Episode 15: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Is 2001: A Space Odyssey predictive dystopian sci-fi? Is it a film full of unique images and classical music but no deeper meaning? Is it a precursor to Apollo 11?

⚠️ Spoilers lie ahead.

Links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentinel_(short_story)

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886

https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/2001-the-monolith-and-the-message

https://www.amazon.com/Kubricks-Odyssey-Secrets-Hidden-Films/dp/B004PF0FJM

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/us/14ordway.html

https://apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland

https://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20chapter%207.html

https://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20chapter%201.html

https://screenrant.com/2001-space-odyssey-interpretations-stanley-kubrick-sci-fi-classic/


Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter. ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode I want to talk about Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 A Space Odyssey. There will be spoilers in order for me to talk about it to review the film to discuss potential conspiracy theories or interpretations around the film. It is what it is there will be spoilers. There will also be spoilers for Arthur C. Clarke story the Sentinel upon which 2001 is loosely based because Kubrick and Clarke work together on this film. I will also mention a couple of things about Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhoods End. So if you have not read those stories, haven't seen the movie, you don't want any spoilers, then go watch that material. Read the stories before you listen to this downloaded and come back to it later. In the meantime, I have something to drink here. And we will settle up and take this ride into space. 2001 is based loosely we can say that it was generally inspired by a sci fi short story that Arthur C Clarke wrote back in 1948. And I find this type of thing fascinating. As you know, I have an appetite for dystopian, predictive sci fi, whether it's in books, short stories, movies, that is my favorite type of sci fi. I've never gotten into like sci fi fantasy with dragons and wizards and that kind of thing. Maybe it's because when I was younger, I had this boyfriend in high school that was obsessed with that genre. And it just annoyed me. I found it incredibly childish and annoying. So maybe that early bias has kind of skewed me against it. But dystopian, predictive sci fi? Yes, please. I'm there for it. That's like with HG Wells, film things to come looking at that movie and seeing flat screen TVs and smartwatches and tablets all those years before we had those things. Makes you say, Huh, so Arthur C. Clarke writes the short story in 1948, and then is first published in 1951. So the basic plotline is that this lunar geologist gets sent to the moon, to explore the surface of the moon. Hence, you know, that's why you would send a lunar geologist to do such a thing. And he finds this pyramid, but the pyramid is surrounded by a shield. And so whenever he tries to approach the pyramid to figure out what it is, he can't, and it's revealed that this pyramid structure thing has been placed on the moon billions of years in the past. But it's not apparently the product of an earth based civilization or a moon based civilization, either one. So then this begs the question, not only what is this thing, but where did it come from? And how did these beings get this pyramid on the surface of the moon. So 20 years later, they the invisible shield that is around this pyramid is finally breached. But it's only done so through the development of atomic energy. And of course, the pyramid is destroyed in the process of like shooting it with atomic energy in order to breach that shield around it. And the fragments of the pyramid left behind are not really any substance that's known to man. They come from something that's more advanced than anything that's been developed in human technology so far. And so Wilson, this character, that's the lunar geologist determines that the structure was placed on the moon by technologically advanced extraterrestrials from outside our solar system. And he guesses that the purpose of that pyramid and then the shield around it was that it served as a sentinel hence the title of the short story. It was there like a beacon. And it was meant to send signals into space that the extraterrestrials who put it there would be able to read and like monitor its progress, so to speak, which monitoring its progress for billions of years meant that there was no progress. But once human beings had developed that atomic energy as well as the ability to travel to space to actually get to the moon, the signals would sees, and then the aliens would know that intelligent life had discovered this pyramid. And from there, the story ends with Wilson concluding that these aliens would soon be focused on the earth because they would know that humans had perfected the ability to travel in outer space and then had atomic energy as well. So it is a you know, a little bit creepy, predictive in some ways, but creepy too. So fast forward in time, Kubrick wants to do a science fiction movie, and he collaborates with Arthur C. Clarke. And they rework some general ideas from the Sentinel into 2001, A Space Odyssey. Now at the time that I rewatched, it, it was available for free on Tubi. But I think around the beginning of the year to be took it off, you know how that goes. It's a great resource, I have found some cool movies, some cool documentaries that I've been able to watch on TV for free, but sometimes movies will be there, and then suddenly, they'll be gone. And then maybe they'll be back again. Or maybe they won't. So you if you want to rewatch it, you may have to pay, but I believe it is available on some streaming services for two or $3 a piece to rent. So as I was making my notes, the first thing that struck me is this dry, dusty environment. It's not utopia, when the film opens on these sort of primate, part human part, APE primate creatures. They are, even though they're in what we believe to be the cradle of civilization and Africa. You know, it's not like a lush green environment. It's like they're out in a dry, dusty environment. And it strikes me as being Doggy Dog, because you have these primates out there with the tapers. And then periodically, there'll be like a leopard, or a cheetah that comes by, it's like the apex predator. And so sometimes this large cat will come by and get one of the primates and eat the meat. So it just seems to be this primitive, toiling away existence. And then this obelisk, or this rectangle, this black rectangle appears suddenly, with a lot of loud music in the soundtrack. One of the things that you may remember about this film is that Kubrick does not rely heavily on dialogue. There are quite a few scenes, long scenes, in some cases in this film, where there's just no dialogue at all. But he does use some very loud classical music at times. So this monolithic thing appears. And the primates are not sure what it is they're sort of hoping around. And then it's something different in their environment, but they don't know how to take it. It's just something new and different, and they don't know what to make of it. Well, after this monolith appears, we see a primate using a bone as a tool slash murder weapon. And we know that they are reaching the next step in evolution. That's one of the things that we get taught in schools that you know, whenever primitive man learn how to use tools in elevated existence. And so this primate decides to use the bone as a murder weapon to start beating a taper so that they can have meat to eat. And you notice that the monolith has a crescent moon nearby. And I wrote in my notes crescent moon meaning question mark. Because Kubrick is such an intentional filmmaker, I presume there's a meaning to having a crescent moon there. And the primates walk upright and form a violent rabble. And this femur bone that's been used as a murder weapon slash tool gets tossed up in the air, but it fades into becoming a spaceship. Obvious metaphor there. You know this this early man has or primate cousin of Man has learned how to use tools is learned how to use a bone as a murder weapon. So the man mankind at that point can start to eat meat. There's an obvious metaphor. We started out using bones as tools and then now we're in spaceships. We also see this floating pin of an astronaut that suspended in the air that could also be like the femur bone. Before heavy use of classical music. I just noticed, there were some stewardess uniforms. Not all of the stewardesses are dressed this way, but there are two or three of them that reminded me of Jackie Kennedy's pink outfit like the pink Chanel V. Pink Chanel outfit that she had on that day. That struck me as probably being significant.

There were red chairs in a stark white room that reminded me of The Shining because that scene in the bathroom you know after Gradius spilled the avocado on Jack and they're gonna go and clean it off of his jacket. That high contrast bright bright white, and bright bright red in that bathroom we see a similar color scheme in this like little meeting area. The Soviets are not dressed frivolously does another note that I made because they have on. So where you have the stewardesses that have on these like pink looking Jackie suits, the Soviets are dressed in like very nondescript black frocks. The guy, the Russian guy who's supposed to be a Soviet sounds more British than Russian to me, and maybe that's just me nitpicking. But I was a bit like, that doesn't sound like a convincing Russian accent. And they asked about an epidemic on the base. They're worried about safety. You know, this is this is another, if you want to get into the realm of conspiracy theory, like, you know, they're being told that there's an epidemic, that there's an illness and people need to get the hell out. But there's not really an epidemic, it's just a plausible excuse to start clearing the ranks, because they're there other reasons afoot to not have them there. Their presence did make me think of the Kennedy slash Khrushchev joint effort about space exploration. In the afterword of James W. Douglass's book JFK and the unspeakable, he talks about a discussion that was had with Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev son, and then the afterward he writes, Sergei Khrushchev said his father talked to him about a week before Kennedy's death about the President's idea for a joint lunar mission. Nikita Khrushchev had broken ranks with his rocket scientists. He said, he now thought the Soviet Union should accept Kennedy's invitation to go to the moon together as a further decisive step in peaceful cooperation, then, quote, he also adds, on the next page, that further visionary stepped in the Cold War also died with President Kennedy, the United States went to the moon alone, US and Soviet rockets continued to be pointed at their opposite countries, rather than join in a project that could have brought the cold war to an end. Sergei Khrushchev said, I think if Kennedy had lived, we would be living in a completely different world in quote 2001 A Space Odyssey was released in 1968. So seeing that collaboration there of the Soviets, with the Americans on this outer space mission, it just made me think of that Kennedy Khrushchev potential joint initiative to go to the moon together, which of course, died with the Pop Pop. There's, I also laughed at the long list of instructions for the zero gravity toilet. Like, who's going to take all the time, if you urgently need to use the restroom? Are you really going to stand out there and read Warren Piece about how to use a zero gravity stool. I also wrote in my notes, of course, there's a photographer on board, because they have this board meeting. And of course, there's a photographer, of course, we have to document all of this. And in there, that's where we learn that the epidemic is a cover story. So what they've told the Soviets about, you need to get out of here, because there's a pandemic that's getting started GTFO. We learned there that it's a cover story. They're concerned about culture, shock, and social disorientation. Don't let the public know too soon. This monolith has been deliberately buried, but if so by who? Buried for a million years or more. And as they're talking about this monolith, the fate cover story of an epidemic, we can't let the public now obviously, we've we've lived through the and all of the stabbings and the things that went along with that. So we've been in this situation where we've had some culture shock, just going through that experience. And the attitude of don't let the public No, it's like these people in the political food chain and in the mass media. We're smarter than John and Jane Q Public. We're smarter than the peons. We need to let the peons know things in short little bursts so they can take it better. Or, you know, like what JFK talked about in why England slept violent shocks if you want to not only change an individual person's mind, but you want to change the collective mind of the nation, you have to have shocks and not just shocks but violent shocks to where people feel that their basic safety is being threatened. And that's how these overlords look at it. Like you are supposed to just be a compliant mouse and They're the cat behind the scenes pulling the strings. And you just sit down and shut up and do what you're told they're smarter than you. They know better than you. And so they're going to like control the narrative, and you're only going to know what you're supposed to know and then go sit down and shut up. So as they're talking about this monolith has been buried for a million years or more. This reminded me of that scene from The Avengers where Thor talks about you're signaling to all of these other realms of the Earth is ready for a higher form of war. Like by messing around with alien technology, and trying to make weapons of mass destruction using alien technology, you're sending a signal out that the earth is ready for a higher form of war. I thought of that scene immediately in rewatching. This, there's a high pitched squeal, and then we go forward in time by like 18 months. They're going to Jupiter and not the moon and I wrote in my notes why Jupiter and not the moon question mark, because, you know, in Arthur C Clarke's Sentinel, they go to the moon. There's some shadowboxing. There's a guy exercising who shadowboxing in space, which struck me funny. And it reminded me also have Danny in the shining, because if you listen to that episode, I talked about how it seemed sad to me, it seemed odd and it seems sad that Danny is always playing inside. Like he has to ride his tricycle up and down the halls of this hotel instead of being able to go out and get fresh air like a normal kid. Yes, the argument will be made. It's wintertime, there's snow everywhere. That's why they're snowed in. He can't just go outside and ride the tricycle. I get it. It just seems sad to me that this little boy is isolated in this hotel. No friends, no playmates his own age, unless you count Grady's creepy twins that are dead, and he's having to ride a tricycle around the hallway just seems unnatural to me. So the same sort of claustrophobia and feeling of being trapped, is present inside this spaceship. There's a BBC News report that comes on. There's hibernation before departure. So there's this group of scientists that have been put into like a state of tore poor so that they can they they're not a drain on the resources of the mission. Don't asleep so that you're not working and you're not eating and you don't drain any of the spaceships resources, including your own. This definitely is the kind of attitude that we get from our politicians from our mass media. I mean, it's Harare has even talked about the useless class. What will the useless class do all day when AI finally takes over? What will the useless class do all day? We don't want you to be a drain on anybody's resources. The Hal 9000 this a supercomputer, you know, can mimic unquote mimic the human brain? I wrote in my notes, this is a clear precursor to modern AI. We're told it's incapable of error. Does Howie have genuine emotions? Does he just fake what he thinks a genuine human emotion would be like so that he can respond in a way that feels more comfortable for humans. This reminds me of sociopathy. Because if you've ever heard Dr. Phil talk about psychopaths and sociopaths. They don't feel the genuine emotion. They just look at the situation and say, Well, I've seen other people cry in the situation. I've seen other people smile I've seen other people manipulate out of guilt. Like they just sort of follow the cues of other people that have more empathy, because it's something that they lack, which makes me think of how like, does he actually have genuine emotions? I mean, probably not if he's a machine. We also see this in David in the alien slash Prometheus movies. You know, David, in that David in in 2001, A Space Odyssey is completely different character, but David and the alien slash Prometheus movies. He's in that same, like, weird, nebulous region of AI where it's like, he's gained some kind of sentience, and he has his own agenda. But then he's still robotic. It's weird, that there's a precursor for transhumanism for you. So if we're told there's extremely odd things about this mission, something was dug up on the moon, but they're going to Jupiter. Hell knows that it's weird also. And the slow pacing seems to foretell that something bad is going to happen.

How meanwhile, is just a RED camera I whereas David from the alien slash Prometheus movies is the more modernized version that has anthropomorphic characteristics. How is just the red all seeing camera eye whereas David has actually been given a face and some hair and a human body, so that he looks human. He Even though he's not how predicts this equipment failure, which he's wrong about, and he blames his mistake on human error, because after all, the 9000 series is perfect. And so my wrote in my notes how basically gives the astronauts a sales pitch. So his attitude is, well, it couldn't possibly be been me, it wasn't Meyer because I'm flawless. It had to have been your humans. And then whenever they're talking to him sort of trying to confront him about he's like, I wouldn't worry myself about that. Again, we come back to this same attitude that we find from our politicians from the mass media, I wouldn't worry about it. If we tell you that we're not in a recession, sit down, shut up. And don't think we're in a recession. If we tell you that inflation is abating, yet, every time you go to the grocery store, it's worse than it was the week before eff off and sit down. Just believe what we tell you to believe and shut up. I wouldn't worry myself about that. So they have to go inside a pod. They make up an excuse these astronauts do to go inside a pod and turn off their comms in order to escape how they feel like something's weird. Like if how was made this error, even though he's supposed to be flawless. Something is amiss here. So their debate inside this pod becomes whether how is wrong or whether he's malfunctioning? What would we do? Essentially, we would have to turn him off we would have to murder I'm using air quotes here. We'd have to murder how in order to save ourselves. But how would we even do that? Well, then we see through this red eye that Howell is reading their lips, which is creepy, because he's become sentient enough to know how to do that. And there's a nightmare scenario that happens when one of the astronauts floats off and his oxygen supply tube comes loose. I wrote in my notes, Howell is also a predictor of constant surveillance. Because he's everywhere. Now to the point, not only is there the creepy factor that he's sentient enough, he's clever enough to read their lips inside the pod and understand that they're talking about murdering him by shutting him off. He's also a predictor of constant surveillance, which that's the state we live in now, as I've joked about before, before, before any of my episodes hit the airwaves, you know, they're being listened to, as I sit here right now and I speak into this microphone, you know, somebody's listening. You just you, you take that for granted in the modern world. So I think Howell is not only a prognosticator of AI, but he's also for telling us about a world of constant surveillance. And then how apparently murders the scientists that were hibernating and I wrote in my notes that they already basically look like they're in sarcophagus coffin like pods in that's creepy That was creepy to start with. So now Howell is apparently killed them and he doesn't want to let the astronauts back in and I wrote in my notes being trapped in space what how is similar to being trapped at the Overlook Hotel with Jack? Because Jack is just everywhere, like hell is even though he's holed up in that grand entryway with his typewriter and his cigarettes. I mean, at the same time, his presence is everywhere in that hotel. Because Wendy can only do certain things don't come in here at this time. Don't wake me up. Don't bother me. I don't want you to read what I've written. I mean, being being trapped claustrophobically trapped in space with how is like being trapped with Jack at the Overlook. We also get some of the weird camera angles like we see in The Shining. How how advises the astronaut to sit down calmly and take a stress pill. I wrote in my notes that sounds like sit down, shut up and take your problem little baby. Yeah, what will what will the useless class do all day? Well, they will sit in their hovel, they'll eat their cricket burgers and they'll disappear into virtual reality all day. Presumably they may also be given stress bills, just just take some sort of legalized drug and mellow the eff out. When how powers down. So the astronaut gets back in. And he is like, Alright, I've got to dismantle Hell, I'm not going to make it out here without so whenever hell is powering down. It reminds me of Roy's monologue in Blade Runner. There's a pre recorded briefing that kick kicks on when hell is when HAL has been destroyed. This pre recorded briefing kicks on and it assumes that the crew is already at Jupiter and has been revived. So those scientists that were in the sarcophagus things that help murdered it presumes that they're still alive in the mission to Jupiter is going to take place. This is also another reference to what we see in the Sentinel. It's not only that this monolith is letting aliens know that human life is intelligent enough to have space travel and atomic energy, but we see a nod to that in this pre recorded briefing. Well, if this video is playing for you, it means you're an Jupiter and you've already been revived. But we learn now that the black monolith has made a transmission from the moon to Jupiter. And that's why they're going to Jupiter instead of going to the moon. Only how knew the true purpose of the mission, which reminded me of David from the alien slash Prometheus movies, because David is like, you know, the, sort of stand in son of his Creator. In the alien Prometheus movies. After his creator, Peter is dead, then David feels like he's really free to do what he wants to do, which is create a life of his own, like he's been created. So now he wants to go from being the servant to the master and create life of his own. So he is on his own mission, that the other space travelers know nothing about. And I thought about that whenever it's revealed that Hal knew the real meaning of this mission. The human beings didn't but how did So David, the astronaut, not David from aliens slash Prometheus, but David, the astronaut, that was in 2001, he gets to Jupiter, and he sucked into this long tunnel of bright lights. It looks like the kind of thing that should come with a seizure warning to be honest with you. And the image to me seems suggestive of a sperm fertilizing an egg. And it's like this long sequence of psychedelic imagery. I actually wrote in my notes, is this like a drunk dream. After the psychedelic experience, he's in an upscale bedroom that reminds me of Eyes Wide Shut, we see that he is age considerably. That made me think of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from the Bible. Like this idea of you can do anything here, you're going to have everything that you need, the only thing that you're prohibited from doing Welcome to human nature. The only thing you're prohibited from doing is eating the fruit of this tree. Anything else that you want is yours just don't do this. So of course, when Adam and Eve eat from this tree, they have knowledge of good and evil. And there is various interpretations, of course of that story is such a classic story well known across Abrahamic religions. But there's one in particular, like Hebrew type interpretation that really what happens in that moment is it's a metaphor that Adam and Eve have become aware of the reality of the world. The world is not paradise, there's death, they're suffering their sickness. So it's like the scales get removed from before their eyes when they consume that fruit. Now they know the full truth, maybe before they were ready to even handle it. So David has aged considerably, I wrote in my notes, he's seen some shit man. And he's awake. Now. This is another reference to Eyes Wide Shut. So not only is he in a somewhat weirdly aristocratic looking apartment space, he's also awake now. He's, he's gone through this psychedelic tunnel. He's done this time travel space travel experience, and he's awake now. The bathroom actually reminds me of The Shining, like the creepy bathroom, you know, and room 237 where the young woman transforms into the corpse lady. The different people inside this living quarter are all David himself, but in various parts of the aging process. And I wondered, maybe is this about how the truth is too difficult for some people to handle, they get pushed through the eye of the needle too fast. This also goes back to that interpretation of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eating that fruit before you're really ready to know how the world actually works. It does something to your head.

The monolith appears at the foot of the bed whenever David is dying. And then David becomes a fetus with glowing eyes. And that's how the film ends. And the film is open to a variety of interpretations. And so it is with Kubrick's films. That's like with the shining mean, there are hundreds of different ways to view the film and the characters. They're in saying what 2001 Even though the dialogue is so sparse, and he's relying a lot on classical Music and imagery, it's still rife with various interpretations. Now, Roger Ebert wrote this article 2001, the monolith and the message, I'll drop a link to this review so you can check it out for yourself. In this, he writes, the film, in its most basic terms is a parable about man. It is what Kubrick wanted to say about man as a race, an idea and an inhabitant of the universe. More specifically, it is a film about man's journey from the natural state of a tool using state and then again into a higher order of natural state. It makes it statement almost completely in visual terms, and the little dialogue in the center section of the film is hardly necessary like verbal music. Kubrick begins when man was still an ape, thoroughly at home in the natural environment of earth. He shows us becoming a tool maker in order to control our natural environment. And he shows us finally using our tools to venture out into space. At the end, he shows man drawn beyond his tools, so that we exist in the universe itself with the same natural ease we once enjoyed on Earth, and quote, that interpret interpretation, of course, makes sense because it starts out, like at the beginning, the dawn of man, when mankind is still primitive, and suddenly, because of this monolith showing up. The primates decide to learn how to use tools, and then bada boom, now we're in space. Jay Weidner has a documentary called Kubrick's Odyssey. I will drop a link to it, so you can check it out for yourself, I was actually able to find it through the library system, and watch it on there, which seemed incredibly random to me. Sometimes libraries have the most random things, stuff that you would expect them to have that they don't necessarily do. That's like my story of why England slept, they had to go pull it out of the basement. But you never know what you can find there, free of charge, which is awesome. So chapter one of Jay weiners documentary deals with 2001 A Space Odyssey. And it's his thesis that 2001 A Space Odyssey is about Kubrick faking the moon landing. And he starts out with some clips from Dr. Strangelove, and how the Pentagon hires Kubrick to fake the moon landing based on Dr. Strangelove, again, according to widen or not, according to me. So Kubrick makes Dr. Strangelove and because it seems so believable even though it's a dark comedy in a political satire, it seems so believable that they hire Kubrick, allegedly to fake the moon landing. And it's Jays belief that humans did make it to the moon. But that what we saw on TV was fake. And he points out that people tend to be in to almost rabid camps about this. People that say the whole darn thing was fake. And we've never been to the moon and then people who say we have been to the moon. And there's nothing fake about it. What you saw on TV was real. And Jay is kind of in in the middle of that by saying what we saw on TV was fake, but human beings did ultimately make it to the moon. And it's his thesis, it's his contention that Kubrick could basically do anything that he wanted after he made the fake landing film. And there are parallels for him between 2001 A Space Odyssey and the Apollo program. He also mentions this man, Frederick Ordway, who was a national NASA official, who was also an advisor for the movie 2001 Space Odyssey, that is real information, you can look it up, it's even included in the man's obituary in the New York Times, I'll drop a link to that so you can see for yourself so that we're not in the realm of cuckoo conspiracy theory on that that's been documented even in mainstream sources. And it's Jay's contention that Kubrick is using front screen projection. And you can see in 2001, Space Odyssey how he does this. That's not hidden information. It's his contention, though, that that's how Kubrick faked the moon landing was by using front screen projection. And that's like he uses as an example from 2001. The primate scenes are not actually on a natural location. It's all a screen on soundstage. Again, there's photos and videos of that to show you that what he's saying is true. It's like people in these primate costumes and there are some rocks and probably paper mache materials there. But a lot of what you see in the background is just on this front screen projection. That's like behind the fabricated rocks. There's a screen and not real, like African environment. So you place things in front of the screen in order to hide the seams or the lines. And he points out the changes in texture in the photos that are supposedly from the moon landing to and going to the Apollo archives for photos to see for yourself. And he shows photos, I'll drop a link to the Apollo archive.com. So you can check it out for yourself. But in this documentary, J Wagner shows photos of like up close in the in the foreground of the photo. The surface is craggy, and there's rocks but then the further back you go, it just becomes smooth, like the texture changes and it's not consistent. He also mentions Richard Hoagland, who I was not familiar with, prior to watching Jay Wagner's documentary. And if you go to Wikipedia, I mean, obviously this guy is no media darling. Richard C. Hoagland. According to Wikipedia, he is known for quote advocating his beliefs in advanced ancient civilizations, colonizing the solar system, accusations of corruption of NASA and the US government in quote, but he plays this video of Hoagland saying that he has brightened the photos from the Apollo 11 mission and reveal blocks of glass in the photo along with girders and buttresses. So, what's what's actually on those photos? Now for Hoagland? It's evidently proof or evidence of some kind that NASA is hiding alien activities, that it's some type of dome or structure that was there because aliens did it. But for Jay Weidner, it's just evidence of a soundstage. It's evidence of fakery having gone on. So we're holding and sees evidence of aliens wide neuroses evidence of a Scotch light soundstage 2001 was released before Apollo 11. Both were done in slomo. Could this be predictive programming? We don't know. Again, you know, this is Jay Wagner is not me talking. And he also asserts that originally, there were credits put in at the end of 2001, A Space Odyssey thanking the military and space corporations. But then in all further iterations later on down the line, those references were removed. Rob agar makes the argument that we could potentially see the monolith as a doorway. Like, it could be it could be seen as a doorway, whether we're talking about a doorway into space, a doorway into something dark and nefarious or just symbolically of the universe symbolically of Kubrick as a photographer, symbolic of the cinema screen, which I thought was an interesting possibility. He also compares how to the machines of IBM and having read Edwin Edwin blacks book IBM in the Holocaust, which is it's a very difficult book to read. And when blacks that was a very difficult book to write, I imagine that's true. It's a very difficult book to read. I thought that was an interesting comparison as well to like and how to being an IBM machine. Because think about it. I mean, he is he's cataloging their responses. He gives them misinformation about this broken piece of equipment, that's not actually broken. And then he turns on them and they have to murder him. And he's also this all seeing presents this all seeing eye. creepy stuff. Rob agar also points out the idea of the spaceship, this artificial spinning gravity station that we see in 2001 was originally conceived by Verner von Braun, which I thought was intriguing as well. So there you go house and IBM machine. The spinning space station was actually an idea a brainchild of Verner von Braun things that make you say, Huh, screen rant.com has its 10 interpretations of 2001 A Space Odyssey number one is that the monoliths were created by advanced aliens, that we obviously get from Arthur C Clarke's source material, the Sentinel because in the Sentinel and the model is actually was created by alien life force. Two is Homer's Odyssey. The idea that 2001 A Space Odyssey is a clear reference to Homer's epic poem, The Odyssey. Three How is more human than the human characters? He's designed to be perfect, but he actually malfunctions and turns evil. When we think about again, going back to the to the story of the Garden of Eden, here's the one thing that you're not supposed to do. And so of course, what do human beings do the one thing that they've been told not to do. The next one is the search for God. Now, you could probably also add to that the search for meaning. Another theory is conception especially because we see this giant Baby, you know, this giant fetus with glowing eyes. And it's like David has gone from from being aged in this bedroom to being this fetus with glowing eyes. Another interpretation is it's about the militarization of satellites. And then another reference to the being on the brink of nuclear war which Kubrick had just satirized in Dr. Strangelove. Another interpretation is that it's about how humankind is defined by violence. We see this whenever the primate decides to use the bone as a murder weapon. Another is that it's the idea of a new heaven. The star child a new beginning, this child has appeared over the earth with the intention of destroying it and making it into something better. Another interpretation is that it's a modern allegory of Frankenstein, a synthetic life form created by humans, but it becomes sentient and it kills people. So how in that regard, they think Hal 9000 is similar to Frankenstein's monster. Another interpretation is Nietzsche's Uber Munch theory, the idea of eternal return, that all existence is recurring and it's just in a loop doomed to repeat itself forever. They write Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is directly referenced in 2000. One's use of Richard Strauss his musical composition of the same name. So what do you think? Do you think that 2001 A Space Odyssey falls into the dystopian predictive sci fi genre? Is it just an interesting movie full of strange images and loud classical music? Is there something more? I mean, do you think something like Hoagland is right that they actually went to the moon and found structures from aliens? Or do you think that somebody like Weidner is correct? And that Kubrick was telling us this is how I faked the moon landing? Or is it just a really cool sci fi film? That's based on Arthur C Clarke story? It is up to you decide for yourself. Stay a little crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

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