oddessey. All I can say to that observation is, "duh!"
5. No Trojan Horses were anywhere to be found in the story. The astronauts were not Greeks trying to invate the Trojan moon... They were primates, mirroring the experience of the monkeys during the first chapter of the film: discovering the monolith (during a period of isolation and exile, brought about by conflict with another tribe... the monkeys were kicked out of the watering hole; the astronauts were quarentined in order to keep their project a secret from the Russians), not knowing what to make of it, and finally, deriving inspiration from it to move on to their next phase of evolution.
Nut job (No offense) (Score:2)
All good art, i.e., art that stands the test of time, has a large degree of ambiguity in it to allow for various forms of interpretation and meaning. That is part of what gives it value.
I think the book says more about the author than the subject. Boy is he deep and intelligent. I can't wait for his brainy analysis of Brittany Spears lyrics and how they are derived from Greek Philosophy AND quantum physics. You can PROVE this by rearranging the letters in the words to Baby Hit Me One More Time. It's soo obvious.....
Re:Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
On the other hand, I wonder what "Bluto" means. Why not "Brutus"?
Reading too much into stuff... (Score:2)
Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:3)
There, you can find this text:
The space voyage begins, and Dave Bowman - Zarathustra - becomes the central figure. Dave's colleague, Frank Poole, symbolizes the rope dancer (tightrope walker), a character in an important parable in Zarathustra. One clue to Poole's allegorical identity is that the last nine of the ten letters of [F]rank Poole are an anagrammatical rearrangement of the last nine of the ten letters of "[W]alk on rope"; another clue is that Frank, like the rope dancer, is killed by an entity symbolizing God who sneaks up behind him; a third clue is that Zarathustra (Bowman) picks up the rope dancer's (Poole's) body and later disposes of it. Next, Zarathustra and God clash, and Zarathustra kills God (Bowman shuts down Hal's brain). The words "Beyond the Infinite" flash on to the screen. You undoubtedly gave those words a spatial meaning, but Kubrick gives them a temporal meaning. "Beyond" means after, and "the infinite" is one of theologian Paul Tillich's names for God. "Beyond the infinite" means "after God " - after the death of God (Hal).
--
ACid [intersaint.org]
Huh? (Score:2)
Just one correction (Score:2)
2001 was mainly written by Arthur C Clarke, in conjunction with Kubrick when they decided to make "the proverbial good Sci Fi film".
The book was written at the same time as the screenplay (although as the film was developed, certain limitations meant some changes to the script which were not reflected in the book. For example, in the book, they visit Saturn not Jupiter, purely because Kubrick didn't feel his special effects team could make a convincing Saturn backdrop. As ACC hilself says later, he was glad that turned out to be the case because of Europa).
I wish people would get their facts straight and not go round claiming 2001 was Kubrick's story! It was a collaboration (sp?), with the main story coming from ACC.
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Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:2)
Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:2)
Actually, I think I heard something about "rank poole" itself having meaning, yah know, a stinky pool. Sorry, can't help you on this one.
A long tradition (Score:2)
Yes, the bathroom-tile man-machine argument sounds pretty 'out there'; however, there is a long tradition of books attempting to connect-up seemingly dispirate myths, legends, stories and poems. Taken in abstract, Robert Graves's [robertgraves.org] claim that the stories of Jesus and Hercules are different versions of the same myth, sounds mad. Perhaps it is, but Graves's justification takes a few hundred pages and is pretty convincing. By the time he goes into how theories of accretion can pollute oral narratives and the effect of the written-word in making particular versions of stories more canonical than others, he's made a point.
Fact is, Wheat wasn't the first nor will he be the last. Sir James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough' [bartleby.com], Joseph Campbell's 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces' [rain.org], etc, etc, etc, are all equally mad. But each of them is attempting to do something very human and touching: they are attempting to detect some order, sanity, ration and reason in an otherwise pretty random and chaotic world -- just as Kubrick was doing, just as Homer was doing...
NO MEAT, HUH? (Score:4)
This dude missed a few TMA-ONE interpretations:
NATO ME - the monolith is discovered in the Cold War posturing between the West and the Iron Curtain, and this is Kubrick's way of downing Communism
A MONTE - referring to a popular game show at the time, and that the monolith was at various times in the movie under a curtain marked number two, and behind a door marked number three
OAT MEN - Quaker paid Kubrick for subliminal advertizing
Check all the others here [wordsmith.org]
Argh. (Score:2)
kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:3)
And this never ended. The more people looked into it, the more strange shit came out. Some (me included) started speculating wether this all happened subconsciously for David Lynch. That maybe he didn't even know, but somehow he couldn't help adding twistedness to the script. And just like Mr. Lampe says here, I really got caught up in the looney evindence and lost perspective completely.
I guess that paterns and similarities are all over the place, you just gotta look hard enough. Just like adding the ASCII values of the letters in Bill Gates name [google.com] and it equals 666. It just doesn't prove anything.
-Kraft
Re:kinda Twin Peaksy (Score:2)
How to over extend yourself: (Score:2)
Reminds me of an anecdote from one of my critical theory classes: A prominent Folklorist designed a mathematical equation to determine whether folk-stories represented actual events or reflected mythological archetypes. A character in a folk story would "score points" for things like military prowess, greater than human stature, etc. It was a very complex equation, subtley and pains-takingly crafted.
Using this equation, it's been proven that Abraham Lincoln never existed historically, that in fact he was a mythological construct.
And then there's the Douglas Adams thing about the guy who proved that God ddin't exist . . . .
A big steaming heap of anagrams for "Frank Poole." (Score:2)
Your facts on the Illiad are right. Also, "ankle poor" reminds one of Oedipus, whose name after all translates as "swollen foot." (Although my greek isn't flawless.) "Frank Poole" yields many potentially meaningful anagrams:
Flop one ark: clearly refers to the potential danger to the ship in the movie
Freak'n' Polo!: Odysseus was noted for hating water-polo.
Porno Flake: Obviously refering to HAL's voyeuristic tendencies.
Lo! Fake porn!: Foreshadowing Kubrick's final movie.
OK elf apron: It was rumoured widely at the time that Santa Claus' elves were hired to work as gaffers and key grips for 2001.
No rape folk: The real reason all the scientists were locked up and frozen, to keep Dave from going buggy on their booties.
Lake of porn: the real reason the the obelisks were protecting Jupiters moon -- their grrrly magazines were hidden under its frozen surface.
I could keep going indefinately, but I've probably already made my point and made everybody who's read this permanantly dumber already. Might as well quit while we're ahead . . . .
Re:thats pretty strange to me.. (Score:2)
First, realise that the best artists, authors and musicians have no idea what they're doing...they are generally good readers who, at some point, decided to put words together in a way they found pleasant. Which, of course, means that any deep meaning or allegory you uncover is quite possibly something they didn't intend; Hemminway went to his death claiming it was "just a fish." But this isn't the point. The crucifix is just a log, and the Grateful Dead were just potheads, but you can't make these claims around the devoted -- they see great meaning in the relative works. And the field of dissertation known as deconstructionism says "hey, if you think it has meaning, and can prove it with a little basic association and logic, then it has meaning, and nuts to what the author had in mind." First year English majors, encountering some of the whacko theories regarding modern literature, are quick to say that this is a bunch of bullshit. But us old hat parties in the field of discourse are forced to wonder if there isn't more to it. Consider this: all literature exists in print, using words. But words are defined only in context of other words or concepts, and these concepts are interpretted differently by each viewer (read into Saussure for more on this great philosophy called "Syntamatics"). As such, any work only has meaning once it's been read, and that meaning is rather personal. Therefore, all these whacko theories are entirely valid -- but that doesn't mean you have to believe them.
And as for the anthropologists...only the charlatans you see on the Discovery channel, moving bodies about and uncovering tombs would be so quick to judge. Real anthroplogy is boring, scientific shit...it involves such activities as slowly documenting, drawing, photographing and examining using non destructive means every small, insignificant artifact at a dig. My girlfriend is excited if she found a doll's head tossed into a latrine a hundred years ago. It is this huge research entity (propelled by the fact that many states have regulations forbidding you to dig in certain areas without paying for an anthropological assessment first) that allow researchers of truly interesting finds to make assumptions. They're based on statistical analysis and comparison to what we know today...for example, a woman's hips grind into each other at a much higher rate when she is pregnant, and the grinding marks are different from those of a woman who carries a lot of weight or is just fat. Teeth are worn in different patterns depending on diets. Still, there is ocasional contention on the anthropological community about whether these assumptions are right, and many times these reassessments have brought about change. There are, for example, three major theories of the life of early man have been proposed, and there is evidence for each. One says that man got most of his food from hunting, and that women held an inferior role. Another holds that gathering was far more important and supplied the majority of sustenance, and that women supervised this activity (while men slumped about looking for stuff to kill). A third holds that both men and women were involved and that the activity was far less planned -- that humans were scavengers waiting for sick animals, stashes of really sweet berries and nuts, and waited for leftovers after another animal made a kill.
But though there is contention in these fields, they are not by any means worthy of the type of contempt you have for them...these are some of the greatest thinkers in the world, and they've made a lot of important advances in the attempt to make fields that were previously guesswork become much more concrete and ordered. They're trying to make legitimate fields into legitimate realms, so that naysayers won't consider them laughable for jumping over unnecesary logical steps. They've moved beyond P -> Q and Q -> R to P -> R...in much the same way that physicists no longer debate the validity of theories based on quantum mechanics solely on their statistical approach.
Re:Anagram for "rank poole"? (Score:2)
In 2001, Frank Pool was one of David Bowman's crewmates. HAL cuts Pools umbilical to Discovery while his is performing a space walk, and Bowman is unable to rescue him. At the risk of going out on a limb here, is the Discovery the "armor" that Bowman (Odysseus) inherits from Pool at the beginning of his long journey? I'm sure there's more here, but that's all I've got. I wish I remembered the movie better so I could draw more parallels.
Whoa there, let's get a grip. (Score:2)
Same thing here. If you try hard enough, you can find connections between just about anything. That proves nothing, however, beyond the creativity of the person coming up with the "connections".
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Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:2)
Cinefex 2001 Retrospective (Score:2)
I would say that the article in Cinefex pretty well debunks most of the symbolism that is being attributed to the movie. The special effects crew involved in the film recount how many of the "symbols" planted in the movie were accidents or experimentation. That Kubrick would not be involved in the creation of most of the effects elements except in a "I like it" or "I hate it" final approval.
For those interested in movie special effects this article is a goldmine. They invented techniques never before seen on the big screen for this movie. Computer displays and wireframe models before you could just whip it out in a few hours on a graphical workstation. Thousands of hours spend using a photographic animation stand to create the classic computer monitors on the Discovery. A technical description of how they created the stargate light show at the end of the film using a variation of time lapse photography.
Obviously 2001 has alagorical elements built into it, but lets not go overboard. Sometime a cigar is just a cigar [geocities.com] people.
People reading too much into it... again... (Score:3)
"So what are those claims? Alot of it makes good sense. For instance, Dave Bowman relates to Ulysses (a reknowned bowman in the myths)."
While I agree that there is a lot in common between A Space Odyssey and Homer's original (just look at the title!), I think this is taking it a little too far. If Clarke really wanted to do what this author is suggesting, why not call him "Dave Archer?"
"These letters, like the last nine in Frank Poole, can be rearranged to form an anagram. In this case, the anagram is "No Meat." A wooden horse has no meat on its skeletal framework."
Yeah, so? It also spells "toe man" and "no team" and "M... neato." Besides, the Trojan Horse had a lot of meat (in the form of the Greeks inside of it).
"But why the hexagons? Why not circles or squares or nothing?"
Because curved surfaces aren't justified, while using a cube would result in something that looks a little too much like a Tinker Toy.
"The rear-end hexagons are bathroom tiles! They symbolize bathrooms."
Exactly how far up his own ass did he have to reach to pull this one out? This makes those goat sex pics look tame in comparison!
"Hal-Discovery has three bathrooms, one for each mouth"
Um... how do you figure three? Is this "the new math?" And HAL is no more Discovery than Windows is my computer.
"It reminds us how good human minds, especially smart ones, are at finding patterns in crazy shit."
So, what you're saying is that this book is an example of how far computing needs to go before it catches up with human pattern-recognition skills?
"Wheat has the premise that Kubrick was so wicked smart that these long strings of meaning are not only possible, they are a sure thing."
Then perhaps he should sit down and write his next few books on "Dr. Strangelove," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Eyes Wide Shut." If Kubrik was half as smart as the author suggests, then he might be able to find the meaning of life in these movies.
"You also come away with the sense that Wheat is a pretty smart man himself."
Using big words makes you smart. Right. Or should I say "Utilizing unwieldy verbage demonstrates one's superior intellect?"
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:2)
Especially the sequence between when the tornado comes until Dorothy is transported to Oz (well actually the end of Money). Whew!
Incredibly cool.
--
"Fuck your mama."
Re:Coincidence? I think so.... (Score:3)
I would say universal meanings. Peter Norton was once "the man" but Symantec is not what it once was.
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"Fuck your mama."
That's evidence? (Score:3)
Spell out the figure '1' and you get TMA-ONE. These letters, like the last nine in Frank Poole, can be rearranged to form an anagram. In this case, the anagram is "No Meat." A wooden horse has no meat on its skeletal framework."
There's as much truth to that as your average psycic reading. One can make hundreds of true, but random statements about an object, such as a horse, and surely find that some of them are anagrams toward some related idea.
Firstly, there is no justification for spelling 1 as "One". 1 means 1, and if if Mr. Kubrik really meant "one", he should have spelled it out himself.
Secondly, the Trojan Horse was NOT a skeletal framework. I suppose its wooden walls could be viewed as "meat", in fact, but this is all just nonsense... The guy's a Quack.
2001 (Score:2)