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* Dave Bowman's visitation to his ex-wife and his mother. Especially his mother, who dies when he leaves.
* In the novel, Dave's character gets a really sad background story. He had an older brother named Robert, and while both of them were younger (Bobby was teenaged, Dave was somewhere in his pre-teens), they tried some amateur diving in a deep lake near their home. What they didn't know was that the run-of-the-mill air compressor they'd hooked up a snorkel mouthpiece to was concentrating carbon monoxide in the air flow. Dave survived because he'd only dived a short depth to test the mechanism out, merely leaving him with an aggressive headache. Bobby went deeper, and never came back up. They never even recovered the body, requiring a wax replica for his funeral.
** Twisting the knife a little deeper, guess who was Bobby's girlfriend before he died? Betty, who later started dating Dave as a way for each of them to try and heal.
** Also, in the novel, Betty reveals that her son Carlos was actually Dave's son, not that of her husband.
* In the movie, the [[DeathByAdaptation death]] of Max Brailovsky. What sells it is Curnow's breakdown:
-->'''Curnow:''' "You stupid bastard, get out of there!"
* The movie (along with the novel) creates a retroactive tear jerker for 2001: HAL's breakdown which lead to the death of almost the entire crew of Discovery '''''wasn't his fault.''''' Chandra explains that the White House ordered HAL to keep the existence of the Monolith a secret, which conflicted with his basic programming. This caused him to descend into paranoia which resulted in him attempting to kill the crew. Even worse is that Floyd, the man who discovered the Monolith in 2001 and planned the Discovery mission, had no idea that this occurred. He's understandably livid when Chandra reveals the truth.[[note]]This contradicts what Floyd says in the original film and book. But given each of the Odyssey books are technically their own continuity, it's entirely possible it could be true in this version of the story.[[/note]]
--> '''Chandra:''' HAL was told to lie... by people who find it easy to lie. HAL doesn't know how, so he couldn't function. He became paranoid.
--> '''Floyd:''' Those sons of bitches. I didn't know. '''''I didn't know!'''''
* HAL thanking Chandra for telling the truth, followed by HAL, just before death, essentially asking Chandra if there is an afterlife, poignantly [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] by the opening sequence with SAL.
-->'''HAL:''' I understand now, Dr. Chandra...Thank you for telling me the truth.\\
'''Chandra:''' [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman You deserve it.]]\\
'''HAL:''' I have one final question...[[DoAndroidsDream Will I dream?]]\\
'''Chandra:''' (quietly sobs) I... I don't know.
** But then, Dave shows up for HAL, and gives him an even more certain answer:
--->'''HAL-9000:''' What is going to happen?\\
'''Dave:''' Something wonderful. \\
'''HAL-9000:''' I'm afraid. \\
'''Dave:''' Don't be. We'll be together. \\
'''HAL-9000:''' Where will we be? \\
'''Dave:''' Where I am now.
** The destruction of ''Discovery'' is a tearjerker in its own right, doubly so as in the film version it appears to the ''Leonov'' that HAL has been destroyed. The novel makes it clear, though, that Dave saves HAL before the ship is vaporized.
* In the novel, Floyd's marriage completely collapses while he's gone to Jupiter. He's so depressed, he briefly thinks about taking an EVA pod from ''Discovery'' to try and follow in Dave Bowman's footsteps, wherever he may have gone. A timely intervention by Curnow and some friendly banter helps pull him back, though, leading to Floyd pitying Dave instead of envying him.
* Connected with the above, in the novel, Dave's first action as the Star Child is to cry.
* The fate of the spacecraft ''Tsien'' in the novel. During their refueling stop on Europa, the spacecraft's brilliant exterior lighting attracts the attention of an tree-like lifeform that climbs on the spacecraft and topples it over, cracking the hull open and killing its crew, save Dr. Chang, who was outside on an EVA. He saves the lifeform from freeze-drying to death in a misguided attempt to spawn in the light from a still-working fixture by kicking it back to the hole in the ice it came from, but it still leaves him to die of asphyxiation when his suit runs out of oxygen, broadcasting from his suit radio in the blind in hope that the ''Leonov'' will receive the signal and realy the message back to Earth.
* The description of the biospheres of Europa and Jupiter in the novel.
** On Europa, the life in the subterranean ocean is doomed to be consumed by slow freezing as the gravitational tidal forces that warm the moon's core and keep the oceans liquid slowly dies down, and they cannot survive long on the surface of the ice. Not without a little outside help, anyways...
** The Jovian atmosphere turns out to be teeming with gaseous life-forms of a startling variety. However, they cannot hope to reach sentience or develop into a spacefaring race in an environment where fire and solid matter cannot really exist, so the Firstborn consider them a necessary sacrifice in their goals to help the Europa biosphere support intelligent life.
* The recorded video message about the "state of war" now existing between the USSR and the USA. Milson, the head of the NCA, and his Russian counterpart ordering the American and Soviet teams apart from each other, complete with the separating of the bridge between them, is very sobering, after seeing the astronauts from both nations collaborating and becoming friends.
** Especially telling is the sadly apologetic tones they use. No one aboard ship or on the ground wanted this to happen, and all that's left is "to pray, pray for the safety of our families, for our countries, for our planet."
--->'''Milson''': May God forgive us... and protect us.
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