The monolith made me think of a documentary on the architect I. M. Pei. He talks about the sharpness of an edge of a wall at the National Gallery of Art. People touch it like the monkeys in the movie, I think Kubrick captures the tactile fascination objects can generate. https://youtu.be/AxEIkWu03S8?t=3750
May 16, 2022·edited May 16, 2022Liked by Anna Rettberg
One comment: my interpretation of the theme of the monolith(s) and the connection between the opening part of the movie up to the Jupiter sequence. I've always thought it is significant that Kubrick titles the beginning "Dawn of Man" and, even though we have the match cut leaping 4 million years ahead, the next title the movie shows us is "Jupiter Mission". I've always interpreted the "dawn of man" as encompassing both the primate-human transition AND the low-earth orbit/Moon colonizing spacefarers. In other words all that we see up through the discovery of the buried monolith is the dawn of man period. In the logic of the movie, this makes sense: the advent and introduction of tooling creates Man, and HAL represents the end of what tooling can do for man, in terms of its journey as a species. You might argue that I'm being overly interpretive, and that Kubrick didn't put a title on the screen to introduce the Blue Danube sequence was for artistic reasons so as not to overly spell things out for the viewer, nothing more. But I think what he is showing us is that a tool that embodies or mimics man through artificial intelligence represents both man's mastery over its tools AND its limits, because it cannot progress anymore as a species at that point via its own tools or capabilities: it needs the higher beings to guide them through to the next stage. There's a poignant echo with the proto-men in the beginning after they have gained the bone tool, which is first and foremost about providing them with security and sustenance, but is also tinged necessarily with homicide, the violence inflicted on one's own species -- later, with HAL, the tool itself becomes homicidal. The computer -- the universal machine -- the limit of man's creation abilities, takes on the qualities of the man-tool hybrid that was so adaptive and successful to survival, but the fundamental tradeoff is that it will kill its own kind (another man-like intelligence, not literally another of its own species in this case). So HAL is the end of the dawn of man, and it is necessary at that point for there to be a new transition, to the star child.
At any rate, great discussion, thank you, really enjoying the club!
EDIT: I meant also to say that, Dave and Frank, the hyper-competent astronauts, are rather robotic, more "computer-like" in many ways than HAL: they display almost no emotion (it's interesting to note that the one who shows a bit of emotion - Frank, with his annoyed questioning of HAL after the faulty failure mode analysis - is the one HAL kills), they perform their functions almost mechanically. The former-apes have become too much like their own tools, and their fatal flaw is entrusting an important mission almost entirely to one that's become too much like them ("almost no aspect of the ship not under his control").
Saw the movie. Its too slow. @anna rettberg, im glad they don't make it like they used to. I cannot watch one more pod rotating... my god, can it be any slower. And also, if that end sequence is what being on acid feels like, I never want to be on acid.
@casey muratori I don't agree with your disappointment at the lack of reaction to the presence of the monolith on the moon. You yourself pointed out how dispassionate the actual astronauts who went to the moon were about stepping on it. It actually makes perfect sense that they don't show any reaction. I don't think the professional astronauts will actually ever show any reaction even if they were actually freaking out like you wanted them to. In fact, maybe they will be even more calm just because their training will kick in and they will be trying to gather more intel as calmly and professionally as possible.
I think that goes with any profession where there are high stakes situations requiring actions that can change the outcomes in grave ways. Once Dr. Andrew Huberman (a neuroscientist) described how he would train for hours on end to dissect brains. These sessions were so intense that he would use a bottle to pee in so that he doesn't have to step away from the specimen. And he described how he would drink a lot of coffee and listen to metal music to get himself completely hyped up and then do these dissections as meticulously and slowly as possible. He also said that his advisor taught him that once the blade hits the tissue, they do not show any perturbation from the method of surgery until its done even if a nuclear bomb goes off in the vicinity.
So, what I'm saying is that, the detached behavior is actually realistic from professionals like that.
I always wondered why Casey Muratori named his company after a drug (molly is the street name for ecstacy) when he seems to be averse to even cold medication. And I was thinking like he is trying to say that this company makes games that gives you feels comparable to being so high on molly that you feel like you are on a rocketship or something 😂
Loved the episode, and I really enjoyed rewatching this. It’s incredible how well everything holds up half a century later.
Re Pacing:
The slow pacing mostly works for me. Spending so much time with the apes really sells the weight of their evolution. The HAL sequences are so tense because we see everything the astronauts do and how long it all takes. And the ending truly feels like an odyssey. I don’t think a tightly edited 2001 would have nearly the same impact.
That said, I think the second act with Floyd going to the moon really drags. Most of the dialog is forgettable and unnecessary; why do we care about Floyd’s daughter wanting a telephone, or what sandwiches the astronauts brought? Plot threads like the epidemic cover story go nowhere and it just feels like an excuse to world-build for its own sake. And that docking sequence is so absurdly long it feels like a joke; the opening of Spaceballs is more restrained.
Re The Ending:
I think the two-tone landscapes are intentionally less surreal and more recognizable than what comes before. The star gate starts with completely abstract and overwhelming patterns, then becomes less overwhelming and more organic, then stabilizes into more recognizable distorted landscapes, then concludes with the concrete hotel room. Each stage is slower and easier to take in.
The whole sequence emphasizes Dave’s eyes. At first he has to keep them closed. As the imagery becomes calmer and more understandable, he opens them but constantly blinks. The transition to the hotel is shown by his eyes adjusting, and in the hotel and as the star child he constantly stares.
It all makes me think of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Dave is stepping out of the shadows and seeing the sun of enlightenment, and it blinds him until his eyes and understanding slowly adjust. I don’t think keeping the surrealism at a 10 the whole time would have had the same effect.
The zero G shots were wirework and clever perspective. The scene where he blows through the airlock was filmed from below, looking up: https://youtu.be/lRjcZ6S87dM
One more thing I saw is at the beginning of Jupiter mission, the music is by Aram Khachaturian, who was an armenian composer. I think Kubrick alludes to armenian genocide with the sleeping pods looking like coffins. The character is running and boxing, to me it's motivic connection with monkeys fighting at the beginning of the movie. Like the bone/spaceship/pen rotating, he connects ancestral human behavior that became more civilized with time. It's more of a symbolist interpretation, but looking at it like this I think the desolate landscapes at the end become important too, evoking maybe the possibility of nuclear war on earth or something similar.
Thank you guys for a great episode this has been an amazing movie to revisit.
Addressing Casey’s wondering if the audience would get that the monolith taught humans into evolution. I personally got that directly the first time I saw it, and it was confirmed later by the other monoliths. I guess I always looked at universe origin theories and myths, including religions with interest so this is where my mind went at first.
I would say also that the contrast of competence between humans and machine is too extreme in either movies. However it is also interesting to consider the skepticism towards computers and their sci fi implications in the sixties. Interstellar also tends to appeal to the average viewer with the emotional aspects and failures of their characters while in real life a higher level of competence would be expected, but not as a rule, so both still sort of work. I would argue however that 2001 puts very little investment into the emotional development of its characters which might be by design but those little video calls home would suggest an attempt at that emotional investment. Either that or it was deliberate to establish the stoic characteristic of the astronauts viewed and expected back then.
I’d like to also add that I kind of like the strong contrast in themes between calm and scenic ballet and eerie subtle horror. When HAL killed the first astronaut it took me by surprise as I didn’t expect the movie to go there judging by how it’s been going. So there’s a certain Tarantino feel to parts of it that I liked.
Finally, I would say it’s certainly a movie to remember and great for its confidence in its artistic choices, something that modern movies very much lack. It seems like it doesn’t care if it appeals to the mainstream while every movie now seems terrified to take any real risks.
May 14, 2022·edited May 14, 2022Liked by Casey Muratori, Anna Rettberg
Super interesting, I didn't notice the inversion of human/machine capabilities from 2001 to Interstellar. For the pacing, I love what Kubrick does, yes some shots are boring but I think he emphasizes the triviality of large group meeting in the scene on the moon. And he does not do stale shot/reverse short, composition is always interesting even if it is slower. It's like he watches human behavior from afar.
I did notice a few things about the visual effects that brought me out of a little bit. But its clear after listening to this episode that I was under-appreciating how well they were done overall.
I remember two things in particular:
- The viewports into the space station in the beginning of the movie (and at other times later) looked a bit wacky in terms of their perspective and scale. Still impressive though. I like how the small-scale motion complemented the large expansive spaces.
- The star child at the end felt very jarring. I remember thinking it looked like bad CG. But this film was made before those days, so I suppose this is just a uniquely modern part of the experience.
As for the pacing, I agree with Casey that it felt a bit slow at points. But I have not seen it in on the big screen yet, perhaps I will be blown away by the atmosphere :P
I'm only halfway through the podcast so far, but I would like to make two small comments.
- The world building rule you mention is very interesting. I guess a good example of a show that both adheres to and then breaks that rule is Game of Thrones. While the show is still close to the books it feels very grounded. Afterwards it's just like no one cared anymore and it's just bad.
- The possibility of the monolith being an "Ancient Aliens" type intervention did occur to me while watching the movie without knowing about the book. But that's probably only because a friend of mine used to be somewhat interested in these kind of conspiracy theories and told me about that idea.
The monolith made me think of a documentary on the architect I. M. Pei. He talks about the sharpness of an edge of a wall at the National Gallery of Art. People touch it like the monkeys in the movie, I think Kubrick captures the tactile fascination objects can generate. https://youtu.be/AxEIkWu03S8?t=3750
One comment: my interpretation of the theme of the monolith(s) and the connection between the opening part of the movie up to the Jupiter sequence. I've always thought it is significant that Kubrick titles the beginning "Dawn of Man" and, even though we have the match cut leaping 4 million years ahead, the next title the movie shows us is "Jupiter Mission". I've always interpreted the "dawn of man" as encompassing both the primate-human transition AND the low-earth orbit/Moon colonizing spacefarers. In other words all that we see up through the discovery of the buried monolith is the dawn of man period. In the logic of the movie, this makes sense: the advent and introduction of tooling creates Man, and HAL represents the end of what tooling can do for man, in terms of its journey as a species. You might argue that I'm being overly interpretive, and that Kubrick didn't put a title on the screen to introduce the Blue Danube sequence was for artistic reasons so as not to overly spell things out for the viewer, nothing more. But I think what he is showing us is that a tool that embodies or mimics man through artificial intelligence represents both man's mastery over its tools AND its limits, because it cannot progress anymore as a species at that point via its own tools or capabilities: it needs the higher beings to guide them through to the next stage. There's a poignant echo with the proto-men in the beginning after they have gained the bone tool, which is first and foremost about providing them with security and sustenance, but is also tinged necessarily with homicide, the violence inflicted on one's own species -- later, with HAL, the tool itself becomes homicidal. The computer -- the universal machine -- the limit of man's creation abilities, takes on the qualities of the man-tool hybrid that was so adaptive and successful to survival, but the fundamental tradeoff is that it will kill its own kind (another man-like intelligence, not literally another of its own species in this case). So HAL is the end of the dawn of man, and it is necessary at that point for there to be a new transition, to the star child.
At any rate, great discussion, thank you, really enjoying the club!
EDIT: I meant also to say that, Dave and Frank, the hyper-competent astronauts, are rather robotic, more "computer-like" in many ways than HAL: they display almost no emotion (it's interesting to note that the one who shows a bit of emotion - Frank, with his annoyed questioning of HAL after the faulty failure mode analysis - is the one HAL kills), they perform their functions almost mechanically. The former-apes have become too much like their own tools, and their fatal flaw is entrusting an important mission almost entirely to one that's become too much like them ("almost no aspect of the ship not under his control").
Saw the movie. Its too slow. @anna rettberg, im glad they don't make it like they used to. I cannot watch one more pod rotating... my god, can it be any slower. And also, if that end sequence is what being on acid feels like, I never want to be on acid.
@casey muratori I don't agree with your disappointment at the lack of reaction to the presence of the monolith on the moon. You yourself pointed out how dispassionate the actual astronauts who went to the moon were about stepping on it. It actually makes perfect sense that they don't show any reaction. I don't think the professional astronauts will actually ever show any reaction even if they were actually freaking out like you wanted them to. In fact, maybe they will be even more calm just because their training will kick in and they will be trying to gather more intel as calmly and professionally as possible.
I think that goes with any profession where there are high stakes situations requiring actions that can change the outcomes in grave ways. Once Dr. Andrew Huberman (a neuroscientist) described how he would train for hours on end to dissect brains. These sessions were so intense that he would use a bottle to pee in so that he doesn't have to step away from the specimen. And he described how he would drink a lot of coffee and listen to metal music to get himself completely hyped up and then do these dissections as meticulously and slowly as possible. He also said that his advisor taught him that once the blade hits the tissue, they do not show any perturbation from the method of surgery until its done even if a nuclear bomb goes off in the vicinity.
So, what I'm saying is that, the detached behavior is actually realistic from professionals like that.
OOOOOH molly is a cat?!
I always wondered why Casey Muratori named his company after a drug (molly is the street name for ecstacy) when he seems to be averse to even cold medication. And I was thinking like he is trying to say that this company makes games that gives you feels comparable to being so high on molly that you feel like you are on a rocketship or something 😂
I have not watched the movie.... Spoilers please :P
Loved the episode, and I really enjoyed rewatching this. It’s incredible how well everything holds up half a century later.
Re Pacing:
The slow pacing mostly works for me. Spending so much time with the apes really sells the weight of their evolution. The HAL sequences are so tense because we see everything the astronauts do and how long it all takes. And the ending truly feels like an odyssey. I don’t think a tightly edited 2001 would have nearly the same impact.
That said, I think the second act with Floyd going to the moon really drags. Most of the dialog is forgettable and unnecessary; why do we care about Floyd’s daughter wanting a telephone, or what sandwiches the astronauts brought? Plot threads like the epidemic cover story go nowhere and it just feels like an excuse to world-build for its own sake. And that docking sequence is so absurdly long it feels like a joke; the opening of Spaceballs is more restrained.
Re The Ending:
I think the two-tone landscapes are intentionally less surreal and more recognizable than what comes before. The star gate starts with completely abstract and overwhelming patterns, then becomes less overwhelming and more organic, then stabilizes into more recognizable distorted landscapes, then concludes with the concrete hotel room. Each stage is slower and easier to take in.
The whole sequence emphasizes Dave’s eyes. At first he has to keep them closed. As the imagery becomes calmer and more understandable, he opens them but constantly blinks. The transition to the hotel is shown by his eyes adjusting, and in the hotel and as the star child he constantly stares.
It all makes me think of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Dave is stepping out of the shadows and seeing the sun of enlightenment, and it blinds him until his eyes and understanding slowly adjust. I don’t think keeping the surrealism at a 10 the whole time would have had the same effect.
The zero G shots were wirework and clever perspective. The scene where he blows through the airlock was filmed from below, looking up: https://youtu.be/lRjcZ6S87dM
Such clever filmmaking!
One more thing I saw is at the beginning of Jupiter mission, the music is by Aram Khachaturian, who was an armenian composer. I think Kubrick alludes to armenian genocide with the sleeping pods looking like coffins. The character is running and boxing, to me it's motivic connection with monkeys fighting at the beginning of the movie. Like the bone/spaceship/pen rotating, he connects ancestral human behavior that became more civilized with time. It's more of a symbolist interpretation, but looking at it like this I think the desolate landscapes at the end become important too, evoking maybe the possibility of nuclear war on earth or something similar.
Thank you guys for a great episode this has been an amazing movie to revisit.
Addressing Casey’s wondering if the audience would get that the monolith taught humans into evolution. I personally got that directly the first time I saw it, and it was confirmed later by the other monoliths. I guess I always looked at universe origin theories and myths, including religions with interest so this is where my mind went at first.
I would say also that the contrast of competence between humans and machine is too extreme in either movies. However it is also interesting to consider the skepticism towards computers and their sci fi implications in the sixties. Interstellar also tends to appeal to the average viewer with the emotional aspects and failures of their characters while in real life a higher level of competence would be expected, but not as a rule, so both still sort of work. I would argue however that 2001 puts very little investment into the emotional development of its characters which might be by design but those little video calls home would suggest an attempt at that emotional investment. Either that or it was deliberate to establish the stoic characteristic of the astronauts viewed and expected back then.
I’d like to also add that I kind of like the strong contrast in themes between calm and scenic ballet and eerie subtle horror. When HAL killed the first astronaut it took me by surprise as I didn’t expect the movie to go there judging by how it’s been going. So there’s a certain Tarantino feel to parts of it that I liked.
Finally, I would say it’s certainly a movie to remember and great for its confidence in its artistic choices, something that modern movies very much lack. It seems like it doesn’t care if it appeals to the mainstream while every movie now seems terrified to take any real risks.
Super interesting, I didn't notice the inversion of human/machine capabilities from 2001 to Interstellar. For the pacing, I love what Kubrick does, yes some shots are boring but I think he emphasizes the triviality of large group meeting in the scene on the moon. And he does not do stale shot/reverse short, composition is always interesting even if it is slower. It's like he watches human behavior from afar.
I feel compelled to read the book now.
I did notice a few things about the visual effects that brought me out of a little bit. But its clear after listening to this episode that I was under-appreciating how well they were done overall.
I remember two things in particular:
- The viewports into the space station in the beginning of the movie (and at other times later) looked a bit wacky in terms of their perspective and scale. Still impressive though. I like how the small-scale motion complemented the large expansive spaces.
- The star child at the end felt very jarring. I remember thinking it looked like bad CG. But this film was made before those days, so I suppose this is just a uniquely modern part of the experience.
As for the pacing, I agree with Casey that it felt a bit slow at points. But I have not seen it in on the big screen yet, perhaps I will be blown away by the atmosphere :P
Thanks for another episode
I'm only halfway through the podcast so far, but I would like to make two small comments.
- The world building rule you mention is very interesting. I guess a good example of a show that both adheres to and then breaks that rule is Game of Thrones. While the show is still close to the books it feels very grounded. Afterwards it's just like no one cared anymore and it's just bad.
- The possibility of the monolith being an "Ancient Aliens" type intervention did occur to me while watching the movie without knowing about the book. But that's probably only because a friend of mine used to be somewhat interested in these kind of conspiracy theories and told me about that idea.
Thank you for this cool podcast!