Thanks SO much, Rob, your analysis of film via collative learning is always superb. I've been a fan of Kubrick for as long as I can remember with 2001 being my favourite film of all time, You've just made me appreciate it so much more.
From imdb:'TMA-1 stands for Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-1. The monolith was originally to have been a black tetrahedron; however, it did not reflect light properly. Stanley Kubrick then decided to use a transparent cube, but that proved to be too difficult to use because of the reflections created by the studio lights. Next came a rectangular monolith cast from Lucite that looked unconvincing, and finally the familiar black slab.' This doesn't match with the movie screen theory
@nw8Rh Yep, I've read that in the biogs. It doesn't match or disprove the screen theory. If a shape doesn't reflect properly you change the lighting or material, not the shape. Sounds like a typical SK smokescreen. I've read instances of SK having designers do multiple designs then resort to what he privately had in mind. Eg, war room set of Dr Strangelove. It was one of his ways of covering his tracks. I know the tactic works because I did it a lot on the set of my first feature film.
Granted, I've only seen the movie twice but I've been obsessed ever since I first watched it a few years back. I'm absolutely stunned by your hints and interpretations.
I just ordered this incredible film, can't wait to rewatch it with this new knowledge!
I like to think that there are alot of hints to shift paradigm. In space, there is no up and down, shown with the crew(wo)man walking on the walls,the runner running through the workplace cabin. Also the photographer shifting his camera 90 degrees in between snapshots tells us to turn our heads . We are basically looking at the monolith standing because that is how it's presented to us on Earth and Jupiter. In space, it can be viewed at any angle, and that's why this film is set in space
CONTD: As for the science of this on a less reality dominated fictionalized story, the hotel is within a hypercube, where time gets funny, and every walk across ages him. It must kill the old life & bring the mind/soul/astral into a form where it can thrive. Surpassing ability of a brain which can understand this new power, but no ability to practice it. BUT, killing him is not meant as murder: Aging him out over a day is the best way to get him ready to crossover, as well as establishing trust.
CONTD: on place on the floor, not the ceiling. That's where something is there for perspective. Light, though effective, is coming from the wrong place. Book-wise, blue food within packages, although familiar, we not quite readable--continuing the theme of props. SCI-FI: The screen could also be obviously a passive alien suggestion to the audience of what the relationship is between the fictional characters & their alien encounters, as it is to the movie screen characters & their magic screen.
The hotel suite fits your idea very well. He's in a montage, and keeps looking at the camera, or in this case, the monolith. Or, a step in your direction, the movie screen. He almost grows bored with this, realizing he has a spy watching him do mundane things. He evolves/ages thru the montage. Then, he understands why it had to happen this way in the end.
As for the hotel suite itself, he has a temporary breakdown: It's a representation of a hotel, but light tiles are there for film illuminant
One thing I've always notice was how much the excavation site looks like a film set. Thanks for making more connections! With the mirrored theme of the set I'd liked to thing that Kubrick was suggesting that we ourselves are on stage.
I love this interpretation, and it ties in with my theory of the film. I always felt that we, the viewer, were one in the same as HAL. We had an all seeing eye into the film and the idea that HAL is held into a monolith like shaped connects us the viewers with the monolith as well.
I've watched this movie at different times throughout my life and so I have this on going analysis on it I just wonder how that analysis will grow or change the next time around. But what I get from it is that its about a LOT of things. let me elaborate on one: the mechanics of evolution. You see when the onboard AI started killing the crew, why did it continue to use the integrity of the mission as its justification? Well, I believe the intention was to see who can SURVIVE, there can only be 1
Could the Ligeti piece Atmospheres be used only when the monolith is horizontal, again inviting us to see the distinction? At the beginning before the MGM logo, it is used (horizontal), At the intermission (horizontal) and at the stargaze sequence when the paradigm shifts to horizontal it blends into Atmospheres?
the meaning of the film really is that obscure if you watch carefully several times. there's clearly a logical structure to the film. those who know what i mean have described watching the film as a symphony, which is i think apt. keeping watching and you'll get it :)
@robag88 that does not follow. I didn't reveal the structure because I feel that would ruin the experience for other viewers who don't understand the structure yet.
@palebluedot4ev But you did elaborate ... you said people who get it describe it as a symphony. That's just a single word label, it doesn't mean someone gets the film. After forty plus years there are still lots of logical structure aspects of 2001 that go over people's heads ... and that's why it's worth verbalizing interpretations of the film to coax people along. This video only touches on one aspect of a more complex hidden narrative.
@robag88 I didn't say that IF you use the word symphony, THEN you necessarily understand the film. I merely used the word symphony as a hint. If you know what a symphony is, and understand the film as do I and the people to whom I referred, then you will understand how it is a hint.
The diamonds are pyramids (as above, so below) All the meanings of the 7 diamonds are too difficult to fit in a YT comment, but cross-examine with the Shining and one of the many important meanings is 7up IE 7th heaven which is Saturn. (the book is saturn)
haha now I see it was you that made the 7 up connection! I think the 6th case is intentionally made to look smaller because it represents 7up(Saturn) remit 6up (Jupiter)
Like you said:
"The fact that they are sucking light in is most likely Kubrick’s statement that secretive religious orders do not bring enlightenment as they claim to. They actually suck enlightenment away and leave the Earth in spiritual darkness."
I saw a comment by Clarke that the dimensions in the book were made up after the actual monolith was used in the film. The 1:4:9 is roughly the ratio of dimensions of the steel block ... a solid block of steel I believe, painted black. As for the 7 diamonds. My interpretation would be to point out that seven has always been a mystical number, luck etc. So using a number of seven implies something beyond the ordinary. Also diamond is a symbol of eternity or perfection ... diamonds are forever.
This is a great review. A real revelation! You've convinced me that the monolith could have been intended as the ultimate cinematic portal. The bit about the cosmic music, with which we identify the monolith, appearing over the short periods of a fully black cinema screen is clever-well done! Shifts the emphasis of 2001's philosophical/semantic core to Cinematic/aesthetic rather than mythic/supernatural/psychedelic. Although I'm not going to give up the latter way of musing about the film!
@TVlolz I would say no. Probably 99% of people who watch this movie the first time (me included) have NO idea of what this movie is like, and expecting a space-romp, you finish the movie saying to yourself "WTF did I just watch??"
I would almost say I hated it. Then Someone was raving about it, I watched it a 2nd time, and that 2nd time through I was a lot more sensitive that this film was trying to say something, and that I needed to be "listening" harder.
I gotta say, I'm impressed. You have really widened my understanding of this film. Much thanks. I too am a huge Kubrick fan, and admittedly, I found 2001 one of my least favorites because of the frustrating ambiguity. I think now I can enjoy it with more clarity.
Obtaining measurements of the monolith during the angled views can probably be achieved with trigonometric calculations. I'm sure you'll be able to get a hold of someone who is competent in trigonometry.
For more accurate measurements, play the DVD on your PC and make a screenshot. Then print out that screenshot. You now have a hard copy.
Maybe there is significance in the number 7 (wiki). The Seven ages of Man. There's seven main stars in the Orion contellation, might fit well with the accent of mankind. 7 wonders of the world (Man's achievments). The Seven seals. Seven types of logic (Reason). 7 classic heavenly bodies. 7 day week. 7 seems to mean a lot to mankind, like a can of 7-up when thirsty.
@robag88, I just finished watching the three parts of the S.O. interpretations you offer. Regarding the Renaissance decoration. Perhaps it is important to keep in mind the impact of the Renaissance period in Western civilization. It was the rediscovery and the continuation of the work begun a thousand years prior (thus the term Renaissance, rebirth). It could symbolise both the intense technological development of the era, as well as a more literal 'rebirth' of mankind. Great job on the videos
well, a more general meaning of the 6 diamonds, or diamonds in general, is that its an indication of the transition from one conscious realm to another. but the fact that there was 6 could well be the number of speakers.
The monolith is not only the movie screen, but also looks similar in dimension and color to depictions of the monolith in Renaissance alchemical writings, which explains the decor of Bowman's room. I would love to see which pictures are hanging in the walls of the room. I'm willing to bet they are alchemical ones. The seven crystals would then be the seven planets of classical alchemy, another aspect of the themes of alignment. The screen then becomes the philosophers stone.
Great analysis. Another piece of evidence linking the monolith to the motion picture screen comes from Jerome Agel's book on the making of 2001 which includes this revealing quote from Stanley Kubrick: "The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle."
Kubrick shows the monolith to be a magic medium that retains our interest as it teaches us in ways that we do not always comprehend.
@TheHauntedAngel What? If I (using hyperbole) say you're literally driving me up the wall then I'm using hyperbole. I'm not using the word incorrectly, hyperbole is a perfectly reasonable tool.
That's like saying I'm using the phrase "eat a horse" wrong because I used it (with hyperbole) in the following sentence: I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!
@QuinnMorgendorffer But the point is that just as a hyperbole is a word denoting exaggeration, 'literal' is a word denoting an exact description of something. Therefore, you could say "I could eat a horse," but not "I could literally eat a horse" without sounding ridiculous.
i think the 7 diamonds represent mans journey. The first large diamond on the left represents our beginning (ape) the 5 in the middles represent the crew on their journey (evolution) and the last one is the completed form (star child)
To answer a question from one of your previous videos: The 7 floating diamonds are in fact representing the 7 Cinerama speakers that the movie was filmed for (5 in the front and 2 to the side), that Dave moves away from as he continues his space odyssey. Listen for the movement of sounds during this scene to support this interpretation.
So about the oldish looking room he ends up in, here is what I think:
Most rooms like that look good today, just as good as they looked back when they were new, it is something that never really gets old you can in a way you can say this Louis XVI-style decor is "timeless".
So by putting Bowman in a "timeless" room you can understand that time in that place is different, as he sees himself get older and older being perplexed by it, not understanding how, as in that room, time flows differently.
'My god it's full of stars' Is actually a sly pun that the film screen, is full of Hollywood stars... I read your analysis on the site and it was really fascinating.
May have been said already, but the 1:3:9 exponential scale of the monolith mimics the exponential rate of technological growth first discovered with Moore's Law by Intel in '65 (which postulates that the number of semiconductors on a chip doubles every 2 years [coincidental 2.2 ratio is coincidental, IMO]), and expanded on lately by futurists such as Ray Kurzweil.
The last scenes in the room are the representations of main characters dreams coming true. Thus, monolith as a representation of "God" makes his wishes come true. And as time passes, the main character gets older, the monolith takes his body to begin a new life form on a new planet.
Five: Clarke's book came before the screenplay, but for marketing reasons, the book was called a marketing tie-in "novelization" of the film which it wasn't. The only thing in the book I don't see working with the final film is that in the book, they are going to Saturn instead of Jupiter. After the book and screenplay were done, Kubrick and his technicians found it too difficult to simulate Saturn's rings, so they just simplified the rings into Jupiter's moons.
@tlatosmd The book didn't come before the film (only the short story did which bears hardly any resemblance). Clarke was writing it under Kubrick's supervision as the film was being shot. Kubrick kept Clarke out of the loop regarding a lot of the film content and had him write some chapters based upon what rushes Kubrick allowed him to see - thus allowing Clarke to interpret the footage in his own way. However, Clarke tried to declare the novel finished in advance as he was desperate for money.
@robag88 Read the Kubrick biographies by Vincent Lobrutto and John Baxter for more detail about the Clark / Kubrick collaboration. On pretty much every film Kubrick made from Dr Strangelove Kubrick kept cast and crew in the dark about what he was really up to on set. There are hundreds of quotes and stories supporting that.
Four: The 90-degree turn was pretty common in analogue chemical photography for "cranking" the film forwards to the next area available for exposure before motorized photo cameras became available.
Three (b): When it was finished, it uploaded the package to its big brother in Jupiter's orbit (that transmission is what causes the high tone in the radio communication of the astronauts), which in turn used it to interpolate what might be a more or less familiar environment for the expected arrival to function as a waiting room while they would be turned into the Star Child.
Three (a): The Renaissance room is a kind of compromise composite. When the moon monolith was unearthed, it recorded all of mankind's available radio and televion signals.
@tlatosmd That was Clarke's interpretation for the novel. That's the film's "simplest level" which Kubrick outlined in an interview with Joseph Gelmis before flat out refusing to elaborate on the more complex areas of the film. The key concept here is double narrative. The book tells a different story than the film, which communicates it's meanings through visuals that are mostly not mentioned in the book.
Two: I doubt that Dave is "perceiving computer data" while falling through the stargate. My guess is that its many colors and shapes are relativity effects due to faster-than-light travel. Reading Clarke's original novel, the 7 shapes could be other space vessels that are using this tunnel as one of many for faster-than-light travel through the universe.
First: I doubt that the monolith is literally "singing". I believe that the Ligeti pieces are mere representations of a certain mood or atmosphere created by the monolith, perhaps even by messing with brains directly. I don't even remember that it had any pictures "on" it in the book, all I remember is that it projected images right into ape brains.
@tlatosmd The book did describe the monolith projecting images of a better future for the apes to watch. It also showed the apes geometrical light patterns as did the stargate sequence.
Is there possibly a fourth dimension of the monolith presented in the movie? Like, is the monolith always 16 feet (4 squared) away from the camera? Hmm, I guess not...
interested to hear what is your take on bill cooper's dissemination of 2001, in which he interprets the entire concept of the story taking place in space as being merely a metaphor for human evolution and for as he puts it, the "great work" of freemasonry. I assume that you will have come across this in your research.
@SilverShamrock71 I think it was a well intended, but mistaken take on the film. A lot of films and tv shows contain similar encoding where artists put messages in regarding controversial themes and "conspiracy theories". Unfortunately some people, who believe the entire media is watertight controlled by a global secret society are, can only relate to those messages as another deceptive mass mind control tactic. One only has to look at Dr Strangelove to know the Kubrick was against corruption.
I'm sorry if anyone else has already mentioned this in any of the previous comments you've received, I can't be bothered reading through them all, but i have an observation regarding the "renaissance-room".
It's quite obvious actually:
the word renaissance means rebirth.
I'm sure you get the significance. Actually it's so obvious I'm sure you've thought of it before. So why did you dismiss it? Or did I just solve that part of the puzzle for you;)
Regarding the movements of the camera operator mentioned by The0Endless0Thread: The camera twisting was meant to advance the film. The same film advancement mechanism was seen in underwater cameras in the 60s. Of course, Kubrick couldn't have foreseen digital cameras at the time, so he went with the most obvious parallel to a camera that is air-tight.
Thank you for sharing this analysis of "2001". Your interpretation of the rectangular monolith as the cinema screen itself is wonderful. It seems to me like the film analysis version of Occam's Razor. Hidden in plain sight, this interpretation is so deceptively simple and obvious, it must be true.
Uh, there is a point in the movie where you do see the Monolith shape in a horizontal alignment - when the Pan Am Airways Orion Shuttle lines up with the space station docking port. It is a rectangle that fits the shape of the movie screen as it pulls back. The windows on the spaceships are all rectangles, which is not the best shape for a spacecraft window, as evidenced by NASA not using them on actual space ships. The reason for this dates to WWII.
I always thought that the room was representational of King Louis XIV (the Sun King). It is legend that King Louis right before his death reached out to the void and shouted "Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina" (O Lord, make haste to help me). Why use this particular king? - because he represents the end of the transformation of human civilization from the dark ages to the Renaissance. And now humans are transforming from the information age to the -- what -- awareness age.
The 4khz broadcast tone is not considered feedback. its just a frequency generated for alignment produced at +1dbvu when there is a dropout or something. Also has kubrick encoded stuff like this in all of his movies?
All of Kubrick's movies from 2001: A Space Odyssey onwards are packed with hidden themes. Dr Strangelove was where he started to really upset the establishment. From there on he resorted to deep encoding.
No comments allowed on part 2. The 7 diamonds might represent the Pleiades constellation as the location of where he traveled to.
I can explain a few things that were confusing to many people. The psychedelic scene was him traveling through the gate to where the aliens were. The hotel room was constructed from Bowman's memory as a place for him to spend the rest of his life in four-dimensionally and be studied until he died of old age and was reborn as a starchild.
I'm just spitballing here but I think there might be a connection between the 7 boxes you see in the sky during the last 30 mins and the 7 dimensions. We live in the 3rd dimension, and the 4th dimension which we aren't capable of comprehending is time. In the 4th dimension time is not linear which means you would be able to experience the future, past, and precent as one. I believe this is what happys to bowman at the end because he sees himself at different times in his live. The monolith has
The most glaring difference between the novel and the movie is that the monolith is circling around Saturn in the book and around Jupiter in the movie. As far as the film goes, this was an excellent deviation. Saturn is much to beautiful a planet to have carried off the ominous closing sequence of the movie. Jupiter just looks much more ominous with it's huge methane storms raging. Saturn's beauty would have diminished the movie's mysterious ending.
I've given this thing a lot of thought, and came to the conclusion that if it is cinema screen, then it's in a way an event horizon. You can look outside from it, but not in, thus it being black. In early scripts and in the book the blackness meant the monolith worked on solar power. It on absorbs light not giving any out. The book even emphasizes it's overwhelming blackness. It's fact the audience, looking out from the portal that is cinema screen. Those inside the cinema don't see the audience
@Retardretroguy It also triggers the feedback (though plot-vice it's the sunrise that does it), when it's being filmed in side the film Display taping was actually a perfect metaphor, but somehow you failed to notice the obvious in the scene where they filmed the Monolith. The scientists never get it, only Bowman does.
Also the first scene is monolith POV, where we the audience are put inside our rightful place, inside the event horizon.
@asolarist Weidner mailed me about a year after I'd posted the first two parts of this vid, and relentlessly accused me of plagiarising him. So I checked out his article, which he has listed as being written in 199, though alexa has his site as being first registered in 2004. After pages of alchemical gibberish he has a single paragraph theorizing the monolith as cinema screen, but he doesn't cite any of the detailed evidence outlined in these vids. ...
@robag88 ... (sorry 1999 I meant) I've never claimed to be the only person to crack the monolith = screen code. Others probably have done so privately since 1969. Weidner refuses to accept anyone else could crack the code independently. He used multiple accounts to post msgs on my vids (all signed up same day) as if he represented a wide audience, which is dishonest. I haven't much respect for him after that and, from what i've seen, find his articles 20% good research, 80% fanciful imagination.
@robag88 Oh, i see...You know i cannot exclude the possibility Kubrick knew about mystical stuff, assuming that he was into Jung's philosophy/psychology and Jung was partly a mystic (i have one book of his entitled psychology and alchemy). Maybe he used those things to express better his idea behind 2001. I don't support 100% Weidner's theory, it has some interesting stuff but also it has some pretty hilarious ones like.... monolith = cubed brick = Kubrick hahahahaha....really funny!
@Kevo216666 Well, that would be a good dismissal if it wasn't for the dozens of other incredibly specific details communicating the theme. And as the video explains, of all the different dimensions a rectangle could be or the various gemometric shapes, what are the odds of it being inditinguishable from a cinerama screen?
@robag88 Hi there, okay, I'm sat at work looking out of my window. I can see across London. All the buildings I can see are made from bricks with pretty much the same ration to height and width as the monolith. On my desk is are two envelopes with identical ratios to the monolith. I have a monitor screen, a book, a box of posh cereal, a set of speakers, tree drawers in my cabinet - all with the same height and width ratios as the monolith...
...I could arrive at couple of conclusions. The first one being, I am surrounded Kubrick fans who are trying communicate with me on a subconscious level. Or... There are a lot of rectangles about.
I think that Kubrik putting the meaning film like this was perfect: "They are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded".
Your review is fantastic and seems to connect many of the dots that kubrik put into his film, good job!
Re: the death-rebirth-enlightenment theme - the scene near the end where Bowman's pointing at the monolith can be interpreted to mean that he's reached enlightenment - he has come to know the meaning of the monolith. Note that it can here be taken as a gravestone. He then dies and is reborn ...according to Buddhism, enlightenment IS a death followed by a rebirth. In my opinion it's thefefore valid to say that the monolith simply represents enlightenment. It is also the cinema screen...cont'd...
If you can find it I highly recommend watching "The Colors of Infinity" hosted by A.C. Clarke-great explination of fractals and fractal geometry in nature...may give some added insight to the fractal stargates. Great analysis as usual!
If you go to the book, it says that while travelling through the stargate, or after exiting, Bowman sees some kind of alien spacecraft travelling near by. I wonder if the 5 or 7 diamond shaped objects could represent that? I also believe the renaissance dwelling Bowman ends up in at the end is designed that way by the intelligences at work to show they understand humanity's concept of beauty and the need to relate. It is a serene and benign place.
@dewfall56 Yep that's pretty much Arthur C Clarke's interpretation of the footage Kubrick let him see during production. Kubrick had him write all sorts of alien stuff, but omitted it all from the film, thus creating two separate narratives. Virtually all Kubrick films since, and including Space Odyssey have double narratives.
Exellent explaination by the poster. I feel Bowman's trip through the stargate also served the purpose of teaching him. The brilliant colors and patterns were actually knowledge being force fed (notice that his eyes were always open even though being terribly traumatized and terrified as evidenced by the trembling in the pod afterward). This was necessary to expand his conscienceness and perhaps leap ahead in evolution hundreds of thousands of years so that he could be a liaison for humanity.
@tomfong292 As the vid explains ... 2001 was shot in cinerama for curved screens then tranferred to 70mm, which potentially distorted the measurements. Monitor resolutions can distort it too, but the monolith on screen is close enough to the cinerama format that it's indistinguishable to the unaided human eye. Plus the film is laced with incredibly specific hints that the monolith is the screen. You're really reaching if you try to pass off all those details with conincidence theories.
I know that 3:40 relates to how a panorama view was projected on screen 3:55. But yet there is a chair on the left side next to the monolith facing the character.
At 3:40 I noticed that the chairs next to the bed were facing at the monoliths direction and the chairs next or behind the monolith were facing either to the character or us the audience or both. Did Kubrick add this to show that everyone looks at the monolith and the movie itself from a different perspective? Could there be a different reason cause I'm not quite sure.
Maybe Bowman's aging views are his voyage through time as quantum mechanics state that time goes slower as you go faster. Bowman made a traveling through the monolith and into a barroque room, and he appears to switch his point of view each time. Kubrick could relate to this and integrate the quantum science in the film as literaly a new for understanding reality, not as we see it, but as it is given to us. Bowman's only way to do that is that he no longer is limited in a physical body.
I just got a blu-ray copy of 2001, 25 GB of pure data! I made an attempt to measure the ratio of the monolith as a curiosity, gave me a perfect 2.40:1, not directly matching the 2.35:1 anamorphic scope format. Maybe the 0.05 difference is to compensate for the slightly curved cinema screen, not sure. But as you say, symbols are distortions, not a science. Great work.
Glad you corrected the pyramid --> monolith change. I just finished a re-read of the book, so it was fresh in my mind. What does change is the appearance of the monolith; in the book it is not just static black, but strikingly transparent/crystallene, and very colorfully animated--similar to what we experience in the stargate.In its first appearance the book's monolith strongly suggests a (television) screen--I remember thinking this the first time I read it. And then screens in the hotel room?!
I somewhat feel like some of your connections are are little reaching, but they are still interesting.
I really believe that the primary point of this movie is to give pause to the idea that our evolution may be guided by an alien intelligence. That monolith almost seems to 'parent' us, watching us evolve but at the same time pushing us in the right direction.
I don't know that the final bedroom scene has distinct meanings, but rather is a fuzzy interpretation into the distant future of man.
@WatchVidTK Yeah the alien intelligence interpretation works on a casual viewing basis and especially if you read Arthur C Clarke's novel interpretation of what Kubrick was shooting, but when you start studying and cross referencing the details of Kubrick's direction the alien narrative falls apart to reveal an entirely different set of themes.
i recently saw this movie and was puzzeled and tought it was a bad movei because i didn't understand it. But you explained it really nicely, and now i know that that movie is a masterpiece. So thanks a ton for ur explanation!
@robag88 ....it is out of your scope....But i would appreciate your input on 2010....As well as your review about : Barry Lyndon . Kubricks' most neglected film
This has probably been mentioned, but "Renaissance" literally means "rebirth." It doesn't take a big jump to relate it to the rebirth Dave was going through, into a higher form of man.
@hugjuffs Yep, there's a chapter on rebirth themes in the expanded analysis on my website. Unfortunately the site is down for a few days thanks to poorly planned system updates by the web hoster.
hey robag88 - Firstly, thank you for your detailed, circumspect work. Incredibly valuable and enjoyable stuff. i sent you a message from your site yesterday with a comment a bit too long to post here. would love to hear your thoughts.
wow, the interpretation of the monolith feedback is spot on! because it starts feeding back just as he is going to take a picture/video of this... just as a microphone would feedback if you placed it near an amplifier. very awesome review!
In your last analysis you asked why there were 7 diamonds in the sky. Is it possible that there could be one diamond for each character who recognizes the monolith as the movie? Because there are 6 scientists in the scene with the "feedback like sound" that marks their epiphany. In the same way I think by the end of the movie, or at least by the part where the stargate flips, Bowman comes to the same realization. So therefore the 6 scientist + Bowman make up the 7 diamonds in the stargate.
Incredible insight on this compelling film. I just saw it again and came here and was mesmirised by your reviews. I can agree that it makes sense that the monolith is the cinema screen becasue the end makes sense, an astronaut wandering around a film set, watching his stand ins at various stages of his growth. Then the starchild is a mere effect, nothing more a cinema trick. Even the film does not sync the music to the end credits, as everything is off kilter and tilted like the cinema screen.
lol... There is far more going on here than even what you are hinting at.... Pay close attention ( In all his films) to Geometrical shapes/ patterns concerning their symbolic connections/ relationships to Human history through out all ancient cultures leading up to the modern age. Also focus on Music Theory. Look at the connections between Science and religion In The history of our species concerning occult knowledge- The NUMBERS ( Concerning symbolism Dimensions/ geometry) are important.
@ninthsphereofshadows "There is far more going on here than even what you are hinting at" Yes, that's why there's a 14 chapter review of the film on my website.
"His feeling that he was inside a movie set was almost literally true."
You know, this might explain why the candles in the hotel room are not lit: it's because it IS a movie set, and lit candles would be a fire safety hazard!
Simply put, the monolith represents higher intelligence. Strait lines are never found in nature. When man sees this the only question is 'Who did this?' Which answers another bigger question of 'are we alone in the universe?' upon answering this it brings up the question of is there a god. Hal sho
I would love to see this film on a panoramic screen! I feel like I've missed out.
johnlovesbridge 17 hours ago
Thanks SO much, Rob, your analysis of film via collative learning is always superb. I've been a fan of Kubrick for as long as I can remember with 2001 being my favourite film of all time, You've just made me appreciate it so much more.
reebeast 19 hours ago
I have just been mindfucked
dogieboy6 6 days ago
From imdb:'TMA-1 stands for Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-1. The monolith was originally to have been a black tetrahedron; however, it did not reflect light properly. Stanley Kubrick then decided to use a transparent cube, but that proved to be too difficult to use because of the reflections created by the studio lights. Next came a rectangular monolith cast from Lucite that looked unconvincing, and finally the familiar black slab.' This doesn't match with the movie screen theory
nw8Rh 1 week ago
@nw8Rh Yep, I've read that in the biogs. It doesn't match or disprove the screen theory. If a shape doesn't reflect properly you change the lighting or material, not the shape. Sounds like a typical SK smokescreen. I've read instances of SK having designers do multiple designs then resort to what he privately had in mind. Eg, war room set of Dr Strangelove. It was one of his ways of covering his tracks. I know the tactic works because I did it a lot on the set of my first feature film.
robag88 1 week ago
Rob I'm too stupid for this shiz...Just tell me what it MEANS!!! lol, love the vids man
juicyd99 2 weeks ago
Holy moly, you, robag88, blew my mind.
Granted, I've only seen the movie twice but I've been obsessed ever since I first watched it a few years back. I'm absolutely stunned by your hints and interpretations.
I just ordered this incredible film, can't wait to rewatch it with this new knowledge!
rippspeck 2 weeks ago
I like to think that there are alot of hints to shift paradigm. In space, there is no up and down, shown with the crew(wo)man walking on the walls,the runner running through the workplace cabin. Also the photographer shifting his camera 90 degrees in between snapshots tells us to turn our heads . We are basically looking at the monolith standing because that is how it's presented to us on Earth and Jupiter. In space, it can be viewed at any angle, and that's why this film is set in space
lutten2 2 weeks ago
CONTD: As for the science of this on a less reality dominated fictionalized story, the hotel is within a hypercube, where time gets funny, and every walk across ages him. It must kill the old life & bring the mind/soul/astral into a form where it can thrive. Surpassing ability of a brain which can understand this new power, but no ability to practice it. BUT, killing him is not meant as murder: Aging him out over a day is the best way to get him ready to crossover, as well as establishing trust.
Duffy82076 2 weeks ago
CONTD: on place on the floor, not the ceiling. That's where something is there for perspective. Light, though effective, is coming from the wrong place. Book-wise, blue food within packages, although familiar, we not quite readable--continuing the theme of props. SCI-FI: The screen could also be obviously a passive alien suggestion to the audience of what the relationship is between the fictional characters & their alien encounters, as it is to the movie screen characters & their magic screen.
Duffy82076 2 weeks ago
The hotel suite fits your idea very well. He's in a montage, and keeps looking at the camera, or in this case, the monolith. Or, a step in your direction, the movie screen. He almost grows bored with this, realizing he has a spy watching him do mundane things. He evolves/ages thru the montage. Then, he understands why it had to happen this way in the end.
As for the hotel suite itself, he has a temporary breakdown: It's a representation of a hotel, but light tiles are there for film illuminant
Duffy82076 2 weeks ago
One thing I've always notice was how much the excavation site looks like a film set. Thanks for making more connections! With the mirrored theme of the set I'd liked to thing that Kubrick was suggesting that we ourselves are on stage.
Monoaux 3 weeks ago
You are the monolith of YouTube
AtomFishProductions 3 weeks ago 2
I love this interpretation, and it ties in with my theory of the film. I always felt that we, the viewer, were one in the same as HAL. We had an all seeing eye into the film and the idea that HAL is held into a monolith like shaped connects us the viewers with the monolith as well.
crapshooterblues 3 weeks ago
IN SUMMARY: The monolith is a machine built by aliens to speed up evolution of sentient creatures, because the aliens were lonely.
DimmedDiamond 4 weeks ago
@DimmedDiamond IN SUMMARY: you didn't watched the video :)
robag88 4 weeks ago 16
I tried to go back to my copy of 2001 to listen to the intro music and intermission, but that music scares me way too much.
I had to take a short break after the astronauts find the moon monolith.
lcjj7 4 weeks ago
I've watched this movie at different times throughout my life and so I have this on going analysis on it I just wonder how that analysis will grow or change the next time around. But what I get from it is that its about a LOT of things. let me elaborate on one: the mechanics of evolution. You see when the onboard AI started killing the crew, why did it continue to use the integrity of the mission as its justification? Well, I believe the intention was to see who can SURVIVE, there can only be 1
XTheDentist 4 weeks ago
Could the Ligeti piece Atmospheres be used only when the monolith is horizontal, again inviting us to see the distinction? At the beginning before the MGM logo, it is used (horizontal), At the intermission (horizontal) and at the stargaze sequence when the paradigm shifts to horizontal it blends into Atmospheres?
rebelshark1 1 month ago
the meaning of the film really is that obscure if you watch carefully several times. there's clearly a logical structure to the film. those who know what i mean have described watching the film as a symphony, which is i think apt. keeping watching and you'll get it :)
palebluedot4ev 1 month ago
@palebluedot4ev If you say you "get it", but can't describe what you get then you probably didn't get it.
robag88 1 month ago 6
@robag88 that does not follow. I didn't reveal the structure because I feel that would ruin the experience for other viewers who don't understand the structure yet.
palebluedot4ev 1 month ago
@palebluedot4ev But you did elaborate ... you said people who get it describe it as a symphony. That's just a single word label, it doesn't mean someone gets the film. After forty plus years there are still lots of logical structure aspects of 2001 that go over people's heads ... and that's why it's worth verbalizing interpretations of the film to coax people along. This video only touches on one aspect of a more complex hidden narrative.
robag88 1 month ago 9
@robag88 I didn't say that IF you use the word symphony, THEN you necessarily understand the film. I merely used the word symphony as a hint. If you know what a symphony is, and understand the film as do I and the people to whom I referred, then you will understand how it is a hint.
palebluedot4ev 1 month ago
The diamonds are pyramids (as above, so below) All the meanings of the 7 diamonds are too difficult to fit in a YT comment, but cross-examine with the Shining and one of the many important meanings is 7up IE 7th heaven which is Saturn. (the book is saturn)
1step1up 2 months ago
@1step1up
haha now I see it was you that made the 7 up connection! I think the 6th case is intentionally made to look smaller because it represents 7up(Saturn) remit 6up (Jupiter)
Like you said:
"The fact that they are sucking light in is most likely Kubrick’s statement that secretive religious orders do not bring enlightenment as they claim to. They actually suck enlightenment away and leave the Earth in spiritual darkness."
watch?v=JihA5hpBtZY
-6:35
1step1up 2 months ago
ur reviews are great.. just found u today
880330145789 2 months ago
I saw a comment by Clarke that the dimensions in the book were made up after the actual monolith was used in the film. The 1:4:9 is roughly the ratio of dimensions of the steel block ... a solid block of steel I believe, painted black. As for the 7 diamonds. My interpretation would be to point out that seven has always been a mystical number, luck etc. So using a number of seven implies something beyond the ordinary. Also diamond is a symbol of eternity or perfection ... diamonds are forever.
UteChewb 2 months ago
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7 diamonds = 7 stages of man's life. seven ages of man: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and second childhood
coopasan9 3 months ago
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coopasan9 3 months ago
This is a great review. A real revelation! You've convinced me that the monolith could have been intended as the ultimate cinematic portal. The bit about the cosmic music, with which we identify the monolith, appearing over the short periods of a fully black cinema screen is clever-well done! Shifts the emphasis of 2001's philosophical/semantic core to Cinematic/aesthetic rather than mythic/supernatural/psychedelic. Although I'm not going to give up the latter way of musing about the film!
ThePhunboy 3 months ago
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ThePhunboy 3 months ago
Does it detract from the experience, me having seen all this before watching the movie?
TVlolz 3 months ago
@TVlolz I would say no. Probably 99% of people who watch this movie the first time (me included) have NO idea of what this movie is like, and expecting a space-romp, you finish the movie saying to yourself "WTF did I just watch??"
I would almost say I hated it. Then Someone was raving about it, I watched it a 2nd time, and that 2nd time through I was a lot more sensitive that this film was trying to say something, and that I needed to be "listening" harder.
danimal519 2 months ago
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iammrbrown 2 months ago
I gotta say, I'm impressed. You have really widened my understanding of this film. Much thanks. I too am a huge Kubrick fan, and admittedly, I found 2001 one of my least favorites because of the frustrating ambiguity. I think now I can enjoy it with more clarity.
moshomaniac1 3 months ago
Obtaining measurements of the monolith during the angled views can probably be achieved with trigonometric calculations. I'm sure you'll be able to get a hold of someone who is competent in trigonometry.
For more accurate measurements, play the DVD on your PC and make a screenshot. Then print out that screenshot. You now have a hard copy.
mastersonkev1 3 months ago
Maybe there is significance in the number 7 (wiki). The Seven ages of Man. There's seven main stars in the Orion contellation, might fit well with the accent of mankind. 7 wonders of the world (Man's achievments). The Seven seals. Seven types of logic (Reason). 7 classic heavenly bodies. 7 day week. 7 seems to mean a lot to mankind, like a can of 7-up when thirsty.
Jeorney 3 months ago
@Jeorney i like how you added humour in the end after scarin me with that seven stuff lol p.s. Seven deadly sins aswel
66SmUrF66 3 months ago
i can watch this film till I die... lol* I wish I can send you my thesis by the way I ask foa friend reques on facebook pls add me
BusinessButterfly 4 months ago
I think this is Kubrick's play on the famous Shakespeare peice "All the world's a stage".
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their *exits and their entrances*;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being *seven ages*. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms."
TELL ME THAT ISN'T THE MOVIE SCRIPT!!!
You heard it here first folks... I cracked that shit, lol.
DackIsBack 4 months ago in playlist More videos from robag88
Age of enlightenment, we figured it out.
SilentEvil2 4 months ago
@robag88, I just finished watching the three parts of the S.O. interpretations you offer. Regarding the Renaissance decoration. Perhaps it is important to keep in mind the impact of the Renaissance period in Western civilization. It was the rediscovery and the continuation of the work begun a thousand years prior (thus the term Renaissance, rebirth). It could symbolise both the intense technological development of the era, as well as a more literal 'rebirth' of mankind. Great job on the videos
moe16488 4 months ago
well, a more general meaning of the 6 diamonds, or diamonds in general, is that its an indication of the transition from one conscious realm to another. but the fact that there was 6 could well be the number of speakers.
TheyAreHere2 4 months ago
@TheyAreHere2 There's seven. My interpretations of the seven diamonds in the full article on my website :)
robag88 4 months ago 4
The monolith is not only the movie screen, but also looks similar in dimension and color to depictions of the monolith in Renaissance alchemical writings, which explains the decor of Bowman's room. I would love to see which pictures are hanging in the walls of the room. I'm willing to bet they are alchemical ones. The seven crystals would then be the seven planets of classical alchemy, another aspect of the themes of alignment. The screen then becomes the philosophers stone.
HighPriestofLemuria 4 months ago
Great analysis. Another piece of evidence linking the monolith to the motion picture screen comes from Jerome Agel's book on the making of 2001 which includes this revealing quote from Stanley Kubrick: "The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle."
Kubrick shows the monolith to be a magic medium that retains our interest as it teaches us in ways that we do not always comprehend.
derinsherman62 5 months ago
Please stop using the word 'literally'. You keep using it wrong.
Aside from that, great vids, thanks.
TheHauntedAngel 5 months ago
@TheHauntedAngel Am I literally using it wrong?:)
robag88 5 months ago 13
@robag88 Haha, literally.
TheHauntedAngel 5 months ago
@TheHauntedAngel Hyperbole?
QuinnMorgendorffer 4 months ago
@QuinnMorgendorffer Hyperboles and the word literally make a bit of a paradox.
TheHauntedAngel 4 months ago
@TheHauntedAngel What? If I (using hyperbole) say you're literally driving me up the wall then I'm using hyperbole. I'm not using the word incorrectly, hyperbole is a perfectly reasonable tool.
That's like saying I'm using the phrase "eat a horse" wrong because I used it (with hyperbole) in the following sentence: I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!
QuinnMorgendorffer 4 months ago
@QuinnMorgendorffer But the point is that just as a hyperbole is a word denoting exaggeration, 'literal' is a word denoting an exact description of something. Therefore, you could say "I could eat a horse," but not "I could literally eat a horse" without sounding ridiculous.
TheHauntedAngel 4 months ago
just wanted to say thanks!
kyuss 5 months ago
i think the 7 diamonds represent mans journey. The first large diamond on the left represents our beginning (ape) the 5 in the middles represent the crew on their journey (evolution) and the last one is the completed form (star child)
Deanovo1 5 months ago
To answer a question from one of your previous videos: The 7 floating diamonds are in fact representing the 7 Cinerama speakers that the movie was filmed for (5 in the front and 2 to the side), that Dave moves away from as he continues his space odyssey. Listen for the movement of sounds during this scene to support this interpretation.
Luminous72 5 months ago
@Luminous72 Yeah I read that in Joe Bisden's article. He and I did a lot of collaborating while writing our reviews. Great guy.
robag88 5 months ago
because of this I watched the movie for the first time yesterday and wow... mind = blown
anonymouslol 5 months ago
So about the oldish looking room he ends up in, here is what I think:
Most rooms like that look good today, just as good as they looked back when they were new, it is something that never really gets old you can in a way you can say this Louis XVI-style decor is "timeless".
So by putting Bowman in a "timeless" room you can understand that time in that place is different, as he sees himself get older and older being perplexed by it, not understanding how, as in that room, time flows differently.
hagelbraker 5 months ago
Very nice! I had a hunch on a few things but you gave more insight! :)
Jadama0 5 months ago
'My god it's full of stars' Is actually a sly pun that the film screen, is full of Hollywood stars... I read your analysis on the site and it was really fascinating.
adamgnome2 5 months ago
May have been said already, but the 1:3:9 exponential scale of the monolith mimics the exponential rate of technological growth first discovered with Moore's Law by Intel in '65 (which postulates that the number of semiconductors on a chip doubles every 2 years [coincidental 2.2 ratio is coincidental, IMO]), and expanded on lately by futurists such as Ray Kurzweil.
killermolly667 5 months ago
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killermolly667 5 months ago
Jeus Fucking Christ Man!! You´re A MASTER of interpretation!!! Absolutely great review.
RaulSoaresG1452 5 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
guess we have a similar monolith called giza.
foxmulderize 6 months ago
Rob,
I have sent you a message about this picture/scene of the star child, earth and space ... with my theory:
nadabrahmaUK 6 months ago
The last scenes in the room are the representations of main characters dreams coming true. Thus, monolith as a representation of "God" makes his wishes come true. And as time passes, the main character gets older, the monolith takes his body to begin a new life form on a new planet.
aizik2005 6 months ago
Five: Clarke's book came before the screenplay, but for marketing reasons, the book was called a marketing tie-in "novelization" of the film which it wasn't. The only thing in the book I don't see working with the final film is that in the book, they are going to Saturn instead of Jupiter. After the book and screenplay were done, Kubrick and his technicians found it too difficult to simulate Saturn's rings, so they just simplified the rings into Jupiter's moons.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
@tlatosmd The book didn't come before the film (only the short story did which bears hardly any resemblance). Clarke was writing it under Kubrick's supervision as the film was being shot. Kubrick kept Clarke out of the loop regarding a lot of the film content and had him write some chapters based upon what rushes Kubrick allowed him to see - thus allowing Clarke to interpret the footage in his own way. However, Clarke tried to declare the novel finished in advance as he was desperate for money.
robag88 5 months ago
@robag88 Read the Kubrick biographies by Vincent Lobrutto and John Baxter for more detail about the Clark / Kubrick collaboration. On pretty much every film Kubrick made from Dr Strangelove Kubrick kept cast and crew in the dark about what he was really up to on set. There are hundreds of quotes and stories supporting that.
robag88 5 months ago
Four: The 90-degree turn was pretty common in analogue chemical photography for "cranking" the film forwards to the next area available for exposure before motorized photo cameras became available.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
Three (b): When it was finished, it uploaded the package to its big brother in Jupiter's orbit (that transmission is what causes the high tone in the radio communication of the astronauts), which in turn used it to interpolate what might be a more or less familiar environment for the expected arrival to function as a waiting room while they would be turned into the Star Child.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
Three (a): The Renaissance room is a kind of compromise composite. When the moon monolith was unearthed, it recorded all of mankind's available radio and televion signals.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
@tlatosmd That was Clarke's interpretation for the novel. That's the film's "simplest level" which Kubrick outlined in an interview with Joseph Gelmis before flat out refusing to elaborate on the more complex areas of the film. The key concept here is double narrative. The book tells a different story than the film, which communicates it's meanings through visuals that are mostly not mentioned in the book.
robag88 5 months ago
Two: I doubt that Dave is "perceiving computer data" while falling through the stargate. My guess is that its many colors and shapes are relativity effects due to faster-than-light travel. Reading Clarke's original novel, the 7 shapes could be other space vessels that are using this tunnel as one of many for faster-than-light travel through the universe.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
First: I doubt that the monolith is literally "singing". I believe that the Ligeti pieces are mere representations of a certain mood or atmosphere created by the monolith, perhaps even by messing with brains directly. I don't even remember that it had any pictures "on" it in the book, all I remember is that it projected images right into ape brains.
tlatosmd 6 months ago
@tlatosmd The book did describe the monolith projecting images of a better future for the apes to watch. It also showed the apes geometrical light patterns as did the stargate sequence.
robag88 5 months ago
"Is he touching it from the outside or within?" Ok so that just sent me on a spiral trip out. My eyes popped with shock.
smoothymcgyver 6 months ago
Is there possibly a fourth dimension of the monolith presented in the movie? Like, is the monolith always 16 feet (4 squared) away from the camera? Hmm, I guess not...
TheZaius 6 months ago
@TheZaius Oh, woops, I misread the dimensions presented in the video.
TheZaius 6 months ago
interested to hear what is your take on bill cooper's dissemination of 2001, in which he interprets the entire concept of the story taking place in space as being merely a metaphor for human evolution and for as he puts it, the "great work" of freemasonry. I assume that you will have come across this in your research.
SilverShamrock71 6 months ago
@SilverShamrock71 I think it was a well intended, but mistaken take on the film. A lot of films and tv shows contain similar encoding where artists put messages in regarding controversial themes and "conspiracy theories". Unfortunately some people, who believe the entire media is watertight controlled by a global secret society are, can only relate to those messages as another deceptive mass mind control tactic. One only has to look at Dr Strangelove to know the Kubrick was against corruption.
robag88 5 months ago
@robag88 interesting and sensible analysis, thanks for your response...
SilverShamrock71 5 months ago
Oh nevermind, it's the second moon landing that has the monolith alignment . Got it, it's on my dvd.
40gabe 7 months ago
My dvd of 2001 does not show the half monolith alignment when landing on the moon. It's a completely different graphic. Anyone else have the same?
40gabe 7 months ago
I'm sorry if anyone else has already mentioned this in any of the previous comments you've received, I can't be bothered reading through them all, but i have an observation regarding the "renaissance-room".
It's quite obvious actually:
the word renaissance means rebirth.
I'm sure you get the significance. Actually it's so obvious I'm sure you've thought of it before. So why did you dismiss it? Or did I just solve that part of the puzzle for you;)
Anyway, thanks for your interesting analysis
voxvoxvox 7 months ago
@voxvoxvox That makes perfect sense.
40gabe 7 months ago
Regarding the movements of the camera operator mentioned by The0Endless0Thread: The camera twisting was meant to advance the film. The same film advancement mechanism was seen in underwater cameras in the 60s. Of course, Kubrick couldn't have foreseen digital cameras at the time, so he went with the most obvious parallel to a camera that is air-tight.
bb5196 7 months ago
Thank you for sharing this analysis of "2001". Your interpretation of the rectangular monolith as the cinema screen itself is wonderful. It seems to me like the film analysis version of Occam's Razor. Hidden in plain sight, this interpretation is so deceptively simple and obvious, it must be true.
floresarts 7 months ago
Uh, there is a point in the movie where you do see the Monolith shape in a horizontal alignment - when the Pan Am Airways Orion Shuttle lines up with the space station docking port. It is a rectangle that fits the shape of the movie screen as it pulls back. The windows on the spaceships are all rectangles, which is not the best shape for a spacecraft window, as evidenced by NASA not using them on actual space ships. The reason for this dates to WWII.
nozcr 7 months ago
I always thought that the room was representational of King Louis XIV (the Sun King). It is legend that King Louis right before his death reached out to the void and shouted "Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina" (O Lord, make haste to help me). Why use this particular king? - because he represents the end of the transformation of human civilization from the dark ages to the Renaissance. And now humans are transforming from the information age to the -- what -- awareness age.
Elvisinmybasement 7 months ago
@Elvisinmybasement Now that's interesting.
robag88 5 months ago
You are the reason "Fair Use" exists .. great work.
Elvisinmybasement 7 months ago
The 4khz broadcast tone is not considered feedback. its just a frequency generated for alignment produced at +1dbvu when there is a dropout or something. Also has kubrick encoded stuff like this in all of his movies?
AdamR702 7 months ago
@AdamR702 Is that a 4khz tone?
All of Kubrick's movies from 2001: A Space Odyssey onwards are packed with hidden themes. Dr Strangelove was where he started to really upset the establishment. From there on he resorted to deep encoding.
robag88 7 months ago 5
@robag88 Im sorry 1khz tone, 4 would be a bit too much
AdamR702 7 months ago
i liked this film
Ergophile 7 months ago
Thanks for the upload. I enjoyed this tremendously.
bobbygnosis 7 months ago 18
@bobbygnosis You're welcome
robag88 7 months ago 4
No comments allowed on part 2. The 7 diamonds might represent the Pleiades constellation as the location of where he traveled to.
I can explain a few things that were confusing to many people. The psychedelic scene was him traveling through the gate to where the aliens were. The hotel room was constructed from Bowman's memory as a place for him to spend the rest of his life in four-dimensionally and be studied until he died of old age and was reborn as a starchild.
illustriouschin 7 months ago
Expanded his thinking into the 4th dimension
Ltpeppers05 7 months ago
I'm just spitballing here but I think there might be a connection between the 7 boxes you see in the sky during the last 30 mins and the 7 dimensions. We live in the 3rd dimension, and the 4th dimension which we aren't capable of comprehending is time. In the 4th dimension time is not linear which means you would be able to experience the future, past, and precent as one. I believe this is what happys to bowman at the end because he sees himself at different times in his live. The monolith has
Ltpeppers05 7 months ago
The most glaring difference between the novel and the movie is that the monolith is circling around Saturn in the book and around Jupiter in the movie. As far as the film goes, this was an excellent deviation. Saturn is much to beautiful a planet to have carried off the ominous closing sequence of the movie. Jupiter just looks much more ominous with it's huge methane storms raging. Saturn's beauty would have diminished the movie's mysterious ending.
tubbysidney 7 months ago
I've given this thing a lot of thought, and came to the conclusion that if it is cinema screen, then it's in a way an event horizon. You can look outside from it, but not in, thus it being black. In early scripts and in the book the blackness meant the monolith worked on solar power. It on absorbs light not giving any out. The book even emphasizes it's overwhelming blackness. It's fact the audience, looking out from the portal that is cinema screen. Those inside the cinema don't see the audience
Retardretroguy 7 months ago
@Retardretroguy It also triggers the feedback (though plot-vice it's the sunrise that does it), when it's being filmed in side the film Display taping was actually a perfect metaphor, but somehow you failed to notice the obvious in the scene where they filmed the Monolith. The scientists never get it, only Bowman does.
Also the first scene is monolith POV, where we the audience are put inside our rightful place, inside the event horizon.
Retardretroguy 7 months ago
I think that Jay Weidner years ago said exactly the..monolith = black cinema screen.
He also said some other stuff (maybe wild) stuff but we have to agree that he knows what he's talking about!
asolarist 7 months ago
@asolarist Weidner mailed me about a year after I'd posted the first two parts of this vid, and relentlessly accused me of plagiarising him. So I checked out his article, which he has listed as being written in 199, though alexa has his site as being first registered in 2004. After pages of alchemical gibberish he has a single paragraph theorizing the monolith as cinema screen, but he doesn't cite any of the detailed evidence outlined in these vids. ...
robag88 7 months ago 3
@robag88 ... (sorry 1999 I meant) I've never claimed to be the only person to crack the monolith = screen code. Others probably have done so privately since 1969. Weidner refuses to accept anyone else could crack the code independently. He used multiple accounts to post msgs on my vids (all signed up same day) as if he represented a wide audience, which is dishonest. I haven't much respect for him after that and, from what i've seen, find his articles 20% good research, 80% fanciful imagination.
robag88 7 months ago 8
@robag88 Oh, i see...You know i cannot exclude the possibility Kubrick knew about mystical stuff, assuming that he was into Jung's philosophy/psychology and Jung was partly a mystic (i have one book of his entitled psychology and alchemy). Maybe he used those things to express better his idea behind 2001. I don't support 100% Weidner's theory, it has some interesting stuff but also it has some pretty hilarious ones like.... monolith = cubed brick = Kubrick hahahahaha....really funny!
asolarist 7 months ago
@asolarist yeah I like the Cube-Brick joke. SK had may well have thought about that when making the film too.
robag88 7 months ago
The monolith is rectangular and so is the cinema screen (but not quite the same dimensions). Spooky?...
...Or are they just RECTANGLES?!
..It totally messes with your mind when you really think about it.
Kevo216666 7 months ago
@Kevo216666 Well, that would be a good dismissal if it wasn't for the dozens of other incredibly specific details communicating the theme. And as the video explains, of all the different dimensions a rectangle could be or the various gemometric shapes, what are the odds of it being inditinguishable from a cinerama screen?
robag88 7 months ago
@robag88 Hi there, okay, I'm sat at work looking out of my window. I can see across London. All the buildings I can see are made from bricks with pretty much the same ration to height and width as the monolith. On my desk is are two envelopes with identical ratios to the monolith. I have a monitor screen, a book, a box of posh cereal, a set of speakers, tree drawers in my cabinet - all with the same height and width ratios as the monolith...
Kevo216666 7 months ago
...I could arrive at couple of conclusions. The first one being, I am surrounded Kubrick fans who are trying communicate with me on a subconscious level. Or... There are a lot of rectangles about.
Kevo216666 7 months ago
I think that Kubrik putting the meaning film like this was perfect: "They are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded".
Your review is fantastic and seems to connect many of the dots that kubrik put into his film, good job!
SaphirePhoenix08 7 months ago
6:25 woah woah WOAH! I WANT THOSE SOO BAD :D THATS SOOO COOL!
poorlymadeproduction 7 months ago
...within the context that Kubrick wants us to see in it what Bowman sees.
MrMovieAnalyst 7 months ago
Re: the death-rebirth-enlightenment theme - the scene near the end where Bowman's pointing at the monolith can be interpreted to mean that he's reached enlightenment - he has come to know the meaning of the monolith. Note that it can here be taken as a gravestone. He then dies and is reborn ...according to Buddhism, enlightenment IS a death followed by a rebirth. In my opinion it's thefefore valid to say that the monolith simply represents enlightenment. It is also the cinema screen...cont'd...
MrMovieAnalyst 7 months ago
If you can find it I highly recommend watching "The Colors of Infinity" hosted by A.C. Clarke-great explination of fractals and fractal geometry in nature...may give some added insight to the fractal stargates. Great analysis as usual!
liveecarbme 8 months ago
If you go to the book, it says that while travelling through the stargate, or after exiting, Bowman sees some kind of alien spacecraft travelling near by. I wonder if the 5 or 7 diamond shaped objects could represent that? I also believe the renaissance dwelling Bowman ends up in at the end is designed that way by the intelligences at work to show they understand humanity's concept of beauty and the need to relate. It is a serene and benign place.
dewfall56 8 months ago
@dewfall56 Yep that's pretty much Arthur C Clarke's interpretation of the footage Kubrick let him see during production. Kubrick had him write all sorts of alien stuff, but omitted it all from the film, thus creating two separate narratives. Virtually all Kubrick films since, and including Space Odyssey have double narratives.
robag88 8 months ago
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dewfall56 8 months ago
Exellent explaination by the poster. I feel Bowman's trip through the stargate also served the purpose of teaching him. The brilliant colors and patterns were actually knowledge being force fed (notice that his eyes were always open even though being terribly traumatized and terrified as evidenced by the trembling in the pod afterward). This was necessary to expand his conscienceness and perhaps leap ahead in evolution hundreds of thousands of years so that he could be a liaison for humanity.
dewfall56 8 months ago
"Although we don't have a perfect match between the .... " so in other words, it's a coincidence. You're really reaching here, dude.
tomfong292 8 months ago
@tomfong292 As the vid explains ... 2001 was shot in cinerama for curved screens then tranferred to 70mm, which potentially distorted the measurements. Monitor resolutions can distort it too, but the monolith on screen is close enough to the cinerama format that it's indistinguishable to the unaided human eye. Plus the film is laced with incredibly specific hints that the monolith is the screen. You're really reaching if you try to pass off all those details with conincidence theories.
robag88 8 months ago
I know that 3:40 relates to how a panorama view was projected on screen 3:55. But yet there is a chair on the left side next to the monolith facing the character.
msi643 8 months ago
At 3:40 I noticed that the chairs next to the bed were facing at the monoliths direction and the chairs next or behind the monolith were facing either to the character or us the audience or both. Did Kubrick add this to show that everyone looks at the monolith and the movie itself from a different perspective? Could there be a different reason cause I'm not quite sure.
msi643 8 months ago
@msi643 That's an interesting idea.
robag88 8 months ago
Maybe Bowman's aging views are his voyage through time as quantum mechanics state that time goes slower as you go faster. Bowman made a traveling through the monolith and into a barroque room, and he appears to switch his point of view each time. Kubrick could relate to this and integrate the quantum science in the film as literaly a new for understanding reality, not as we see it, but as it is given to us. Bowman's only way to do that is that he no longer is limited in a physical body.
TheMrJizzus 8 months ago
I just got a blu-ray copy of 2001, 25 GB of pure data! I made an attempt to measure the ratio of the monolith as a curiosity, gave me a perfect 2.40:1, not directly matching the 2.35:1 anamorphic scope format. Maybe the 0.05 difference is to compensate for the slightly curved cinema screen, not sure. But as you say, symbols are distortions, not a science. Great work.
Poleschs 9 months ago
green is the color of knowledge, and he wears it when he realizes HAL's intentions.
darksideofozproduct 9 months ago
woah.
ubertomadachi 9 months ago
Glad you corrected the pyramid --> monolith change. I just finished a re-read of the book, so it was fresh in my mind. What does change is the appearance of the monolith; in the book it is not just static black, but strikingly transparent/crystallene, and very colorfully animated--similar to what we experience in the stargate.In its first appearance the book's monolith strongly suggests a (television) screen--I remember thinking this the first time I read it. And then screens in the hotel room?!
jaredmstein 9 months ago
I somewhat feel like some of your connections are are little reaching, but they are still interesting.
I really believe that the primary point of this movie is to give pause to the idea that our evolution may be guided by an alien intelligence. That monolith almost seems to 'parent' us, watching us evolve but at the same time pushing us in the right direction.
I don't know that the final bedroom scene has distinct meanings, but rather is a fuzzy interpretation into the distant future of man.
WatchVidTK 9 months ago
@WatchVidTK Yeah the alien intelligence interpretation works on a casual viewing basis and especially if you read Arthur C Clarke's novel interpretation of what Kubrick was shooting, but when you start studying and cross referencing the details of Kubrick's direction the alien narrative falls apart to reveal an entirely different set of themes.
robag88 8 months ago
i recently saw this movie and was puzzeled and tought it was a bad movei because i didn't understand it. But you explained it really nicely, and now i know that that movie is a masterpiece. So thanks a ton for ur explanation!
grovand 10 months ago
@grovand Yep, the first viewing of 2001 is the most difficult.
robag88 10 months ago
@robag88 .........Could you provide input on 2010 (2001 sequel)
rvanegasp 10 months ago
@rvanegasp Kubrick had no involvement in it whatsoever. 2010 was more a sequel to Clakre's novel than Kubrick's film. I liked it though.
robag88 9 months ago
@robag88 ....it is out of your scope....But i would appreciate your input on 2010....As well as your review about : Barry Lyndon . Kubricks' most neglected film
rvanegasp 9 months ago
@rvanegasp Neglected? You mean 'most uninteresting'? Hehe
aljen181 9 months ago
@aljen181 ....ignored....
rvanegasp 9 months ago
I have a very short answer for all the questions you have... You all need every answer, right here, right now...
But the real way is to find out for yourself, to evolve, to gain greater understanding of things... The journey is that counts...
higike 10 months ago
This has probably been mentioned, but "Renaissance" literally means "rebirth." It doesn't take a big jump to relate it to the rebirth Dave was going through, into a higher form of man.
hugjuffs 10 months ago
@hugjuffs Yep, there's a chapter on rebirth themes in the expanded analysis on my website. Unfortunately the site is down for a few days thanks to poorly planned system updates by the web hoster.
robag88 10 months ago
hey robag88 - Firstly, thank you for your detailed, circumspect work. Incredibly valuable and enjoyable stuff. i sent you a message from your site yesterday with a comment a bit too long to post here. would love to hear your thoughts.
All the best, Mark L
sticksmadison 10 months ago
all i am hearin is bla bla bla. please keep it simple.
stynred 10 months ago
@stynred Sounds like you're already keeping it simple for yourself there. Nevertheless, here's the simple version .... monolith = wideframe cinema screen rotated 90 degrees.
robag88 10 months ago
why are you analyzing sound effects and soundtracks when you yourself said that Kubrick stated everything was explained in a visual way...
kangax 10 months ago
@kangax The majority of encoding is visual, but that doesn't mean the soundrtrack is to be ignored.
robag88 10 months ago
Don't forget the Millenium Hilton was flush with the WTC and also was designed to mimic the monolith.
1step1up 10 months ago
wow, the interpretation of the monolith feedback is spot on! because it starts feeding back just as he is going to take a picture/video of this... just as a microphone would feedback if you placed it near an amplifier. very awesome review!
strictpolicy 10 months ago
Seems meta-film is a common theme in Kubrick's work.
MrByronDunbar 10 months ago
In your last analysis you asked why there were 7 diamonds in the sky. Is it possible that there could be one diamond for each character who recognizes the monolith as the movie? Because there are 6 scientists in the scene with the "feedback like sound" that marks their epiphany. In the same way I think by the end of the movie, or at least by the part where the stargate flips, Bowman comes to the same realization. So therefore the 6 scientist + Bowman make up the 7 diamonds in the stargate.
huntja12 10 months ago
@huntja12 I'm not certain, but there's an interpretation of the scene in the full article on my site that is along similar lines.
robag88 10 months ago
Once again thank you for analysis. Great update!! Cheers.
MAY1EXPRES 10 months ago
Incredible insight on this compelling film. I just saw it again and came here and was mesmirised by your reviews. I can agree that it makes sense that the monolith is the cinema screen becasue the end makes sense, an astronaut wandering around a film set, watching his stand ins at various stages of his growth. Then the starchild is a mere effect, nothing more a cinema trick. Even the film does not sync the music to the end credits, as everything is off kilter and tilted like the cinema screen.
LiteracyLabyrinth 11 months ago
lol... There is far more going on here than even what you are hinting at.... Pay close attention ( In all his films) to Geometrical shapes/ patterns concerning their symbolic connections/ relationships to Human history through out all ancient cultures leading up to the modern age. Also focus on Music Theory. Look at the connections between Science and religion In The history of our species concerning occult knowledge- The NUMBERS ( Concerning symbolism Dimensions/ geometry) are important.
ninthsphereofshadows 11 months ago
@ninthsphereofshadows "There is far more going on here than even what you are hinting at" Yes, that's why there's a 14 chapter review of the film on my website.
robag88 10 months ago
Wow the ending of your review blew my mind and solidified everything.
kidmecha 11 months ago
"His feeling that he was inside a movie set was almost literally true."
You know, this might explain why the candles in the hotel room are not lit: it's because it IS a movie set, and lit candles would be a fire safety hazard!
...Well, that's my theory anyway.
TylerCharlesFisher 11 months ago
Your work continues to amaze me...have you done a 'Lost Highway' analysis yet?Or 'Inland Empire'?......Lynch and Kubrick are the best ever IMO
MrFox7stringking 11 months ago
@MrFox7stringking Saw Lost Highway recently for the first time. It's high on my priority list.
robag88 10 months ago
What I havn't figured out is the point of 2001. Whats the significants of this year. Something more
PappaFunk 11 months ago
Simply put, the monolith represents higher intelligence. Strait lines are never found in nature. When man sees this the only question is 'Who did this?' Which answers another bigger question of 'are we alone in the universe?' upon answering this it brings up the question of is there a god. Hal sho