> >  My conclusion: Read the book first THEN see the file.
>
> However, "2001: A Space Odyssey" doesn't count in the normal
> course of things
> in determining whether you should read the book first or not.
> Stanley Kubrick
> said that he purposefully designed the movie so that it had
> to be seen two or
> three times before you could begin to get a philosophical
> hold on the film.
> Even with that caveat, most people don't.

Especially since (and I continue to be amazed by the number of people
who appear to be unaware of this) this pair isn't remotely close to
the typical "author writes book, movie guy likes book, movie guy makes
movie from book" sequence.

The book didn't exist--at all--when work started on the movie.

Nor, however, is it the also-popular "movie guy makes movie, movie
makes tons of money, author writes paper version". novelization flow.

> > 2001 began life as the short story The Sentinel, written
> > by Arthur C. Clarke in 1950.

Perhaps--in the same sense that my 512MB dual Pentium III server
"began life" as a 64KB 4MHz CompuPro Z80 box in 1979. Both Kubrick and
Clarke have made it clear on multiple occasions that "The Sentinel"
was the kernel of some of the skeleton concepts of what became "2001"
(Clarke's specific term for the "Sentinel became 2001" description is
"gross oversimplification").

Whatever the linkage, Clarke and Kubrick began with the screenplay for
the movie. As he worked on the movie, Clarke also started working on
the book, both as a way to kill two apes with one bone and as a way to
explore in real time the differing depth/scope dynamic of the
inevitable book version. The book was released months after the
movie--allegedly, according to some, after "management" of the release
flow by Kubrick to make sure that the movie was first in line.

> premeire. However, even more philosophically pertinent to the
> movie was
> Clarke's "Childhood's End" and the notion of unseen alien
> beings so powerful
> that they were called the Overmind.

Numerous people seem to want to hand out the "Greatest Movie Ever
Made" trophy to this movie, and "Greatest SF Book Ever Written" to the
novel. Both are well off the mark. I wouldn't hand out a "Greatest
Ever" trophy to either one, but I'd put "Childhood's End" several
notches above "2001" on the "Greatest SF Books" list.

> beyond that, nothing
> more than another species that has evolved in a Newtonian,
> Einsteinian,
> Boltzmannian, Darwinian universe to a point of immortality,
> and perhaps one
> of enormous loneliness as well. God has become God only because of
an
> extension of Clarke's Law: "Any technology so advanced will
> appear as if it were magic."

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic".

Which ties in in interesting ways to the apparent Zoroastrian
expectations of actual, physical rebirth and actual, corporeal
immortality.

> The God of "2001" is not the God of Martin Luther and John
> Calvin, a God that
> watches over your every move and plots your life out for you.

I've never understood why otherwise-intelligent people were so
absolutely convinced of their God's absolute, all-consuming devotion
to micro-managing His creation. *We* hate doing it; why on earth
(well, I guess that's a bit limiting...) would a literally-Supreme
being want to do it?

> A Catholic bishop said on last week's NBC News' "Meet the
> Press" in answering
> the question, "Why does God let such bad things (as September
> 11th) happen to
> good people?" that God so respects humanity that he endowed
> them with the
> choice between good and evil and gave them free will. Of
> course, you can
> regard that form of the answer to be merely marketing spin,

I guess my answer would be built around terms like "appalling,
incomprehensible ego" and "monumental hubris"....

> In the highly plausible theological universe of "2001", God
> doesn't bless
> America. He doesn't give a hoot about America, any more than
> you care which
> set of ants won their territorial battles in South America 30
> million years
> ago. Nor is the Earth likely to be the only site of such
> directed evolution.
> Similar processes may have been started on 10,000 other planets.
Most
> certainly, not all of them are going to survive to the next
> step, but some will.

Clarke expanded quite a bit on these concepts in his "Rama" series.
Which also offered some pretty slow going at times.

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