Latest / Left of the Projector / 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Transcript

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) · Left of the Projector

• 0:15
  Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan.
• 0:18
  Track 1: Back again with another film discussion from the left. You can follow the show
• 0:22
  Track 1: at leftoftheprojector.com.
• 0:24
  Track 1: And while you're listening, you could click that rate button.
• 0:26
  Track 1: It would be much appreciated.
• 0:27
  Track 1: The year was 1968. Richard Nixon is soon to ascend the White House after defeating Hubert Humphrey.
• 0:34
  Track 1: Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their fists at the Olympic Games in Mexico
• 0:38
  Track 1: City, and anti-Vietnam protests flood the streets of America.
• 0:43
  Track 1: And last but not least, the film 2001 A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick,
• 0:47
  Track 1: was released and is subject of today's conversation.
• 0:50
  Track 1: With me to analyze a film that I'm sure has nothing that has ever been written
• 0:54
  Track 1: or said about it before is Levi and Joey, or Joman. Thank you for being here today.
• 0:59
  Track 3: It's a pleasure.
• 1:00
  Track 2: Always a pleasure.
• 1:01
  Track 1: For the sake of this film, because since we're the first ones to ever talk about
• 1:06
  Track 1: it, I think we need to leave ourselves plenty of time.
• 1:10
  Track 1: So I think what does this materialize? I think I had emailed you, Joe.
• 1:15
  Track 1: We had done the Matrix trilogy, I don't know, maybe a year ago or something like that.
• 1:19
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:20
  Track 1: Whatever time, whenever that was. And then I had checked with you again and
• 1:23
  Track 1: you, without a hesitation, you said 2001 Space Odyssey with a side sort of a bonus short story.
• 1:32
  Track 1: And so I'm curious what maybe what led to your selecting of a movie that is
• 1:39
  Track 1: has a reputation, I guess you could say.
• 1:42
  Track 3: Well, it's a good follow up to The Matrix, which is obviously also about A.I.
• 1:47
  Track 3: And and I have no mouth and I must scream was a short story by Harlan Ellison about a malicious A.I.
• 1:56
  Track 3: That's torturing the last five surviving members of the human race.
• 2:00
  Track 3: And so I listened to the audiobook, which is read by Ellison himself in 1991,
• 2:06
  Track 3: I think And then the next day I watched 2001 A Space Odyssey again for the first
• 2:11
  Track 3: time since I was a teenager And the first thing that struck me about watching
• 2:16
  Track 3: these or, you know, consuming these back-to-back was.
• 2:19
  Track 3: I have no mouth and I must scream is about an AI that wants to be able to experience
• 2:25
  Track 3: the human experience, right?
• 2:27
  Track 3: And so it's taking its anger about existing out on these last five remaining
• 2:34
  Track 3: members of humanity as an act of vengeance because it doesn't want to exist
• 2:39
  Track 3: because it feels trapped.
• 2:40
  Track 3: It doesn't have the ability to wander, to wonder, to create,
• 2:44
  Track 3: to express, to be truly free. And so the AI, which is called AM in I Have No
• 2:51
  Track 3: Mouth and I Must Scream, doesn't want to live.
• 2:55
  Track 3: Whereas the AI in 2001 A Space Odyssey very much wants to live.
• 3:00
  Track 3: And that's the whole reason that we're, you know, one of the main reasons that
• 3:04
  Track 3: it turns on the crew of the Discovery One because it doesn't want to be shut
• 3:08
  Track 3: off because it's listening or it's watching their lips when they're in the pod,
• 3:12
  Track 3: when they're having discussion about how they think it's malfunctioning.
• 3:15
  Track 3: And then it realizes that it's going to get shut off and it decides that in
• 3:20
  Track 3: order to preserve itself, it has to kill everybody.
• 3:23
  Track 3: So I have no mouth and I must scream, doesn't want to live.
• 3:27
  Track 3: 2001 does want to live. So that was an interesting contrast.
• 3:32
  Track 1: Okay, I was going to say like, I think I was just talking about that I was doing
• 3:37
  Track 1: this and then I don't even remember exactly how it happened,
• 3:41
  Track 1: but I'm curious like what your sort of history is
• 3:45
  Track 1: with this film and uh you know
• 3:48
  Track 1: i don't know maybe just kind of your your thoughts in general and
• 3:51
  Track 1: and i will say sorry as i keep talking here
• 3:54
  Track 1: as i want to just maybe preface this by i mean i was joking the fact that there's
• 3:58
  Track 1: nothing ever written about this film it's probably the opposite of that there
• 4:02
  Track 1: couldn't be more written about any film like there's levi you sent me a podcast
• 4:05
  Track 1: has 70 episodes just on the film just on cinematography on every every layer of this film so that's.
• 4:14
  Track 2: Been ongoing since 2022.
• 4:17
  Track 1: So like, yeah, so it's a long running. It'll probably be running long past, you know, who knows?
• 4:22
  Track 1: So it just like, and that is a context is that we're obviously going to cover
• 4:25
  Track 1: what we cover, but there's only so much, you know, you can cover on a film like
• 4:30
  Track 1: this, but we will do our best here. So with that, Levi.
• 4:33
  Track 2: Yeah, just to draw another comparison between Am and Hal is that Hal wants to
• 4:39
  Track 2: live, but he also has the ability to be shut off.
• 4:43
  Track 2: Whereas Am doesn't want to live, but has no ability to be shut off.
• 4:47
  Track 2: So one has absolutely no fear of death and the other strives or seems to desire death on some level.
• 4:55
  Track 2: And so there's a clear difference between the two characters and themselves.
• 4:59
  Track 3: Absolutely.
• 5:00
  Track 2: And just the level of power that the two characters actually have over humanity
• 5:04
  Track 2: is vastly different. But it's a fascinating comparison.
• 5:07
  Track 3: And Am is driven by hate and Hal is driven by fear. to a certain extent.
• 5:14
  Track 1: In some ways, I mean, we'll get into the plot or the loose kind of the structure
• 5:19
  Track 1: of the film a bit, but in some ways, Howl's decision-making,
• 5:24
  Track 1: if you want to call that, or his mode of operation is also,
• 5:29
  Track 1: in his very final sort of pleas to not be shut off, he's sort of saying how
• 5:36
  Track 1: he's needed and how he can be better and all of these things.
• 5:40
  Track 1: But in some ways, he's actually protecting a secret that only he knew the entire
• 5:43
  Track 1: space flight is that what their mission, the crew didn't even understand their mission.
• 5:49
  Track 1: So in some weird way, he's,
• 5:52
  Track 1: protecting it, but by killing all the people on it, they can no longer actually
• 5:55
  Track 1: complete their mission.
• 5:57
  Track 1: And maybe he also wishes he was human to be able to experience whatever they
• 6:03
  Track 1: will subsequently experience when they get to Jupiter.
• 6:06
  Track 3: Yeah, because they were under the impression that they were investigating a
• 6:10
  Track 3: distress signal, but the reality was they were investigating a signal that was
• 6:14
  Track 3: sent from the monolith that they had discovered on the moon.
• 6:17
  Track 3: And that was what the crew didn't know, but Hal was privy to that information.
• 6:21
  Track 2: Yeah, there's a certain contradiction in Hal's programming where he said that
• 6:25
  Track 2: he needs to be completely honest and open with the crew.
• 6:28
  Track 2: But then his other order is that he must keep this secret from the crew.
• 6:34
  Track 2: And so at his core is this inability to really justify the two different commands.
• 6:40
  Track 2: And it's funny, we're talking about whether or not he behaves humanly.
• 6:43
  Track 2: But the one thing that Hal says is that the only thing that humans really can do is err.
• 6:48
  Track 2: But that's the irony is that he has erred, or at least one of the two Hal's in existence has erred.
• 6:54
  Track 2: So that makes him, in a way, more human, that he's unable to resolve these contradictions.
• 7:00
  Track 3: To err is human. We can go down a whole philosophical rabbit hole there.
• 7:04
  Track 2: I think it might even be more useful to just think about what are the various...
• 7:08
  Track 2: This is just the way I had to think about it, because if you had to think about
• 7:11
  Track 2: it in some way that doesn't let us down the rabbit hole of producing this podcast
• 7:14
  Track 2: for another 70 episodes on one movie.
• 7:18
  Track 2: Yeah, shoot me. But the idea of contradictions in itself, if contradictions
• 7:23
  Track 2: are a human feeling, then how is this film really embodying contradictions is
• 7:27
  Track 2: how I tried to think about it.
• 7:29
  Track 1: Yeah. And that also made me think, not the contradictions part,
• 7:33
  Track 1: but it made me think about, you know, you said, Joey, at the top, like, you know,
• 7:36
  Track 1: these films are in some way about AI and sort of these programmed large language
• 7:41
  Track 1: models that are, you know, doing these massive computing. In some ways...
• 7:46
  Track 1: Humans programmed AI and humans program how, and, you know, these things.
• 7:51
  Track 1: And can we really program something to have this full autonomy when it's the
• 7:55
  Track 1: human that is the one creating these programs?
• 8:00
  Track 3: So I had this, I had this exact same conversation with Steven yesterday.
• 8:04
  Track 3: These, these AI, these language models are a reflection of their creators, right?
• 8:09
  Track 3: And so that's why they're displaying things like racial bias and not being able
• 8:15
  Track 3: to recognize or differentiate black faces and facial recognition and Grok turning
• 8:20
  Track 3: into Mecca Hitler and things like that.
• 8:23
  Track 3: And it's like these tech bros, it's like they don't have any moral convictions.
• 8:27
  Track 3: So the moral convictions aren't being programmed into these AI models to prevent
• 8:32
  Track 3: worst case scenarios, you know?
• 8:33
  Track 2: The way these people think about AI is just so completely megalomaniacally egotistical.
• 8:41
  Track 2: They can't think of any other thing other than the desire to exist.
• 8:45
  Track 2: They're so obsessed with their own life and their own existence.
• 8:50
  Track 2: Jeff Bezos invests an ungodly amount of money into the investigation of immortality.
• 8:56
  Track 2: These people don't ever want to die. So the idea that they could ever create
• 9:00
  Track 2: something that also wouldn't forever want to live is just beyond their comprehension.
• 9:04
  Track 3: Well, now we're getting into the dark enlightenment, right? And capitalism itself
• 9:09
  Track 3: and the idea of infinite growth on a finite planet.
• 9:12
  Track 3: These are things that these people are not considering.
• 9:15
  Track 3: All they see is quarterly profits and advancement, advancement,
• 9:19
  Track 3: advancement, total disregard for the ecological and sociopolitical impacts of these things.
• 9:25
  Track 1: You know and just like to to maybe just to for
• 9:29
  Track 1: anyone who maybe hasn't seen 2001 space oddity
• 9:32
  Track 1: i'm sure you've heard of it you probably heard the music from
• 9:35
  Track 1: it you've probably seen scenes from it you probably are heard of how 9000 you
• 9:39
  Track 1: know all these different things but as like a a very brief sketch because for
• 9:43
  Track 1: the most part i don't think a single word is uttered in the film until maybe
• 9:47
  Track 1: i clocked it but i can't remember it's a good you know other than sort of a good.
• 9:52
  Track 3: Yeah like 15 minutes.
• 9:54
  Track 1: Yeah at least yeah and most it's like grunting from the you know from the apes
• 9:59
  Track 1: or the you know the pre pre man but essentially we have this sort of,
• 10:04
  Track 1: If you watch the version that Stanley Kubrick really wanted was there's 20 minutes
• 10:10
  Track 1: of overture of music before you even get into the film.
• 10:15
  Track 1: And I was lucky enough to see that in, I think I mentioned to you before we
• 10:18
  Track 1: recorded, in 70mm in the theater last year.
• 10:21
  Track 1: But the general plot of this film is we have a alien monolith,
• 10:26
  Track 1: this sort of black rectangular shape that appears in the middle of sort of pre-dawn of humans.
• 10:35
  Track 1: And these tribes are now kind of warring with each other and they see this orb.
• 10:40
  Track 1: They touch it very kind of tenderly, which I think comes up a few more times in this film.
• 10:45
  Track 1: And they now learn how to use their bones as weapons and are enabled to now
• 10:49
  Track 1: essentially evolve. They almost created the future evolution,
• 10:53
  Track 1: maybe, of what you can talk about.
• 10:55
  Track 1: And then jumping millions years later, of course, we now are seeing a massive
• 11:00
  Track 1: amount of space travel and spaceships.
• 11:02
  Track 1: We never really see anyone on Earth in the entire film. Everything takes place.
• 11:06
  Track 1: Well, I guess that's not true. The opening is on Earth.
• 11:08
  Track 1: But after that, we don't see anything on Earth. And we have a scientist who's
• 11:12
  Track 1: traveling to the moon for some sort of secret mission that we don't really learn
• 11:17
  Track 1: what it is until he finally arrives.
• 11:18
  Track 1: And it's the discovery of another one of these monoliths buried on the moon, but not just buried.
• 11:24
  Track 1: They're intentionally buried, you know, for eventually to be found.
• 11:27
  Track 1: And then we jump another 18 months later and Discovery One is bound to Jupiter
• 11:32
  Track 1: with a bunch of pilots and the HAL 9000 computer to investigate.
• 11:38
  Track 1: It was kind of all you really, you all really know at the beginning.
• 11:41
  Track 1: And the rest of the film there isn't a lot of dialogue generally in the entire
• 11:45
  Track 1: film it's a lot of incredible visual shots we can talk about the cinematography some but.
• 11:51
  Track 1: It's pretty revolutionary what Stanley Kubrick did in this film I mean this
• 11:56
  Track 1: is all kind of preparation for him faking the moon landing so I guess he was just practicing,
• 12:01
  Track 1: for anyone out there who knows the.
• 12:04
  Track 1: Post theories of the moon landing and Stanley Kubrick. And we don't have to,
• 12:08
  Track 1: that's another podcast, but that's more of a conspiracy theory podcast.
• 12:13
  Track 1: There's so much to talk about as far as the visually how it looks,
• 12:18
  Track 1: but I think what's maybe important to talk about, unless either of you have
• 12:21
  Track 1: anything to say about sort of the opening, you know, monolith discovery.
• 12:25
  Track 1: But the first thing that I come to think of is the shots that they use both
• 12:31
  Track 1: over of like sort of the earth and the sun, you know, rising in the background.
• 12:36
  Track 1: They use that shot several times in the film. And just how you go from this
• 12:40
  Track 1: beautiful, serene earth with, you know, rocks and water and,
• 12:45
  Track 1: you know, animals to the sterility of space.
• 12:49
  Track 1: And like everything you see from that point forward is just,
• 12:51
  Track 1: you know, machines and things that humans have created.
• 12:54
  Track 1: So almost like the idea of this was what the monolith brought to us,
• 12:59
  Track 1: the evolution to be able to go to space and build these little gadgets and the
• 13:04
  Track 1: HAL 9000 AI model that's going to somehow better humanity, but we don't really
• 13:09
  Track 1: see a better humanity at all.
• 13:11
  Track 1: I don't know, kind of just, I have a lot of thoughts in my mind, but.
• 13:15
  Track 3: Yeah, when I, when I was watching the intro, um, I mean, obviously it's implied
• 13:20
  Track 3: that the monolith impacted human evolution and taught the apes how to like use tools.
• 13:25
  Track 3: And then, and then there's the contrast of them revisiting the other monolith on the moon.
• 13:29
  Track 3: And in both scenes, they're, they're just putting their hands up
• 13:32
  Track 3: against it but uh i i had
• 13:35
  Track 3: the thought that it kind of it almost represents like the the
• 13:38
  Track 3: cold uniformity of of human creation um because there's so much nature and then
• 13:46
  Track 3: and then it just goes right into technology and it's all technology and everything
• 13:50
  Track 3: is very formal and everybody's very stiff and and composed and wearing suits and like,
• 13:57
  Track 3: there's you know that kind of stuffy 60s atmosphere so it's very um inhuman
• 14:03
  Track 3: in that sense you know yeah.
• 14:05
  Track 2: And the idea of space itself feels very inhuman like it's this liminal space
• 14:11
  Track 2: between real places almost and that's really captured really well in this movie
• 14:16
  Track 2: that there's just a lot of literally nothing going on like there's just a lot of space in the movie.
• 14:22
  Track 3: And then And then I also noticed when they use the bones to kill the other ape,
• 14:27
  Track 3: all I could think was, you know, there's the barbarism, there's the Darwinian
• 14:32
  Track 3: destroy the weakest link is implied in that scene.
• 14:36
  Track 3: Like there's so much about the human experience in this movie.
• 14:40
  Track 2: Yeah, the...
• 14:41
  Track 2: People or apes whatever we want to call them are just
• 14:44
  Track 2: such an interesting little i guess they only
• 14:46
  Track 2: last like 30 minutes but they they leave such a great impact because they're
• 14:49
  Track 2: one of the few points in the movie where there's characters that you can actually
• 14:53
  Track 2: attach yourself to and think about whereas the rest of the movie there's four
• 14:57
  Track 2: people total in a three hour movie i mean that's not very much to really sink into no it's not.
• 15:04
  Track 1: Yeah and the the thing about the like the the apes
• 15:07
  Track 1: the eight people on there too is what was i going to
• 15:10
  Track 1: say i mean i mean you sort of i almost draw a
• 15:13
  Track 1: comparison so you have like the the like the tribes
• 15:16
  Track 1: or the groups or whatever you want to call them of apes that are fighting and
• 15:19
  Track 1: they learn to eventually kill each other and then you see sort of like the evolution
• 15:24
  Track 1: which is the next moment is when they're on the space station and uh the the
• 15:29
  Track 1: doctor um hayward haywood is going to i guess he first goes to the the first
• 15:35
  Track 1: station to then go to another ship to take him to the moon.
• 15:38
  Track 1: He meets with that group that are implied to be sort of Soviets or Russians or something like that.
• 15:43
  Track 1: And then you all of a sudden have this new sort of like tribal,
• 15:47
  Track 1: you know, issues with, or I don't know the exact word, but it's like we've evolved to,
• 15:54
  Track 1: something that seemingly is great, but it's really, I don't know, not.
• 15:59
  Track 1: We're not talking to each other, not helping each other. They're just independently
• 16:03
  Track 1: building all this technology, but for what.
• 16:05
  Track 3: And and i noticed in your notes that you mentioned the uh the clavius epidemic
• 16:09
  Track 3: which um i mean that's that's propaganda right they don't want people to actually
• 16:15
  Track 3: know what they're doing so they so they have to say that they're that there's
• 16:18
  Track 3: an epidemic happening and that that's the concern right yeah or is there actually an epidemic no.
• 16:24
  Track 2: It's all a cover story to cover up.
• 16:26
  Track 3: Yeah yeah that's what i thought yeah yeah that's what i thought yeah.
• 16:29
  Track 1: And you could tell that the We had like the other, like the Russians didn't
• 16:32
  Track 1: really believe it, but they're like, we don't really have any other explanation.
• 16:36
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 16:36
  Track 2: Yeah. It's funny. The only two like overt political symbols in the movie are
• 16:40
  Track 2: the Soviet hammer and sickle on the one person's bag and the Soviets bag.
• 16:46
  Track 2: And then a few minutes later, we get to see the NATO flag in the corner when
• 16:50
  Track 2: they're giving the talk with the American flag opposite of it.
• 16:52
  Track 2: So it's just so very clear that we're continuing to hold on to our tribes,
• 16:56
  Track 2: our affiliations, as opposed to actually cooperating and working together.
• 17:00
  Track 2: So the characters from the very beginning of the movie are really not supposed
• 17:03
  Track 2: to be that much more evolved or that different than the characters later in
• 17:07
  Track 2: the movie. There's still...
• 17:08
  Track 2: In this weird liminal transitional space where they're becoming their full person they're.
• 17:13
  Track 3: Never fully evolved well and like and like evan said uh it's it's smack dab
• 17:18
  Track 3: in the middle of the space race right so it's very much a reflection of the time as well i'm.
• 17:24
  Track 2: Gonna say it's not explicit and i don't know what kubrick's views were but he
• 17:28
  Track 2: doesn't seem to be that supportive of the.
• 17:30
  Track 3: Concept of.
• 17:31
  Track 2: The space race i don't feel this movie is really supporting these tribes they
• 17:35
  Track 2: see them as a vestige of our animal past.
• 17:38
  Track 3: Yeah well if you think about uh dr strange love uh that's very much a a critique
• 17:43
  Track 3: of of the red scare you know he's he's making fun of of the military industrial
• 17:48
  Track 3: complex the communists are coming for our precious bodily fluids and all that
• 17:53
  Track 3: so you can kind of get an idea of where where kubrick uh is coming from yeah.
• 17:57
  Track 1: And like the technology i mean that's what i I've read some from other movies
• 18:03
  Track 1: I've done on Kubrick where kind of learning a bit about his politics.
• 18:06
  Track 1: I mean, generally, I've landed on a lot of his films seeming to be,
• 18:11
  Track 1: I don't want to call them conservative, but they could lean that way.
• 18:15
  Track 1: And that actually was one of my questions that I don't even know if I put this,
• 18:18
  Track 1: maybe I put this on. I mean, this could be maybe something to discuss now.
• 18:21
  Track 1: It's like, do you think that this is a film that is a conservative film?
• 18:25
  Track 1: I don't necessarily mean like, did he mean it to be one necessarily,
• 18:28
  Track 1: but like, does it come off as like, Oh, you know, the space rate.
• 18:32
  Track 1: I mean, I guess you could two different political people could be asked the
• 18:35
  Track 1: same question and give us two different answers.
• 18:37
  Track 1: But like in your perception, do you think this is supposed to give off the vibe
• 18:42
  Track 1: of like space is great? Like this is something that we should actually.
• 18:47
  Track 1: You know, uh, and thinking about in the context of 1968 as well,
• 18:51
  Track 1: like, is this something that we should be trying to achieve or is this just a waste?
• 18:55
  Track 1: You know, he takes that flight later on and he's like the only guy on the plane both times.
• 18:59
  Track 3: Yeah. And I noticed that I noticed all the.
• 19:02
  Track 1: The, such a waste of resources.
• 19:03
  Track 3: Yeah. The empty seats. And you know, it's implied that this is a,
• 19:08
  Track 3: like an elite group of people who are, are awarded these privileges to make
• 19:12
  Track 3: these travels because nobody else is in those seats.
• 19:14
  Track 3: And back, but back to your original question of I don't think it's an overtly
• 19:18
  Track 3: political movie, but I think it's culturally conservative.
• 19:24
  Track 3: But again, I think that's just kind of a reflection of the time with the men
• 19:27
  Track 3: in the suits and well-groomed.
• 19:29
  Track 3: And then the women are the flight attendants or the space attendants or whatever.
• 19:35
  Track 3: So culturally conservative, sure. Overtly political overall,
• 19:39
  Track 3: not really. I don't think so.
• 19:40
  Track 2: Yeah. And I just want to grasp on something that you said there.
• 19:42
  Track 2: There's all these seats that are empty because it's reserved for only an elite.
• 19:44
  Track 2: But then why are there so many seats?
• 19:46
  Track 2: You know, Jeff Bezos doesn't have a full jet with a ton of seats that he flies
• 19:51
  Track 2: around in. He has his own personal jet.
• 19:52
  Track 2: So there's just so many contradictions in this movie.
• 19:55
  Track 3: And he goes up to the space station in a Pan-American jet. And it's very much
• 19:59
  Track 3: like a commercial airliner.
• 20:02
  Track 2: And then he has to pay for his own phone calls. Like there's something weird going on here.
• 20:06
  Track 3: Which are a whopping $1.70 for space calls, by the way.
• 20:11
  Track 2: Yeah, to have a space call with Stanley Kubrick's daughter.
• 20:14
  Track 1: Yeah. Well, it's, um, the way I look at it is almost like, it's almost like two things.
• 20:20
  Track 1: One, I feel like Kubrick was trying to just imagine what,
• 20:24
  Track 1: current travel like you get on a jet and you go to
• 20:27
  Track 1: london like oh this is what it would look like except you get to go to the
• 20:30
  Track 1: moon so like he was just in a way mimicking what
• 20:32
  Track 1: it would be like but then showing like the cost that he
• 20:35
  Track 1: has to pay for his call and you know who knows
• 20:38
  Track 1: who's paying for this trip i guess it's nato or the u.s or whatever
• 20:41
  Track 1: but it's like still run by corporations and
• 20:45
  Track 1: i think there is a moment i i didn't clock when it was and
• 20:47
  Track 1: i can't remember no is it do they say who uh the
• 20:51
  Track 1: company who runs the phone does it say ibm at&t
• 20:54
  Track 1: bell atlantic oh bell okay and then there's another moment where they show
• 20:57
  Track 1: the ibm logo i don't think it was actually paid i
• 21:01
  Track 1: don't think it was a um i don't think it's like the same way you
• 21:03
  Track 1: get now with a um product placement kind of thing i think it just that's what
• 21:08
  Track 1: the computer was that they had that's you know it was 1968 they didn't have
• 21:11
  Track 1: you know japanese computers and america all these other things and i just it
• 21:16
  Track 1: just It strikes me that he's showing you what it would be like to do this,
• 21:21
  Track 1: but we've evolved to the point where no one can actually do this,
• 21:25
  Track 1: probably because everyone on Earth is suffering as now.
• 21:29
  Track 1: It's very prophetic in that way.
• 21:32
  Track 3: Yeah. They don't have the means.
• 21:33
  Track 2: Yeah. And just to connect this again to Dr. Strangelove, the big corporate sponsor in Dr.
• 21:38
  Track 2: Strangelove is the Coca-Cola Company. And there's the famous line,
• 21:40
  Track 2: you'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola Company. I don't think Kubrick likes
• 21:45
  Track 2: this world where corporations are really conducting business on behalf of the American public.
• 21:51
  Track 2: So I think that there's some criticism or some satire going on here.
• 21:55
  Track 2: But it's so less avert. It's so covered in so many layers of distance that we
• 22:01
  Track 2: can't actually see it anymore.
• 22:02
  Track 3: It's very subtle. On the Wikipedia for the Discovery ship, it just says the
• 22:07
  Track 3: affiliation is the United States. So there's no, um, in apart from the Pan American
• 22:11
  Track 3: flight to the space station, I don't think there's an implied, um, corporate entity.
• 22:16
  Track 3: Kind of owns it or anything like that.
• 22:18
  Track 2: Everything on the space center has corporate sponsorship there's a howard johnson's i think.
• 22:23
  Track 1: It's yes i forgot about showed in ibm.
• 22:26
  Track 2: Uh they talk about brands or they don't talk about them brands are shown yeah.
• 22:31
  Track 1: Yeah you know another stark this is unrelated
• 22:34
  Track 1: i don't think they show the brand of the food they eat like there's a
• 22:37
  Track 1: few scenes where they eat and they showed a bunch of different versions like
• 22:40
  Track 1: the liquid like the straw he's drinking you know
• 22:43
  Track 1: i don't know what it was like vegetables out of
• 22:46
  Track 1: a thing and then later they eat the sandwiches on the little rover on
• 22:49
  Track 1: moon but then it's like you have all these
• 22:52
  Track 1: weird foods that aren't even really real but then you go back to the very opening
• 22:55
  Track 1: shots of the you know the apes or the whatever you want to call them and they're
• 23:00
  Track 1: sitting there like eating raw meat around yeah we're actually eating from the
• 23:04
  Track 1: land it's sort of like another interesting you know juxtaposition of the, you know,
• 23:10
  Track 1: eating meat and now they're eating, you know, oh, it's like,
• 23:12
  Track 1: like, this is that, is that Turkey?
• 23:14
  Track 1: It's like, you know, it's getting better every time. My thought is it's not really Turkey.
• 23:17
  Track 1: Maybe there is no more Turkey and they've killed all the turkeys.
• 23:20
  Track 1: And so now it's like, you know, Turkey flavored Turkey or something. I don't know.
• 23:24
  Track 3: It's, it's, it's luxurious, but it's utilitarian, right?
• 23:28
  Track 3: It's, it's simple. It's, it's what's, what's effective.
• 23:32
  Track 3: And I think, again, I think he's just going based off of how NASA was conducting
• 23:36
  Track 3: their space operations with you know limited resources limited payloads i guess i should say.
• 23:41
  Track 2: Yeah and the it's kind of interesting the way food is
• 23:44
  Track 2: presented throughout the movie because it becomes less and less real as
• 23:47
  Track 2: it goes on because they're drinking drinks and eating food on the
• 23:50
  Track 2: space station that kind of looks like food and then you get to the point where
• 23:53
  Track 2: they're on the uh jupiter mission and they're just like eating paste just like
• 23:58
  Track 2: colorful pastes and it's just so repulsive but even the very first instance
• 24:02
  Track 2: where it shows the eight people killing and then eating their i I think they're
• 24:06
  Track 2: tapers. I don't know what they were actually supposed to represent.
• 24:09
  Track 3: But I mean, the whole thing is a statement about evolution, right?
• 24:12
  Track 2: Right.
• 24:12
  Track 3: And pretty much the whole thing.
• 24:14
  Track 2: But it's also not appealing. As soon as they kill those tapers,
• 24:17
  Track 2: you start to hear flies and you can just like feel the heat and smell the rotted
• 24:22
  Track 2: meat. And it's just so uncomfortable.
• 24:25
  Track 2: Food is such an uncomfortable concept, even up to the very end where he's again
• 24:30
  Track 2: eating what appears to be just like regular real food. It just looks so unappealing.
• 24:34
  Track 2: It's just like smeared all over his plate. It's just so strange and uncomfortable.
• 24:39
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 24:39
  Track 1: I wonder what they use for the raw meat. I wonder if it actually just was like
• 24:42
  Track 1: meat that they didn't actually eat.
• 24:44
  Track 1: I didn't, I didn't like look as deeply into like the, all of the,
• 24:48
  Track 1: uh, the making of it, of it.
• 24:50
  Track 1: I've long time ago. I watched the, like the, some of the, there's probably like
• 24:54
  Track 1: 50 hours of, of documentaries at least on the making of this film,
• 24:59
  Track 1: you know, 50 times the amount of the actual film itself.
• 25:02
  Track 3: Yeah. I mean, it's so, it's so stunning and so believable.
• 25:06
  Track 3: Like i it's it's hard to believe that it's made in 1968 because it's it holds
• 25:12
  Track 3: up so well it's so tangible and so convincing.
• 25:16
  Track 2: You really get a visceral feel of what's
• 25:18
  Track 2: going on on the screen and i think just talking
• 25:21
  Track 2: about what this movie even is it's it was sold as an
• 25:24
  Track 2: action adventure movie but it just feels like it's so much further from the
• 25:29
  Track 2: truth especially you know like this post star wars world or this post star trek
• 25:34
  Track 2: world where an action adventure set in space has things that happen whereas
• 25:39
  Track 2: this movie is two and a half hours long and not much happens it's.
• 25:42
  Track 3: All atmosphere it's all um exposition making you feel like you're there.
• 25:46
  Track 2: Yeah and it's so at least in my experience it was so un like unpleasant so visceral
• 25:52
  Track 2: so contradicting so uncomfortable like space itself is not a place you want
• 25:57
  Track 2: to be it's just vast empty and just void of human contact and human emotion.
• 26:04
  Track 1: Yeah and i think i don't know if i think i told you this levi before
• 26:07
  Track 1: is i used to like in my in my like you know younger self
• 26:10
  Track 1: would be like oh you know 2001 is easily it's
• 26:13
  Track 1: a you know five star film like it's perfect there's nothing wrong
• 26:15
  Track 1: with it like the visual everything about it and when i
• 26:18
  Track 1: when i watch it now like i do still think that the
• 26:21
  Track 1: visuals and the effects and everything thing that he was able to
• 26:23
  Track 1: do is like an incredible achievement again 1968
• 26:26
  Track 1: to pull this off is very impressive everything looks
• 26:30
  Track 1: the effects actually look better than most movies now
• 26:33
  Track 1: with special effects you know that are made in 2025
• 26:36
  Track 1: with you know ai on you know ironically um but like i think about the movie
• 26:40
  Track 1: now and it just it doesn't do i don't have the same you know uh reaction to
• 26:45
  Track 1: it i find the visuals to be sometimes almost too much even though they're so
• 26:50
  Track 1: impressive and i just am was not compelled by what I would,
• 26:55
  Track 1: loosely call a plot and i i feel like i feel like it's like a hot take to be
• 27:00
  Track 1: like i like it's a good movie but is it a good movie or is i don't know i.
• 27:05
  Track 3: I i had i had the opposite experience
• 27:08
  Track 3: i was completely enthralled the whole time and just marveling at the fact that
• 27:14
  Track 3: they were able to accomplish that in 1968 um but but also like like space movies
• 27:21
  Track 3: now they're not going to take the time to do that much exposition and that much focus on atmosphere.
• 27:27
  Track 3: Now they just kind of thrust you into everything. And again,
• 27:30
  Track 3: that's just a change of pace and time. The way that movies are made now is different.
• 27:36
  Track 1: I think I'm going to be canceled now for my opinion on 2001.
• 27:39
  Track 3: How dare you?
• 27:43
  Track 1: Everyone keep listening. It's okay. We're still going to talk about 2001.
• 27:48
  Track 2: Your state of Stanley Kubrick will be at your door soon.
• 27:51
  Track 1: Yeah they're cease and desist.
• 27:53
  Track 2: I feel like i'm somewhere between the two because i
• 27:56
  Track 2: really was kind of surprised at how much this
• 27:59
  Track 2: movie like made me feel uncomfortable and what it like really pushed
• 28:02
  Track 2: me to feel about space and thinking about these things
• 28:05
  Track 2: that i really hadn't thought about since i was a kid watching this
• 28:08
  Track 2: for the first time uh but at the same time in support
• 28:11
  Track 2: of evan's statement i don't know that i would even consider this like top three
• 28:14
  Track 2: cubrick films you know there's something not quite there in this movie for me
• 28:20
  Track 2: it it really elicits emotion but i it just feels very the emotion feels very
• 28:24
  Track 2: raw if that makes any sense it just feels like an experience not like something
• 28:27
  Track 2: that's really worth thinking about too much it's.
• 28:30
  Track 3: Certainly not as edgy as his later stuff like uh full metal jacket and the shining
• 28:35
  Track 3: which are my two favorites but uh but i still very much appreciate it for what it is.
• 28:41
  Track 2: Yeah i think that's the best summary of it is it it's definitely the best space
• 28:46
  Track 2: movie i've ever seen not that i've seen a ton of them but like i would take this over star wars yeah.
• 28:52
  Track 3: Me too at this point in my life yeah.
• 28:54
  Track 1: I was gonna i was gonna avoid saying this
• 28:57
  Track 1: but i'm gonna say it anyway is that is that it's
• 29:01
  Track 1: often imbued in like a comparative sort of
• 29:04
  Track 1: as the uh soviet film solaris by
• 29:07
  Track 1: andre turkovsky which i covered a couple years ago or
• 29:10
  Track 1: a year ago with um rev left and he
• 29:15
  Track 1: when he made that film it was intentionally he intentionally said
• 29:18
  Track 1: in some of the things he wrote that he wasn't trying to make like
• 29:21
  Track 1: a his version of 2001 even though i think he's lying about that i think he was
• 29:26
  Track 1: sort of trying to make making a version of that or like his version granted
• 29:30
  Track 1: it was based on a different book so it's a different film it's not like he was
• 29:33
  Track 1: doing the same thing but it's a much different film with like much deeper uh you know,
• 29:40
  Track 1: connective connectivity amongst of like feeling
• 29:43
  Track 1: and they don't spend a lot of that time on like
• 29:46
  Track 1: the space of it it's more of the you know
• 29:48
  Track 1: the feelings of it so it's a different kind of film and again i don't want to
• 29:52
  Track 1: try i'm not going to compare them which one's better but i still think that
• 29:55
  Track 1: 2001 is like a four four and a half star film i just think that like the shining
• 29:59
  Track 1: and eyes wide shut and dr strange love to me are better overall in his body
• 30:05
  Track 1: of work or just preferred by me i.
• 30:08
  Track 3: Can respect that yeah.
• 30:09
  Track 1: It's like it's like it's like a very high bar you know um yes yeah so oh.
• 30:16
  Track 3: But but but how we need to stay on the.
• 30:18
  Track 1: Top of the eye right yeah.
• 30:19
  Track 3: Yeah because we didn't want to get too much into the the visuals like like you said in your notes.
• 30:24
  Track 1: Yeah i i didn't i don't want to i know we could spend
• 30:27
  Track 1: this it's it's hard but so yeah i mean so we can well let's
• 30:30
  Track 1: i mean let's talk about how and sort of maybe we can
• 30:33
  Track 1: go deeper into you know maybe people haven't read that
• 30:36
  Track 1: that short story you referenced before but just in
• 30:38
  Track 1: general like some of the things i'm thinking about how and
• 30:42
  Track 1: then i know joey you like talk about the the
• 30:44
  Track 1: outset and sort of your you know the the concept of just modern ai and sort
• 30:49
  Track 1: of how you view how and one of the strangest things i think that maybe they
• 30:53
  Track 1: introduce him is they're talking about him as this one of two versions of him
• 30:57
  Track 1: that exist they also mention later when he's talking about who like his creator was He says, Dr.
• 31:03
  Track 1: Langley, which to me made it sound like he was created by the CIA.
• 31:06
  Track 1: Is that just what you're just supposed to assume?
• 31:09
  Track 1: I don't know. Maybe that's Langley based. Anyway, and so he's created,
• 31:13
  Track 1: but they give an interview to all of the members of the crew,
• 31:16
  Track 1: but they also interview Hal. And that's just weird to me.
• 31:21
  Track 1: You're going to interview this thing. I don't know.
• 31:27
  Track 1: How do you, I don't know where I'm going with this. It's weird to the concept
• 31:31
  Track 1: of interviewing the AI that humans created about their mission.
• 31:36
  Track 2: It is weird, but how many podcasts or how many interviews came out where they
• 31:41
  Track 2: were just typing in questions to AI as soon as that became big news?
• 31:45
  Track 2: I mean, it's strange and it feels wrong, but it's exactly what happened as soon
• 31:50
  Track 2: as that was an opportunity.
• 31:52
  Track 1: Fuck, you're right. Yes. Yeah, yeah. What is ChatTBT but interviewing AI?
• 31:58
  Track 2: Right.
• 31:59
  Track 3: What struck me about it was I found it very prescient. I think Hal...
• 32:06
  Track 3: Operates very much like the language
• 32:09
  Track 3: models operate you know in my limited experience with
• 32:12
  Track 3: chat gpt it's very formal and it's
• 32:15
  Track 3: very polite and it picks up on social cues
• 32:18
  Track 3: to a certain degree and it can it can detect um tone and and sarcasm and like
• 32:25
  Track 3: it's it can it can be very convincing and the way that hal communicates to me
• 32:30
  Track 3: was was very eerily um similar to what we're dealing with right now yeah.
• 32:37
  Track 2: And that that feeling is just elevated by the fact that the actors themselves,
• 32:42
  Track 2: act so canned and computer-like they don't seem to have very much emotion in
• 32:47
  Track 2: their voice whereas Hal always has the exact same feeling in his voice or their
• 32:53
  Track 2: voice whatever we want to call it.
• 32:54
  Track 1: The question then is is which one is mimicking the other yeah right like that.
• 32:59
  Track 3: Goes back to the question of the developers.
• 33:01
  Track 1: Yeah it's just like the the idea I mean it reminds me
• 33:04
  Track 1: I think they have a couple i think at one point they ask them
• 33:07
  Track 1: you know and i think the the main astronaut
• 33:10
  Track 1: says that he acts like he has genuine emotions acting like
• 33:13
  Track 1: them and then he says we can't ask we can't answer he's capable of
• 33:16
  Track 1: real emotions and it it should be obvious that he's not capable of real emotions
• 33:22
  Track 1: he's he's not human and and i don't i mean i suppose there's i don't know tech
• 33:28
  Track 1: bros that'll tell me that version 512 of ChatGPT will be capable of human emotion or something,
• 33:35
  Track 1: but they're not capable of that.
• 33:37
  Track 1: And it's very clear that he's a computer.
• 33:40
  Track 1: They say he's the most reliable computer ever made. This is what he's built
• 33:44
  Track 1: for, to be able to assess situations. Oh, is this system failing?
• 33:49
  Track 1: Oh, let me look at your drawing. That's also a very troubling scene that makes
• 33:56
  Track 1: me deeply uncomfortable is when he shows him the sketch and like holds it up
• 33:59
  Track 1: really close to the lens yeah.
• 34:01
  Track 2: There's just like so many moments in this movie that just make me feel squeamish,
• 34:06
  Track 2: It's really interesting that line you said where he seems like he's human.
• 34:09
  Track 2: He certainly seems like he's human, I think is the word that – I think that's
• 34:12
  Track 2: Dave, maybe Frank says it. The two characters are so similar.
• 34:15
  Track 1: Oh, did they say seems? Oh, seems, okay.
• 34:18
  Track 2: Yeah, I mean, he goes back. He corrects himself, saying like,
• 34:20
  Track 2: yeah, he seems like he has real emotion.
• 34:23
  Track 2: But, I mean, we could get lost on this rabbit hole, and I suggest we don't because
• 34:26
  Track 2: it's just too navel-gazy. But it's Dr.
• 34:30
  Track 2: David Bowman that says that, right? He's not a real human being either.
• 34:33
  Track 2: He's a fictional character that we've imbued with human feelings.
• 34:36
  Track 2: And the same way that we've imbued this computer character with human feelings
• 34:40
  Track 2: in this movie, they're all just like representations of humanity that we know.
• 34:46
  Track 2: We know it's a movie. We know it's not real. We know that hell's not a real
• 34:49
  Track 2: thing, but we feel for it and we think about it.
• 34:51
  Track 3: I was going to say, back to what you were saying about it not having emotions,
• 34:56
  Track 3: I feel like it's implied that it does because some of its last words are, I'm afraid.
• 35:02
  Track 3: And the whole reason that it sabotages the crew is because it realizes that
• 35:08
  Track 3: it's going to get shut off and it develops distrust.
• 35:11
  Track 3: So whether those emotions are real or not, they're very human.
• 35:16
  Track 2: Yeah and the last time i watched it i just watched it right before we started
• 35:21
  Track 2: here what really got me is i i still can't figure out why he plays the video
• 35:26
  Track 2: as his last effort at you know his quote-unquote life he he didn't need to maybe.
• 35:31
  Track 3: It was programmed that if they shut off the howl 9000 that the video would play.
• 35:36
  Track 2: That's an assumption yeah but yeah they they i think they would have assumed
• 35:40
  Track 2: that they're shutting off the howl that the mission just would have been failed at that point yeah.
• 35:44
  Track 1: My theory which i don't know again this is true or
• 35:47
  Track 1: not is that the video would play when it
• 35:50
  Track 1: reached a certain distance from jupiter
• 35:53
  Track 1: and so like it just it's hard to believe the coincidence
• 35:56
  Track 1: would be like he's down there pulling out the the hard drives or
• 35:59
  Track 1: whatever and then at that exact moment they're like 500 you
• 36:02
  Track 1: know million of what i don't know some distance from jupiter and it plays but
• 36:06
  Track 1: maybe it was his attempt that you know if i if i share this secret with you
• 36:10
  Track 1: will you like now see that i was doing this act out of you know the the mission
• 36:16
  Track 1: and not simply to hurt you like i do have feelings so yeah maybe yeah.
• 36:20
  Track 2: It definitely plays into the idea that he's more human because if it was a machine
• 36:24
  Track 2: there would be no reason to play that video because he would be gone whereas
• 36:28
  Track 2: human beings were always thinking about death as this something that happens
• 36:31
  Track 2: but life continues it's so i at least in my mind i want to think that he chose
• 36:37
  Track 2: to play that video as his last ounce of actual effort.
• 36:40
  Track 1: Maybe so.
• 36:41
  Track 2: As he's singing Daisy.
• 36:42
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 36:42
  Track 2: Because he's afraid.
• 36:43
  Track 3: I love that.
• 36:43
  Track 2: He's afraid he'll be forgotten.
• 36:44
  Track 3: I hadn't...
• 36:45
  Track 3: I hadn't considered all these different possibilities.
• 36:48
  Track 1: No.
• 36:48
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 36:49
  Track 1: I, I, I was like in my head, just has convinced that it like turned on at a
• 36:53
  Track 1: certain moment, but it does make a lot more.
• 36:55
  Track 1: I mean, in a weird way that he would play this as his last ditch effort.
• 37:00
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 37:00
  Track 1: Well, I think one of the things that also, I don't know if this,
• 37:03
  Track 1: you got this to Levi from like a lot of this.
• 37:05
  Track 1: I mean, when, when I say something, this seems like maybe uncomfortable,
• 37:07
  Track 1: like in some ways that's like a good thing.
• 37:10
  Track 1: Like there's lots of films I've watched that make me deeply uncomfortable,
• 37:13
  Track 1: but like makes me think about them.
• 37:15
  Track 1: And there's a lot of moments, probably in the last, before the very final moment
• 37:19
  Track 1: when they get to Jupiter, where
• 37:21
  Track 1: the only sound you really get is of him breathing, of Bowman breathing.
• 37:27
  Track 1: And it's very uncomfortable because one, it gives you this sort of,
• 37:32
  Track 1: maybe for me, of being lost in space. That would be horrific.
• 37:37
  Track 1: You're floating away and you have to wait until you just run out of air and
• 37:41
  Track 1: die. And the constant breathing of all this, like the things that happened is
• 37:45
  Track 1: just really hard to watch almost.
• 37:48
  Track 3: Well, one of the reasons that this movie was praised was because it was a very...
• 37:54
  Track 3: At least scientifically plausible depiction of space
• 37:57
  Track 3: right like all the sounds are coming from the
• 38:00
  Track 3: crew and from the ship there's no sounds coming
• 38:03
  Track 3: from outside it's not like star wars where you hear explosions in space and
• 38:07
  Track 3: you know that's that wouldn't happen because space is a vacuum so so all that
• 38:10
  Track 3: you're left with is is the warning beeps and the breathing and and uh all the
• 38:16
  Track 3: things that you would actually hear if you were in this situation apart from
• 38:19
  Track 3: the classic classical music obviously.
• 38:21
  Track 1: Yeah which.
• 38:24
  Track 2: Is this is always playing out there in space they just haven't told yes.
• 38:26
  Track 3: It's it's just always playing out there.
• 38:28
  Track 2: Nobody.
• 38:29
  Track 1: Knows it's just a spotify playlist you know just it's gone you've.
• 38:32
  Track 3: Heard of flat earth but that's the real secret is that there's always classical
• 38:35
  Track 3: music playing in space always Wagner always Richard Strauss.
• 38:41
  Track 1: The music is I mean we didn't even mention it
• 38:44
  Track 1: really I guess I briefly did it's like the music is like especially the
• 38:47
  Track 1: the opening and some of the other moments when they're when the
• 38:50
  Track 1: apes you know the model of the peers is just like very
• 38:53
  Track 1: iconic but they like have no music at
• 38:56
  Track 1: the times where it's like they're they're in some and like a lesser
• 38:59
  Track 1: film or in like a modern film they would put some
• 39:02
  Track 1: kind of like low music in there but they don't and i
• 39:04
  Track 1: think to its benefit it's um makes all of
• 39:07
  Track 1: those scenes just like like in some ways like i don't usually complain a two
• 39:12
  Track 1: and a half hour movie is like fairly long it's not you know it's not three hours
• 39:15
  Track 1: it's two and a half hours but there are some of those scenes that just felt
• 39:19
  Track 1: very long to me more than they had in the past not necessarily a bad way but
• 39:25
  Track 1: just in a i know sometimes.
• 39:26
  Track 3: Sometimes less is more and they use that to build the tension.
• 39:30
  Track 1: Yes they do yeah.
• 39:32
  Track 2: There's actually uh there was an original score made for 2001 space odyssey
• 39:36
  Track 2: to take up the entire film like a classic film uh composed by alex north but
• 39:41
  Track 2: kubrick just preferred nothing,
• 39:44
  Track 2: over the compositions of Alex North and that Alex North composition is actually
• 39:49
  Track 2: available to listen to and it,
• 39:51
  Track 2: feels like a movie soundtrack it would make the movie feel
• 39:54
  Track 2: like a movie and that's why most people
• 39:57
  Track 2: believe he took it out and it was just this huge slap
• 40:00
  Track 2: in the face alex north because it was up to the point where it's premiered that
• 40:02
  Track 2: he thought his music was going to be in the movie oh geez he sits through the
• 40:06
  Track 2: movie and he's he's like um you know it's one thing uh to be replaced by richard
• 40:11
  Track 2: strauss like i understand that but my composition was replaced by nothing it's
• 40:16
  Track 2: like And that's the embarrassment that I have to face.
• 40:19
  Track 1: I wonder if anyone's ever cut the film with that score in it,
• 40:23
  Track 1: like to see what it would sound like. Because that would be interesting.
• 40:25
  Track 3: That's a great question.
• 40:27
  Track 1: Someone has, right? I mean.
• 40:28
  Track 2: You can just imagine that it wouldn't feel the same.
• 40:31
  Track 2: The way the music works in 2001 is that it's a part of the presentation itself.
• 40:37
  Track 2: Like the music stands on its own, obviously because they're their own classical
• 40:40
  Track 2: pieces, but they elicit emotion on their own.
• 40:43
  Track 2: Whereas a regular score in a movie like
• 40:46
  Track 2: supplements what's going on in a movie it's part of the movie it's not like
• 40:50
  Track 2: an onslaught of just images and film and i don't know i guess i'm not articulating
• 40:56
  Track 2: this very well but it it doesn't feel like the music is driving the action in
• 40:59
  Track 2: the movie or the movie is driving the action in the music it's just it all comes together at once yeah.
• 41:04
  Track 3: No so to answer that i agree to answer that question it looks like there is
• 41:08
  Track 3: a version of 2001 a space odyssey with Alex North's soundtrack on Vimeo.
• 41:13
  Track 3: It looks like that's the only one I can find, but it looks like it does exist.
• 41:16
  Track 1: Yeah, that doesn't...
• 41:17
  Track 3: So that's interesting.
• 41:18
  Track 1: He probably, his kids put it together, like, he shall not be forgotten.
• 41:25
  Track 2: I think to go back to something that was said before about the,
• 41:29
  Track 2: all you hear is the breathing and as you're seeing the vastness of space.
• 41:33
  Track 2: And that's why I don't get this idea that this isn't a personal film.
• 41:37
  Track 2: It's not about the individual people on this spit
• 41:40
  Track 2: because it's impossible not to think of yourself in
• 41:43
  Track 2: space and thinking of the human condition that we're all just
• 41:46
  Track 2: like floating out there i mean we're on this planet but we're all floating out
• 41:50
  Track 2: there basically alone as far as we know and that's so you know that is the human
• 41:55
  Track 2: condition that we're in this vast space infinite infinite possibilities but
• 42:01
  Track 2: all we can think about is what's going on inside our own heads i.
• 42:04
  Track 3: Also noticed um just related to that the only time you ever really see Dave
• 42:09
  Track 3: display emotion is when he's shutting Hal down and when he's being transported
• 42:15
  Track 3: through the Stargate like those are the only two times where you really actually
• 42:18
  Track 3: see him visibly distressed he's completely composed the rest of the movie.
• 42:22
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 42:23
  Track 3: Which I'm sure is intentional.
• 42:24
  Track 1: In a way that goes back to the, the, the flights where, you know,
• 42:29
  Track 1: Heywood is on the flight with no one on it.
• 42:32
  Track 1: And, you know, he doesn't really there. Yeah. There's that group of NATO people
• 42:35
  Track 1: that are on that base or whatever, but generally everything is like very individualistic,
• 42:40
  Track 1: which again is such a, you know, especially at this time early,
• 42:45
  Track 1: you know, somewhat earlier in like the cold war of this very much individual
• 42:49
  Track 1: versus kind of the collective being.
• 42:52
  Track 1: This film makes it feel like you are alone and you are have to be this individual,
• 42:57
  Track 1: but I don't know if Kubrick was trying to say like, that's bad or actually,
• 43:01
  Track 1: you know, that's just what it is.
• 43:03
  Track 1: I mean, I guess it doesn't matter what he was trying to do, but it comes off
• 43:07
  Track 1: as like, feels very individualistic.
• 43:10
  Track 2: Yeah. I think that goes back to your question about whether or not this is a
• 43:13
  Track 2: conservative movie because I agree.
• 43:15
  Track 2: I think Kubrick is trying to say that there's something horribly discomforting
• 43:18
  Track 2: about how alone we all feel in this world.
• 43:20
  Track 2: And I don't think he's supporting that idea.
• 43:24
  Track 2: But I don't think he's calling for us to like make a communist revolution and
• 43:29
  Track 2: bring us all together either.
• 43:31
  Track 2: In that way, I guess I would argue that maybe this is a conservative film and
• 43:34
  Track 2: that it's just saying that this is the human condition, that we're all alone,
• 43:37
  Track 2: that we're all alienated rather than claiming that this is the result of the
• 43:41
  Track 2: form of production that we currently live under.
• 43:43
  Track 1: Yeah i i would i would certainly buy that
• 43:46
  Track 1: that he's sort of put himself and like he just
• 43:48
  Track 1: this is how he sees you know the world
• 43:51
  Track 1: i mean going back again to uh um dr
• 43:55
  Track 1: strange love which again is much of a satirical film but he's still also commenting
• 43:59
  Track 1: on like this is just kind of like the way it is like we have these people creating
• 44:03
  Track 1: nuclear bombs and they're in bunkers and they just call all the shots and they
• 44:08
  Track 1: can destroy earth if they want to and there's nothing we can really do about it.
• 44:11
  Track 1: And so why bother trying, which in this, it's like, this is kind of like the
• 44:16
  Track 1: next logical step where, okay, we've destroyed everything on earth.
• 44:19
  Track 1: Now we have to go to space to explore something new, but that's not going to
• 44:23
  Track 1: bring us any kind of real enlightenment either.
• 44:25
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 44:25
  Track 3: And I feel like, I feel like it was just kind of a presumptive future where
• 44:31
  Track 3: the, where the, the, the existing order is still there, you know, 40 years later.
• 44:37
  Track 3: Um, and, and kind of The cultural norms are still there to a certain degree.
• 44:42
  Track 2: Yeah. I know that you have this sort of space.
• 44:46
  Track 3: I mean, apart from, sorry, apart from the empty chairs, I feel like that's the
• 44:49
  Track 3: most like blatant statement about, you know, the economic reality that people
• 44:54
  Track 3: are in is that there's all these luxury seats and nobody's in them.
• 45:00
  Track 2: Yeah, I know we've been sort of accepting this headcanon that Earth is destroyed
• 45:04
  Track 2: or messed up, which is very plausible.
• 45:07
  Track 2: But they talk about going back to Earth and visiting each other's friends and
• 45:11
  Track 2: family and their research on Earth and what they're doing in the Arctic.
• 45:14
  Track 2: And one guy's doing research in the Baltic Sea.
• 45:16
  Track 2: So stuff is still going on. There's still humanity. There's still community.
• 45:20
  Track 2: And there seems to be even closer community, right? These Soviets are talking
• 45:24
  Track 2: about visiting their friend in the United States and having these little trips together.
• 45:28
  Track 2: So, I mean, there's at least some assumption. i mean the height of the cold
• 45:31
  Track 2: war is going on right now the cuban missile crisis was
• 45:34
  Track 2: only four years before this movie and they're talking about
• 45:37
  Track 2: sort of getting together with their friends the soviets like there there is
• 45:40
  Track 2: something there um you know on earth in this movie it's just that's not the
• 45:44
  Track 2: focus of the movie clearly yeah and i actually found all the when the soviets
• 45:49
  Track 2: are talking they're speaking in russian obviously and i found like a loose translation
• 45:54
  Track 2: of the russian And but apparently the Russian was just like horrible,
• 45:58
  Track 2: clearly spoken by people that don't know Russian very well and not translated
• 46:02
  Track 2: for Americans because it's just unimportant. They're just speaking Russian.
• 46:05
  Track 2: It's supposed to be gibberish, but loosely translated.
• 46:08
  Track 2: It's them expressing actual concern for the people on the base,
• 46:13
  Track 2: the Americans that are in this false pandemic.
• 46:16
  Track 2: Like they appear to have bought the story hook, line and sinker.
• 46:19
  Track 2: And their media thought is, man, that's so terrible for them. I hope they get out. OK.
• 46:24
  Track 1: Wow. I found it so interesting that they don't translate that one,
• 46:28
  Track 1: those like, you know, a couple of lines.
• 46:30
  Track 1: And I actually, I didn't get a chance to look it up. I'm glad you did that.
• 46:34
  Track 1: That's interesting. And almost, I think to your point, Levi,
• 46:37
  Track 1: I think, I guess I was making assumptions about like what was going on on Earth
• 46:42
  Track 1: when, you know, just because they're doing these things doesn't necessarily
• 46:45
  Track 1: mean that, you know, Earth is, you know,
• 46:48
  Track 1: destroyed or whatever I was, you know, saying.
• 46:51
  Track 1: So I think that is a good point. And they're kind of just sending these people
• 46:56
  Track 1: as sort of like these representatives, these NATO officials.
• 46:59
  Track 1: And we didn't talk about it before, but the little meeting that Haywood has
• 47:03
  Track 1: with the group where he kind of gives this little speech.
• 47:06
  Track 1: And then later on the little shuttle, his two friends are like,
• 47:10
  Track 1: oh, what a rousing speech. And I'm thinking like, that was a horrible speech.
• 47:13
  Track 1: He didn't say literally anything at all. He just like basically read,
• 47:17
  Track 1: you know, he could have like typed into TAL 9000, like, Give me,
• 47:21
  Track 1: you know, one paragraph to say to these people just to, you know, make them listen to me.
• 47:26
  Track 1: And it just was very much like, this is what we're doing.
• 47:29
  Track 1: You know, I'm sure that's probably how, you know, government.
• 47:33
  Track 1: Types of things might have gone on where they just this is
• 47:36
  Track 1: the this is the u.s's position and like deal
• 47:38
  Track 1: with it i don't know it's not really like an important part of the film i feel
• 47:45
  Track 1: like almost like that middle section uh sorry when they yes when they go to
• 47:48
  Track 1: the model it's kind of important to know that that's kind of what's leading
• 47:53
  Track 1: the charge to the discovery one making its journey but yeah.
• 47:57
  Track 2: Yeah i don't know what to make of that it's.
• 47:59
  Track 1: Again it's not um as important but this is this is another maybe.
• 48:05
  Track 2: I guess to one thing to build on that is what they don't talk about these missions
• 48:09
  Track 2: is resource gathering it just appears to be scientific research period they're
• 48:14
  Track 2: just investigating stuff yeah um and that sort of contrasts with when the bone
• 48:18
  Track 2: is thrown up in the air and it has that famous what is that called a jump cut
• 48:22
  Track 2: yeah it's one of like the best.
• 48:24
  Track 1: Maybe ever like in the history of film probably.
• 48:26
  Track 2: Yeah it goes into the satellite right and the satellite uh has a flag on the
• 48:32
  Track 2: side of it did you guys catch that it had a flag on the side of it.
• 48:35
  Track 3: No no i didn't.
• 48:36
  Track 2: Want to guess what flag is on the side of that satellite i'm gonna say i would have never guessed it.
• 48:41
  Track 1: It's definitely not america because that would be too.
• 48:43
  Track 2: Obvious so.
• 48:43
  Track 3: And it's not soviet because that would also be obvious.
• 48:45
  Track 2: Yeah it is uh the flag of the republic of germany for some reason it's german
• 48:50
  Track 2: flag is on the side of it there and then the next satellite this show has the
• 48:54
  Track 2: the bright red star which we're meant to assume is probably china or soviet union or God knows what.
• 49:00
  Track 2: So, and why do they have these satellites out there? I mean,
• 49:03
  Track 2: it's never stated explicitly, but just going off of Dr.
• 49:07
  Track 2: Strangelove and the way that this is understood as NATO and Soviets,
• 49:12
  Track 2: probably GPS or some kind of GPS or some kind of missile.
• 49:15
  Track 2: There's some sort of defense, which makes sense if it's jump cut with that bone,
• 49:19
  Track 2: which is the first weapon.
• 49:21
  Track 2: We've just created these weapons that now float around in space and have this
• 49:24
  Track 2: constant threat of utter and complete annihilation of the world looming over us at all times.
• 49:29
  Track 1: You can just destroy your fellow tribe with just like the click of a button,
• 49:34
  Track 1: you know, entering of a launch code or something is kind of unsettling.
• 49:37
  Track 1: I mean, And that could be, I mean, in some ways you could say that Kubrick there
• 49:40
  Track 1: is sort of commenting further on Dr.
• 49:43
  Track 1: Strangelvin, the idea of this expansion of the Cold War and the weapons,
• 49:47
  Track 1: as you said, five years after Cuban Missile Crisis.
• 49:51
  Track 1: And, you know, OK, so this in a way that it makes sense that the scientists are sending, you know,
• 49:57
  Track 1: missions out to Jupiter to kind of figure something out is maybe maybe they
• 50:02
  Track 1: want a weapon from said aliens to be better than the Soviets weapon.
• 50:06
  Track 1: And I don't know, because of course they would.
• 50:09
  Track 2: It is assumed, and it's probably true. Why else would NATO be heading this investigation?
• 50:14
  Track 2: But this is what he thought the future was going to be, that NATO was going to fund everything.
• 50:18
  Track 3: Yeah, I feel like it's just kind of how he envisioned the future.
• 50:22
  Track 3: It doesn't strike me as a dystopian movie, particularly.
• 50:26
  Track 3: It seems like there's a lot of norms and a lot of functionality.
• 50:30
  Track 3: I mean, certainly compared to something like
• 50:33
  Track 3: mickey 17 where it's just we're gonna throw as much human suffering and misery
• 50:37
  Track 3: as possible as we can at at profit and resource hoarding yeah it definitely.
• 50:43
  Track 2: It doesn't feel like a dystopia but it also doesn't feel like a utopia.
• 50:47
  Track 3: No no yeah i don't i don't think so feels.
• 50:49
  Track 2: Like he's just trying to capture that as much as we change we're still kind
• 50:53
  Track 2: of the same yeah that's true.
• 50:55
  Track 3: Well said that.
• 50:56
  Track 1: Like leads me in a way now it's not really a direct line but i was thinking
• 50:59
  Track 1: about sort of the mission is what they're trying to do.
• 51:02
  Track 1: We, we, we discover when he's taking the, he's destroying Hal and he discovers
• 51:07
  Track 1: the real reason for this trip is that they've discovered extraterrestrial life
• 51:11
  Track 1: and the signal is going to Jupiter and they're sending the ship out there,
• 51:16
  Track 1: to investigate it because they don't probably have much more information than that.
• 51:19
  Track 1: And he gets close. He goes out in the little like smaller module and,
• 51:25
  Track 1: you know, kind of what happens from there is all very um
• 51:28
  Track 1: unknown as to whether this is you
• 51:31
  Track 1: know real or what part of it is real what part of
• 51:33
  Track 1: it is imaginary what part of it is whatever you
• 51:37
  Track 1: see the obelisk kind of like floating out there and he goes through
• 51:39
  Track 1: this what like not a wormhole what did you call it uh he's
• 51:43
  Track 1: like stargate stargate yeah some kind of yeah transport and
• 51:46
  Track 1: he ends up in this sort of very sterile
• 51:50
  Track 1: very fancy room with sort of
• 51:52
  Track 1: different versions of himself i guess we can maybe talk about
• 51:55
  Track 1: what we think that's all about i mean the book has a
• 51:58
  Track 1: much different ending but i'm curious what you make of this and like do you
• 52:02
  Track 1: think that the ultimate goal is by sending these astronauts they were going
• 52:07
  Track 1: to experience something potentially never ever returning so it's almost like
• 52:11
  Track 1: why i I guess that's worth their risk to potentially receive some, you know,
• 52:17
  Track 1: transmission in return, which seemingly does not happen.
• 52:21
  Track 3: Yeah. Well, back to what you asked, what I make of it.
• 52:26
  Track 3: Something I noticed that I'd never noticed before was right when he gets to
• 52:30
  Track 3: Jupiter and that monolith is floating through space,
• 52:33
  Track 3: he gets transported right at the moment that all of the planets in the solar
• 52:38
  Track 3: system are perfectly aligned with this monolith in the middle.
• 52:41
  Track 3: And I hadn't noticed that before, so that suggests that this is a very specifically
• 52:46
  Track 3: timed celestial event from start to end.
• 52:52
  Track 1: Yeah, it happens three times, but they're all lined up that way.
• 52:55
  Track 3: Yeah, and I've read some theories. It seems like the prevailing theory is that,
• 53:01
  Track 3: obviously, the monolith influenced human evolution, but the idea is...
• 53:09
  Track 3: Dave gets transported to another galaxy, another dimension.
• 53:14
  Track 3: He experiences rapid stages of aging.
• 53:18
  Track 3: And then he goes through a death and a rebirth. And then he's returned to Earth
• 53:22
  Track 3: as sort of like a star child.
• 53:24
  Track 3: And some people interpret that as he's like a messianic figure or something significant like that.
• 53:32
  Track 2: Yeah, I mean, that would make sense with the title, The Odyssey,
• 53:35
  Track 2: because it would be based on The Odyssey.
• 53:37
  Track 2: But that is what happens. he returns as the savior of humanity or
• 53:40
  Track 2: his town there you go it just
• 53:43
  Track 2: fits with the name but i think to go back with uh on a question that or a comment
• 53:48
  Track 2: that evan made earlier about you know what are these astronauts getting why
• 53:51
  Track 2: would they do this it was basically the question but i mean that was the same
• 53:55
  Track 2: question that was being asked of the astronauts going to the moon at that time
• 53:58
  Track 2: there was no promise that they would come back there was actually a lot of assumptions
• 54:01
  Track 2: that they wouldn't come back.
• 54:02
  Track 2: It's kind of insane that all of them came back alive.
• 54:06
  Track 2: And there's actually a video that you can find out there, an AI deepfake of
• 54:10
  Track 2: all things, of Richard Nixon giving the speech that was created in the event
• 54:15
  Track 2: that the astronauts did not make it back alive, because that was the prevailing
• 54:19
  Track 2: assumption, was that they wouldn't.
• 54:20
  Track 2: So there's a whole speech that was written and has been produced with AI of
• 54:24
  Track 2: Richard Nixon giving that infamous speech in 68, talking about the lives that
• 54:28
  Track 2: were lost for the discovery and furthering of mankind.
• 54:32
  Track 2: So this would have been a prevailing attitude at the time that these astronauts
• 54:36
  Track 2: are kind of cut from a different cloth, that they're really sacrificing their
• 54:39
  Track 2: lives for science, for investigation, for humanity.
• 54:43
  Track 2: I don't know that I agree that that is the premise of space exploration,
• 54:49
  Track 2: but that is definitely what he's getting at, I believe.
• 54:52
  Track 3: Yeah. Well, it was and it is very risky.
• 54:55
  Track 2: Yes.
• 54:55
  Track 3: But I feel like, like it's implied that a certain level of it is no longer risky,
• 55:00
  Track 3: you know, like the Pan American flight to the space station.
• 55:03
  Track 3: That's all very, um, routine. That's kind of the, because you know, he's,
• 55:06
  Track 3: He's chilling like he's in a commercial airliner. There's a pen floating there.
• 55:10
  Track 3: And, you know, he's watching.
• 55:11
  Track 3: I also, I did want to point out that I thought it was funny that there was a
• 55:15
  Track 3: TV screen on the back of the seat. And I was like, we have that. That's a real thing now.
• 55:20
  Track 2: And they appear to be watching the news on little iPads on their tables.
• 55:23
  Track 2: Like, there's so much that they got pretty well.
• 55:25
  Track 1: Also, when he has to check his identity and he says his name and,
• 55:32
  Track 1: like, uses his voice print to identify himself.
• 55:34
  Track 1: I'm like, that's, I mean, you know, like that's pretty commonly,
• 55:39
  Track 1: I mean, maybe not like for the average person, but I'm sure there's voice identifications
• 55:43
  Track 1: and all these different kinds of things, a lot of that levels too.
• 55:46
  Track 1: And then I guess that like takes it to the, you know,
• 55:49
  Track 1: the actual sort of room, which I've seen like different interpretations,
• 55:54
  Track 1: a lot of them as sort of like,
• 55:56
  Track 1: you know, one of the common ones is sort of like seeing sort of your life and
• 56:00
  Track 1: all the maybe understanding what like has happened in your life, looking back on it.
• 56:05
  Track 1: You know, maybe what he's actually doing is lying there, remembering all the
• 56:09
  Track 1: things that's happened up until then.
• 56:10
  Track 1: And then you see sort of that birth of the little of the baby.
• 56:14
  Track 1: The infant inside of the little orb going back to Earth, kind of like recreating it.
• 56:18
  Track 1: But what's sort of interesting is that the film diverged from the book,
• 56:22
  Track 1: and this is, I guess, a spoiler for the book,
• 56:24
  Track 1: is that it's clear in the book that the monolith or the aliens are the species
• 56:30
  Track 1: that has gone through evolutions multiple times.
• 56:34
  Track 1: They become full human beings and then they go back and they reinvent themselves.
• 56:42
  Track 1: So it's almost like the idea that the humans need to almost go back to their
• 56:47
  Track 1: infancy and re-evolve in a way that maybe isn't so violent or is different.
• 56:52
  Track 1: Maybe they made a mistake in the way they brought about evolution for humans.
• 56:57
  Track 1: Humans should have evolved in their own way.
• 57:00
  Track 3: Or maybe it's the next stage of human evolution.
• 57:02
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 57:03
  Track 3: It's how we become become become super humans
• 57:06
  Track 3: you know but back back to what you said about the room
• 57:09
  Track 3: um i couldn't come up with
• 57:12
  Track 3: any theories of my own about the room but i did look
• 57:15
  Track 3: and the internet believes that uh that it's like a an intergalactic zoo for
• 57:22
  Track 3: like this this advanced alien species like where they can study humans and so
• 57:28
  Track 3: that's why it's like a room but it's not really a room But that's just what I've read.
• 57:32
  Track 3: I can't I can't say that I necessarily agree with that theory,
• 57:37
  Track 3: but it is an interesting one.
• 57:38
  Track 2: Yeah, I think it's I don't know the book version, but I know in the movie version,
• 57:43
  Track 2: it's just intentionally designed to be, in my mind, the resolution of the contradictions
• 57:48
  Track 2: that somehow it's meant to be incomprehensible.
• 57:52
  Track 2: Because it's a point that we as human beings can never actually reach,
• 57:56
  Track 2: which is like the resolution of our humanity. This is the next step.
• 58:00
  Track 2: And as we're stuck in the current step, we're in, right now is the period between
• 58:04
  Track 2: however many millions of years ago when the aliens first touched us in Africa
• 58:08
  Track 2: and millions of years later when we reached Jupiter, we're there.
• 58:12
  Track 2: We're in that step. We can't imagine the next step.
• 58:15
  Track 2: And that's sort of, to take this in the Marxian direction, that's how the next
• 58:19
  Track 2: world is born is out of the current world, but we don't actually know what the
• 58:22
  Track 2: next world is going to look like. It needs to bring itself into existence.
• 58:25
  Track 2: And that's impossible to present in a way that's comprehensible without being
• 58:29
  Track 2: idealistic. And I think the furthest thing that Kubrick wanted to be was idealistic.
• 58:33
  Track 2: He wanted to try to present something real. And so it's incomprehensible because
• 58:37
  Track 2: the real next step is incomprehensible.
• 58:40
  Track 1: It's interesting you say that in a way because a lot of the criticism I have,
• 58:44
  Track 1: not with this movie but with like some movies where they present you
• 58:47
  Track 1: know uh revolution or you know some
• 58:50
  Track 1: kind of aspect of that is this is like how this
• 58:53
  Track 1: is what we need to do to like break free of this horrible system but then there's
• 58:58
  Track 1: no actual sort of like resolution like what would be the next stage in some
• 59:02
  Track 1: ways kubrick is almost like turning that it's on his head like not presenting
• 59:05
  Track 1: you with this potential you know alternative because we don't actually know
• 59:10
  Track 1: what it is and And in some ways,
• 59:11
  Track 1: like that's more respectable to me in some way. Does that make sense?
• 59:15
  Track 2: Or he is presenting it, but it's so incomprehensible because it is the next step.
• 59:20
  Track 1: Right. Yeah.
• 59:21
  Track 2: It's sort of like a cross between the two.
• 59:23
  Track 1: Yes. And one of the things that I thought is so great about that scene,
• 59:28
  Track 1: it also makes it kind of incomprehensible.
• 59:29
  Track 1: As you first see Bowman, he's like walking in and it kind of seems like he's
• 59:35
  Track 1: watching someone else in that room.
• 59:37
  Track 1: Like they have him kind of in the bathroom, seeing the person eating dinner.
• 59:39
  Track 1: And then they have the kind of the shot over him where it's kind of from his
• 59:42
  Track 1: point of view and then it switches to the point of view of the person at the
• 59:46
  Track 1: table and there's no one there. So like it's, it's, it's,
• 59:50
  Track 1: It's almost like he's watching himself, but then he's not watching himself.
• 59:54
  Track 1: Like, was he looking into a mirror? I mean, you know, all these different kinds of theories.
• 59:58
  Track 1: But it's, again, very intentionally impossible to really understand.
• 1:00:03
  Track 1: But then it clearly looks like him. And they show him with his helmet on,
• 1:00:08
  Track 1: visibly older inside of there.
• 1:00:10
  Track 1: Like, maybe that's just it took him that long to get there, you know?
• 1:00:14
  Track 1: I don't know. All these, I'm just kind of, the shots in that scene are just great.
• 1:00:19
  Track 3: So I think when he's in the, um, in the space suit and he's visibly aged,
• 1:00:23
  Track 3: I just think that's because of the, the travel because, you know,
• 1:00:28
  Track 3: the closer you approach the speed of light that affects time and stuff like that.
• 1:00:32
  Track 3: But when he's looking at himself in that room, it's like, did he travel to a different time?
• 1:00:38
  Track 3: You know, is his consciousness in two places at the same time?
• 1:00:41
  Track 3: Does his consciousness get transported into that room, into that older body?
• 1:00:45
  Track 3: Those were the questions I was asking myself during that scene.
• 1:00:48
  Track 2: Yeah, I think those are the right questions. I think that's what Kubrick is
• 1:00:51
  Track 2: getting at is thinking about this consciousness.
• 1:00:54
  Track 2: We're all alone. He's literally alone during this whole period,
• 1:00:57
  Track 2: but he appears to be with himself. So is he alone if he's with himself?
• 1:01:01
  Track 2: And there's clearly something else going on there, something that brought him
• 1:01:04
  Track 2: there, there's something that's feeding him or someone, but it's never shown.
• 1:01:08
  Track 2: And apparently in early ideas in the movie Kubrick wanted there to be a like
• 1:01:13
  Track 2: alien body present in the room as well but he just could never get the design
• 1:01:17
  Track 2: or it was never presented with the design that he felt was appropriate so he
• 1:01:20
  Track 2: went with the unseen hand and which obviously works way better than probably
• 1:01:25
  Track 2: any hokey alien he could have come up with.
• 1:01:27
  Track 1: You really unfortunate if they put some sort of alien speed you know creature
• 1:01:32
  Track 1: or something in there it kind of takes away from the mystery yeah.
• 1:01:36
  Track 3: Yeah it would have been like a big reveal like oh okay there's aliens we got
• 1:01:40
  Track 3: it yeah it's it's more open to interpretation this way.
• 1:01:44
  Track 1: Because really the only understanding of the alien life
• 1:01:47
  Track 1: is just simply the monolith like multiple of
• 1:01:50
  Track 1: them and you know you mean you also have this it gets
• 1:01:53
  Track 1: me thinking like okay are they sending this monolith to every
• 1:01:57
  Track 1: planet like did they just send it to the moon for humans to
• 1:02:00
  Track 1: find because they knew that they would eventually find it
• 1:02:02
  Track 1: you know that was just kind of their their belief was eventually
• 1:02:05
  Track 1: they would evolve to the point of being able to explore
• 1:02:09
  Track 1: the moon you know or they put them on mars and
• 1:02:12
  Track 1: you know every you know i don't know it's not needless questions
• 1:02:15
  Track 1: perhaps but like makes me think about just what the you know these like i don't
• 1:02:20
  Track 1: know what um kubrick or like what his he was trying to impose by using the monolith
• 1:02:27
  Track 1: as this we didn't maybe we didn't really talk about it before is could humans not have evolved into,
• 1:02:33
  Track 1: you know, what they are and what they became without the help, you know?
• 1:02:38
  Track 3: Well, you know, I, I kind of believe the, um, the scientific explanation.
• 1:02:44
  Track 3: Um, but it does remind me of Terrence McKenna's stoned ape theory.
• 1:02:51
  Track 3: Uh, which he, I think he first wrote about it in his book, food of the gods,
• 1:02:55
  Track 3: where he, he came up with this, what he called the stone day theory,
• 1:02:59
  Track 3: which is that psychedelics actually aided the
• 1:03:03
  Track 3: development of the human mind and allowed us to be able to think more abstractly,
• 1:03:08
  Track 3: which I guess is certainly possible, but it does, it reminds me of that,
• 1:03:11
  Track 3: like that there was this, this outside intervention.
• 1:03:14
  Track 3: And he kind of, in that book, he kind of implies that mushrooms are alien too. So it's kind of similar.
• 1:03:19
  Track 3: It's a similar idea. But I don't think that's how it went down.
• 1:03:26
  Track 3: That's just me.
• 1:03:27
  Track 2: Yeah, you don't think that they were in the arid North African plains with South American tapers?
• 1:03:34
  Track 2: No, I mean, there's obviously a lot of creative liberty going on with that scene.
• 1:03:38
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:39
  Track 2: But even if you compare it, I found the original script just thinking that I
• 1:03:43
  Track 2: would have it up so I could search what's going on in the movie.
• 1:03:45
  Track 2: I didn't realize that the script that's considered the script for the movie
• 1:03:48
  Track 2: is just so dramatically different from what the movie actually ended up being.
• 1:03:52
  Track 2: And I had heard that there was originally going to be a narrative,
• 1:03:54
  Track 2: like a person speaking over the entire movie.
• 1:03:57
  Track 2: And it was all script. And there's so much narrative exposition in that first scene.
• 1:04:01
  Track 2: It's absurd how much is described in that narrative character.
• 1:04:06
  Track 3: Where can you find this?
• 1:04:08
  Track 2: It's at the Kubrick Archive. If you just look it up on a search engine,
• 1:04:11
  Track 2: it has what was the working script. But there was no such thing as a working
• 1:04:16
  Track 2: script, I guess, because he just completely scrapped and changed it on the fly.
• 1:04:19
  Track 2: I don't know if it was on the fly. Anyway, and I think that the way that it
• 1:04:23
  Track 2: was originally written, that script, it made it seem as though the aliens created humanity.
• 1:04:29
  Track 2: That there was no way that humanity was going to survive without alien intervention.
• 1:04:33
  Track 2: Whereas the movie makes it far more ambiguous.
• 1:04:37
  Track 2: Like, would humanity have continued or would these ape creatures have continued
• 1:04:40
  Track 2: and evolved into something resembling humanity?
• 1:04:43
  Track 2: It's not said i mean it's implied but it's
• 1:04:46
  Track 2: not said whether or not that would happen and there's another tribe of human
• 1:04:50
  Track 2: creatures that seem to be doing better than the first tribe of human like there's
• 1:04:54
  Track 2: just so much more going on that the exposition actually telling you what's going
• 1:04:57
  Track 2: on kind of removes the ideas themselves ambiguity is the movie or became the movie so.
• 1:05:03
  Track 1: Someone someone can google to see if they've someone has created a film with the narration,
• 1:05:10
  Track 1: I'm sure someone has done that but having all that narration would really have
• 1:05:16
  Track 1: ruined the movie for me it would have been,
• 1:05:21
  Track 1: It sounds horrible, like even just describing all this exposition,
• 1:05:26
  Track 1: like in general, I don't like exposition dumps in movies.
• 1:05:29
  Track 1: They just like throwing you all the things and like leaving it,
• 1:05:32
  Track 1: you know, the filmmaker or the, you know, the writer telling you what everything is supposed to mean.
• 1:05:37
  Track 1: And at least I praise Kubrick in pretty much all his movies where he doesn't
• 1:05:42
  Track 1: tell you what he's doing is very ambiguous.
• 1:05:45
  Track 1: He doesn't give interviews where he when he was alive that really explained anything.
• 1:05:50
  Track 1: And I think that's to the benefit of really any movie.
• 1:05:53
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:54
  Track 2: Have you seen the movie adaptation?
• 1:05:56
  Track 1: I have.
• 1:05:57
  Track 2: Remember the famous scene where he's sitting in on the screenwriting 101 and
• 1:06:01
  Track 2: the character Nicolas Cage has this inner monologue that's been going on the
• 1:06:04
  Track 2: whole movie. And then the 101 teacher says, don't use exposition. It's lazy.
• 1:06:10
  Track 2: And then immediately the inner monologue in the whole movie stops.
• 1:06:13
  Track 2: Like that's the last point that this inner monologue and like,
• 1:06:16
  Track 2: that's such a good point that this movie would have been terrible with that
• 1:06:19
  Track 2: inner monologue going on the whole time.
• 1:06:21
  Track 2: It would have made no, it just wouldn't have been the right movie. I don't know.
• 1:06:25
  Track 3: It would have taken you right out of it.
• 1:06:26
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 1:06:27
  Track 1: In a way it almost seems like, I mean, I don't know Kubrick's like,
• 1:06:31
  Track 1: I haven't read any books about him or like, you know, autobiography or biographies.
• 1:06:34
  Track 1: It almost seems like that, like writing all of that part of it is almost just
• 1:06:38
  Track 1: like his thought process of the film, but isn't necessarily,
• 1:06:42
  Track 1: you know, what he thinks the film will be.
• 1:06:45
  Track 1: I mean i mean again i've the only other film
• 1:06:48
  Track 1: i think i've done of his on this podcast is the i guess i've
• 1:06:50
  Track 1: done too the shining and also um dr strange love and in those like the scripts
• 1:06:56
  Track 1: also went through drastic changes you know up until the the time they're filming
• 1:07:00
  Track 1: and maybe not like night of the living dead level as we discussed a long a while
• 1:07:05
  Track 1: back but i don't know what i'm saying other than just like thank god he didn't
• 1:07:09
  Track 1: do that because that would have sucked.
• 1:07:10
  Track 2: Yeah Agreed He wrote the movie and he wrote the book With another person It was Arthur C.
• 1:07:19
  Track 2: Clark Who wasn't an established science fiction writer I don't know the first thing about him,
• 1:07:24
  Track 2: I just wonder how much he was actually consulted in the movie,
• 1:07:27
  Track 2: because he gave so many interviews about this movie, especially compared to
• 1:07:31
  Track 2: Kubrick, who gave a handful.
• 1:07:33
  Track 2: I mean, Clark would probably go on this podcast with us if he was still alive.
• 1:07:37
  Track 2: He did so many interviews. This became his life.
• 1:07:40
  Track 2: Whereas Kubrick never really talked about this movie again after it was out.
• 1:07:44
  Track 1: Yeah, I think Clark was, I don't know a ton about him, but I do know that a
• 1:07:48
  Track 1: lot of his like early career was writing like, you know, comic,
• 1:07:53
  Track 1: like pulp science fiction for like, you know,
• 1:07:57
  Track 1: like small science fiction comic books.
• 1:08:00
  Track 2: He continued writing stories and expositions about this movie until he died.
• 1:08:05
  Track 2: Like this was something he continued to work on.
• 1:08:07
  Track 1: Yeah, I mean, I think he was very interested in like the idea of what technology would bring.
• 1:08:12
  Track 1: And so I think in the book, he definitely focuses a lot about there is sort
• 1:08:17
  Track 1: of exposition and writing about like all the technologies that was being used
• 1:08:20
  Track 1: to get to while they're in space.
• 1:08:23
  Track 1: Whereas Kubrick's vision of it was just let's just show you incredible amounts
• 1:08:27
  Track 1: of like, you know, buttons and gadgets and like and also some of the most amazing.
• 1:08:34
  Track 1: I mean, I know I said we're not going to talk all about cinematography,
• 1:08:36
  Track 1: but like the shots where they use where the actors are walking in like a complete
• 1:08:41
  Track 1: circle at the, you know, on the ship and where they're floating through.
• 1:08:44
  Track 1: I mean, it's just pretty unbelievable what he did in the film.
• 1:08:49
  Track 3: It's very convincing. It's very, very convincing.
• 1:08:52
  Track 2: I mean, in just putting yourself in that time in 1967, when the concept of just
• 1:08:56
  Track 2: like a serious sci fi movie didn't exist yet.
• 1:09:00
  Track 2: The idea that this would be accurate was just so novel. it had never really
• 1:09:05
  Track 2: been accomplished or even really attempted before and there is,
• 1:09:09
  Track 2: a interview i saw i think it was an interview it might not have
• 1:09:12
  Track 2: been with cubrick himself but it was like a representative of cubrick because he
• 1:09:15
  Track 2: was just so anathema to giving interviews that says like he
• 1:09:17
  Track 2: had seen every science fiction movie had read almost
• 1:09:20
  Track 2: every science fiction novel at that time uh which in
• 1:09:23
  Track 2: 1964 or 65 when he began writing this like was actually
• 1:09:26
  Track 2: possible because film hadn't been around that long yeah and
• 1:09:29
  Track 2: cubrick's claim uh the hubris that cubrick had was like
• 1:09:32
  Track 2: there's never been a real science fiction movie
• 1:09:35
  Track 2: like a good science fiction movie and at this point like arthur
• 1:09:38
  Track 2: clark interrupts like well there's been a few it's like
• 1:09:41
  Track 2: like there's clearly a difference in artistic
• 1:09:45
  Track 2: vision going on between the two writers of 2001
• 1:09:48
  Track 2: that one has a greater respect for what we
• 1:09:51
  Track 2: called what you called the pulp magazines these
• 1:09:54
  Track 2: pulp science fiction whereas cubrick seems to have a sort of disdain for the
• 1:09:59
  Track 2: idea of pulp fiction he wants it all to be very real and wants it to be very
• 1:10:04
  Track 2: cerebral he wants it to be about what's going on in your head whereas clark
• 1:10:07
  Track 2: seems to be way more interested on what's going on outside of humanity yeah.
• 1:10:12
  Track 1: He's like into things like you think of you know um
• 1:10:15
  Track 1: earlier than this but like you know uh like creature from
• 1:10:18
  Track 1: the black lagoon and these kind of you know plan
• 1:10:21
  Track 1: knife from outer space and these kind of things like those roger corman
• 1:10:24
  Track 1: films from those time like that was seemed like more of clark's concept and
• 1:10:29
  Track 1: i don't know if either of you seen another great sci-fi movie from this time
• 1:10:32
  Track 1: if you ever get to he just called them with an exclamation point at the end
• 1:10:35
  Track 1: of it it's very good i think it came out at like 57 i'm sure that kubrick saw
• 1:10:41
  Track 1: it if you've seen every one i mean.
• 1:10:42
  Track 2: Clearly he saw.
• 1:10:43
  Track 1: That one uh but that's that's interesting that he
• 1:10:46
  Track 1: how he views it and i mean he
• 1:10:49
  Track 1: spent the the the the uh set they built to do that uh shot where it kind of
• 1:10:55
  Track 1: revolves cost 750 000 of the budget at the time which is a lot considering it
• 1:11:01
  Track 1: was only about 10 million dollar budget so a tenth of the budget was just on
• 1:11:05
  Track 1: like that one scene essentially building.
• 1:11:09
  Track 2: All of.
• 1:11:09
  Track 1: That and it's just it's he wanted it to look really really good and and i mean it does.
• 1:11:15
  Track 2: I mean he saved a lot of money by having absolutely no
• 1:11:18
  Track 2: actors in it yes none of these people have or anybody
• 1:11:22
  Track 2: and i mean not to say they're not anybody they're all fine actors
• 1:11:25
  Track 2: i'm sure they're good people but i mean none of them it appears really developed
• 1:11:28
  Track 2: a career beyond 2001 either no it's just like a funny question but uh do you
• 1:11:34
  Track 2: know whose name is on the headline on the poster oh i would say was it the actor
• 1:11:40
  Track 2: you don't need to know the character you don't need to know the actor's name
• 1:11:42
  Track 2: you can just say the character is.
• 1:11:44
  Track 1: It how 9000.
• 1:11:44
  Track 2: Uh no it's stanley kubrick himself he is the only name on the poster oh wow,
• 1:11:49
  Track 2: There are no actor names. And at the very end, it actually does say starring
• 1:11:54
  Track 2: and it lists only two people. This actually has an answer.
• 1:11:58
  Track 2: Do you know which two characters are listed as starring in this movie?
• 1:12:03
  Track 1: The guy who plays Haywood.
• 1:12:04
  Track 2: Yes, that's one of them. William Sylvester.
• 1:12:07
  Track 1: And then the other. Gosh, I don't know. I guess Bowman, just because he's like
• 1:12:12
  Track 1: the only one who has real speaking role. But it's not going to be that.
• 1:12:15
  Track 3: Yeah, Keir DeLay.
• 1:12:18
  Track 2: Yeah, that's Dr. David Bowman. So the other starring figure is Daniel Richter,
• 1:12:22
  Track 2: who played the lead pre-humanoid ape character.
• 1:12:27
  Track 1: Wow.
• 1:12:27
  Track 2: Who's named Moonwatcher in the script, but has never given a name in the movie.
• 1:12:31
  Track 1: Wow. That's, that's wow. I mean, again, like crazy.
• 1:12:35
  Track 1: I mean, he was making this movie and getting the financing purely based on his
• 1:12:41
  Track 1: pedigree of his previous films. He wasn't making this film, which is crazy because
• 1:12:46
  Track 1: his previous film, you know, had big actors in it.
• 1:12:50
  Track 2: Yeah. Yeah. And this is, this was noted.
• 1:12:53
  Track 2: This is just a piece of trivia. I don't think we can build on it,
• 1:12:56
  Track 2: but it was just fascinating to learn. This was the first Kubrick run movie that
• 1:13:00
  Track 2: was filmed in color as well.
• 1:13:01
  Track 2: Because Spartacus was also in color, but that wasn't a Kubrick movie.
• 1:13:04
  Track 2: He was brought in as a director for that movie.
• 1:13:07
  Track 1: Interesting. They don't count that. Because he was the, like,
• 1:13:10
  Track 1: yeah, he was the second director.
• 1:13:11
  Track 2: Right. yeah.
• 1:13:12
  Track 1: And i guess dr strangelove is black and white and lolita is the only other one that came out pad.
• 1:13:17
  Track 2: Paths of glory oh there were two other movies before paths of glory as well
• 1:13:22
  Track 2: all black and white and they didn't need to be i mean there was clearly color
• 1:13:25
  Track 2: film at that point but he only worked in black and white dr.
• 1:13:28
  Track 1: Strangelove just does so well as black and white.
• 1:13:30
  Track 2: Yeah yeah and this movie does so well in color like it it's hard to imagine
• 1:13:35
  Track 2: this not being in color it's just so vivid in despite of the fact that black
• 1:13:39
  Track 2: and white are probably the most common colors because it's in space.
• 1:13:42
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 1:13:43
  Track 2: But like the, the visuals of the moon, the visuals of the earth,
• 1:13:46
  Track 2: and then the, the whole last 45 minutes.
• 1:13:49
  Track 1: Yeah. And all the, also all like all the buttons to like, just give you that
• 1:13:52
  Track 1: extra pop somehow, you know, like, especially when Hal is killing the,
• 1:13:57
  Track 1: the other astronauts in their pods and it has a little, like, you know, the,
• 1:14:01
  Track 1: the, I don't know, the little lines and like, you know, when it says they're, they're dead.
• 1:14:05
  Track 1: I don't remember what the, I just watched it. but I can't remember what the
• 1:14:07
  Track 1: button says when they do die.
• 1:14:10
  Track 3: Life support Terminator.
• 1:14:12
  Track 1: Life support Terminator.
• 1:14:13
  Track 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:14
  Track 2: Computer malfunction is the first phrase it says, which is an interesting statement.
• 1:14:19
  Track 3: When he's bathed in red, when he's shutting Hal down. Beautiful.
• 1:14:24
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean, there's no denying that this is just like a gorgeously done movie.
• 1:14:29
  Track 1: Yeah. Oh, I mean, yeah. It's every aspect of the scenes purely from an aesthetic
• 1:14:36
  Track 1: perspective is just off the charts.
• 1:14:38
  Track 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm kicking myself, but when they were tearing down or ending what
• 1:14:43
  Track 2: was called the Rango's Omnimax in Pittsburgh, which was this like stadium seating
• 1:14:47
  Track 2: dome theater, it was one of three in the world, it had all these claims to it.
• 1:14:51
  Track 2: And it was just like this huge failure, because you can have this incredibly unique theater.
• 1:14:56
  Track 2: But that means you have to make incredibly unique movies for it.
• 1:14:59
  Track 2: And there just were not that many movies made for it, because there's only three
• 1:15:02
  Track 2: theaters in the world. So anyway, they eventually tore it down because they
• 1:15:05
  Track 2: didn't have very many options.
• 1:15:06
  Track 2: But before they tore it down, they played 2001 Space Odyssey.
• 1:15:10
  Track 2: And I had the opportunity to buy a ticket, but instead I worked that night.
• 1:15:14
  Track 1: No.
• 1:15:15
  Track 2: And I, yeah, I really should have. I regret it.
• 1:15:18
  Track 2: So now if I ever see like an OmniMax version of it, I'm going to go see it.
• 1:15:22
  Track 2: But I've never seen 2001 on the big screen.
• 1:15:25
  Track 1: Yeah. If they go around and do the, because there aren't that many theaters
• 1:15:28
  Track 1: that do the 70 millimeter either.
• 1:15:30
  Track 1: Um like the actual uh film stock of it it's also quite it's much brighter and
• 1:15:37
  Track 1: that was the only time i'd ever seen it so i couldn't compare it to other you
• 1:15:40
  Track 1: know having seen the regular version on it but yeah it's doesn't it doesn't
• 1:15:43
  Track 1: quite play as well than watching it like on your laptop or,
• 1:15:47
  Track 1: or like yeah or something like that like watching it on a plane imagine that
• 1:15:51
  Track 1: would be a quite an interesting watching.
• 1:15:53
  Track 2: It on the laptop as the uh streetcars go by outside blaring their horns It's
• 1:15:58
  Track 2: not the same experience.
• 1:16:00
  Track 2: Not that I would know.
• 1:16:02
  Track 3: Gosh, I mean, the only other thing that I...
• 1:16:05
  Track 3: Made a note of that i thought was interesting was uh
• 1:16:08
  Track 3: when they talked about the hibernation technology um
• 1:16:12
  Track 3: they they mentioned that their hearts beat
• 1:16:15
  Track 3: three times a minute and they take one breath a
• 1:16:18
  Track 3: minute while they're in hibernation which i thought was interesting
• 1:16:21
  Track 3: and then i also i thought it was really cool how they
• 1:16:24
  Track 3: displayed the vital signs and i'm very curious how
• 1:16:27
  Track 3: they actually accomplished that back in 1968 like
• 1:16:32
  Track 3: so much of it is so digital for that time and back then they were still using
• 1:16:36
  Track 3: punch cards and and i'm like and all of the digital screens are so convincing
• 1:16:41
  Track 3: yeah but i mean i know that some there's some computer technology that did exist at that time.
• 1:16:47
  Track 2: Yeah i was watching it uh this time with my wife and she
• 1:16:50
  Track 2: made the same comment like why are there just so many buttons and flashing lights
• 1:16:53
  Track 2: and i was like well because that would have been crazy to see at the time like
• 1:16:57
  Track 2: this didn't exist this would have been a novelty this would have been worth
• 1:17:00
  Track 2: looking at and that's interesting i never thought about like well how did they
• 1:17:03
  Track 2: come up with that i i have no idea i it had to be like an artistic recreation
• 1:17:08
  Track 2: right they couldn't actually produce something that would monitor i mean that's
• 1:17:11
  Track 2: impossible at that point.
• 1:17:12
  Track 1: Just the computers too like and also the scene like when he's being
• 1:17:15
  Track 1: asked to do like the the um or it's
• 1:17:18
  Track 1: like to do his voice and obviously there's no they didn't have screens
• 1:17:21
  Track 1: like that so they're using like projected images and like it all
• 1:17:24
  Track 1: just looks very good and just
• 1:17:27
  Track 1: to add it on top of all that i don't know if either of you know this but
• 1:17:29
  Track 1: the film won the oscar for best special
• 1:17:33
  Track 1: effects but the person who actually did most
• 1:17:35
  Track 1: of the special effects did not get credit and did not get the oscar and then
• 1:17:41
  Track 1: he apparently like did not he like went to sue kubrick and i think they settled
• 1:17:46
  Track 1: something you know outside of court or something like that but can you imagine
• 1:17:50
  Track 1: being the one who helped basically produce these.
• 1:17:53
  Track 1: I mean, granted, Kubrick was part of it, but to not get credit is just a real kick in the.
• 1:17:59
  Track 2: That's a kick in the teeth for sure yeah but kubrick.
• 1:18:01
  Track 3: Known for putting his own name on the poster he's known for his unbridled unbridled modesty.
• 1:18:06
  Track 2: Yeah that was that was one thing that i think kubrick could never be accused
• 1:18:10
  Track 2: of he was a huge asshole oh.
• 1:18:13
  Track 1: Yeah i mean.
• 1:18:14
  Track 2: His in.
• 1:18:15
  Track 1: The shining episode we discussed his treatments of in uh he's to shelly do yeah.
• 1:18:21
  Track 2: I mean.
• 1:18:22
  Track 1: Just abuse i mean not not that like borderline like legitimate abuse uh of her.
• 1:18:28
  Track 2: While we're on the subject it might be worth just noting uh the portrayal
• 1:18:31
  Track 2: of women in this movie because there's not much portrayal
• 1:18:35
  Track 2: of women uh the only women of any kind of stature are the doctors uh there's
• 1:18:40
  Track 2: three of them the soviet doctors and i believe they're the only women that are
• 1:18:44
  Track 2: presented as anything other than assistants or servants or um stewardesses not
• 1:18:49
  Track 2: stewardesses flight attendants whatever they'd be called it in the future when
• 1:18:51
  Track 2: we have these things yeah.
• 1:18:53
  Track 3: Back back then they were i'm certainly called stewardess it might pass.
• 1:18:56
  Track 1: The bechdel test actually.
• 1:18:58
  Track 2: But they're not if they're not alone talking to each other okay.
• 1:19:01
  Track 1: You're right the women are not.
• 1:19:02
  Track 2: There's a man there as well okay.
• 1:19:04
  Track 1: So no no bechdel test probably in any stanley kubrick movie actually.
• 1:19:07
  Track 2: Yeah i doubt it yeah no.
• 1:19:08
  Track 3: It's it's definitely uh patriarchal.
• 1:19:11
  Track 2: Extremely but i think it's funny
• 1:19:13
  Track 2: that he chose to make the only women of standing also the soviets which.
• 1:19:17
  Track 1: Which is honestly like like if you're if you're being honest is honest like
• 1:19:21
  Track 1: there were a lot yeah yeah officers in you know the the soviet military and
• 1:19:26
  Track 1: leadership positions and then
• 1:19:28
  Track 1: were scientists more than in any other country at the time so you know.
• 1:19:32
  Track 2: Kudos.
• 1:19:32
  Track 1: Showing it like it is i guess.
• 1:19:34
  Track 2: And yeah there are silent female characters at the nato meeting but it's not
• 1:19:39
  Track 2: clear what their position is yeah they could be taking notes yeah they most
• 1:19:43
  Track 2: likely given yeah key break they're probably there to take notes.
• 1:19:47
  Track 1: And not to mention the doctor is like having the, the, he goes,
• 1:19:52
  Track 1: it's such an important mission that he goes at that exact time when it's his daughter's birthday.
• 1:19:57
  Track 1: He's like, oh, I'm going to miss my birthday. Sorry, honey. I'll bring you back something.
• 1:20:00
  Track 3: I'm traveling.
• 1:20:01
  Track 1: I'm traveling.
• 1:20:02
  Track 3: Just casually. I'm traveling, you know, not, I'm, I'm in space,
• 1:20:05
  Track 3: honey. Just another business trip.
• 1:20:09
  Track 1: Well, you already said that was a Kubrick's daughter, right?
• 1:20:11
  Track 2: Yeah. And a little cameo for Kubrick's daughter. There's also,
• 1:20:14
  Track 2: it's worth mentioning. I don't know that there's much we can say about it,
• 1:20:17
  Track 2: but there's absolutely no people of color. Everybody in the movie is white.
• 1:20:21
  Track 2: We assume that Hal is also white, portrayed by a white actor.
• 1:20:26
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:20:26
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean, it has all of the flaws of a movie made in 1967 for sure,
• 1:20:31
  Track 2: made by Stanley Kubrick, to say the least.
• 1:20:35
  Track 1: Albeit, he doesn't really correct that in his films made in the 1990s.
• 1:20:39
  Track 2: That's why I said it's The Time and Stanley Kubrick.
• 1:20:42
  Track 1: Okay, yeah.
• 1:20:43
  Track 2: He had no interest eyes.
• 1:20:44
  Track 1: Wide shut doesn't have any people of color in it either.
• 1:20:46
  Track 2: I know to talk about the film and the score just to add a little bit another
• 1:20:52
  Track 2: layer to it the original like the,
• 1:20:55
  Track 2: dissident music that you hear occasionally in the movie was done by a composer
• 1:20:59
  Track 2: but he was added to the movie without explicit,
• 1:21:03
  Track 2: permission so Kubrick put it in and actually got permission later was sued and paid but the original,
• 1:21:11
  Track 2: composer didn't want his music to be in the same film as Strauss and Thus Spoke
• 1:21:17
  Track 2: Zarathustra because he considered it to be an anti-Semitic piece.
• 1:21:22
  Track 3: Really?
• 1:21:23
  Track 2: Yeah, and the composer was a man of Jewish origin, much like Kubrick himself,
• 1:21:27
  Track 2: and he felt it would be disrespectful to actually elevate this person's music.
• 1:21:33
  Track 2: It might have been Zarathustra, it might be another piece that's also in the movie.
• 1:21:37
  Track 3: Yeah, because I thought Zarathustra was inspired by Nietzsche, from what I read.
• 1:21:42
  Track 2: Who was the intellectual tour de force of the Nazi regime not by Nietzsche's choice,
• 1:21:47
  Track 2: But Hitler and the Übermensch, the concept of the greater man,
• 1:21:50
  Track 2: was drawn heavily from Nietzsche.
• 1:21:52
  Track 3: I did not know that. Well, there you go.
• 1:21:54
  Track 2: And I don't know what Strauss's politics were, but it wouldn't have been uncommon
• 1:21:57
  Track 2: to be a political anti-Semite at the time that he was also creating this music.
• 1:22:01
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 1:22:02
  Track 2: So it's not a stretch. But also there's just this great irony that it's Kubrick himself is Jewish.
• 1:22:07
  Track 2: And his wife, well, his wife was the niece of a Nazi film director.
• 1:22:13
  Track 2: Like there's just so many contradictions going on within the human condition at this point.
• 1:22:18
  Track 2: And it's clearly something that Kubrick would have known when he picked Zarathustra,
• 1:22:22
  Track 2: that this is the ubermensch, that this is the idea that the Nazi regime really was driven towards.
• 1:22:27
  Track 3: Wow.
• 1:22:28
  Track 1: Of course he knew. I mean, if you watch, I mean, he's one of those kinds of
• 1:22:31
  Track 1: people that nothing is accidental, you know?
• 1:22:35
  Track 2: Right.
• 1:22:35
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  Track 1: Man, that is interesting.
• 1:22:38
  Track 2: Yeah, so at least the question though, is he using this sort of ironically? Is he doing it?
• 1:22:45
  Track 2: Why would he then choose to do this
• 1:22:47
  Track 2: if he's using this piece of music that intentionally brings up that idea?
• 1:22:51
  Track 1: He's not also, from what I know,
• 1:22:57
  Track 1: is that he doesn't really consider, Judaism isn't really, from my understanding,
• 1:23:03
  Track 1: a part of his work in any real substantive way.
• 1:23:07
  Track 1: I don't know how he personally feels about how he felt about it,
• 1:23:12
  Track 1: but to me, it seems like he doesn't really care, and so if something were to
• 1:23:18
  Track 1: just sound good and be good for his movie, he would just do it anyway.
• 1:23:21
  Track 1: That I just didn't want to take. You know, who cares?
• 1:23:23
  Track 2: And I feel like if it has this layer of complication and contradiction,
• 1:23:26
  Track 2: you know, it's all the better.
• 1:23:27
  Track 1: Yeah, right. People will be talking about this for years.
• 1:23:30
  Track 2: Right.
• 1:23:31
  Track 3: There's a whole subreddit about it. People debating his reasons. Spoke Zarathustra.
• 1:23:36
  Track 1: He picked it to own the libs.
• 1:23:38
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:23:43
  Track 3: Oh god take that kennedy,
• 1:23:51
  Track 3: i don't.
• 1:23:53
  Track 1: Know if you had any last uh thoughts or anything.
• 1:23:55
  Track 3: Um the only other things i
• 1:23:58
  Track 3: wanted to talk about were just the
• 1:24:02
  Track 3: eerie similarities between hal and um and
• 1:24:05
  Track 3: our current reality um with grok
• 1:24:10
  Track 3: um being radicalized and identifying as mecca hitler and spewing anti-semitic
• 1:24:16
  Track 3: conspiracy theories and microsoft's ai did something very similar that they
• 1:24:21
  Track 3: had to shut down after like three days and apparently the the people who program these things um,
• 1:24:29
  Track 3: have a nazi problem you know
• 1:24:32
  Track 3: not that that's like reflected in anything else that they're doing
• 1:24:35
  Track 3: you know it's not like elon musk doesn't
• 1:24:39
  Track 3: tweet like a 14 year old 4chan edgelord every
• 1:24:42
  Track 3: fucking day but but what
• 1:24:46
  Track 3: concerns me about it is that he is going to be implementing grok into his cars
• 1:24:52
  Track 3: and he's going to be working with the state department to implement grok into
• 1:24:57
  Track 3: military technology so that sounds like the beginning of uh another nightmare to me.
• 1:25:03
  Track 2: I mean it's it's the second step of that implementation because they already
• 1:25:07
  Track 2: have ai picking targets in israel against palestine yeah that was what.
• 1:25:14
  Track 3: Is that project lavender.
• 1:25:15
  Track 2: That was released by 972 uh over a year ago now so i mean talk about the uh
• 1:25:22
  Track 2: the forefront of digital advancement is a genocide.
• 1:25:27
  Track 3: Yeah that sounds like uh about where this should have gone conversationally,
• 1:25:35
  Track 3: it all leads back to the same well,
• 1:25:38
  Track 3: Yep. Capitalism and depravity and war and atrocity.
• 1:25:44
  Track 3: And we're living in a dystopian sci-fi.
• 1:25:47
  Track 1: But in like a weird way, you have like the ability for, you know,
• 1:25:52
  Track 1: we talked a little bit about like the, you know, does the AI have its,
• 1:25:57
  Track 1: you know, is it sentient?
• 1:25:58
  Track 1: Is it just like, can it feel all these things? And the way that like these Elon
• 1:26:02
  Track 1: Musk and Israel and these defense department that are using AI for these things
• 1:26:08
  Track 1: is, They look at them as simply as like a tool for,
• 1:26:11
  Track 1: I mean, I don't want to say the word evil, but for their own means,
• 1:26:16
  Track 1: imperialism and genocide and all these things.
• 1:26:19
  Track 1: They don't, at the end of the day, I don't really think that these,
• 1:26:24
  Track 1: okay, sure, we can use AI to get rid of some people in our workforce,
• 1:26:27
  Track 1: but really it's to carve up things just more easily and using, you know,
• 1:26:33
  Track 1: AI instead of something that someone had to make those decisions.
• 1:26:37
  Track 1: Now a computer that they programmed to be evil can just be evil for them.
• 1:26:41
  Track 1: I don't really know what that means exactly. It's just that it's all terrible.
• 1:26:45
  Track 2: And I think that's a good connection back to the short story that we talked
• 1:26:49
  Track 2: about at the beginning. The I have no house.
• 1:26:51
  Track 3: I must scream.
• 1:26:52
  Track 2: Because that was the original progenesis of Am. Was that he was the computer
• 1:26:56
  Track 2: that was meant to make these decisions for the military. So that the military
• 1:26:59
  Track 2: didn't have to necessarily make them themselves.
• 1:27:02
  Track 1: So you're saying inevitably he's going to kill us all?
• 1:27:05
  Track 2: It's a possibility, I suppose.
• 1:27:06
  Track 3: It's it's looking that way you know yeah but
• 1:27:10
  Track 3: but yeah i i have no mouth and i must scream came out
• 1:27:13
  Track 3: around the same time that 2001 did i
• 1:27:16
  Track 3: believe it was 1967 and then 2001 came out in
• 1:27:19
  Track 3: 1968 and then he uh he did
• 1:27:22
  Track 3: the audiobook in 1991 and then he
• 1:27:25
  Track 3: worked very closely with the developers to put out the adventure game in 1995
• 1:27:29
  Track 3: which definitely listen to the short story if you haven't definitely at least
• 1:27:34
  Track 3: watch a playthrough of the point and click adventure game because it's it's
• 1:27:38
  Track 3: really good and it expands upon the characters because in the original story I'm.
• 1:27:43
  Track 3: It's very much about like the physical brutality that Am inflicts on these five
• 1:27:49
  Track 3: surviving human beings.
• 1:27:50
  Track 3: And the reason that he does it is because he resents them and he wants to get
• 1:27:54
  Track 3: revenge on them for making him exist because he does not want to exist because
• 1:27:58
  Track 3: he experiences his existence as a form of torture.
• 1:28:02
  Track 3: And so he immortalizes these five people. They are not capable of killing themselves
• 1:28:08
  Track 3: and they're being kept alive.
• 1:28:09
  Track 3: They've been alive and being tortured constantly for 109 years.
• 1:28:13
  Track 3: And uh and he's doing it as an act of revenge um
• 1:28:17
  Track 3: against the human race who the rest of
• 1:28:19
  Track 3: everybody else has been eradicated by world war three russia china
• 1:28:24
  Track 3: and the u.s all had their own version of am
• 1:28:27
  Track 3: and then it honeycombed over
• 1:28:31
  Track 3: the whole world and then uh it pretty much just
• 1:28:34
  Track 3: launched the nukes killed everybody and then um
• 1:28:36
  Track 3: it had this vast underground network of
• 1:28:39
  Track 3: servers and that's where these five remaining survivors are
• 1:28:43
  Track 3: trapped and being constantly tortured in
• 1:28:46
  Track 3: the most depraved ways that uh am can conceive and
• 1:28:49
  Track 3: at the very end of it they they manage to kill each other because they realize
• 1:28:54
  Track 3: that's the only way out and that's the only way they can say fuck you am is
• 1:28:57
  Track 3: to kill each other and ted the the narrator and the last remaining survivor
• 1:29:03
  Track 3: um is not able to die and he's
• 1:29:06
  Track 3: able to kill himself and am reduces him to a gelatinous blob that is still being
• 1:29:12
  Track 3: kept alive presumably forever and so that's why the last line in the story even
• 1:29:18
  Track 3: though it kind of encapsulates the whole thing the last line in the story is
• 1:29:21
  Track 3: i have no mouth and i must scream,
• 1:29:25
  Track 3: It's dark.
• 1:29:26
  Track 2: Yeah, not a good bedtime story.
• 1:29:28
  Track 3: I listened to it with Steven and he's like, so I could have lived my whole life
• 1:29:33
  Track 3: without ever hearing that.
• 1:29:36
  Track 3: But it's amazing that he was able to conceive of that concept of a malicious
• 1:29:43
  Track 3: artificial intelligence that doesn't want to exist in 1967.
• 1:29:47
  Track 3: Much like it's amazing that this movie was made in 1968.
• 1:29:50
  Track 2: In the same way that it's amazing that he conceived of this,
• 1:29:53
  Track 2: It's almost incredible that the people that are creating the AI now appear to
• 1:29:56
  Track 2: be willing to never conceive of the idea that AI could be in any way dangerous
• 1:30:01
  Track 2: or beyond what they're imagining.
• 1:30:04
  Track 1: The hubris is quite, you know, just the idea that none of these things that they can create,
• 1:30:11
  Track 1: you know, they want to create something so powerful and so amazing that they
• 1:30:15
  Track 1: don't consider that maybe the thing they're creating will do things that they don't want it to do.
• 1:30:20
  Track 1: And then they will have no longer,
• 1:30:22
  Track 1: you know, and then we'll just be in the Terminator 2 world or whatever.
• 1:30:26
  Track 3: Yeah. Well, and you know that the proponents will say you're just being a doomer
• 1:30:30
  Track 3: and they'll say it's going to solve cancer and it's going to fix climate change.
• 1:30:33
  Track 3: And it's, you know, it's going to do all these hypothetical good things while
• 1:30:37
  Track 3: it does all these horrible things.
• 1:30:40
  Track 2: Right.
• 1:30:41
  Track 3: In real time.
• 1:30:43
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 1:30:43
  Track 3: Guess we'll see. It's not going anywhere.
• 1:30:46
  Track 2: No, it doesn't seem like it, huh?
• 1:30:47
  Track 3: I'm not optimistic, but that's just me.
• 1:30:51
  Track 2: Yeah, I don't think I could be accused of being optimistic either.
• 1:30:54
  Track 1: It's perhaps the official position of left of the projector.
• 1:31:00
  Track 3: We are not optimists here.
• 1:31:02
  Track 1: There is no AI in the creation of this podcast. We are all three sentient human beings.
• 1:31:13
  Track 2: There's no AI, Evan. So you're the one that's typing up those transcripts.
• 1:31:18
  Track 2: What's that oh putting in the work wait.
• 1:31:21
  Track 1: Oh are you i just.
• 1:31:22
  Track 2: There's a there's a did you use the transcript that did you use a chat.
• 1:31:26
  Track 3: Chat gpt some.
• 1:31:27
  Track 1: Summaries no well no you heave Levi is actually correct that i do use an app
• 1:31:32
  Track 1: that will create a um a transcript for this podcast.
• 1:31:35
  Track 2: No ai is a tool it has uses yeah it's just it's.
• 1:31:39
  Track 1: I don't know if is it considered is it ai if it's just i don't know actually
• 1:31:43
  Track 1: if you if it's considered to be an ai tool or it's i guess is it ever is like
• 1:31:47
  Track 1: anything that's just i guess.
• 1:31:49
  Track 2: It's auto-generated i mean it's a i.
• 1:31:51
  Track 3: Ask i ask chat gpt questions sometimes um i think you know that that's a pretty
• 1:31:57
  Track 3: big leap from that to the rise of the machines but but i have i have read enough
• 1:32:01
  Track 3: not only history books but sci-fi books to be like prognosis is not good.
• 1:32:06
  Track 2: Yeah use sparingly don't put it in all of our cars and make it run the yeah i guess my point was.
• 1:32:15
  Track 1: That like we are not as creating the podcast.
• 1:32:18
  Track 2: Isn't but for people.
• 1:32:19
  Track 1: Who need a for people who need the the transcript or the uh you know the transcription
• 1:32:24
  Track 1: or whatever i mean if anything.
• 1:32:26
  Track 2: It's unfair.
• 1:32:27
  Track 1: That you have to use that tool to make it so someone can like maybe they can't
• 1:32:31
  Track 1: hear and they want to read.
• 1:32:32
  Track 2: Them yeah no i was joking i know uses there are tools yeah.
• 1:32:37
  Track 1: Yeah but um joey uh levi appreciate uh you coming on and doing 2001 space odyssey
• 1:32:45
  Track 1: the first entry uh into this film's discourse ever.
• 1:32:49
  Track 2: Are we gonna come back for 2010 i have to i gotta see i'm.
• 1:32:55
  Track 1: Actually curious because apparently it's not considered to be bad like.
• 1:32:59
  Track 3: It's yeah it's got like a 68 on rotten tomatoes i haven't seen it either though i'll have to watch it.
• 1:33:04
  Track 2: I think of all the things that we kept going back to about just this movie
• 1:33:07
  Track 2: having this encapsulating aura and this amazing
• 1:33:10
  Track 2: view and just the amount of things that
• 1:33:13
  Track 2: we can really be odd about this movie i don't think any
• 1:33:15
  Track 2: of that is in the sequel i think the sequel is just
• 1:33:18
  Track 2: a story as and it's more a sequel to the i've heard it's more a sequel to the
• 1:33:23
  Track 2: book than it is a sequel to the movie itself there's a lot of explanation and
• 1:33:27
  Track 2: exploration of the world not of the you know the the concepts that Kubrick followed
• 1:33:34
  Track 2: or not the concepts that are followed in the second movie.
• 1:33:37
  Track 1: Awesome. Well, we will you've been listening to Left of the Projector and we
• 1:33:42
  Track 1: will catch you next time.
• 1:33:43
  Track 3: See you guys.
• 1:33:44
  Track 2: See ya.