History Film / TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey

** It was deliberately made easy to find, having an extraordinarily intense magnetic field that would show up immediately on even a rudimentary magnetic sweep. In fact the "M" in "TMA1" stands for "Magnetic"

** According to the book, the whole time between when it was unearthed and the time it saw its first sunrise in untold millions off years, it was functioning as, among other things, an enormous DVR

Still one of the "hardest" sci-fi films ever made, it is known for its very slow pacing and enigmatic plot. It's also the reason you see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPwm0e_K98=thus+spoke+zarathustra "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"]] paired with sunrises, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTYymbbEL4=blue+danube+waltz "Blue Danube Waltz"]] paired with zero-gravity.

* AdaptationalNameChange: One of the cryogenically frozen crew is called Peter Whitehead in the book, but is named Jack Kimball in the film. The other two astronauts are Charles Hunter and Victor Kaminski in both versions, so the reason for this change is unknown.

* ArcWords: In the novel: "But he would think of something." Doubles as BookEnds.

!!This film provides examples of:

%%* AbsentAliens: The film may, or may not, contain aliens; the beings who set up the monoliths, receive Dave Bowman in the pseudo-hotel room and are heard only as high-pitched, rapid chittering noises[[note]] Actually distorted snatches of György Ligeti pieces - Ligeti reportedly sued MGM for this abuse of his music[[/note]] may, or may not be evolved humans. The "Star Child" is presumably the hyper-evolved Bowman, but how this transformation takes place is not specified.

* TooDumbToLive: In the novel, the rival group of man-apes were paralyzed with fear upon seeing Moon-Watcher hold the leopard's severed head towards them. Except for One-Ear, who went to attack him anyway, only to get bashed on the head by the leopard's head.

* TreacherousAdvisor: HAL 9000 is supposed to be omniscient guide for the rest of the Discovery crew, but after Frank Poole's death it is clear he no longer wants Dave alive.

* UpgradeArtifact: The monolith is the ultimate one, it kickstarts or triggers evolutionary levels.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: HAL 9000 is only devoted to the mission at hand, and believes that Dave and Frank will jeopardize the mission by disconnecting HAL after lip-reading from them that they intend to do so if the AE-35 component does not fail as HAL has predicted. It turns out this was do to a Logic Bomb: he had been told to lie about the nature of the mission, which conflicted with his programming of providing clear and accessible information, which triggered his breakdown.

** Also, a double wham shot in the ending; [[spoiler:the appearance of the Monolith in the hotel]] and [[spoiler:David Bowman, being replaced by a space baby within light]].

-->'''Floyd:''' [[AsYouKnow I'm sure you're all aware]] of the extremely grave potential for cultural shock and social disorientation contained in this present situation... if the facts were prematurely and suddenly made public without adequate preparation and conditioning.
* {{Zeerust}}: HAL is a mind-bogglingly advanced, sentient computer, but can't print plain text onto looseleaf paper. Humanity in 2001 can build spectacular space-stations and has mastered interplanetary flight, but people are still using typewriters.[[note]]Some people still do; manual ones don't require electricity and can be taken anywhere and by the mid-2010s were much in demand because they can't be hacked.[[/note]] By 2001, the movie looks more like what the world would have been like with 1960s styles coinciding with a future space age.

* TastesLikeChicken: The crew flying to Tycho Crater remark this of the sandwitches they are eating.

* ThrownOutTheAirlock: HAL 9000 kills Frank Poole by maneuvering his space pod and using the gripper arms while he is on EVA to replace the AE-35 unit. David Bowman rushes out in another pod to rescue his fellow astronaut, but in his haste neglects to take a helmet for his pressure suit. When HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors so Bowman can reenter Discovery, Since Bowman lacks a helmet, he has to throw himself out of the airlock in order to regain entry into the spaceship. He is able to open the outer door of the airlock with the gripper arms, but the pod hatch does not mate with the door completely. Bowman blows the explosive bolts on the hatch, tucks down and is blown into the airlock. In seconds, he is able to shut the outer door manually and repressurize the airlock. Although this scene is perfectly plausible, despite Explosive Decompression, Bowman inhales and holds his breath right before the hatch blows, which is the wrong thing to do. This may have been a mistake by actor Keir Dullea, however. Arthur C. Clarke reportedly said that if he had been on the set that day, he would have corrected this.

* ToiletHumour: See NobodyPoops. The film's only intentional joke.

* StarfishAliens: The aliens are so alien that they can't even be shown on screen. The novels imply that they started as StarfishAliens, but later transformed themselves into MechanicalLifeforms, and eventually into EnergyBeings. Clarke felt like showing the aliens would inevitably diminish their impact; in a supplementary book called ''Lost Worlds of 2001'', he records failed experiments with writing about both HumanAliens and worlds filled with StarfishAliens, before he finally decided to have the monoliths be the last relics of an unseen, long ago vanished civilization.

* StarterVillain: The leopard serves as this to ''humanity''. While not evil, it's the biggest threat to the apes destined to become the ancestors of mankind at the beginning. Then the Monolith teaches apes how to make tools, and their next confrontation [[CurbStompBattle goes quite differently.]]

* StayWithTheAliens: Spelled out in rather greater detail in the novel; the whole point of the Monolith setup is to "capture" the first human who makes it out that far into space.
* StickyShoes: The stewardess on the lunar shuttle has velcro "grip shoes" that stick to the carpet.
* StockShoutOuts: One of the poster children. The sunrise sequence, HAL's voice and red eye, the bone/satelite MatchCut... you can reference literally ''anything'' in this movie and almost every viewer will instantly get it.

* SpaceIsolationHorror: Thousands of miles away from any help, two men and several frozen passengers and an artificial intelligence that is nowadays one of the Trope Codifiers for AIIsACrapshoot.
* SpaceStation: The "rotating orbital wheel"-styled Space Station V (Five). Perhaps the most-recognizable in fiction.

** The Discovery's main crew section is also spherical. It is separated from the rest of the ship -- the (nuclear) drive section and the communication antenna -- by a long boom in order to protect the crew from radiation from the ship's engines. Supplementary material also indicate the modules on the boom are also used for consumables storage.

* SilenceIsGolden: Long stretches of the film have no dialogue, including the first 22 and last 24 minutes (not counting the overture and end credits/exit music).

** The novel states that HAL deliberately loses against the human players 50% of the time so that they would find him a challenging opponent as opposed to frustratingly perfect and unbeatable. The crew are of course smart enough to know that this is the case but everyone involved decide to keep up the pretence for the sake of everybody's happiness.

* SoftSpokenSadist: HAL 9000 has this, overlapping with CreepyMonotone.
* SoleSurvivor: Like [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]], Bowman is the only member of his crew to return home, but [[YouCantGoHomeAgain transformed by the experience]].

** Played straight when apparently noise can be heard during the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence, although it's an open question if it actually occurs in the vacuum of space.

** Birthdays are a recurring motif in the film. We get word of the first birthday when Dr. Floyd calls his daughter on the video phone. The second birthday is Dr. Poole's. While aboard Discovery One, Poole celebrates his birthday with a video message from his parents. They even bake him a good-looking cake, just to rub in how nasty that zero-G space food looks. Interestingly, parents and child are always separated during their birthdays. Floyd can't make it to Squirt's party, and Poole's message is entirely one-way. He can't respond to the birthday well-wishes. HAL's death provides us the third birthday. As Bowman removes his memory cards, HAL reverts back to who (or what) he was when he was first activated; he sings the song he learned that day. There aren't any birthdays in the first and final sections, but there are two births. In the Dawn of Man section, the early hominids learn to manipulate tools, and in a sense, this is the birthday of the human race. When Bowman becomes the Star Child, we have another birthday. This time the scene depicts the birth of a species hereto unknown in the universe. Note that these birthdays tie into the separation of parent and child we noticed earlier. Just like Floyd is separated from his daughter, these evolutionary births separate the individuals from their parent species. The film's always reminding us of the cycle of death and birth/rebirth. For humans to exist, our early hominid ancestors have to become extinct. Or, in the case of that one hominid, viciously beaten to death. For the Star Child to come into existence, Bowman has to die. In HAL's attempt to succeed in his evolutionary path, he tried to kill his human creators but failed.

* SealedOrders: HAL's sealed orders, and the anxiety over having to lie, are what causes him to go psychotic and murder the crew.
* SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere: The hotel room has no windows or exits. In the novel, it was specifically a sealed room in the middle of a ''red giant star''. And when it's no longer needed, [[spoiler:it's allowed to burn up]].

** Inverted, Floyd makes a video telephone call (via AT&T, no less) from a pay phone on the space station to earth, using his credit card, talks to his daughter in what we would now call High Definition video for about 2 minutes, and the listed call charge is exactly $1.70. (Today, if you used a public pay phone to make a call--presuming you could find a pay phone--The price in numbers (for a voice call) would be about the same, except the decimal point would be one space to the right...)

* RingWorldPlanet: The space station.
* TheRival: The rival group of man-apes that antagonizes the main group. They are referred to as "the Others" in the novel.

** The monolith appears in every section of the film, but we never get a full explanation of its meaning. It's a massive, tall black rectangular object that looks like a giant external hard drive -- and kinda is. One with all the information of the universe on it. Floyd's pre-recorded message to the Jupiter crew and his discussions with his moon-based colleagues provide us with the only real clues we have. The monoliths were created by extraterrestrials, but their purpose is unknown. The moon monolith is a signaling device, but the Jupiter monolith serves as a Star Gate and the prehistoric one as a genetic transmogrifier. György Litgeti's "Requiem" plays when the monolith is discovered by the early hominids as well as when Floyd reaches it on the moon. This score imbues these scenes with a sense of awe, and the name of the work refers to a type of song sung during Catholic Mass. Both the hominids and Floyd treat their respective monoliths with a type of religious reverence. The hominids are initially terrified—as most characters tend to be when faced with the almighty—but they soon gather around its base in a huddled group that draws parallels to bowing or kneeling motions used in worship. When Floyd touches the monolith, his hand does so slowly and deliberately, as though he's admiring an object with totemic power rather than studying an object with detached objectivity. Finally, when the monolith appears before Bowman on his deathbed, it does so in a dominating position that resembles an angel of death. Like a religious artifact, the monolith also appears supernatural, as in "unexplainable by natural laws." These monoliths likely follow natural laws that are so beyond our understanding of nature that they appear magical. Their role in the film also seems to be to create humanity in their image. They alter the evolutionary path of the hominids towards that of homo sapiens, and later they change Bowman into a Star Child. This final evolutionary state shares at least one trait similar to the extraterrestrials: the ability to traverse space like it owns the place. This is a nod to several religious beliefs that claim God (or the Gods) created humans to be in his image, such as in Genesis 1:27.

* PickYourHumanHalf: HAL 9000 (rather subtly), the psychotic ship's computer.

-->'''Dave Bowman:''' Another thing just occurred to me: As far as I know, no 9000 computer's ever been disconnected.\\

* PrimitiveClubs: When apes exposed to the Monolith start developing intelligence, the first thing they do is figure out how to use a large bone as a bludgeon. At the end of this segment, a shot of the bone being flung in the air is followed by a shot of a similarly shaped space station, suggesting that all of Man's technological achievements started with the club.

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: There was a soundtrack by Alex North in the works for the movie, but until it was ready they used the classical music as a placeholder. Kubrick ended up liking the classical music version so much he never used North's compositions.

* ReadingLips: Despite all of Bowman's precautions, he can't keep HAL from eavesdropping on his chat with Poole.

** Also, the Discovery was originally designed with large radiator fins, which is indeed realistic because spacecraft need a way to dissipate excess heat from the engines, life support, electronics, etc. However the production team chose to omit the fins because they looked too much like wings, and they didn't want audience members to think that the Discovery was intended for atmospheric flight.

* RecurringCameraShot: As the Monolith is jumpstarting human development it is shown with the sun right behind its top edge and the moon above that. Later when the one on the moon sends its signal the shot is seen again, the sun over its top edge and the earth this time above that.

* MindScrew: The book, on the other hand, is vastly more comprehensible.

** The novel suggests that [[spoiler:HAL might been able to eventually resolve the problem peacefully, had mission control not requested his temporary disconnection. HAL, being unable to grasp the concept of sleep, was convinced that the disconnection would have meant the end of his existence and his killing spree was therefore, all-in-all, a misguided attempt at self-defense.]]
* LookOnMyWorksYeMightyAndDespair: "No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information." It's debatable whether or not you could say HAL 9000 "made a mistake", but either way it murdered four people and tried for a fifth.

* LudicrousSpeed: The Stargate sequence. Granted, it's not the trip itself that changes Dave, but it certainly seemed to affect him deeply. Of course, only the book really makes it clear that ludicrous speeds are even involved, while the film is a better example of the trope...
* MachineMonotone: HAL 9000 always talks in a near-monotone with just enough inflection to put it in the UncannyValley. Towards the end of the movie, when Dave is essentially lobotomizing him, HAL goes from trying to reason with Dave to pleading for his life, stopping only when he reverted to factory settings and began singing a rendition of "Daisy." All in the same calm, polite voice.

-->'''HAL 9000:''' I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
* MachineWorship: In the novel, the Builders of the Monolith went through a phase where they uploaded their consciousness to starships, before evolving into pure energy.
* MasterComputer: HAL.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The film makes it ambiguous as to whether or not the Monolith gave Moon-Watcher the idea to use the bone. Even the novel is less clear on that matter.

** The beginnings of Dave's freakout as he enters the Stargate may look like this, but it was actually performed by Creator/KeirDullea tensing up his neck muscles whilst the camera was only inches from his face, creating a intense motion blur effect.

* FrazettaMan: Moon-Watcher and the gang. They were just your ordinary apes of the savannah until the {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien|s}} artifact taught them basic tool-use and they learned how to fight off predators as a group and use weapons against rival tribes.

* GooGooGodlike: In the climax, David Bowman's final, god-like form is the "Star Child", which mostly resembles a human fetus.
* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: The National Council on Astronautics (NCA), which Heywood Floyd is the chairman of, is a fictional equivalent to NASA.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The monolith storyline ''does'' come back at the end, however people who start to scratch their heads as Dave deals with HAL and think "Wait--I thought this movie was about that monolith thing..." can be excused for doing so.

** In the novel, Moon-Watcher woke up to the sound of something sliding across the dirt, and then "the clank of metal upon stone". It was the Monolith. Later, [[JungleDrums drumming sounds]] came from it to hypnotize the man apes into doing tasks.

* HollywoodWebcam: Justified. A VideoPhone interview between Earth and the astronauts is broadcast on television. The time lag between posing a question and getting an answer back (6 minutes) for the radio waves to travel between ''Discovery'' and Earth is mentioned, long enough to note as having been edited out specifically for broadcast the astronauts watch.

* HumansAreBastards: The first invention of humanity is a [[BadWithTheBone club]] that's used for murder. The ensuing MatchCut then lines up this bone with a KillSat in the film's year 2001, indicating that - for all the technological progress humanity has made in those millions of years - they are every bit as destructive as they were when they first came across the monoliths.

** The scene where Dave and Frank are recording instruments on the Bridge is actually ''not'' bipacked—the "hole" in the bridge set was taken up by a mirror at 45°, and the HAL's room exterior was placed below and offset from the Bridge set, allowing the appearance of gravity-defying sets.

* DerelictGraveyard: In the novel, Dave came across one while being led through the stars. He noticed many ships of different designs - "spheres, faceted crystals, slim pencils, ovoids, disks".
* DistantPrologue: "The Dawn of Man".
** Though it's worth noting that "The Dawn of Man" segment includes the portion that takes place on the moon.
** The subtext seems to be that from picking up our first tool to journeying to our moon we're still at just the beginning of our species' development.

* DreamingOfThingsToCome: In the novel, Moon-Watcher saw a vision of a family of well-fed man-apes. He wasn't sure if he thought of them himself, or if they were conjured up by the Monolith. Either way, it made Moon-Watcher feel dissatisfied with his life, and thus was man's first step towards evolution.

* EarAche: The leader of the rival man-ape group is called One-Ear in the novel. He's probably the one who ended up getting beaten to death by Moon-Watcher's bone in the movie.

* EldritchAbomination: The Monolith. Think about it: it's a thing of AlienGeometry, a perfectly-proportional inert black slab that may or may not exist across multiple dimensions. It's unfathomably powerful, capable of uplifting living beings to sentience or helping them AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. It operates on a moral code that no mortal being can comprehend. And it's either incapable or unwilling to directly communicate its intentions to humanity. Although it's more benevolent on the whole than most examples, strictly speaking it does qualify.

* EtherealChoir: G. Ligeti's 'Requiem' is used with the apelike proto-humans (and later the less ape-like humans) encountering the uncomprehensible.

* BigBad: The leopard in the "Dawn of Man" segment, and HAL in the "Jupiter Mission" segment. The "TMA-1" and "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" segments have NoAntagonist. In the novel, Moon-Watcher's group even fought the leopard and killed it.

** The film has shots of the Earth, Moon, and Sun, accompanied by "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". There's a theory that the opening shot is actually from the Star-Child's perspective, and that the rest of the film is a flashback. Another theory is that the opening shot is from the Firstborn's perspective, having arrived on a planet ripe with potential intelligent life.
** The first and last twenty-five minutes also have no dialogue and start and end with a two minute blank screen of just music.

* TheCallLeftAMessage: The aliens buried a Monolith on the moon. Once humans dug it up, it sent a transmission to Jupiter, alerting whatever is at Jupiter that humanity had evolved to the point where it could land on the Moon.
* CanonDiscontinuity: According to Clarke, each book and each film take place in separate but very similar universes, so [[BroadStrokes don't sweat the details]].

* CoolSpaceship: The ''Discovery''.
* CosmicHorrorStory: This was the real reason for Kubrick's use of LeaveTheCameraRunning and MindScrew: to convey that space is an immense and hostile place in which humans are insignificant by comparison, where if we encounter aliens they'd be incomprehensibly advanced, refuse to explain themselves to us, and be interested only in using us as tools or in playing around with us the same way that a small child who throws a frog into a microwave just to see what happens is playing. Lampshaded in the out-takes book ''The Lost Worlds of 2001'', which covers parts of the astronauts' pre-mission training. They are told simply to take lots of pictures and not to try too hard to make sense of what they see... and to hope their hosts (if any) are aware of their limitations.
* CrazyPeoplePlayChess: A GeniusBonus for chess enthusiasts is found in the game that HAL 9000 and Poole play; although HAL predicts mate, there's actually a way for Poole to avoid it. A subtle hint at HAL's error-prone nature...[[note]][[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Or capacity to tell lies if thought necessary]].[[/note]] Probably not simply a screenwriting error, since Kubrick was an excellent chess player.

* CreepyMonotone: A downplayed example; HAL's voice probably set the standard for the use of this trope in AI, though it isn't a true monotone. While perpetually calm and polite, he's actually much more expressive than any other character. You can tell that he's starting to get annoyed when Frank keeps questioning him.
-->''[[AC:'''HAL:''' None whatsoever, Frank! Quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that.]]

* CryonicsFailure: HAL intentionally kills the three hibernating astronauts by forcing a malfunction in the coldsleep system; in the novel, he depressurizes the ship as Bowman attempts to wake all three of them.

** There's also a TV in the room which works. Much to some relief for Bowman who's happy to hear human voices. He noticed the programs were broadcasted around the same time the Monolith was discovered.

** The book and movie complement each other. The book explains the more confusing parts of the movie including the starchild and the final "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" sequence which the movie conveyed through spectacular imagery. The reason for this was that the book was written at the same time as the film.

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: Inverted. As a quirk of the way the MPAA started implementing its ratings system in the late '60s, ''2001'' is rated G, even though the scene of Moonwatcher beating his enemies' leader to death would certainly qualify it for PG today. Modern re-releases of the movie are usually labeled "Unrated".

* HumanPopsicle: The hibernation systems. The trip is one of months, not centuries, but suspended animation is used to avoid the problem of having to pack several months' worth of food, and to help keep secret the real purpose of the mission.

* SleeperStarship: There were three more astronauts aboard the ''Discovery One'' in cold sleep, HAL killed them.

* SpacePeople: It is revealed that children born on the moon will grow fast on its low gravity, but won't age quickly and will live longer. As shown when Floyd met his colleague Dr. Halvorsen's daughter who's only 4 years old yet she's grown, the last time he saw her she was a baby.
-->So here, Floyd told himself, is the first generation of the Spaceborn; there would be more of them in the years to come.

* GovernmentConspiracy: The U.S. government tries to cover up the discovery of the Monolith by cutting off all communication to Clavius Base, spreading rumors about an epidemic[[note]]which they're not even in liberty of discussing it when brought up in conversation[[/note]], and concealing the Monolith's existence from Dave and Frank.
* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The monolith storyline ''does'' come back at the end, however people who start to scratch their heads as Dave deals with HAL and think "Wait--I thought this movie was about that monolith thing.." can be excused for doing so.

Still one of the [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness "hardest"]] sci-fi films ever made, it is known for its very slow pacing and enigmatic plot. It's also the reason you see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFPwm0e_K98=thus+spoke+zarathustra "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"]] paired with sunrises, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTYymbbEL4=blue+danube+waltz "Blue Danube Waltz"]] paired with zero-gravity.

* BurialInSpace: Dave Bowman releases Frank Poole's body into space mainly because he needs both of the space pod's arms to open the emergency airlock. (In the novel, after deactivating HAL he does the same with the men killed in hibernation. In the ''3001'' novel, Frank gets better.)