![]() Rumors about something being dug up on the moon. certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left. I know I've never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission. HAL: "Well, forgive me for being so inquisitive, but during the past few weeks I've wondered whether you might be having some second thoughts about the mission. If you look at the chess game on the board, you will see that even though he wins HAL has made a mistake: he incorrectly identifies one of the moves on the board (He should have said "Queen to Bishop Six.") This is the first clue, albeit a very subtle one which no one but a chess master like Kubrick would ever notice, that something is wrong with HAL. ![]() Here we see HAL playing an actual game of chess with Poole. Forcing both HAL and the humans to relate on the same intellectual level - expecting a programmed machine to deal with the complexities and ambiguities of the human psyche - contributes to HAL's breakdown. Not only was HAL programmed to emulate human emotions, but the astronauts were no doubt selected for their ability to carry out months of tedious duty with machine-like reliability they were chosen for this mission because they were especially boring people. In this and subsequent scenes of daily life aboard the space ship, we see that indeed HAL acts more human than the crew members. Boredom is as much as, or more of, a risk for HAL as it is for the human crew. my mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the ship, so I am constantly occupied."Īctually, since the uneventful months of the mission, or even a second-long gap in a conversation with a human, are practically endless to a computer, HAL is doomed to spend what must seem like forever stuck in logical loops with no resolution. HAL is already coming close to lying here, since his withholding the true purpose of the mission could be considered distorting information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error." HAL: "No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake, or distorted information. In the dialog of a series of key scenes we see how this game, which depends on more than pure logic, leads HAL to irreconcilable conflicts and subsequent breakdown, with tragic results. The plot of this part of the movie can be thought of as a game, similar to a game of chess, played out between HAL and the human crew: each trying to figure out how much the other knows, to anticipate and block their opponent's next move. That these goals are logically irreconcilable and ultimately unachievable is gradually revealed by HAL's interaction with the crew during the course of the Jupiter mission. But HAL has also been ordered not to reveal this purpose to the human crew - to keep from adding to the already considerable psychological stress they will face during the months that they spend in isolation on their space mission. Heywood Floyd traveling to the moon merely to orchestrate the secrecy campaign. This continues the theme of information being withheld about this monolith's discovery earlier in the movie, we see space bureaucrat Dr. Through his pre-launch programming, HAL has been also been entrusted with knowledge of the true purpose of the mission to Jupiter (which the human crew thinks is merely to explore the Jupiter system, but is actually to follow the "burglar alarm" signal from the monolith on the moon). HAL is responsible for the safety of the space ship Discovery and its crew, and for the success of the mission. It is only in retrospect that the HAL's breakdown can be seen as the inevitable result of a programming conflict. But almost everyone who has seen the movie has wondered: what exactly caused HAL's breakdown? Even though his "nervous breakdown" turns him into a murderer, his eventual "death" by disconnection is sadder than any other death in the movie. It has been said that the HAL 9000 computer is the most empathetic character in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Joe Orman's HAL 9000: A Logical Progression to Breakdown HAL 9000: A Logical Progression to Breakdown
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |