2001: A Space Odyssey

I think it is fair to say that if you only know Arthur C. Clarke for one work, i would have to be 2001: A Space Odyssey. This started with a short story called The Sentinel, which Clarke wrote in 1948 and later published in 1951, making it a very early work of his, but parts of the film also drew on a story called Encounter in the Dawn (1953). But the completed work of 2001 started as a film, and was novelized by Clarke and Kubrick more or less alongside the screenplay, though Clarke was the only listed author. And the screenplay for the film was also a collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick. In 1972 Clarke published The Lost Worlds of 2001, which contains additional material such as the original text of The Sentinel, early versions of the screenplay, and material about how Clarke and Kubrick developed the project.

The story begins in Africa 3 million years ago, and this draws upon the story Encounter in the Dawn. A monolith stands there, amidst a group of hominids. The hominids develop tool using which enables them to kill animals for food. The novel is more explicit, but the film strongly hints that this development was brought about by the monolith. Then the hominids use the bone tools to kill a leopard that threatened them. Finally one hominid used the bone club to kill a rival.

Then the scene shifts to the near future of AD 1999. Dr. Heywood Floyd is traveling to the moon where another monolith has been discovered, and it has the precise dimensions of 1:4:9, which represent the squares of the first three integers, so it is believed to be of intelligent origin. And when the sun falls upon this monolith for the first time since it was uncovered it emits a piercing radio transmission. And this is a good place to discuss that the novel and the movie differ in some details. In the novel, the transmission is directed at a moon of Saturn, Iapetus, but in the movie it is directed at Jupiter. Not a huge difference. These minor differences do not affect the overall message of the piece. In either case, it is now clear that some alien intelligence created this monolith, and that it has some kind of base in the outer solar system. The next step is to mount a mission to go out there and see what it is. Astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, along with several other scientists in hibernation, are the crew of the ship. Then Frank Poole is killed, and Dave Bowman starts to suspect that the computer, a HAL 9000, is the cause of the problem. Many people have noted that HAL is just IBM shifted down by one space. Dave shut down HAL, then goes in to investigate. He is transported in some manner to another location in the universe and becomes the Star Child. Other details of this are different between the film and the novel.

The Film itself has been considered one the great science fiction films of all time. The film delivers a look at what we thought was a very plausible future. The Space Clipper that took Dr. Floyd to the Moon was operated by Pan Am, and airline at the time of the film which ceased to exist in 1991. The spinning space station from which Dr. Floyd for the Moon is exactly what scientists have projected because the spinning creates an artificial gravity, which is easier for most people to tolerate than the microgravity of the International Space Station. This approach to artificial gravity is replicated on the ship to Jupiter, but due to the smaller size it results in a very obvious curvature. Everything is exactly what a scientist or engineer would expect.

However, Clarke was not happy with some of the changes Kubrick made in the film, which is why he released Lost Worlds of 2001 in 1972. Still, I think Kubrick’s film is a masterpiece that every fan of science fiction should watch and enjoy

2010: Odyssey Two (1982)

In this sequel Clarke made a few changes to what he had said in the novel of 2001 to bring it into alignment with the film. The next available ship is the Soviet Ship Alexei Leonov, named of course for the Soviet Cosmonaut who was the first person to conduct a spacewalk. This ship carries a mixed crew of Americans and Russians, and includes the scientist who programmed HAL 9000. They set off for Jupiter, but then a Chinese craft races ahead. It is going so fast it cannot have fuel for the return, but it attempts to land on Europa to refuel, where it is wiped out by a life form. Dave Bowman reappears when the monolith around Jupiter opens briefly into being a Star Gate. Bowman is now a being of pure energy with no body, and he is being used by the alien Monolith builders to study Earth. Then he returns to the Jupiter system and tells Dr. Floyd that he must leave the Jupiter system within 15 days. Then the monolith orbiting Jupiter disappears. The Leonov makes ready to depart, but has to use the Discovery. the original ship of Bowman, to help it break orbit and leave. Bowman then goes to the Discovery, and has it broadcast a message to the humans telling them that the rest of the solar system is theirs, but they must leave Europa alone. The monolith builders have decided that the creatures on Europa have evolutionary promise. And then they ignite fusion on Jupiter, turning it into a mini-sun.

This novel was filmed in 1984 as 2010: The Year We Make Contact. While it is a nice enough film, I don’t regard it as anything remarkable.

2061: Odyssey Three (1987)

Things have changed in the 50 years since the previous novel. the new sun that Jupiter became is now called Lucifer, and it has made Io a volcanic hellhole, but Ganymede is now a temperate body that humans have colonized. A new drive involving muon-catalyzed fusion is opening up the possibility of interstellar voyages. And Europa and its inhabitants are thriving. On Earth, the Americans, Soviets, and Chinese are in relative peace, but a revolution in south Africa has caused all of the white Afrikaners to leave, but the Black population has used the revenue from the diamond mines to rebuild. Then a mountain appears on Europa, and looks like it is a huge diamond created when Jupiter ignited. Some of the Afrikaners want to get their hands on it as revenge since it would destroy the market for diamonds, and their ship crashes on Europa. The very old Dr. Floyd is still around and gets into this situation. A small monolith appears, and we learn it has copied Dr. Floyd’s mind into another pure energy being as a companion to Dave Bowman. Bowman then explains the Dr. Floyd that Lucifer (the former Jupiter) will stop burning in about a thousand years. And when that happens, the monolith builders will have a decision to make. Do they see more potential in the Europans, or in the humans? And it is not certain which way this will go.

3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

This starts with a prologue about the monolith builders. They were a race that considered “mind” to be the most precious thing in the universe, and built the monoliths to encourage the development of minds wherever they were. But it is implied that the race that built the monoliths has moved on and no longer is involved with them. But there is a Master Monolith, which appears to be located in a system 450 light years from Earth.

Meanwhile, the freeze-dried body of Frank Poole from the first Discovery mission is discovered and he is revived with superior technology of the 31st century. He is sent to visit Europa, where he visits the monolith there and converses with Dave Bowman, who has now merged the HAL 9000 mind that was rescued before Jupiter ignited and become the being Halman. Lucifer is indeed starting to dim, and this is a problem. The monoliths monitor what is going on, and report sent to the Monolith HQ which took 450 years to get there, then be considered, and a reply takes another 450 years to come back, is now due. And Bowman thinks it may be bad because what they witnessed at the time of the report was the wars of the 20th century. And sure enough, the reply that comes back says essentially “humans have failed, wipe them out.” Humanity needs a way to fight back, and they decide to use a computer virus to disrupt the monoliths. This does work, and the monoliths are brought down. But the human race and the Europans do develop relations.

At one time Ridley Scott was going to develop a series based on this novel for the SyFy channel, but like so many “in development” projects it seems to have disappeared.