I think that many of the previous established science fiction themes in the genre dealt mostly with the idea of the ‘visitor from outer space’ coming to warn humans that the Earth was going to be destroyed if they didn’t listen to these other-worldly robots or war machines. The story in Forbidden Planet seemed the most similar to 2001 in the respect that it has an unknown phenomenon (such as the black monolith, in a sense) that creates significant changes to the layout of the story as it progresses. I think that Kubrick’s faithfulness to scientific realism significantly changed the way that 2001 was perceived, simply because that element of realism helped to solidify the awe and terror behind the journey into space. This realism also came through very strongly in “To Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite”, because it exemplified Bowman’s terror as he is traveling very fast through the tunnel of light with no sense of time and space. The use of the monolith as a looming enigma in all of these segments in itself gave off a sense of fear, because we as the audience are sort of conditioned throughout the film in such a way so that when we see the monolith, we know that the segment will change, but also that we will be taken to a new kind of ‘dimension’ in the world of the film. I think that Kubrick wanted to challenge the classical phase of the science fiction genre by getting rid of the ‘visitor from outer space’ theme that was so prevalent in other films and focus more on the absolute mysteries of space and time by using a mysterious object to demonstrate change, awe, and in some sense the hesitation to want to change and progress.
I thought it was interesting that Kubrick juxtaposed time in such a dynamic way in the last segment with the use of neoclassical decoration vs. Bowman’s sense of his own time period and intellectual progress. With the appearance of the black monolith transporting us to the view of the Star Child in the end, it’s like we’re meant to start over with the year 2001, as though humans had gone as far as they could go with Earth as it was, and the Star Child was going to create a whole new ‘world’ that emerged from the black monolith.
Great stuff, Jessica. Good observations and questions. I'm particularly interested in your comment about Kubrick's use of fear. Can we push this and call it terror? Is there an element of the horror film in this vision of the future? the "visitor" idea is interesting as well. Rather than addressing our problems--like Mutually Assured Destruction, though that's here, too--the "alien" here, or the universe seems to have it's own design, a larger plan.
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