2001 The Error

The Unseen Moon · Jul 29, 2011

Well, i finally got the DVD and watched 2001 tonight. I've seen it before but after all these years I finally caught the big error in the movie.

At one point, Poole gos out in a maintenance pod in order to replace a unit HAL 9000 says is damaged. While he is out of the pod, HAL takes control of the pod, cuts the suit's air hose, and sends Poole flying out into space.

Bowman gets into pod two and retrieves Pool's body. HAL won't let him in. So he goes in through the emergency hatch, and proceeds to disable HAL's higher functions.

Now here's the error.

If HAL could've taken over the first pod, he should've done the same to the second. And that would've changed the movie drastically ebcause everybody would be dead and Bowman would never have become the Star Child.

I don't know if anybody else has noticed this error before, but this is the first time i ever caught it.

Alessandra Kelley · Jul 29, 2011

I thought in the book HAL was supposed to be using psychological denial methods (as psychological theory described them in the 1960s), so it could rationalize accidentally cutting Poole's air hose and suppress the memory of it, but not do something more forthright to Bowman while he was in the pod.

The Unseen Moon · Jul 29, 2011

I've never read the book so I don't know.

But it does not explain any of that in the film.

Alessandra Kelley · Jul 29, 2011

The Unseen Moon said:
it does not explain any of that in the film.

That, I believe, is the universal description of the film.

Alessandra Kelley · Jul 29, 2011

Okay, I'm being a bit of a smartarse here. Sorry. The film, although brilliant, is notoriously opaque. When they say you have to read the book to understand it, they aren't kidding.

Within the context of the film as a standalone, your point makes sense. Why didn't HAL just kill Bowman as well? In the film it's a mystery.

AmsterdamAssassin · Jul 30, 2011

Perhaps this might be of interest to you.

Alessandra Kelley · Jul 30, 2011

AmsterdamAssassin said:
Perhaps this might be of interest to you.

That's a fun paper, although it deals more with scientific inacuracies rather than the logical plot question the OP brings up.

The Unseen Moon · Jul 30, 2011

And remember, it was done in 1967, after all.

hollownose · Aug 28, 2011

Very interesting. I think though that because none of the tech is really explained, it's all up in the air (or vacuum), but an obvious answer might be that the pod has some kind of dead man's switch train-type control that only lets it be overridden if there's no human in control, say, because they collapsed or went out and had an accident, so HAL can recover it so that it's not a hazard to the ship.

Manuel Royal · Aug 28, 2011

A more important question is why HAL decides to kill the whole crew in the first place. Again, doesn't make sense until you read the novel, when you find it's another example of our reach exceeding our grasp in technological design. (Like the orbital H-bombs that are the first artifacts seen after the four-million-year jump cut.)

I just got the movie in Blu-Ray, and watched it for the first time in a while. I saw things I hadn't noticed before -- like the actual seams in the backdrops during the "Dawn of Man" sequence. For decades, I thought those scenes were filmed on location. Nope; in studio. The opening shots of the Kalahari are actually still photographs.

So maybe sometimes picture quality can be too good.

Manuel Royal · Aug 28, 2011

AmsterdamAssassin said:
Perhaps this might be of interest to you.

Wow. I knew about some of these, and should have figured out some of the rest.

I can even add one that wasn't mentioned in the paper: the space station is shown rotating 'way too fast. (Though when actors in the interior set are obviously walking down a curving ramp, that's not necessarily a problem; if they're walking counter to the direction of rotation, it should feel like walking downhill.)

If the movie had been made a few years later, several things would have been different. In 1967, nobody had ever walked on the Moon, or spent time in a weightless pressurized environment with enough room to move around. There were lots of little things that were only learned through experience with real space flight.

2001 The Error

The Unseen Moon

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

The Unseen Moon

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

AmsterdamAssassin

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

The Unseen Moon

hollownose

You need me on that wall!

Manuel Royal

Manuel Royal