Midnite Martini Movie: 2001: A Space Oddessey (Part 1)

Some nights, when insomnia strikes, I mix a martini and put on a movie.  Tonight’s movie, the 1968 Stanley Kubrick classic:  2001.  This still stands as the science fiction movie against which all others are judged.  Let’s join in…


So I’m watching the season finale of “Into the Badlands” and there’s a scene that reminds me of the monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and so now I’m watching 2001 because, well… how do you not watch 2001?

(And Kat Wiggins, I am timing the monkey scene because I don’t know how long it is but I know it is less than 12 days.)

[0:04:48]  And the monkey scene (aka “the dawn of man” sequence) is exactly 15 minutes and 2 seconds long. Not 12 days. 15 minutes. …. (and 2 seconds)

[0:23:33]  Okay, so now we’re into the space station docking sequence, and this movie, now 50 years old, fifty fucking years old, is still the single most accurate depiction of future space travel ever committed to film.

… and the choice of a waltz as the musical accompaniment for the docking sequence was inspired brilliance — If I haven’t mentioned before. Kubrick was a fucking genius!

OMG this movie was SO FAR ahead of its time

[0:50:55]  Ianto the cat has joined me for the moon monolith uncovering sequence. he gets it.

[0:54:45]  Now we’re on Discovery, the Jupiter mission. My God this movie was amazing. Alonso the cat has joined us, but he’s not watching. And Ianto has lost interest in the movie and is now more interested in attacking my thumb. Oh well…

[1:02:16]  “I enjoy working with people” … you just know the HAL 9000 is lying. People don’t enjoy working with people. There’s no way a hyper-intelligent machine enjoys working with people.

Side note: I’m just a little freaked out that my tablet’s keyboard predictive text worked out “hyper-intelligent” so quickly.

BTW, astronauts Bowman and Poole are watching a video interview on a nicer tablet than I’m using to post this.

Think about that, Kubrick predicted tablets, in 19-freaking-68 !

[1:03:38]  Can a computer have emotions? This movie is brilliant. BTW at 1:03:38 there is a flyover sequence of the Discovery One that is the direct predecessor of the Imperial cruiser flyover in the opening scene of Star Wars. Nevermind Kubrick, Douglas Trumbull (the FX guy) is a fucking genius!

[1:03:54]  So Frank Poole’s parent call him while he’s in deep space approaching Jupiter. Subject? Payroll issues. Seems Frank’s higher pay rate for serving on Discovery One hadn’t kicked in yet. How freaking realistic is that?

[1:24:26]  Note to Elon Musk, Richard Branson, et al… When you create AI, don’t give it the ability to lip read….

HAL was fucking Siri before Siri was Siri. (Non Apple people – substitute Alexa / “Hey Google” for Siri…)

FYI, Android predictive text will not accept “Siri” under any circumstances… LOL

All this talk about the HAL 9000 and possible errors, and now Alexa is getting visibly agitated…

The HAL 9000 is rattling on about how there’s never been an error in the 9000 series, and meanwhile Alexa is giving me the nine day weather forecast…

… and yeah, that’s where I fell asleep, just before HAL goes off the rails. I’ll watch the rest later tonight (assuming Alexa doesn’t get to me first)


(to be continued…)