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2001:  A Space Odyssey (1968) 

When the world is ruled by apes, one particular group discovers a mysterious rectangular monolith near their home, which imparts upon them the knowledge of tool use, and enables them to evolve into men. A similar monolith is discovered on the moon, and is determined to have come from an area near Jupiter. Astronaut David Bowman, along with four companions, sets off for Jupiter on a spaceship controlled by HAL 9000, a revolutionary computer system that is every bit mankind's equal, and perhaps his superior. When HAL endangers the crew's lives for the sake of the mission, Bowman will have to first overcome the computer, then travel to the birthplace of the monolith. Written by rmlohner

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Kevin Caskey

2001: A Space Odyssey was a confusing movie that was drawn out far longer than it needed to be.  The crew is on a mission to the planet Jupiter with its supercomputer helper named HAL.  HAL is a computer that runs daily operations for the crew and various other tasks, including navigation, and piloting. It also keeps the hibernating crew members alive. HAL is a very advanced computer that is able to talk and hold intelligent conversations with the human beings around him. Although we do not have the kind of technologies that the movie suggested we would by now, it still was an interesting perspective into space travel.  While exploring a space that we as humans have not explored yet, it also asks us how much we should rely on computers to run essential parts of our lives.  The crew members are tested by this question as the movie progresses, until the end when something very strange happens.

Emily Hager

So, this movie was at least better than THX, but it was still kind of long and dull, and not very fun to watch. 2001: A Space Odyssey had some obvious strong points, and most of the movie was presented with a plot that made sense (I’m obviously excluding the final few minutes of acid trip/ fetus Dave). And although the mysterious black monolith was more puzzling than thought provoking for me, I could see where Kubrick was going with it, and I like the way he tried to portray other intelligent life- as mysterious, but advanced, and scary, but fascinating. It’s also really cool to watch this movie after the year 2001 because you can see how wrong most of the predictions were (we are no where near having commercialized flights to the moon). And those white hat things were just silly. But the best (and most relevant) part of this movie is the creepy, all knowing, all controlling Hal-9000. Now that is a seriously dangerous robot. He controls everything! So when he decides so, all those guys are dead and there’s nothing they can do. So the message of this film is kind of anti-technology for a sci-fi flick, because nothing but death and a bad acid trip come out of the technology in this film. Overall though, I thought it wasn’t too bad, and I liked Hal (as a fantastic villain) and I liked the message, just not the ending or the beginning.

Austin Reiter

A Space Odyssey? More like a space oddity if you ask me (or most of my classmates). Terrible humor aside, I don’t have much to speak highly of for this movie. There are apes. There are people. There are obelisks. There is a supercomputer named HAL. There are trippy light shows. And there are Fetus Daves. Confused? Don’t worry, so am I, and I’ve seen the movie. At any rate, 2001: A Space Odyssey takes place in the year 2001, which is portrayed in the movie as a time much more technologically advanced than 2001 actually came to be. Now, it’s at this point that I’d normally reveal the key points of the plot to you, but that may be kind of hard as I’m not so sure there was any overall plot in this movie at all. What I can tell you, however, is that 2001: A Space Odyssey sorely lacks smooth transitions between scenes, character development, and dialogue. And the overall plot (or lack thereof) mentioned before. The beginning of the movie seems to make an effort to conjure a storyline, but fails miserably. There’s something about a discovery that is made that must be kept secret regarding a mysterious black obelisk. But this is preceded by a scene in which two groups of apes are fighting over water, and is followed by a scene in which a supercomputer named HAL attempts to murder his human astronaut companions (and successfully does so to four of the five) in deep space. Then there are some crazy light shows and the progression of the only surviving astronaut, Dave, from a middle-aged man to an elderly gentleman to a… fetus? Yeah. Then the movie ends with ye olde Fetus Dave hovering in space watching over the Earth. “What the hell?” you ask? Well, that makes two of us.

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Fetus Dave....

Ahahhhhhh

Savior of the universe!