ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Valid comments, Mike!

However, in this case I think Kubrick did " . . . sacrifice sound science at the altar of dramatic storytelling."

That said, I think the scenes I described work well dramatically. Only a "science guy" like me would object to them.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

The pod was parked so far out to protect the array, both from the pod, and the exhaust from the pod.

Kubrick purposely had the Astronauts unemotional, as he said the the real Astronauts appeared that way with their inflight actions. He Shows how upset Bowman was by having him forget his helmet. He was walking slow, because he was walking on velcro. He is also showing how precise the Astronauts were in an emergency by his deliberate actions.

I don't think the pod rammed Poole. When the pod turned, it was lowering ihe manipulator arms. I believe the pod pulled the airline out, that basted them both away from the Discovery.

In 1971, Gary Lockwood did the pilot "Earth II". He said that the Director had no interest in doing the pilot, and he was instructed to just act like he did in 2001, which he did.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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Respectfully, sir, I disagree. Your defense of the scene has quite a few holes in it.

Concerning the pod, why did the array need to be "protected" from the pod? The pods were designed to work in close proximity to the ship whenever a task could be done without the man leaving it. If the pods couldn't be allowed close to the ship, they'd be practically useless!

In the clip below you'll see that Poole is still moving towards the array, directly between the Discovery and the pod. But apparently the pod maneuver a little to one side before hitting Poole, because it knocked him past the ship, imparting the rapid spin to the pod, which also passed by the ship.





This is verified in the clip below, when Bowman's monitor shows Poole rush past the array, tumbling rapidly. If all the pod did was yank Poole's air hose loose, why did both the pod and Poole go tumbling off into space, spinning rapidly? (See the 1:40 mark.)




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2001: A Space Odyssey - Frank's Death (Movie Clip)


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Concerning Bowman's unemotional behavior; are you seriously suggesting that Bowman was so upset (but didn't show it) that he completely forgot his astronaut training in an emergency and neglected to put his helmet on before doing an EVA?

Astronauts are trained to remain calm and pay attention to every detail. Their lives depend on it. And putting on a helmet is more than just a detail. Bowman almost lost his own life, and he wasn't able to do anything to help Poole — all because he forgot the helmet.

Allowing his emotions to suddenly cause him to make stupid mistakes is not what a trained astronaut would do.

David, I'll grant you that Bowmen couldn't dash into the pod bay because Kubrick had everybody supposedly walking on Velcro — which never made the ripping sound, of course, since that would have been annoying as hell.

I'll admit that a man trying to hurry while walking on Velcro would be unintentionally comical . . . but gee whiz, wouldn't this emergency situation be a real good time to just float quickly to the pod bay and rescue Poole?

However, weightlessness wasn't easy to portray in 1968, so let's just let that one pass . . .

Apparently it never occurred to Bowmen that, before he even left the flight deck, he should quickly ordered Hal to begin preparing the pod for the EVA. It would have saved precious seconds.





Here's another troubling thought.

When he reached the pod bay he should have immediately put on the helmet so Hal could start pumping out the air. The pod is one big airlock, and the air must be evacuated whenever the pod bay doors are opened.

In the movie, Bowmen either waited for the air in the pod bay to be evacuated before taking the pod out . . . or he just opened the pod bay door and let the air explode outward.

That would have been entirely justified, since rescuing Poole as quickly as possible was a life-or-death situation. But if Bowmen had just opened the doors without de-pressuring the bay, we'd have seen a blast of ice crystals when the pod bay door opened. (I looked it up. According to this site, ice crystals do actually form during explosive decompression in a vacuum.)

However, we do NOT see this happen (see the clip at the 2:45 mark), so the pod bay must have been depressurized. That couldn't be done quickly, because the pod bay is huge!

But wait a minute! Why the hell was the pod bay pressurized when Bowman arrived? It should have been in vacuum, and one of the doors door still open.

After all, Franky Poole had just gone out for the EVA, and standard procedure would be to leave the pod bay depressurized and the door open, just because depressurizing it would be unnecessary until Poole had returned.

Furthermore, if an injured astronaut had be brought back remotely by the pod, the long depressurization procedure might be critical!

So, Bowmen should have realized that Hal was (at the very least) malfunctioning when the murderous computer closed the door and re-pressurized the bay while Poole was still outside.

Naturally Hal did this because he knew Poole wasn't coming back. Also, Hal wanted to delay Bowman's departure to insure that Poole would be dead when Bowmen finally caught up with him.

However, Hal didn't expect Bowman to forget his helmet. If Bowman had worn his helmet, he could have easily gotten back into the ship through emergency airlock.

So, what was Hal's plan if Bowman had been wearing his helmet? I suspect he would have waited until Bowman was pretty far from the ship, then Hal would have initiated a burn and left the two men behind!

But why didn't Hal just do that anyway?

I'm not sure. Perhaps he decided to save the fuel and let the helmet-less Bowman stay outside and die.

And yet when Hal saw Bowman attempting to enter the airlock without his helmet, he made no attempt to stop him, just in case Bowman somehow succeeded — which he did, of course. Hal could have thwarted Bowman by then firing the engines briefly and bumping the pod away from the ship.

In fact, I wonder why Hal didn't just take control of Bowman's pod and send him off into space? I suppose there was an override button — so we can let that idea go as well.

Yessiree, I think this whole episode in 2001 is riddled with mistakes that Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark should have corrected.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel]

As I said, the pod was parked away from the array to keep the pod's exhaust from affecting the array. I may have gotten that from the novel, it's been decades since I read it..

I also said that the pod pulled out the airline, and blasted away from the Discovery.

Interesting thought about the engines. I wonder how long it would take to start them up.

Hal had limited actions it could perform. It didn't take action against Bowman until he was out of the ship because it could control access to the ship.

The pod bay was re-pressurized after a pod exits, so the other Astronaut could get to another pod in an emergency. An inefficient design. The pods should have been in individual chambers to minimize air loss.

Personally, I think having the suits in the pod bay is a bad thing. If the bay is evacuated, then you aren't getting to the suits. Even the emergency suit is accessed by the pod bay. The suits should have been in the compartment behind the pod bay.

Speaking of the space suits, just who was the third blue suit for? For one of the passengers? There were three, so even with the emergency suit, they would still be short one. Unless the passenger suits were in storage. But then that still leaves the blue suit.

In the novel, Hal evacuated the air from the ship in an attempt to stop Bowman.

Zero-g was hard back then. Kubrick filmed all his zero-g scenes looking up at the actors to hide the wires. Now, they just CGI the wires out.

Supposedly Kubrick had the actors actually walking on Velcro. It certainly looked like the Stewardesses were, and having a bit of trouble maintaining their balance because of it.

David.

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

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An excellent reply, David! Better even than I expected!

You acknowledged several of the errors I pointed out which the movie made, and you even added a few I thought of but didn't mention!

About the pod bay/big airlock: Yes, putting the suits inside the pod bay was really dumb! It looked great in the movie, but it's about as stupid as locking your keys in the car on purpose.

[Krel]

I don't understand the confusion about what happened to Poole. The pod came up behind hm, gabs him and fires it engines at full thrust. The airline separation may have been deliberate, or it could have happened when the manipulator arms grabbed him. The pod then either released Poole, or he became dislodged when he struggled to escape and reconnect his airline.

Okay Bud. You don't like my reasoning for why Bowman forgot his helmet? Well here's the real reason why:

Stanley Kubrick wanted it that way!

Remember, when it is a choice between real, real and movie real. Movie real will win every time.

They actually made an eleven foot long, clear monolith for the movie. But Stanley Kubrick didn't like the way it looked. It was hard to light, and didn't photograph well. It still exists, but was engraved for a Royal event years ago.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

The way I've heard the saying is, "Real life vs reel life"— but I get your point, sir. However, the "reel" way is not always the "right" way when it comes to good story telling.

Kubrick went to all that trouble to have Bowman and Poole act like actual astronauts . . . until Bowman pulled his colossal boner!

That was just bad story telling, any way you cut it. And there's nothing I hate worse.

[Krel]

[Bud Brewster]

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Confession: While writing my post above I actually typed "NASA's suits have never had air tubes on the outside."

Then I thought, "Wait, Bud. Check your facts first."

So, I Googled images of Mercury suits. Oops, they had exterior tubes.

I Googled Gemini suits; they had tubes, too. I finally discovered that the Apollo lunar suits seemed to be "tubeless", but even then I wasn't entirely sure.

So, if somebody finds a definitive answer to the question, I'll be grateful.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Bud, I have to agree with you in all your comments on the problems in 2001ASO as far as the depiction of technology.

But keep in mind....This movie was made over 50 years ago! From before the first Apollo Moon landing!

EVA protocals were not solidly established at the time and even designs for inter-planetary spaceships were not developed fully.

I was always surprised that Poole didn't even have a lifeline in use when checking out the AE-35 unit! Why did he even need to use the pod in the first place? Why didn't he just exit the Discovery and move back to the AE-35 unit along the hull like astronauts do in working on the ISS?

The "attitude" of the astronauts as very "non-emotional" was clearly established throughout the film. Just look at Pooles' reactions to his parents birthday message.

The problems you bring up are very real....BUT they are fueled by over 50 years of "reality" against 50 years of "movie reality". The issues WERE very much for forwarding the dramatic narrative .

HALs' actions were also very much in conflict between his programming and his need for survival. His actions in disabiling the sleeping astnonauts just enhanced his falling into a schitzofrenic phase where he was unable to act logicly. He could not react as you expressed because he was unable to "think clearly and logicly" and his every attempt to preserve his existance was in conflict with his original programming.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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Well said, sir.

It was fortunate that TCM showed this movie a few days ago and followed it with 2010. In that sequel, Hal's breakdown was explained by the fact that the computer was instructed to withhold the true nature of the mission from astronauts — but since HAL's momma taught him never to lie, he went nuts.

Here's how the Wikipedia article describes this aspect of the plot.
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Aboard the Discovery, computer expert Dr. Chandra discovers the reason for HAL's malfunction: The National Security Council had ordered HAL to conceal from the Discovery's crew the fact that the mission was about the Monolith.

This conflicted with HAL's basic programming of open, accurate processing of information, causing him to suffer the computer equivalent of a paranoid mental breakdown. Although the order bears his signature, Floyd angrily denies any knowledge of the NSC's actions.
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Director/screenwriter Peter Hyams worked closely with Arthur C. Clark on the screenplay, so this explanation has the support of Clark. I also read the Wikipedia synopsis of Clark's novel (2001) and learned that it does in fact explain Hal's malfunction in the same manner.

While doing so I noticed that the novel differs from the movie version of 2001 somewhat in the scene of Frank Poole's death. In the novel, the pod crushes him, instead of batting the poor man out of the ball park.

And Bowman doesn't leave the ship to recover the body. As a matter of fact, I found an interesting item about the novel which pertains to Gord's comment shown below.

[Krel]

[Bud Brewster]

[Krel]

It's funny how the memory works. I've seen the movie many times, including just last year. But when I think of the birthday message seen, for some reason I remember HAL cutting off the message before it ends.

David.