 Okay. I need to sit down in front of the camera and get this done. I've been overthinking this for the last couple of weeks. The part one, I re-recorded, re-edited, and completed that thing three times before I decided I liked it and put it up on the internet and ever since then I've been overthinking this episode too and I just need to remember what my deal is. I need to sit down, say a few things, and then get out. First of all, I decided that I'm going to talk about 2001, the movie first rather than the book, which I had planned, because the movie is what people are familiar with. That's what people think of first. So I'll do that. People think they know this movie. They think they've seen it when they haven't. The imagery and certain lines of dialogue from this film have entered pop culture and the public consciousness in a way that few things have. I mean, everybody knows about the monolith. Everybody knows about open the pot by door's hell. I'm sorry I can't allow that, Dave. Everybody knows about the ape man throwing around the bones and everybody knows about the giant superpowered space baby. So people think that they've seen this movie when they haven't and they should. Stanley Kubrick's 2001 Space Odyssey is a completely unique film. Nothing else in film history, either before or since, looks or sounds like this movie and the sounds of the movie are very important. It is a true example of cinematic art in that it is purely an audio-visual experience. The film is about humans encountering alien life or rather alien technology and Kubrick clearly made the decision to communicate that experience by doing just that, communicating an experience rather than explaining anything to you. The people in the movie, the few that are actually in the movie, do not understand what's happening. They have no idea what's happening. And as a consequence, neither do you. It's up to you to pay attention or as much attention as you can and try to understand what you're experiencing and ultimately you don't. The first line of dialogue that's spoken in the film comes a full 26 minutes in. I looked at the counter. It's a space stewardess saying to Haywood Floyd, here we are Sir Level One, something like that. And then he talks to a moon receptionist. The only women in the film are space stewardesses and moon receptionists, by the way. And then when Dr. Floyd is taking the moon shuttle to the location of the monolith, they're talking about what sandwiches are in the lunchbox here. It's an experiential film. It's two and a half hours long, which by today's standards is not unusual. But at the time, 1968, it was considered insanely long. In fact, there's an intermission and that full intermission is included on the DVDs and the Blu-rays. Basically what it comes down to is if you've not seen this film, you don't know it and you need to see it. And if you have seen it, you should watch it again and try to see it on the biggest screen you can. If you have an opportunity to see it on an actual movie screen, take the opportunity. Don't miss it. Now, let me talk about my personal experience. I had the experience of seeing the film for the first time and not understanding it and also going through life thinking that I had seen the film when I hadn't. Let me, I've had both experiences. Let me explain. 2001 Space Odyssey was the first film that I saw in a theater, I think. In 1968, I would have been three years old. I know that I saw it with my mother and with a cousin of mine at a drive-in. So having been three years old and seeing it, that means that I didn't really understand it, even less than I would have as someone who was older and also that I didn't remember it. So when I saw the film later in life, knowing that I had seen it and thinking that I knew the film, I discovered that I didn't. So I had both experiences. I tell you what I remembered. We saw it in one of those drive-ins that had a structure built around the back of it so it looked like a solid building. So I associated the monolith with that structure that was standing in front of our car when the movie was over. And I also remember seeing a man turning into a baby. And I conflated that memory for some reason with that scene at the opening and closing of Albert Hitchcock Presents on TV where his silhouette turns into a line drawing. As a child, I evidently thought that line drawing looked like a baby. So this was something that I saw at home repeatedly. And I conflated it with the memory of seeing a man turning into a baby on the big screen. That's what happens when you're a small child and your memories are just forming. It's called conflating memories, taking memories that aren't related and putting them together for whatever personal reasons. And that's why memories are not reliable. Okay, but that's a different subject entirely. Moving on. Throughout my childhood, I had these recurring dreams of an astronaut and his space capsule in a hotel room. I had this dream all the time. I didn't know where it came from. I didn't know why I was dreaming about it. When I was in grade school, in fifth grade, I think, I read the book. I read Arthur C. Clark's book that I got from the school library. So I knew the story. I knew what the story was about. I knew all the details of what happened in this movie. But I didn't associate the book with those memories. And then later, I read the comics. There were comics, and I'll talk about those. And then, I think when I was in junior high, I actually sat down one Thanksgiving when the full movie was on network television. This was a time when there were no video tapes. We couldn't watch movies at home unless they showed up on broadcast television. So I sat down to watch the whole movie. And then at the end of the film, when the scene with the hotel room was coming up, my eyes flew open and I stood up out of my chair. And I was like, ah, because these were scenes that I knew. These were scenes that I had dreamed all throughout my childhood. And I didn't know where they had come from. I thought I had thought them up. This movie had a profound effect on my childhood. The vision of the final scene, the vision of the monolith. These were things that have been present in my life from the beginning. So the movie means a lot to me personally. Not just because it's a great movie, but because of my experience with it. The last time I saw this film in a theater was, I think, 15 years ago or so. At the River Oaks Theater in Houston, they used to have special showings of classic films. Nobody does that anymore. They showed this movie two nights in a row, just twice. I was there both nights. But both of those nights, there were people who walked out. And on both occasions, it was because they couldn't stand it. They were walking out enough because the movie was too long. They thought it was boring. They didn't understand what they were seeing. While it's tempting to be judgmental about people who can't tolerate this movie, I try to be understanding because the movie does test your patience. And I suspect that Kubrick did it deliberately. There's a great deal of silence in this movie. Just silence. The breaking point for the people who walked out of this film, both nights, was the point at which David Bowman leaves the spaceship to try to rescue Frank Poole. And there's just minute after minute after minute of him traveling through space. And all you can hear is him breathing. For someone like myself, who really enjoys this film, scenes like that, the length of the scenes and the silence of the scenes generates a feeling of tension and a feeling of panic. But for a lot of people, it just creates boredom. And I used to be dismissive of that, but I try to be more understanding of that. But it's difficult. So I encourage you to get ahold of a copy of this film and sit quietly and watch it and absorb it and make your own decision about what you think. All right. Part three, I'll talk about the book. See you then. That's my headquarters. In addition to my videos, I publish links and updates there every day.