A Space Odyssey: Kubrick and Clarke

One of my favorite parts was the hominid species discovered the first monolith, thus triggering their evolution into intelligent beings. The continuance of the monolith discoveries becomes especially

     The following paper will analyze the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick” and “The Centinel” by Arthur C. Clarke. Although there are many themes present between the story and the film, the following are the most dominant. I will be discussing Scientific themes, Religious and Moral Themes, and Clarke’s development of the short story into a full-length film.

Arthur C. Clarke, an award-winning author, in his novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, suggests that human evolution would not have been possible without the help of extra-terrestrial beings and the use of tools. Clarke is able to support his suggestions by narrating the influence the extraterrestrials have on humans and by describing the importance of the tools humans utilize. His purpose was to share his take on the final frontier in order to help readers make their own opinions and conclusions on evolution and deep space. Clarke utilizes a direct and scientific tone with his audience in a way to help them follow along, so that they don’t lose focus on the important themes throughout the novel.

“2001: A space Odyssey” opens in the African Rift Valley, where a tribe of hominids encounter a stone monument which has obstructed on their domain. This stone monument transmits radio waves that end up expanding their IQ 's, teaching them weaponry and other tool uses to help them live, as they proceed to defeat a rival tribe. Four million years later, we see the luxurious space travel that the vintage science fiction of the 1960’s, with space stations for air terminals and such. Dr. Heywood Floyd is heading to Clavius Base, a United States lunar station. Along the way, he finds out about gossipy tidbits about an unidentifiable disease going around on the Clavius Base and his responsibility to study a four-million-year-old structure. Floyd

The author of Trouble, Gary D Schmidt made the story have two rivals: The kids from Merton(a.ka. cambodians) and the kids from Blythbury-by-the-Sea. One major point in the book that you see them compete is in chapter nine, during the crew race. “In Merton shell, the bow rower turned around to see how far ahead Henry’s boat was, and when he turned, Chay Chouan’s brother looked full into Henry’s face,”(116). This shows that they both want to beat the other and they are competing for a title.

The film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, produced by Milos Forman, contains many similarities to the novel, however the differences are numerous to the extent that the story, written by Ken Kesey, is overlooked by anyone who only saw the film. Ken Kesey wrote the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, after experimenting with drugs and working on a psychiatric ward in 1960 and the novel was published in 1962. “Kesey became a night attendant on the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital psychiatric ward so that he could concentrate on his writing.” (Magill 1528) Kesey’s rebellious novel explores the world of mental patients struggling against authority and society through

Review of Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Around the time when space exploration was on the rise and just about everyone was doing something to aid in space exploration research, a father/scientist named Jeremy, is on the verge of making history. He is a single dad with a five year old daughter named Mary. His life is his family and his career but at the time was becoming too busy. Being so occupied with work he hired a nanny to take care of his daughter at home while he was in the lab. Eventually to fill the emotional void from not having a mother, Jeremy adopted a mid aged cat and named it Celeste. Mary and Celeste began to grow inseparable from each other very quickly. They did everything together. They were never apart. They were so attached

Structured societies are becoming an increasingly large problem, in which members of the social construct must either conform or they will inevitably suffer from isolation. In Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey the audience is presented with a futuristic rendition of the year 2001, where society’s emphasis on structure and rules are exaggerated to the extreme. Technology is exceedingly advanced in the fictitious utopia, and in turn a problem poses humanity – humans must work increasingly hard to further advance and a reliance on technology is built. The late 1960 film, depicts a decrepit and remote space travel where social interaction borders obligation and non-existent because of the structure. Nevertheless, such a structured society inevitably

Recently, our class read the book and watched the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The book is written by Arthur C. Clarke and the movie was directed by Stanley Kubrick. The book was written as a framework for the movie, so the two are mostly the same. But, while there were similarities, there were also some major differences.

There is a spectrum to how a country’s economic system is run, and on one end is capitalism and on the other is socialism. Both are equally good and equally bad, and therefore moderation is the perfect combination of the two. As of today, America stands too close to the capitalist end of the spectrum, and thus there are many economic inequalities, in that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and pull the less poor down with them. In the example of Flint, Michigan in Michael Moore’s film Roger and Me, when the many workers laid off when the GM factory relocated suddenly became unemployed. Another example of capitalism gone too far is in Mark Dowie’s article “Pinto Madness,” when Ford’s lobbyists made it virtually impossible for lawmakers to make safety regulations on cars. Thus, with more socialism, so that the two are in moderation, there is a chance that all Americans can be truly happy. Capitalism and socialism are two extremes of a spectrum on which all countries fall; there are good and bad parts to both, and therefore a balance must be struck, as proved by extreme examples of capitalism in “Pinto Madness” and Roger and Me.

In the opening scene, a mysterious black monolith is bestowed upon the prehistoric apes. It appears in the cool desert dawn as the sun rises with blinding light. Prior to the rising of the monolith, the apes lived in a very peaceful manner. Once, the apes reached in

The science-fiction film genre serves as an excellent medium for examining shifting power structures, social paranoia and Cold War politics during the 1950s. A number of films released during this period, including: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Them (1954) and Attack of the 50ft Woman (1958), are particularly symptomatic of the social and political atmosphere of the time. These films navigate not only narrative based issues such as the threat of aliens and science experiments gone wrong; but also wider issues of the time, such as the Cold War, changes in the US film industry, urbanisation, politics, the growing power of women and most significantly, social concern about nuclear energy.

The film “Distant Journey”, directed by Alfred Radok, narrates the story of a young Jewish doctor, Hana, and her family’s struggle in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Despite being Radok’s first film, Distant Journey effectively depicts the struggle of Jews in Czech, especially in the concentration camp of Terezin, during the Nazi occupation. To show how the progression of the war is affecting Hana and her family’s lives, Radok neatly weaves the newsreel of Nazi political propaganda with his fictional story of her and her family. Although there is no direct depiction of violence or blood in the film, Radok successfully uses editing, varying camera angles, and sound effects to depict the severeness of the persecution of the Czech Jews.

In the beginning of the movie, the tribes culture becomes apparant. Their language is different than any other. The tribe does not seem to do anything outside of providing for themselves. Everything