A human player of Kasparov's stature may well be able to "keep up" without being able to match the computer's ability to evaluate 2.4 million positions a second. Two things explain the human's ability to equal or outperform the computer.
First, only a tiny fraction of those positions need to be evaluated. All but a small fraction of them result from the human's making one of a large number of foolish next moves -- for example, a pointless king move when the king is under no immediate threat and in a safe position. And at each move up the line all but a small fraction of the moves are again not worth considering. So the computer is wasting time evaluating millions of positions that don't require evaluation.
Second, the quality of the evaluations is at least as important as the quantity of evaluations. Kasparov and his peers (and near peers) can apply prodigious amounts of theoretical knowledge and experience to evaluate the subtleties of a position. Winning evaluation algorithms are far more complex than adding up the standard point values (queen = 10 or 9 1/2, rook = 5, bishop = 3, etc.) for the pieces of each side at a certain position eighteen moves down the line. Pieces must be evaluated according to complex circumstances. Doubled rooks are worth more, and how much more depends on the precise situation. A queen doubled behind a rook is more valuable than a rook behind a queen (the rook can be exchanged, the queen generally can't). When both sides have just one bishop, the bishop's value to each side may depend on whether the bishops are of the same or opposite colors when one side or the other has a material advantage. In late middle game and end game situations, a pair of bishops is worth more than a bishop and a knight or two knights. Knights at the edge of the board or -- worse -- in or beside a corner -- are worth less. Blocked bishops and rooks are worth less. Isolated pawns and doubled pawns are worth less. A piece vulnerable to exchange is worth less to the player with a material disadvantage. Numerous other considerations affect the value of the pieces. The adjustments in value are subtle and extremely hard to make mechanically; they require the judgement that the grandmaster can bring to bear. A computer must put specific values on each piece in each situation, probably using increments of 0.1 point (where pawn = 1.0 at start). This is no easy task.
Beyond revaluation of the pieces according to circumstances, values must be places on positional factors. Does the position yield the initiative to the opponent, who can (say) check your king or attack a piece? How many pieces are aimed at the enemy king? How well defended are the kings? Has the ability to castle been lost? How many king moves, and how many enemy pawn moves, will it take to reach a promotion square that the king must defend? Many other far more subtle positional factors must be evaluated. The possible situations are so numerous that I doubt the ability of any computer algorithm to account for all of the point adjustments that must be made, and to assign realistic values to each variation or complication. But humans know how to do this without resorting to a mechanical algorithm of the sort a computer must use.
But a computer needs control of the pod bay door to play chess to the best of its ability. Recall the scene in 2001 where the humanoid spaceship Discovery opens one of its three mouths (pod bay doors), sticks out its tongue (pod launching ramp), blows a bubble (spherical space pod), and watches the bubble rise over his head. This tactic could be used to great advantage in a chess game. The opponent would naturally be surprised by this playful display of anthropomorphism and would watch the bubble rise. The computer would then quickly open a second mouth, lick up a nearby bishop (or rook, whatever), and close its mouth with the enemy piece inside. Returning her attention to the board, the enemy would get all rattled when she (Judit Polgar?) saw her position was weaker than she recalled. This would be the beginning of the end.
The first sentence had me worried that the asteroid might hit Earth. So I breathed a sigh of relief when the second sentence said "the object" was "using a good pair of binoculars." That means it will be able to see us and avoid us. Thank God!
Re:Soderberg's Film a Total Failure
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Review: Solaris
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· Score: 1
The Lem interview, which is preceded by excerpts from several Tarkovsky interviews is at
That mysterious "h" in "nostalghia" is NOT a typo. The page's introduction says "English translation by Jan at Nostalghia.com."
In case this url has an error (I checked carefully, but you can never be positive),
use Google advanced search to search for the exact phrase "Andrei Tarkovsky on "Solaris"."
You can also do a regular Google search using "Stanislaw Lem, Solaris, Crime and Punishment."
Also: "Lem, Solaris, Harey, Kelvin, Kant"
Also: "Tarkovsky, Solaris, Tolstoy Complex, Lem"
Re:Soderberg's Film a Total Failure
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Review: Solaris
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· Score: 1
The mistakes are yours, one after another.
First, I neither hated the book nor said I did. I said the book was long on science and weak on plot and that, to make a good movie from it, a screewriter-director needed to add more plot.
Second, you say: "Kelvin doesn't stay on Solaris, at least it's not stated clearly. Most likely he comes back to earth." Here's what the author, Stanislaw Lem, said (in an interview) about your interpretation: "My Kelvin decides to stay on the planet without any hope whatsoever, while Tarkovsky created an image where some kind of an island appears, and on that island a hut. And when I hear about the hut and the island I'm beside myself with irritation. This is just some emotional souce into which Tarkovsky has submerged his heroes, not to mention that he has completely amputated the scientific landscape."
Third, you are wrong in saying "the station in the book is on the surface of the planet." I quote from page 10 (paperback edition). The station is "an elongated silvery body, shaped like a whale, its flanks bristling with radar antennae." And: "This metal colossus . . . was NOT resting on the planet itself but was SUSPENDED ABOVE IT, casting upon the inky SURFACE BENEATH an ellipsoidal shadow." Moreover, the station constantly changes its position as it surveys the planet.
Fourth, you say "the love story in the book is not a minor subplot, it IS the plot." I'm afraid you completely missed the book's point. Lem was writing a science fiction novel, not a romance. His central theme had to do with the need for more imaginative, less anthropomorphic conceptions of life elsewhere in the universe. He developed this theme by presenting an alien form of life, the sentient ocean, that was totally unlike man and 90 percent incomprehensible to humans. Lem wanted us to face the possibility -- no, the probability -- that if we encounter life elsewhere in the universe we will not be able to understand it or communicate with it.
Fifth, you say you "tend to think that a copy of Kelvin went to earth." Impossible. The "visitors" and other replicants must be maintained by the sentient ocean. Its reach can extend only so far spatially. It can't maintain replicants far away in another solar system. Besides, the real Kelvin, not yet reconstituted as a replicant, stayed behind when the return craft left Solaris. No replicant was on the craft. At that point, no replicant of Kelvin was yet in existence.
Re:Soderberg's Film a Total Failure
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Review: Solaris
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· Score: 1
The last paragraph in my review of Solaris has an error. I say that Soderberg fails to make it clear whether Kris Kelvin returns to earth, is murdered by Snow's replicant, or what. I momentarily forgot a plot detail that makes the film even worse: Kelvin commits suicide.
The "neutrino disruptor" the scientists build to destabilize and get rid of the visitors puts an excessive drain on the space station's power supply. The station's anti-gravity machinery begins to fail, and the station begins falling slowly toward the planet. The two surviving scientists will be killed unless they get into their return-to-earth spacecraft and hightail it out of there. Kris's companion gets in. But Kris has a last-moment change of heart and decides to stay behind, thereby committing suicide. Make no mistake, this IS suicide, not some unfortunate error in judgment. Kris fully understands that staying behind means death. He deliberately chooses death. That is, he decides to commit suicide.
Don't be deceived by what happens next. Yes, Kris comes back as what amounts to his ghost and is happily reunited with the ghost of his wife. But he didn't know -- and had no way of knowing -- this was going to happen. Kris had no inkling that, by staying behind, he would be reconstituted as another artificial being. Much less did he know that his wife would be reconstituted a third time and would be there to greet him with open arms. All Kris knew was that he was ending his life, deliberately. He was committing suicide.
I have no admiration for heroes who commit suicide. Mind you, we're not talking about sacrificing oneself for a cause, such as saving someone else. We're talking about death for death's sake, genuine suicide. Soderberg may choose to glorify suicide by pretending it leads to happiness. But don't expect me to buy that line. Give me a hero who has the courage to face life and take its lumps.
Soderberg's Film a Total Failure
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Review: Solaris
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· Score: 5, Insightful
To call Solaris disappointing would be an understatement. The truth is, the movie is awful. Lem's novel had a science fiction emphasis that revolved around a living "sentient ocean" on the planet Solaris. The focus was on how man would react to a nonanthropomorphic being whose nature and behavior man was unable to comprehend. A romantic (slightly) subplot served the main plot by illustrating a facet of the ocean's behavior-the planet's own reaction to humans that it, in turn, was unable to comprehend.
Tarkovsky's 1972 film version of Solaris downplayed (but kept) the science fiction, put more emphasis on the love story, and created a second subplot involving estrangement of the hero (Kris Kelvin) from his father. The new subplot required a prologue (considerable material not in the novel) that was the foundation for a plot twist at the end. Lem was appalled by the liberties Tarkovsky had taken with the novel. Lem said Tarkovsky "didn't make Solaris at all, he made Crime and Punishment." The crime is Kelvin's failure to recognize and thwart his wife's suicidal impulses; the punishment is agonizing pangs of conscience. Lem was also turned off by the film's visually clever but substantively corrupt ending, which he called "just totally awful." This ending, besides reintroducing Kelvin's father, transforms an uncomprehending ocean into one that is comprehending, sympathetic, and supposedly helpful.
Soderberg's 2001 film virtually eliminates the science fiction, keeping only the sci-fi setting. What we get is a dreary, dialogue-laden love story with a silly, sappy ending. In effect if not literally, this ending transforms Solaris into a metaphorical ghost story, complete with a metaphorical heaven.
A more detailed comparison of Lem's novel, Tarkovsky's 1972 film, and Soderberg's 2002 remake will make my points clearer. Spoiler's follow, so if you haven't seen the films you might want to cut out now.
LEM'S NOVEL
The centerpiece of Lem's novel is the planet's living, sentient ocean. This ocean not only has (a) sensory powers, it has (b) an incredibly high level of mathematical intelligence (it can control its own orbit within a binary star system that should create orbital instability, and it can perform the calculations necessary for this control), (c) the power to manipulate matter into physical forms, (d) the power to read (but not truly comprehend) human minds, (d) the aforementioned the power to alter its orbit in ways that defy natural gravitational and centrifugal forces (a power analogous to mobility), and (e) apparently consciousness.
Earth sends scientists to Solaris to study the planet; they live in a space station that orbits the planet. While they sleep the ocean reads their minds, or at least the dark areas thereof. From what it finds (apparently without comprehending), the ocean creates for each scientist a "visitor" - a living replica of a person from the scientist's past who is a source of shame or sorrow. In Kelvin's case, the visitor is his dead wife, whose suicide was facilitated by Kelvin's behavior. In the case of Gibarian case (a second scientist whose visitor drove him to suicide), the visitor is an obese, bare-breasted Negress who lies with his frozen corpse and seems to imply a sexual fetish, hence a source of profound embarrassment. The idea behind these visitors probably comes from the 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, which featured "monsters from the id."
The surviving scientists eventually find a way to get rid of the visitors. (The scientists build a "neutrino disruptor" that destabilizes the material structure of the visitors.) But by then the visitors have served their two purposes - illustrating the nature and power of the ocean and giving the plot what little life it has. The scientists then decide to return to earth. But Kelvin takes a "flitter" craft on a last-minute exploratory flight over the planet. What he finds changes his mind about leaving: he decides to stay despite the absence of any real hope of ever comprehending the ocean.
Lem's novel has a lot in common with Arthur Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Both novels are long on description of scientific finds and short on plot. In Clarke's novel, the long descriptive passages deal technology, the technology behind a coasting space ship that enters the solar system and loops around the sun before restarting its engines and heading back to where it came from. In Lem's novel the descriptive passages deal with Solaris' ocean and with theories of what that ocean is. The ocean is the analog of the spaceship Rama's technology. After a while, the descriptive passages in both novels become boring. Both need more plot.
TARKOVSKY'S 1972 FILM
Tarkovsky obviously recognized the plot limitations of Lem's novel and set out to spice things up a bit. He did this by shoving the science fiction into the background and focusing on the relationship (described partly in flashbacks) between Kelvin and his dead but reconstituted wife. In doing so, Tarkovsky introduces a whole lot more pathos than you find in the novel. In Lem's words, "what we get in the film is only how this abominable Kelvin has driven poor Harey [his wife] to suicide and then he has pangs of conscience which are amplified by her appearance."
These pangs of conscience are not at all entertaining, and neither are they science fiction. They are simply an abortive (in my case, at least) attempt to play on our heartstrings with a lot of emotional drivel. Tarkovsky probably realized that he could get only so far plotwise with the husband-and-wife subplot, so he created that second subplot.
The new subplot begins in the prologue, back on earth. Kris has a falling out with his elderly father. The conflict so poorly handled by Tarkovsky that I didn't realize anything serious had occurred until I read in a review that Kris and his father had become estranged. All we see in the prologue is that Kris is skeptical about a certain detail of an account by Berton, an astronaut, of Berton's experiences on Solaris. Berton is an old friend of Kris's father, so when Berton is offended the father is also offended. But this conflict didn't strike me as anything more than a run-of-the-mill disagreement. The prologue also hints that the father is terminally ill. The father says to Kelvin, "Are you jealous that he [Berton], not you, will bury me?"
Skip to the ending: SPOILER COMING UP. We see Kris preparing to leave Solaris and return to earth with the other two surviving scientists. Then we see Kris, apparently back on earth, outside his father's rural cottage. It is raining. Kris looks in through the window and sees water from a leaky roof - a roof that was not leaky during rain in the prologue - dripping into the room. (What sort of symbolism is this? Is the cottage weeping?) The father comes out. Kris falls on his knees and grasps his father. He has been given the chance to make amends with his father, a chance that he was denied with his wife. The camera then pulls slowly away from the scene, climbing higher and higher into the sky. And at last we see that the cabin, the farm, and the father are on an island on Solaris. They are creations of the sentient ocean.
Any sentimental satisfaction or esthetic appreciation evoked by this final scene disappears when you reflect on it. The father is no more real than Kris's reconstituted wife was. Kris is a prisoner, incarcerated on an island. He will be devoid of human contact, apart from contact with his artificial father, for the rest of his life. No travel, no trips to town, no friends, no entertainment, no books, no scientific work. Tarkovsky may think this ending is uplifting, but I found it depressing. And still a poor substitute for genuine plot.
SODERBERG'S 2002 FILM
Like Tarkovsky, Soderberg seems to have recognized that turning Lem's novel into a film would require more plot than Lem provided. And he wants to be original. Well, not really original, but different from Tarkovsky. MORE SPOILERS COMING UP. So Soderberg almost totally abandons the science fiction and turns the story into a three-way cross between a soap opera, a Hollywood tear-jerker, and a ghost story embellished with an analogical heaven.
The ending again finds Kris remaining on Solaris. But this isn't the real Kris. We never learn what happened to the real Kris. What we do learn is that this Kris is another of the ocean's replicants, a visitor with nobody to visit. Soderberg prepares us for this revelation by introducing a second plot twist. Just before the end we learn that Snow, one of the other two living scientists on the space station, is really a replicant. He killed the real Snow before Kris arrived. We thus know that the ocean creates replicants not only of shame-inducing persons from the scientists' pasts (those monsters from the id) but replicants of the scientists themselves.
We next see Kris with his wife. The two replicants are going to live happily ever after on Solaris in a physical replica of their apartment back on earth. Kris and his wife, as mere simulacrums, are the equivalent of ghosts. The star-crossed lovers are being given a second chance - as ghosts. They have been reunited in a metaphorical heaven. They will enjoy a happily-ever-after life beyond the grave.
I'm sorry, Mr. Soderberg, but ghost stories and images of heaven are no substitute for science fiction. A romantic subplot is not objectionable. What is unreasonable is the attempt to palm off as science fiction an idiotic love story that is totally out of touch with Lem's novel. And beyond this fault is the gaping hole in the plot: what became of the real Kris? If he went back to earth and is still alive, then that second chance is an illusion. The real Kris is not experiencing it. Indeed, the real Kris is not experiencing the second chance no matter what became of him. And if the real Kris was murdered by the murderous replicant of Snow, that's even less of a happy ending. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Soderberg; you have to think things through.
You can have your fun without getting an e-mail of your own. Just reply to the Congolese money scam letter I copied and posted. You have your choice of two addresses. The e-mail itself, you will note, has the return address
temijohnson@rediffmail.com
But if, instead of addressing your reply to that address, you hit the "Reply" button, a second address pops up (which I used):
temijohnson@yahoo.com
You can safely use either address. "Temi" isn't going to check your e-mail address against the literally thousands he used for spamming to see if the reply came from someone he spammed. Indeed, he probably doesn't even have the list of spam recipients: he probably used a computerized spam list he bought somewhere and that he never printed out because he had no reason to.
I wouldn't want you folks to think that all of these "Out of Africa" scams involve Nigeria. I got an African scam e-mail a few days ago that claimed to be from the Congo. Here it is:
FROM: MR TEMI JOHNSON DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO. EMAIL:temijohnson@rediffmail.com TEL:44 7775770781(SATELLITE PHONE) Dear Sir,
SEEKING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. Please Permit me to make your acquaintance in so informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a dependable and trust wordy foreign partner. This request may seem strange and unsolicited but I will crave your indulgence and pray that you view it seriously. My name is MR TEMI JOHNSON of the Democratic Republic of Congo and One of the close aides to the former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo LAURENT KABILA of blessed memory, may his soul rest in peace.
Due to the military campaign of LAURENT KABILA to force out the rebels in my country, I and some of my colleagues were instructed by Late President Kabila to go abroad to purchase arms and ammunition worth of Twenty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only (US$20,500,000.00) to fight the rebel group. But when President Kabila was killed in a bloody shoot-out by one of his aide a day before we were schedule to travel out of Congo, We immediately decided to divert the fund into a private security company here in Congo for safe keeping. The security of the said amount is presently being threatened here following the arrest and seizure of properties of Col. Rasheidi Karesava (One of the aides to Laurent Kabila) a tribesman, and some other Military Personnel from our same tribe, by the new President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the son of late President Laurent Kabila, Joseph Kabila. In view of this, we need a reliable and trustworthy foreign partner who can assist us to move this money out of my country as the beneficiary. WE have sufficient ''CONTACTS'' to move the fund under Diplomatic Cover to a security company in the europe in your name. This is to ensure that the Diplomatic Baggage is marked ''CONFIDENTIAL'' and it will not pass through normal custom/airport screening and clearance. Our inability to move this money out of Congo all This while lies on our lack of trust on our supposed good friends (western countries) who suddenly became hostile to those of us who worked with the late President Kabila, immediately after his son took office. Though we have neither seen nor met each other, the information We gathered from an associate who has worked in your country has encouraged and convinced us that with your sincere assistance, this transaction will be properly handled with modesty and honesty to a huge success within two weeks. The said money is a state fund and therefore requires a total confidentiality. Thus, if you are willing to assist us move this fund out of Congo, you can contact me through my email address above with your telephone, fax number and personal information to enable us discuss the modalities and what will be your share (percentage) for assisting us. I must use this opportunity and medium to implore You to exercise the utmost indulgence to keep this Matter extraordinarily confidential, Whatever your Decision, while I await your prompt response. Thank you and GodBless.
Best Regards MR TEMI JOHNSON
This sounded to me like such a good deal that I immediately sent the following reply:
Mr. Johnson:
No need to negotiate on the terms. We both recognize that your intentions are less than honorable, and we likewise both recognize that both of us are motivated by greed. My terms are these: 37.5% of the total, a new Mercedes S-Class V-12 (fully equipped) discretely purchased from a local dealer that I will specify, and a two-week all-expense-paid trip to Norway and Switzerland (there to establish a new bank account). Take it or leave it.
My daytime phone number is (218) 246-2776. Do not call me at home in the evening. I do not keep my wife advised on private matters of this nature, if you get my drift.
EW
The phone number I sent is actually that of the local District Attorney's office. So far, I have not received a reply
If the METEOR--a meteor is a fiery streak in the sky, not a physical object--were caused by an object measuring 1 to 2 meters (or even 2,000 meters) across, the object would not have been an asteriod. By definition, an ASTEROID is a celestial body with a diameter ranging from a few to several hundred kilometers. "A few" kilometers is at least three, and three kilometers is 3,000 meters. If the celestial body is smaller than an asteriod--say, 2 or 200 or 2,000 meters across--it is a METEOROID. If the object makes it through the atmosphere and hits the earth, it becomes a METEORITE. A meteorite can begin as the rocky core of a comet, as an asteroid, or as a meteoroid. If it is a meteoroid, it might also be a chunk of Kryptonite from an exploded planet in another solar system.
I should have said there are TEN (rather than nine)errors in the assertion that triangles and rectangles are the most efficient geometric shapes for packing (enclosing) tubes. Let's go back to the seven tubes it takes to fill a hexagon. The hexagon is a fairly efficient (space-saving) shape for enclosing the tubes, but a CIRCLE is slightly more efficient. Arrange seven quarters in a hexagon, with one quarter in the center and six around the outside. A circle wrapped around the quarters, touching each of the outer six, has an area of 4,072 sq. mm. A hexagon wrapped around the quarters, also touching the outer six, has an area of 4,206 sq. mm. = more wasted space (air space). The hexagon has l.033 times the cross-sectional area of the circle; the hexagon takes up about 3 percent more space. So the hexagon and the triangle are not always the most efficient geometric forms for enclosing circles.
Discovery's design is at best PARTLY scientific; it does not have "good scientific roots." Instead, the design is rooted in symbolism -- with scientific elements thrown in to create a note of realism. Discovery's six rocket exhaust nozzles, for example, are among the elements of scientific realism. (Discovery has six exhaust nozzles, arranged in three pairs. Each pair of nozzles is fenced in by a hexagon, which is so large that it does not come close to touching the nozzles. The hexagons are arranged side by side, not in a triangle. Within each hexagon, the two nozzles sit one directly above the other. See the pictures on pages 79 and 103 of Bizony's book.)
But your analysis falls apart when you write, "If you want multiple engines, the only two natural shapes for packing tubes together efficiently are the triangle and the hexagon." Here your argument, as applied to Discovery's design, displays nine -- count them, nine -- errors.
ERROR NO. 1: You seem to that assume that packed "multiple engines" are the basis for efficient use of space and that the only issue is how best to pack them. But from a space-efficiency standpoint, the most efficient rocket propulsion system is ONE big cylindrical engine. No matter how efficiently you pack tubes, there is always going to be wasted space between them. One big engine calls for a circular, not hexagonal, cross-section. (If, by chance, you are NOT claiming that Discovery has six tubular engines, then your whole "engineering justification" for hexagons falls apart: there are no tubes to pack, hence no need for efficient packing geometry.)
ERROR NO. 2: You have no good basis for assuming that Discovery actually has multiple engines. Six exhaust nozzles do not prove six engines. Rocket engines often have multiple nozzles for thrust vector control -- steering. Discovery might have only one engine with 6 nozzles or three engines with 2 nozzles apiece.
ERROR NO. 3: Even if Discovery did have six tubular engines, a hexagon is not the most efficient way to pack them. Packing tubes into a hexagon requires seven engines, not six. (Take seven pennies and arrange six around one in the center; you'll see what I mean.) The most efficient "packing" arrangement for six tubes is a 3-2-1 triangle -- three engines in a row on the bottom, two in-between engines above the three, and one at the top. Discovery does not use triangles. (And if you claim that a hexagon consists of six triangles, then you had better be prepared to argue that Discovery has 6 x 6 = 36 tubes.)
ERROR NO. 4: Even if a hexagon were the most efficient shape for enclosing six tubes, and even if Discovery had six engines, Discovery does not have six (or seven) nozzles per hexagon. It has TWO nozzles per hexagon -- a highly inefficient arrangement from your "space efficiency" standpoint.
ERROR NO. 5: Discovery's nozzles are arranged in two horizontal rows of three, with the nozzles in the top row being directly above (not between) those in the bottom row. The most space-efficient geometric form for enclosing six tubes arranged in two rows is a rectangle, not a hexagon. (But, as I said, if you really want to save space, you must arrange the six tubes in a triangle.)
ERROR NO. 6: Even if Discovery has six tubular engines, or even if it has three with 2 nozzles apiece, they are not enclosed in a hexagon. The ENGINES (not to be confused with the nozzles) are enclosed in a flattened octagon (eight sides), which by your own admission is an inefficient shape. (You have committed yourself to the proposition that the most space-efficient shapes for enclosing tubes are triangles and hexagons.)
ERROR NO. 7: Not even Discovery's three hexagons are packed. They are side by side. But the most space-efficient arrangement (and the most structurally strong arrangement) for the hexagons would be a triangle: two hexagons on the bottom, one on top. By arranging the hexagons in a triangle, you secure each hexagon to TWO adjacent hexagons rather than to just one.
ERROR NO. 8: Even if Discovery has six tubular engines, they are not enclosed in the three hexagons. The three hexagons are external. They loosely surround the EXHAUST NOZZLES; they are rearward from the engine or engines. So you lack even a modicum of basis for arguing that the hexagons are needed for efficient enclosure of the engines.
ERROR NO. 9: There is no engineering need to enclose Discovery's six exhaust nozzles. The hexagonal "fence" that surrounds each pair of nozzles does not touch or otherwise support the nozzles. (The nozzles must be free to swivel for directional control -- for controling the rocket thrust vector from each nozzle.) The "fences" serve no engineering purpose. From an engineering standpoint, the two rows of nozzles could more logically have been mounted on (a) a rectangle, (b) a racetrack oval, or (c) the same sort of flattened octagon that surrounds the engine or engines located forward from the nozzles.
You have shot yourself in the foot. You have offered engineering criteria that prove the hexagons cannot be justified on engineering grounds. The hexagons are there for one reason and one reason only. They are there as symbols. The only question is: what do they symbolize? Once you recognize that Discovery's design is anthropomorphic (essentially an abstracted skull and spine, with a comic face grafted onto the skull), you can recognize the exhaust nozzles as excretory orifices -- one pair for each of Discovery's three mouths. And once you recognize the nozzles as excretory orifices, and IF you are familiar with the ubiquitious one-inch white hexagonal bathroom tiles from the 1900-1940 era, you can see what is symbolized. Bathrooms. Kubrick's version of Nietzsche's man-made-God-in-his-own-image God uses bathrooms to go to the bathroom!
Your argument is self-defeating, disproven by evidence that you suggest could not materialize.
You concede that "some meanings and symbols might be . . . noticed by those with a special knowledge." But you say it is "absurd" to think there could be a "correlation" between (a) the year 2001 and either (b) the 9000 in "HAL-9000" or (c) the millennial year 9001, the year when Zarathustra arrives to fight evil in Zoroastrian mythology. Why? Because, you say, "even someone well versed in Nietzsche would probably not notice this correlation."
Well, sir, I AM well versed in Nietzsche's THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. And, like many others who have studied this work, I know the Zoroastrian derivation of the character Zarathustra, including the fact that Zoroastrianism's Zarathustra arrived in the year 9001. So I DID notice the correlation. That disproves your inference.
Expanding on your infatuation with "absurd," you say, "To say that any conceivable millenial [sic] year is a symbol for any other millenial year is absurd." But it is your statement that is absurd. Symbolism is generally (and in this case) based on analogy. Anybody with an IQ of 100 should be able to see the analogical connection between 2001 and 9001. Both are the first years of a new millenniums. You'd have to struggle to come up with a more logical symbol for 9001 than 2001.
Moreover, the 2001 symbolism has more than analogy calling attention to itself. First, in the Foreword to Bizony's 2001: FILMING THE FUTURE, Arthur Clarke writes that the title 2001 was chosen because is was a "suitably symbolic" date. Second, Kubrick puts a very obvious reference to the Odysseus allegory -- the word "Odyssey" -- in the subtitle of "2001: A Space Odyssey." That clues you in to the possibility of further symbolism in the TITLE, "2001." Many people recognized the Zarathustran ape-man-overman symbolism in the film, so THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA is a logical place to look for symbolism in the title 2001. Even a person who wasn't initially familiar with Zoroastrian mythology could, by doing a little research on the character Zarathustra, quickly find out about the mythological significance of 9001. The rest is easy -- even if YOU can't see the analogical connection between 9001 and 2001, and even if YOU think it is "absurd" to think such a connection was intended.
You don't understand allegory, and you don't understand symbolism. Let's begin with allegory. An allegory is a two-level story: a surface story (the science fiction adventure in this case) and the hidden story (the Zarathustra allegory in this case). Persons, things, events, names, colors, and the like in the surface story represent (symbolize) elements of the hidden story. You believe that if something in the surface story (the rocket exhaust nozzles in this case) have a logical surface-story function, that proves the thing can't be a symbol. If your belief were true, there would be no such thing as allegory -- and no such thing as a symbol. Of course, the exhaust nozzles are exhaust nozzles in the surface story. But that doesn't mean they can't also be symbols.
Next, you miss the point about bathroom tile shapes. We aren't talking about the bathroom tiles of today, the ones that can be shaped like triangles. You apparently weren't around when Kubrick and I were growing up in the 1930s. But in those days practically all houses -- middle class houses, anyhow -- had white, hexagonal bathroom tiles, one inch across measured edge to edge. I remember how impressed I was when a new house being built in 1941 came up with different tiles -- mixed square and rectangular tiles with mixed shades of brown and beige. But for those days, the hexagonal tile was practically a symbol for bathrooms.
Your third mistake is to overlook context. The spaceships hexagons may be traveling through a vacuum, but they aren't being interpreted in a vacuum. They are part of the anthropomorphic God, and they are being interpreted in the context of THUS SPACE ZARATHUSTRA, in which man makes God in his own image. Much of God's anthropomorphism reflects Kubrick's humor, for example, the bubble blowing scene and God's being made from a bone. (In "Dr. Strangelove," Kubrick's humor is displayed in many ways, including names like Jack D. Ripper, a takeoff of London's Jack the Ripper.) Part of the anthropomorphism context is the humor in God's having three mouths. You have just one mouth -- and two excretory orifices (which you called No. 1 and No. 2 when you were a kid). So how can you dispute that a mouth needs two excretory orifices to output its input. And if one mouth needs two excretory orifices, don't three mouths need six? Why do you suppose Kubrick divides those six exhaust nozzles into three pairs and gives each its own hexagon? Use a little imagination!
I too have a copy of THE ODYSSEY, the R. V. Rieu translation. You tacitly concede that Odysseus's survey team had three men, the same number found in Bowman's survey team. But you deny that they became disabled, hence that their condition was analogous to that of Bowman's three unable-to-work crewman. Let's see what THE ODYSSEY really says:
"What they [the Lotus-eaters] did was to give them [the survey team members] some lotus to taste, and as soon as each had eaten the honeyed fruit of the plant, all thoughts of reporting to us or escaping were banished from his mind. All they now wished for was to stay where they were with the Lotus-eaters. [That in itself renders them disabled from working.] . . . I had to use force to bring them back to the ships, and they wept on the way, but once on board I dragged them under the benches and LEFT THEM IN IRONS." That is the last we hear of them. By implication they remain in irons (analogous to being in hibernation), unable to work, until either their ship was sunk by the Laestrygonians or (if on Odysseus's ship) Odysseus's ship was sunk by Zeus.
So we see that Kubrick's symbolism -- the hibernators symbolizing Odysseus's disabled crewmen -- rests on not just one but three analogies: (1) both groups had THREE men, (2) both groups constituted a SURVEY TEAM, and (3) the men of both groups were disabled, unable to work. If you cannot accept analogy as the basis for symbolism, and especially if you can't accept even three analogies where most symbolism rests on just one, then you simply do not understand literary symbolism.
You say, "If I remember correctly." Well, you don't remember correctly when you say that Poole went on both space walks. Bowman took the first walk, the one where the "defective" AE-35 unit was retrieved. Poole took the abortive walk on which the "defective" unit was to be put back in place. Bowman took a second space walk when he tried to rescue Poole.
This is the author of KUBRICK'S 2001, Len Wheat, once again. I decided to reply to your comment partly because it is so full of factual errors, fallacious logic, and made-up "facts"; partly because I wanted to needle Slashdot's comment raters, who considered your falsehoods and fallacies "insightful" and gave you a 5; and partly because comments from other people have done a fine job of refuting other easily refuted comments, which claim there is no such thing as a genuine symbol (the no-nothings think all literary and film symbols are imagined by the reader or viewer) and thus no such thing as a genuine allegory.
CLARK'S "THE LOST WORLDS OF 2001." Let's begin with your foolish statement -- the rater calls it "insightful" -- that I ignored Clarke's "The Lost Worlds of 2001." You say, "Despite the fact that . . . Clarke wrote a very informative book "The Lost Worlds of 2001" . . . , you used none of that information [from the book]." You haven't read my book, so how could you know this? Well, you start with my statement that "I saw no scripts, read no directors notes, and interviewed nobody." (Cliff had said, falsely, that I relied heavily on those three sources.) Then you construct this implied syllogism:
Premise: Some cases where an author has seen no scripts, read no director's notes, and interviewed nobody are cases where the author has done no research at all on his topic.
Premise: This is a case where the author has seen no scripts, read no notes, and interviewed nobody.
Conclusion: The author has done no research -- hence has read no books about 2001.
It is pathetic that neither you nor Slashdot's rater can (a) recognize your implied argument's structure or (b) see that the argument is fallacious. I won't try to explain the fallacy. If you can't see it without having it explained, you would never comprehend the explanation. But I will give you a hint that may help you learn how to think. It is reasonable to assume -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that you yourself have seen no 2001 scripts, read no director's notes, and conducted no interviews. So, going by your logic, how can you be telling the truth when you claim to have read "The Lost Worlds of 2001"?
Meanwhile, your conclusion is not just fallacious; it is false. Each of the first six of my book's seven chapters has at least one reference to Clarke's "Lost Worlds." All told, my book has nine references to "Lost Worlds." My bibliography has five Clarke items, including Victor Cohn's interview of Clarke and a Clarke press release.
"NO RESEARCH AT ALL." You also refer to other sources of information about 2001. Then you claim, without a shred of evidence to support your claim, that I "used none of that information." The implication seems to be that I did no research at all. (Comment #117 echoes your claim by saying I wrote the book "without doing one lick of research.") Like Cliff, you're making up your "facts." The bibliography of my book lists 45 references. The book has 184 endnotes.
ANOTHER FALLACY: BOWMAN'S NAME. You next deny that Dave Bowman's name alludes to Odysseus's being a bowman. Unlike Cliff, you won't even acknowledge literal symbolism that slaps you in the face. Even Cliff accepts the Bowman symbolism. And Arthur Clarke has written that, although it was years before he recognized the symbolism in Bowman's name, he recognizes it. But you use "logic" to refute the Bowman symbolism, logic that mightily impressed the Slashdot rater, who called it "insightful." You say, "Kubrick chose Bowman's name at a stage of the project when they expected the crew to survive and return to earth." Your implied syllogism:
Premise: All cases where a name is chosen before plot elements are cases where the name cannot be symbolic.
Premise: This is a case where a name (Bowman) was chosen before plot elements (the death of all crewmen and -- according to your false belief -- Bowman's nonreturn to earth).
Conclusion: This is a case where the name cannot be symbolic.
What sort of warped thinking led you to that first premise? Given that Kubrick decided to kill off all crewman before he decided on the name Bowman, how does this fact establish that "Dave's name most definitely is not a reference to Odysseus"?
Meanwhile, how do you reconcile your attack on the idea that 2001 embodies symbolism with what your own reference, "Lost Worlds," says. In Lost Worlds, Clarke says he and Kubrick had the crewmen killed to make 2001 consistent with "The Odyssey." In other words, the deaths of Bowman's crewmen symbolize the deaths of Odysseus's crewmen. So Clark is saying, in effect, that 2001 does contain symbols.
"LOST WORLDS" ALLUSION TO SYMBOLISM. Had you read "Lost Worlds" more carefully, you might have noticed another salute to symbolism. Clarke refers to the Bible's phrase "God made man in his own image." He then says, "This, after all, is the theme of our movie." Whether out of tact, carelessness, or don't-tell-too-much caution, Clarke states that theme backwards. The movie's theme -- really the theme of the Zarathustra allegory -- is Nietzsche's "Man created God in his own image" (i.e., God is imaginary). But regardless of phrasing, Clarke is making two points: (1) rather than just telling a story, the movie carries a central theme, which happens to be allegorical, and (2) the movie is about a God who is the image of man.
Here Clarke is subtly confirming the widely understood fact that 2001 contains allusions to THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Does he have to spell out the details for you to get the point? Can't you grasp the hint that the movie has a God symbol and that this God symbol has image-of-man characteristics? And, since I've already told you that Nietzsche's God is a villain and that he dies, can't you find in 2001 the character who represents God -- the character who (1) has human characteristics (e.g., a head, a mouth, a tongue, a spine, sight, speech, hearing, mortality, and human emotions like pride and fear), (2) is a villain, and (3) dies? No, God can't be Bowman. Bowman is the good guy, Zarathustra, not the villain. (Bowman symbolizes something different in each allegory.) And Bowman doesn't die. He MATURES -- in Nietzsche's words, Zarathustra becomes "ripe" -- and then EVOLVES into the Nietzscheian overman. We can also rule out the four crewmen: too unimportant and not villainous. And we can rule out the four monoliths: they aren't alive, they don't resemble man, and they don't die. That leaves us with the spaceship Discovery and its brain Hal. Listen to what Clarke is saying and you just might someday understand the movie.
"OBVIOUSLY SO." You respond to my statement that "I [1] saw no scripts, [2] read no director's notes, and [3] interviewed nobody" by saying, "Obviously so." The context permits no doubt about what you are implying: that those three things are essential for understanding 2001, hence that I don't understand the film.
Your opinion strikes me as incredibly naive. Why would I want to (1) examine scripts? In many films, both the final dialog and the action deviate from script. The most accurate reference for both dialog and action is the film itself. And that is what I used. Next, (2) director's notes. Do you really believe that Kubrick, who repeatedly refused to interpret his film for others, left notes explaining his symbolism -- or denying its existence? What evidence do you have that these notes actually exist? (3) No interviews. By the same token, do you really believe that Kubrick blabbed his secrets to someone who has faithfully safeguarded these secrets for 30 odd years but who would have told them to me? Who am I to deserve such favored treatment -- treatment that was denied to biographers and to the authors of the many books about 2001? Your notions go beyond naive. They are just plain silly.
"TOO BUSY" FOR NAME GAMES. I say that every name in 2001 except the Russian name Smyslov and the names of the three hibernators is symbolic. (Smyslov alludes to a Russian world chess champion but is not really symbolic.) But you say Kubrick and Clarke "were too busy to play [name] games like that." You're partly right. The names weren't Clarke's. Kubrick, though, had lots of time. He took 2 ½ years to film 2001. (Whoops, I forgot. I'm not supposed to know that, because I didn't interview anybody.) As for your insinuation that Kubrick just wasn't interested in name games, consider the following names from Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE, every one of which embodies word play:
Dr. Strangelove
Capt. Lionel Mandrake
Maj. T. J. "King" Kong
Col. Bat Guano
Col. Freddy Puntridge
Gen. Buck Turgidson
Gen. Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Ambassador Desadeski
Pres. Merkin Muffley
If you can't figure out the meanings, puns, and allusions in some of these names, use Google to look up Tim Dirks' web review of DR. STRANGELOVE. How can you deny that Kubrick likes to play around with names?
You evolutionists say Creation Science is untrue, but I can prove you are wrong. I am a native of Wichita, Kansas, and a graduate of Robinson Junion High School and East High School, so I can enlighten you on the legal underpinnings we Kansans bring to Creation Science. In 1940 our state legislature enacted a law declaring L.Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" to be the Official State Allegory of Kansas and further declaring it to be an allegorical representation of three Biblical truths--creation, damnation, and salvation. The preamble to this law reads as follows: "Whereas (1) "THE WIZARD OF OZ" is an allegorical representation of the Bible, (2) L. FRANK BAUM, its author, therefore represents the Bible's author, God, (3) DOROTHY'S HOUSE'S LANDING in Oz, and the attendant appearance of Oz on the scene, depicts the Creation of the Universe, (4) the film's subsequent SWITCH FROM BLACK-AND-WHITE TO TECHNICOLOR when Dorothy arrives in Oz symbolizes God's command, "Let there be light!," on the first day of Creation, (5)KANSAS, where Dorothy yearns to go, is heaven, created by God on the second day of Creation, (6) the SCARECROW, protector of vegetation, symbolizes the vegetation created by God on the third day of Creation, (7)the EMERALD CITY is the sun, created by God on the fourth day of Creation, and the many sparkling EMERALDS there are the stars, also created on the fourth day, (8) the COWARDLY LION symbolizes the living creatures God created on the fifth day of Creation, (9) the TIN WOODSMAN, an image of man, is man, created by God in his own image on the sixth day of Creation, (10)the WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST, on whom the house lands, is an unrepentant sinner, condemned to eternal damnation, (11) the CYCLONE that drops the house on the witch is the Wrath of God, (12) the AREA UNDER THE HOUSE, where the witch's body lies, is hell, (13)the WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST is Satan, (14) the WINGED MONKEYS are Satan's demons, (15) Dorothy represents Jesus, the epitome of goodness and purity, (16) Toto symbolizes Jesus' disciples, who follow their Master wherever he goes, (17) GLINDA THE GOOD is the Holy Spirit, which guides Dorothy [Jesus]in her efforts to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West [Satan], (18) the WIZARD is the prophet Elijah, who is carried off to heaven [Kansas], (19) the Wizard's BALLOON is the chariot in which Elijah is carried off to heaven, (20) AUNT EM AND UNCLE HENRY, who are already in Kansas [heaven], are angels, (21) the YELLOW BRICK ROAD is the road to salvation, (22) Dorothy's act of THROWING WATER ON THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST symbolizes baptism, which removes a major barrier to salvation, (23) the rosy RED SLIPPERS are a rosary, which enhances the power of Dorothy's prayer, and (24) Dorothy's famous words "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME" symbolize prayer, which delivers her to heaven [still Kansas], now therefore be it resolved that "The Wizard of Oz" is ideally suited to be the official Kansas State Allegory. Three generations of Kansans have now been raised under our Official State Allegory. So every Kansan who is "officially" educated and pure of thought (that rules out a few atheists and Communists and Unitarians)knows that God did indeed create the universe (item 3), that he did so in six working days (items 4-9), and that all 24 things allegorically symbolized must be true because item 5 says Kansas is heaven, which is obviously true (an axiom of Kansas Creation Science),in which case everything else must be true too. Therefore, evolution is a whole bunch of malarkey, and Creation Science is indeed a science, and godless people like you should spend more time studying "The Wizard of Oz" and less time studying Darwin.
When commenting on this topic, you must recognize that the immediate problem is in Kansas. Kansans have a long history of institutional stupidity. Back in the late 19th century, the Kansas State Legislature passed a law governing railroad engineers. The law said that, when an engineer on a moving train sees another train approaching on an adjacent track, that engineer must stop and remain stopped until the oncoming train has passed. I'd like to have been there the first time an engineer stopped, then saw that the oncoming train had also obeyed the law.
Some of the ancestors of those Kansas legislators were apparently on the Kansas Board of Education. Given their limited analytical skills, they were unable to perceive the difference between science and superstition, between quarks and angels, and between empiricism and faith.
Slashdot Mirror
A human player of Kasparov's stature may well be able to "keep up" without being able to match the computer's ability to evaluate 2.4 million positions a second. Two things explain the human's ability to equal or outperform the computer.
First, only a tiny fraction of those positions need to be evaluated. All but a small fraction of them result from the human's making one of a large number of foolish next moves -- for example, a pointless king move when the king is under no immediate threat and in a safe position. And at each move up the line all but a small fraction of the moves are again not worth considering. So the computer is wasting time evaluating millions of positions that don't require evaluation.
Second, the quality of the evaluations is at least as important as the quantity of evaluations. Kasparov and his peers (and near peers) can apply prodigious amounts of theoretical knowledge and experience to evaluate the subtleties of a position. Winning evaluation algorithms are far more complex than adding up the standard point values (queen = 10 or 9 1/2, rook = 5, bishop = 3, etc.) for the pieces of each side at a certain position eighteen moves down the line. Pieces must be evaluated according to complex circumstances. Doubled rooks are worth more, and how much more depends on the precise situation. A queen doubled behind a rook is more valuable than a rook behind a queen (the rook can be exchanged, the queen generally can't). When both sides have just one bishop, the bishop's value to each side may depend on whether the bishops are of the same or opposite colors when one side or the other has a material advantage. In late middle game and end game situations, a pair of bishops is worth more than a bishop and a knight or two knights. Knights at the edge of the board or -- worse -- in or beside a corner -- are worth less. Blocked bishops and rooks are worth less. Isolated pawns and doubled pawns are worth less. A piece vulnerable to exchange is worth less to the player with a material disadvantage. Numerous other considerations affect the value of the pieces. The adjustments in value are subtle and extremely hard to make mechanically; they require the judgement that the grandmaster can bring to bear. A computer must put specific values on each piece in each situation, probably using increments of 0.1 point (where pawn = 1.0 at start). This is no easy task.
Beyond revaluation of the pieces according to circumstances, values must be places on positional factors. Does the position yield the initiative to the opponent, who can (say) check your king or attack a piece? How many pieces are aimed at the enemy king? How well defended are the kings? Has the ability to castle been lost? How many king moves, and how many enemy pawn moves, will it take to reach a promotion square that the king must defend? Many other far more subtle positional factors must be evaluated. The possible situations are so numerous that I doubt the ability of any computer algorithm to account for all of the point adjustments that must be made, and to assign realistic values to each variation or complication. But humans know how to do this without resorting to a mechanical algorithm of the sort a computer must use.
But a computer needs control of the pod bay door to play chess to the best of its ability. Recall the scene in 2001 where the humanoid spaceship Discovery opens one of its three mouths (pod bay doors), sticks out its tongue (pod launching ramp), blows a bubble (spherical space pod), and watches the bubble rise over his head. This tactic could be used to great advantage in a chess game. The opponent would naturally be surprised by this playful display of anthropomorphism and would watch the bubble rise. The computer would then quickly open a second mouth, lick up a nearby bishop (or rook, whatever), and close its mouth with the enemy piece inside. Returning her attention to the board, the enemy would get all rattled when she (Judit Polgar?) saw her position was weaker than she recalled. This would be the beginning of the end.
The first sentence had me worried that the asteroid might hit Earth. So I breathed a sigh of relief when the second sentence said "the object" was "using a good pair of binoculars." That means it will be able to see us and avoid us. Thank God!
The Lem interview, which is preceded by excerpts from several Tarkovsky interviews is at
/ Th eTopics/On_Solaris.html.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com
That mysterious "h" in "nostalghia" is NOT a typo. The page's introduction says "English translation by Jan at Nostalghia.com."
In case this url has an error (I checked carefully, but you can never be positive),
use Google advanced search to search for the exact phrase "Andrei Tarkovsky on "Solaris"."
You can also do a regular Google search using "Stanislaw Lem, Solaris, Crime and Punishment."
Also: "Lem, Solaris, Harey, Kelvin, Kant"
Also: "Tarkovsky, Solaris, Tolstoy Complex, Lem"
The mistakes are yours, one after another.
First, I neither hated the book nor said I did. I said the book was long on science and weak on plot and that, to make a good movie from it, a screewriter-director needed to add more plot.
Second, you say: "Kelvin doesn't stay on Solaris, at least it's not stated clearly. Most likely he comes back to earth." Here's what the author, Stanislaw Lem, said (in an interview) about your interpretation: "My Kelvin decides to stay on the planet without any hope whatsoever, while Tarkovsky created an image where some kind of an island appears, and on that island a hut. And when I hear about the hut and the island I'm beside myself with irritation. This is just some emotional souce into which Tarkovsky has submerged his heroes, not to mention that he has completely amputated the scientific landscape."
Third, you are wrong in saying "the station in the book is on the surface of the planet." I quote from page 10 (paperback edition). The station is "an elongated silvery body, shaped like a whale, its flanks bristling with radar antennae." And: "This metal colossus . . . was NOT resting on the planet itself but was SUSPENDED ABOVE IT, casting upon the inky SURFACE BENEATH an ellipsoidal shadow." Moreover, the station constantly changes its position as it surveys the planet.
Fourth, you say "the love story in the book is not a minor subplot, it IS the plot." I'm afraid you completely missed the book's point. Lem was writing a science fiction novel, not a romance. His central theme had to do with the need for more imaginative, less anthropomorphic conceptions of life elsewhere in the universe. He developed this theme by presenting an alien form of life, the sentient ocean, that was totally unlike man and 90 percent incomprehensible to humans. Lem wanted us to face the possibility -- no, the probability -- that if we encounter life elsewhere in the universe we will not be able to understand it or communicate with it.
Fifth, you say you "tend to think that a copy of Kelvin went to earth." Impossible. The "visitors" and other replicants must be maintained by the sentient ocean. Its reach can extend only so far spatially. It can't maintain replicants far away in another solar system. Besides, the real Kelvin, not yet reconstituted as a replicant, stayed behind when the return craft left Solaris. No replicant was on the craft. At that point, no replicant of Kelvin was yet in existence.
The last paragraph in my review of Solaris has an error. I say that Soderberg fails to make it clear whether Kris Kelvin returns to earth, is murdered by Snow's replicant, or what. I momentarily forgot a plot detail that makes the film even worse: Kelvin commits suicide.
The "neutrino disruptor" the scientists build to destabilize and get rid of the visitors puts an excessive drain on the space station's power supply. The station's anti-gravity machinery begins to fail, and the station begins falling slowly toward the planet. The two surviving scientists will be killed unless they get into their return-to-earth spacecraft and hightail it out of there. Kris's companion gets in. But Kris has a last-moment change of heart and decides to stay behind, thereby committing suicide. Make no mistake, this IS suicide, not some unfortunate error in judgment. Kris fully understands that staying behind means death. He deliberately chooses death. That is, he decides to commit suicide.
Don't be deceived by what happens next. Yes, Kris comes back as what amounts to his ghost and is happily reunited with the ghost of his wife. But he didn't know -- and had no way of knowing -- this was going to happen. Kris had no inkling that, by staying behind, he would be reconstituted as another artificial being. Much less did he know that his wife would be reconstituted a third time and would be there to greet him with open arms. All Kris knew was that he was ending his life, deliberately. He was committing suicide.
I have no admiration for heroes who commit suicide. Mind you, we're not talking about sacrificing oneself for a cause, such as saving someone else. We're talking about death for death's sake, genuine suicide. Soderberg may choose to glorify suicide by pretending it leads to happiness. But don't expect me to buy that line. Give me a hero who has the courage to face life and take its lumps.
To call Solaris disappointing would be an understatement. The truth is, the movie is awful. Lem's novel had a science fiction emphasis that revolved around a living "sentient ocean" on the planet Solaris. The focus was on how man would react to a nonanthropomorphic being whose nature and behavior man was unable to comprehend. A romantic (slightly) subplot served the main plot by illustrating a facet of the ocean's behavior-the planet's own reaction to humans that it, in turn, was unable to comprehend.
Tarkovsky's 1972 film version of Solaris downplayed (but kept) the science fiction, put more emphasis on the love story, and created a second subplot involving estrangement of the hero (Kris Kelvin) from his father. The new subplot required a prologue (considerable material not in the novel) that was the foundation for a plot twist at the end. Lem was appalled by the liberties Tarkovsky had taken with the novel. Lem said Tarkovsky "didn't make Solaris at all, he made Crime and Punishment." The crime is Kelvin's failure to recognize and thwart his wife's suicidal impulses; the punishment is agonizing pangs of conscience. Lem was also turned off by the film's visually clever but substantively corrupt ending, which he called "just totally awful." This ending, besides reintroducing Kelvin's father, transforms an uncomprehending ocean into one that is comprehending, sympathetic, and supposedly helpful.
Soderberg's 2001 film virtually eliminates the science fiction, keeping only the sci-fi setting. What we get is a dreary, dialogue-laden love story with a silly, sappy ending. In effect if not literally, this ending transforms Solaris into a metaphorical ghost story, complete with a metaphorical heaven.
A more detailed comparison of Lem's novel, Tarkovsky's 1972 film, and Soderberg's 2002 remake will make my points clearer. Spoiler's follow, so if you haven't seen the films you might want to cut out now.
LEM'S NOVEL
The centerpiece of Lem's novel is the planet's living, sentient ocean. This ocean not only has (a) sensory powers, it has (b) an incredibly high level of mathematical intelligence (it can control its own orbit within a binary star system that should create orbital instability, and it can perform the calculations necessary for this control), (c) the power to manipulate matter into physical forms, (d) the power to read (but not truly comprehend) human minds, (d) the aforementioned the power to alter its orbit in ways that defy natural gravitational and centrifugal forces (a power analogous to mobility), and (e) apparently consciousness.
Earth sends scientists to Solaris to study the planet; they live in a space station that orbits the planet. While they sleep the ocean reads their minds, or at least the dark areas thereof. From what it finds (apparently without comprehending), the ocean creates for each scientist a "visitor" - a living replica of a person from the scientist's past who is a source of shame or sorrow. In Kelvin's case, the visitor is his dead wife, whose suicide was facilitated by Kelvin's behavior. In the case of Gibarian case (a second scientist whose visitor drove him to suicide), the visitor is an obese, bare-breasted Negress who lies with his frozen corpse and seems to imply a sexual fetish, hence a source of profound embarrassment. The idea behind these visitors probably comes from the 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, which featured "monsters from the id."
The surviving scientists eventually find a way to get rid of the visitors. (The scientists build a "neutrino disruptor" that destabilizes the material structure of the visitors.) But by then the visitors have served their two purposes - illustrating the nature and power of the ocean and giving the plot what little life it has. The scientists then decide to return to earth. But Kelvin takes a "flitter" craft on a last-minute exploratory flight over the planet. What he finds changes his mind about leaving: he decides to stay despite the absence of any real hope of ever comprehending the ocean.
Lem's novel has a lot in common with Arthur Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Both novels are long on description of scientific finds and short on plot. In Clarke's novel, the long descriptive passages deal technology, the technology behind a coasting space ship that enters the solar system and loops around the sun before restarting its engines and heading back to where it came from. In Lem's novel the descriptive passages deal with Solaris' ocean and with theories of what that ocean is. The ocean is the analog of the spaceship Rama's technology. After a while, the descriptive passages in both novels become boring. Both need more plot.
TARKOVSKY'S 1972 FILM
Tarkovsky obviously recognized the plot limitations of Lem's novel and set out to spice things up a bit. He did this by shoving the science fiction into the background and focusing on the relationship (described partly in flashbacks) between Kelvin and his dead but reconstituted wife. In doing so, Tarkovsky introduces a whole lot more pathos than you find in the novel. In Lem's words, "what we get in the film is only how this abominable Kelvin has driven poor Harey [his wife] to suicide and then he has pangs of conscience which are amplified by her appearance."
These pangs of conscience are not at all entertaining, and neither are they science fiction. They are simply an abortive (in my case, at least) attempt to play on our heartstrings with a lot of emotional drivel. Tarkovsky probably realized that he could get only so far plotwise with the husband-and-wife subplot, so he created that second subplot.
The new subplot begins in the prologue, back on earth. Kris has a falling out with his elderly father. The conflict so poorly handled by Tarkovsky that I didn't realize anything serious had occurred until I read in a review that Kris and his father had become estranged. All we see in the prologue is that Kris is skeptical about a certain detail of an account by Berton, an astronaut, of Berton's experiences on Solaris. Berton is an old friend of Kris's father, so when Berton is offended the father is also offended. But this conflict didn't strike me as anything more than a run-of-the-mill disagreement. The prologue also hints that the father is terminally ill. The father says to Kelvin, "Are you jealous that he [Berton], not you, will bury me?"
Skip to the ending: SPOILER COMING UP. We see Kris preparing to leave Solaris and return to earth with the other two surviving scientists. Then we see Kris, apparently back on earth, outside his father's rural cottage. It is raining. Kris looks in through the window and sees water from a leaky roof - a roof that was not leaky during rain in the prologue - dripping into the room. (What sort of symbolism is this? Is the cottage weeping?) The father comes out. Kris falls on his knees and grasps his father. He has been given the chance to make amends with his father, a chance that he was denied with his wife. The camera then pulls slowly away from the scene, climbing higher and higher into the sky. And at last we see that the cabin, the farm, and the father are on an island on Solaris. They are creations of the sentient ocean.
Any sentimental satisfaction or esthetic appreciation evoked by this final scene disappears when you reflect on it. The father is no more real than Kris's reconstituted wife was. Kris is a prisoner, incarcerated on an island. He will be devoid of human contact, apart from contact with his artificial father, for the rest of his life. No travel, no trips to town, no friends, no entertainment, no books, no scientific work. Tarkovsky may think this ending is uplifting, but I found it depressing. And still a poor substitute for genuine plot.
SODERBERG'S 2002 FILM
Like Tarkovsky, Soderberg seems to have recognized that turning Lem's novel into a film would require more plot than Lem provided. And he wants to be original. Well, not really original, but different from Tarkovsky. MORE SPOILERS COMING UP. So Soderberg almost totally abandons the science fiction and turns the story into a three-way cross between a soap opera, a Hollywood tear-jerker, and a ghost story embellished with an analogical heaven.
The ending again finds Kris remaining on Solaris. But this isn't the real Kris. We never learn what happened to the real Kris. What we do learn is that this Kris is another of the ocean's replicants, a visitor with nobody to visit. Soderberg prepares us for this revelation by introducing a second plot twist. Just before the end we learn that Snow, one of the other two living scientists on the space station, is really a replicant. He killed the real Snow before Kris arrived. We thus know that the ocean creates replicants not only of shame-inducing persons from the scientists' pasts (those monsters from the id) but replicants of the scientists themselves.
We next see Kris with his wife. The two replicants are going to live happily ever after on Solaris in a physical replica of their apartment back on earth. Kris and his wife, as mere simulacrums, are the equivalent of ghosts. The star-crossed lovers are being given a second chance - as ghosts. They have been reunited in a metaphorical heaven. They will enjoy a happily-ever-after life beyond the grave.
I'm sorry, Mr. Soderberg, but ghost stories and images of heaven are no substitute for science fiction. A romantic subplot is not objectionable. What is unreasonable is the attempt to palm off as science fiction an idiotic love story that is totally out of touch with Lem's novel. And beyond this fault is the gaping hole in the plot: what became of the real Kris? If he went back to earth and is still alive, then that second chance is an illusion. The real Kris is not experiencing it. Indeed, the real Kris is not experiencing the second chance no matter what became of him. And if the real Kris was murdered by the murderous replicant of Snow, that's even less of a happy ending. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Soderberg; you have to think things through.
You can have your fun without getting an e-mail of your own. Just reply to the Congolese money scam letter I copied and posted. You have your choice of two addresses. The e-mail itself, you will note, has the return address
temijohnson@rediffmail.com
But if, instead of addressing your reply to that address, you hit the "Reply" button, a second address pops up (which I used):
temijohnson@yahoo.com
You can safely use either address. "Temi" isn't going to check your e-mail address against the literally thousands he used for spamming to see if the reply came from someone he spammed. Indeed, he probably doesn't even have the list of spam recipients: he probably used a computerized spam list he bought somewhere and that he never printed out because he had no reason to.
So, to repeat, e-mail Temi and have your fun.
I wouldn't want you folks to think that all of these "Out of Africa" scams involve Nigeria. I got an African scam e-mail a few days ago that claimed to be from the Congo. Here it is:
FROM: MR TEMI JOHNSON
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO.
EMAIL:temijohnson@rediffmail.com
TEL:44 7775770781(SATELLITE PHONE)
Dear Sir,
SEEKING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE.
Please Permit me to make your acquaintance in so
informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a
dependable and trust wordy foreign
partner. This request may seem strange and
unsolicited but I will crave your indulgence and pray that you view it
seriously. My name is MR TEMI JOHNSON of the
Democratic Republic of Congo and One of the close aides to the former
President of the Democratic Republic of Congo
LAURENT KABILA of blessed
memory, may his soul rest in peace.
Due to the military campaign of LAURENT KABILA to
force out the rebels in my country, I and some of my
colleagues were instructed by Late President Kabila
to go abroad to purchase arms and ammunition worth of
Twenty Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only
(US$20,500,000.00) to fight the rebel group. But when
President Kabila was killed in a bloody shoot-out by one of his aide a day
before we were schedule to travel out of Congo,
We immediately decided to divert the fund into a private security company
here in Congo for safe keeping. The security of
the said amount is presently being threatened here following the arrest
and seizure of properties of Col. Rasheidi Karesava
(One of the aides to Laurent Kabila) a tribesman, and some other Military
Personnel from our same tribe, by the new
President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the son of late President
Laurent Kabila, Joseph Kabila.
In view of this, we need a reliable and trustworthy foreign partner who
can assist us to move this money out of my country
as the beneficiary.
WE have sufficient ''CONTACTS'' to move the fund under Diplomatic Cover to
a security company in the europe in your
name. This is to ensure that the Diplomatic Baggage is marked
''CONFIDENTIAL'' and it will not pass through normal
custom/airport screening and clearance.
Our inability to move this money out of Congo all
This while lies on our lack of trust on our supposed good friends (western
countries) who suddenly became hostile to those
of us who worked with the late President Kabila, immediately after his son
took office. Though we have neither seen nor
met each other, the information We gathered from an associate
who has worked in your country has encouraged and convinced us that with
your sincere assistance, this transaction will
be properly handled with modesty
and honesty to a huge success within two weeks. The said money is a state
fund and therefore requires a total
confidentiality.
Thus, if you are willing to assist us move this fund out of Congo, you can
contact me through my email address above with
your telephone, fax number and personal information to enable us discuss
the modalities and what will be your share
(percentage) for assisting us.
I must use this opportunity and medium to implore You to exercise the
utmost indulgence to keep this Matter extraordinarily
confidential, Whatever your Decision, while I await your prompt response.
Thank you and GodBless.
Best Regards
MR TEMI JOHNSON
This sounded to me like such a good deal that I immediately sent the following reply:
Mr. Johnson:
No need to negotiate on the terms. We both recognize that your intentions are less than honorable, and we likewise both recognize that both of us are motivated by greed. My terms are these: 37.5% of the total, a new Mercedes S-Class V-12 (fully equipped) discretely purchased from a local dealer that I will specify, and a two-week all-expense-paid trip to Norway and Switzerland (there to establish a new bank account). Take it or leave it.
My daytime phone number is (218) 246-2776. Do not call me at home in the evening. I do not keep my wife advised on private matters of this nature, if you get my drift.
EW
The phone number I sent is actually that of the local District Attorney's office. So far, I have not received a reply
Miss Thistlebottom, my seventh grade English teacher, asked me to relay this message: "Did you say 'flaws . . . HAS begun'"?
If the METEOR--a meteor is a fiery streak in the sky, not a physical object--were caused by an object measuring 1 to 2 meters (or even 2,000 meters) across, the object would not have been an asteriod. By definition, an ASTEROID is a celestial body with a diameter ranging from a few to several hundred kilometers. "A few" kilometers is at least three, and three kilometers is 3,000 meters. If the celestial body is smaller than an asteriod--say, 2 or 200 or 2,000 meters across--it is a METEOROID. If the object makes it through the atmosphere and hits the earth, it becomes a METEORITE. A meteorite can begin as the rocky core of a comet, as an asteroid, or as a meteoroid. If it is a meteoroid, it might also be a chunk of Kryptonite from an exploded planet in another solar system.
I should have said there are TEN (rather than nine)errors in the assertion that triangles and rectangles are the most efficient geometric shapes for packing (enclosing) tubes. Let's go back to the seven tubes it takes to fill a hexagon. The hexagon is a fairly efficient (space-saving) shape for enclosing the tubes, but a CIRCLE is slightly more efficient. Arrange seven quarters in a hexagon, with one quarter in the center and six around the outside. A circle wrapped around the quarters, touching each of the outer six, has an area of 4,072 sq. mm. A hexagon wrapped around the quarters, also touching the outer six, has an area of 4,206 sq. mm. = more wasted space (air space). The hexagon has l.033 times the cross-sectional area of the circle; the hexagon takes up about 3 percent more space. So the hexagon and the triangle are not always the most efficient geometric forms for enclosing circles.
Discovery's design is at best PARTLY scientific; it does not have "good scientific roots." Instead, the design is rooted in symbolism -- with scientific elements thrown in to create a note of realism. Discovery's six rocket exhaust nozzles, for example, are among the elements of scientific realism. (Discovery has six exhaust nozzles, arranged in three pairs. Each pair of nozzles is fenced in by a hexagon, which is so large that it does not come close to touching the nozzles. The hexagons are arranged side by side, not in a triangle. Within each hexagon, the two nozzles sit one directly above the other. See the pictures on pages 79 and 103 of Bizony's book.)
But your analysis falls apart when you write, "If you want multiple engines, the only two natural shapes for packing tubes together efficiently are the triangle and the hexagon." Here your argument, as applied to Discovery's design, displays nine -- count them, nine -- errors.
ERROR NO. 1: You seem to that assume that packed "multiple engines" are the basis for efficient use of space and that the only issue is how best to pack them. But from a space-efficiency standpoint, the most efficient rocket propulsion system is ONE big cylindrical engine. No matter how efficiently you pack tubes, there is always going to be wasted space between them. One big engine calls for a circular, not hexagonal, cross-section. (If, by chance, you are NOT claiming that Discovery has six tubular engines, then your whole "engineering justification" for hexagons falls apart: there are no tubes to pack, hence no need for efficient packing geometry.)
ERROR NO. 2: You have no good basis for assuming that Discovery actually has multiple engines. Six exhaust nozzles do not prove six engines. Rocket engines often have multiple nozzles for thrust vector control -- steering. Discovery might have only one engine with 6 nozzles or three engines with 2 nozzles apiece.
ERROR NO. 3: Even if Discovery did have six tubular engines, a hexagon is not the most efficient way to pack them. Packing tubes into a hexagon requires seven engines, not six. (Take seven pennies and arrange six around one in the center; you'll see what I mean.) The most efficient "packing" arrangement for six tubes is a 3-2-1 triangle -- three engines in a row on the bottom, two in-between engines above the three, and one at the top. Discovery does not use triangles. (And if you claim that a hexagon consists of six triangles, then you had better be prepared to argue that Discovery has 6 x 6 = 36 tubes.)
ERROR NO. 4: Even if a hexagon were the most efficient shape for enclosing six tubes, and even if Discovery had six engines, Discovery does not have six (or seven) nozzles per hexagon. It has TWO nozzles per hexagon -- a highly inefficient arrangement from your "space efficiency" standpoint.
ERROR NO. 5: Discovery's nozzles are arranged in two horizontal rows of three, with the nozzles in the top row being directly above (not between) those in the bottom row. The most space-efficient geometric form for enclosing six tubes arranged in two rows is a rectangle, not a hexagon. (But, as I said, if you really want to save space, you must arrange the six tubes in a triangle.)
ERROR NO. 6: Even if Discovery has six tubular engines, or even if it has three with 2 nozzles apiece, they are not enclosed in a hexagon. The ENGINES (not to be confused with the nozzles) are enclosed in a flattened octagon (eight sides), which by your own admission is an inefficient shape. (You have committed yourself to the proposition that the most space-efficient shapes for enclosing tubes are triangles and hexagons.)
ERROR NO. 7: Not even Discovery's three hexagons are packed. They are side by side. But the most space-efficient arrangement (and the most structurally strong arrangement) for the hexagons would be a triangle: two hexagons on the bottom, one on top. By arranging the hexagons in a triangle, you secure each hexagon to TWO adjacent hexagons rather than to just one.
ERROR NO. 8: Even if Discovery has six tubular engines, they are not enclosed in the three hexagons. The three hexagons are external. They loosely surround the EXHAUST NOZZLES; they are rearward from the engine or engines. So you lack even a modicum of basis for arguing that the hexagons are needed for efficient enclosure of the engines.
ERROR NO. 9: There is no engineering need to enclose Discovery's six exhaust nozzles. The hexagonal "fence" that surrounds each pair of nozzles does not touch or otherwise support the nozzles. (The nozzles must be free to swivel for directional control -- for controling the rocket thrust vector from each nozzle.) The "fences" serve no engineering purpose. From an engineering standpoint, the two rows of nozzles could more logically have been mounted on (a) a rectangle, (b) a racetrack oval, or (c) the same sort of flattened octagon that surrounds the engine or engines located forward from the nozzles.
You have shot yourself in the foot. You have offered engineering criteria that prove the hexagons cannot be justified on engineering grounds. The hexagons are there for one reason and one reason only. They are there as symbols. The only question is: what do they symbolize? Once you recognize that Discovery's design is anthropomorphic (essentially an abstracted skull and spine, with a comic face grafted onto the skull), you can recognize the exhaust nozzles as excretory orifices -- one pair for each of Discovery's three mouths. And once you recognize the nozzles as excretory orifices, and IF you are familiar with the ubiquitious one-inch white hexagonal bathroom tiles from the 1900-1940 era, you can see what is symbolized. Bathrooms. Kubrick's version of Nietzsche's man-made-God-in-his-own-image God uses bathrooms to go to the bathroom!
Your argument is self-defeating, disproven by evidence that you suggest could not materialize.
You concede that "some meanings and symbols might be . . . noticed by those with a special knowledge." But you say it is "absurd" to think there could be a "correlation" between (a) the year 2001 and either (b) the 9000 in "HAL-9000" or (c) the millennial year 9001, the year when Zarathustra arrives to fight evil in Zoroastrian mythology. Why? Because, you say, "even someone well versed in Nietzsche would probably not notice this correlation."
Well, sir, I AM well versed in Nietzsche's THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. And, like many others who have studied this work, I know the Zoroastrian derivation of the character Zarathustra, including the fact that Zoroastrianism's Zarathustra arrived in the year 9001. So I DID notice the correlation. That disproves your inference.
Expanding on your infatuation with "absurd," you say, "To say that any conceivable millenial [sic] year is a symbol for any other millenial year is absurd." But it is your statement that is absurd. Symbolism is generally (and in this case) based on analogy. Anybody with an IQ of 100 should be able to see the analogical connection between 2001 and 9001. Both are the first years of a new millenniums. You'd have to struggle to come up with a more logical symbol for 9001 than 2001.
Moreover, the 2001 symbolism has more than analogy calling attention to itself. First, in the Foreword to Bizony's 2001: FILMING THE FUTURE, Arthur Clarke writes that the title 2001 was chosen because is was a "suitably symbolic" date. Second, Kubrick puts a very obvious reference to the Odysseus allegory -- the word "Odyssey" -- in the subtitle of "2001: A Space Odyssey." That clues you in to the possibility of further symbolism in the TITLE, "2001." Many people recognized the Zarathustran ape-man-overman symbolism in the film, so THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA is a logical place to look for symbolism in the title 2001. Even a person who wasn't initially familiar with Zoroastrian mythology could, by doing a little research on the character Zarathustra, quickly find out about the mythological significance of 9001. The rest is easy -- even if YOU can't see the analogical connection between 9001 and 2001, and even if YOU think it is "absurd" to think such a connection was intended.
You don't understand allegory, and you don't understand symbolism. Let's begin with allegory. An allegory is a two-level story: a surface story (the science fiction adventure in this case) and the hidden story (the Zarathustra allegory in this case). Persons, things, events, names, colors, and the like in the surface story represent (symbolize) elements of the hidden story. You believe that if something in the surface story (the rocket exhaust nozzles in this case) have a logical surface-story function, that proves the thing can't be a symbol. If your belief were true, there would be no such thing as allegory -- and no such thing as a symbol. Of course, the exhaust nozzles are exhaust nozzles in the surface story. But that doesn't mean they can't also be symbols.
Next, you miss the point about bathroom tile shapes. We aren't talking about the bathroom tiles of today, the ones that can be shaped like triangles. You apparently weren't around when Kubrick and I were growing up in the 1930s. But in those days practically all houses -- middle class houses, anyhow -- had white, hexagonal bathroom tiles, one inch across measured edge to edge. I remember how impressed I was when a new house being built in 1941 came up with different tiles -- mixed square and rectangular tiles with mixed shades of brown and beige. But for those days, the hexagonal tile was practically a symbol for bathrooms.
Your third mistake is to overlook context. The spaceships hexagons may be traveling through a vacuum, but they aren't being interpreted in a vacuum. They are part of the anthropomorphic God, and they are being interpreted in the context of THUS SPACE ZARATHUSTRA, in which man makes God in his own image. Much of God's anthropomorphism reflects Kubrick's humor, for example, the bubble blowing scene and God's being made from a bone. (In "Dr. Strangelove," Kubrick's humor is displayed in many ways, including names like Jack D. Ripper, a takeoff of London's Jack the Ripper.) Part of the anthropomorphism context is the humor in God's having three mouths. You have just one mouth -- and two excretory orifices (which you called No. 1 and No. 2 when you were a kid). So how can you dispute that a mouth needs two excretory orifices to output its input. And if one mouth needs two excretory orifices, don't three mouths need six? Why do you suppose Kubrick divides those six exhaust nozzles into three pairs and gives each its own hexagon? Use a little imagination!
I too have a copy of THE ODYSSEY, the R. V. Rieu translation. You tacitly concede that Odysseus's survey team had three men, the same number found in Bowman's survey team. But you deny that they became disabled, hence that their condition was analogous to that of Bowman's three unable-to-work crewman. Let's see what THE ODYSSEY really says:
"What they [the Lotus-eaters] did was to give them [the survey team members] some lotus to taste, and as soon as each had eaten the honeyed fruit of the plant, all thoughts of reporting to us or escaping were banished from his mind. All they now wished for was to stay where they were with the Lotus-eaters. [That in itself renders them disabled from working.] . . . I had to use force to bring them back to the ships, and they wept on the way, but once on board I dragged them under the benches and LEFT THEM IN IRONS." That is the last we hear of them. By implication they remain in irons (analogous to being in hibernation), unable to work, until either their ship was sunk by the Laestrygonians or (if on Odysseus's ship) Odysseus's ship was sunk by Zeus.
So we see that Kubrick's symbolism -- the hibernators symbolizing Odysseus's disabled crewmen -- rests on not just one but three analogies: (1) both groups had THREE men, (2) both groups constituted a SURVEY TEAM, and (3) the men of both groups were disabled, unable to work. If you cannot accept analogy as the basis for symbolism, and especially if you can't accept even three analogies where most symbolism rests on just one, then you simply do not understand literary symbolism.
You say, "If I remember correctly." Well, you don't remember correctly when you say that Poole went on both space walks. Bowman took the first walk, the one where the "defective" AE-35 unit was retrieved. Poole took the abortive walk on which the "defective" unit was to be put back in place. Bowman took a second space walk when he tried to rescue Poole.
This is the author of KUBRICK'S 2001, Len Wheat, once again. I decided to reply to your comment partly because it is so full of factual errors, fallacious logic, and made-up "facts"; partly because I wanted to needle Slashdot's comment raters, who considered your falsehoods and fallacies "insightful" and gave you a 5; and partly because comments from other people have done a fine job of refuting other easily refuted comments, which claim there is no such thing as a genuine symbol (the no-nothings think all literary and film symbols are imagined by the reader or viewer) and thus no such thing as a genuine allegory.
CLARK'S "THE LOST WORLDS OF 2001." Let's begin with your foolish statement -- the rater calls it "insightful" -- that I ignored Clarke's "The Lost Worlds of 2001." You say, "Despite the fact that . . . Clarke wrote a very informative book "The Lost Worlds of 2001" . . . , you used none of that information [from the book]." You haven't read my book, so how could you know this? Well, you start with my statement that "I saw no scripts, read no directors notes, and interviewed nobody." (Cliff had said, falsely, that I relied heavily on those three sources.) Then you construct this implied syllogism:
Premise: Some cases where an author has seen no scripts, read no director's notes, and interviewed nobody are cases where the author has done no research at all on his topic.
Premise: This is a case where the author has seen no scripts, read no notes, and interviewed nobody.
Conclusion: The author has done no research -- hence has read no books about 2001.
It is pathetic that neither you nor Slashdot's rater can (a) recognize your implied argument's structure or (b) see that the argument is fallacious. I won't try to explain the fallacy. If you can't see it without having it explained, you would never comprehend the explanation. But I will give you a hint that may help you learn how to think. It is reasonable to assume -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that you yourself have seen no 2001 scripts, read no director's notes, and conducted no interviews. So, going by your logic, how can you be telling the truth when you claim to have read "The Lost Worlds of 2001"?
Meanwhile, your conclusion is not just fallacious; it is false. Each of the first six of my book's seven chapters has at least one reference to Clarke's "Lost Worlds." All told, my book has nine references to "Lost Worlds." My bibliography has five Clarke items, including Victor Cohn's interview of Clarke and a Clarke press release.
"NO RESEARCH AT ALL." You also refer to other sources of information about 2001. Then you claim, without a shred of evidence to support your claim, that I "used none of that information." The implication seems to be that I did no research at all. (Comment #117 echoes your claim by saying I wrote the book "without doing one lick of research.") Like Cliff, you're making up your "facts." The bibliography of my book lists 45 references. The book has 184 endnotes.
ANOTHER FALLACY: BOWMAN'S NAME. You next deny that Dave Bowman's name alludes to Odysseus's being a bowman. Unlike Cliff, you won't even acknowledge literal symbolism that slaps you in the face. Even Cliff accepts the Bowman symbolism. And Arthur Clarke has written that, although it was years before he recognized the symbolism in Bowman's name, he recognizes it. But you use "logic" to refute the Bowman symbolism, logic that mightily impressed the Slashdot rater, who called it "insightful." You say, "Kubrick chose Bowman's name at a stage of the project when they expected the crew to survive and return to earth." Your implied syllogism:
Premise: All cases where a name is chosen before plot elements are cases where the name cannot be symbolic.
Premise: This is a case where a name (Bowman) was chosen before plot elements (the death of all crewmen and -- according to your false belief -- Bowman's nonreturn to earth).
Conclusion: This is a case where the name cannot be symbolic.
What sort of warped thinking led you to that first premise? Given that Kubrick decided to kill off all crewman before he decided on the name Bowman, how does this fact establish that "Dave's name most definitely is not a reference to Odysseus"?
Meanwhile, how do you reconcile your attack on the idea that 2001 embodies symbolism with what your own reference, "Lost Worlds," says. In Lost Worlds, Clarke says he and Kubrick had the crewmen killed to make 2001 consistent with "The Odyssey." In other words, the deaths of Bowman's crewmen symbolize the deaths of Odysseus's crewmen. So Clark is saying, in effect, that 2001 does contain symbols.
"LOST WORLDS" ALLUSION TO SYMBOLISM. Had you read "Lost Worlds" more carefully, you might have noticed another salute to symbolism. Clarke refers to the Bible's phrase "God made man in his own image." He then says, "This, after all, is the theme of our movie." Whether out of tact, carelessness, or don't-tell-too-much caution, Clarke states that theme backwards. The movie's theme -- really the theme of the Zarathustra allegory -- is Nietzsche's "Man created God in his own image" (i.e., God is imaginary). But regardless of phrasing, Clarke is making two points: (1) rather than just telling a story, the movie carries a central theme, which happens to be allegorical, and (2) the movie is about a God who is the image of man.
Here Clarke is subtly confirming the widely understood fact that 2001 contains allusions to THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. Does he have to spell out the details for you to get the point? Can't you grasp the hint that the movie has a God symbol and that this God symbol has image-of-man characteristics? And, since I've already told you that Nietzsche's God is a villain and that he dies, can't you find in 2001 the character who represents God -- the character who (1) has human characteristics (e.g., a head, a mouth, a tongue, a spine, sight, speech, hearing, mortality, and human emotions like pride and fear), (2) is a villain, and (3) dies? No, God can't be Bowman. Bowman is the good guy, Zarathustra, not the villain. (Bowman symbolizes something different in each allegory.) And Bowman doesn't die. He MATURES -- in Nietzsche's words, Zarathustra becomes "ripe" -- and then EVOLVES into the Nietzscheian overman. We can also rule out the four crewmen: too unimportant and not villainous. And we can rule out the four monoliths: they aren't alive, they don't resemble man, and they don't die. That leaves us with the spaceship Discovery and its brain Hal. Listen to what Clarke is saying and you just might someday understand the movie.
"OBVIOUSLY SO." You respond to my statement that "I [1] saw no scripts, [2] read no director's notes, and [3] interviewed nobody" by saying, "Obviously so." The context permits no doubt about what you are implying: that those three things are essential for understanding 2001, hence that I don't understand the film.
Your opinion strikes me as incredibly naive. Why would I want to (1) examine scripts? In many films, both the final dialog and the action deviate from script. The most accurate reference for both dialog and action is the film itself. And that is what I used. Next, (2) director's notes. Do you really believe that Kubrick, who repeatedly refused to interpret his film for others, left notes explaining his symbolism -- or denying its existence? What evidence do you have that these notes actually exist? (3) No interviews. By the same token, do you really believe that Kubrick blabbed his secrets to someone who has faithfully safeguarded these secrets for 30 odd years but who would have told them to me? Who am I to deserve such favored treatment -- treatment that was denied to biographers and to the authors of the many books about 2001? Your notions go beyond naive. They are just plain silly.
"TOO BUSY" FOR NAME GAMES. I say that every name in 2001 except the Russian name Smyslov and the names of the three hibernators is symbolic. (Smyslov alludes to a Russian world chess champion but is not really symbolic.) But you say Kubrick and Clarke "were too busy to play [name] games like that." You're partly right. The names weren't Clarke's. Kubrick, though, had lots of time. He took 2 ½ years to film 2001. (Whoops, I forgot. I'm not supposed to know that, because I didn't interview anybody.) As for your insinuation that Kubrick just wasn't interested in name games, consider the following names from Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE, every one of which embodies word play:
Dr. Strangelove
Capt. Lionel Mandrake
Maj. T. J. "King" Kong
Col. Bat Guano
Col. Freddy Puntridge
Gen. Buck Turgidson
Gen. Gen. Jack D. Ripper
Ambassador Desadeski
Pres. Merkin Muffley
If you can't figure out the meanings, puns, and allusions in some of these names, use Google to look up Tim Dirks' web review of DR. STRANGELOVE. How can you deny that Kubrick likes to play around with names?
You evolutionists say Creation Science is untrue, but I can prove you are wrong. I am a native of Wichita, Kansas, and a graduate of Robinson Junion High School and East High School, so I can enlighten you on the legal underpinnings we Kansans bring to Creation Science. In 1940 our state legislature enacted a law declaring L.Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" to be the Official State Allegory of Kansas and further declaring it to be an allegorical representation of three Biblical truths--creation, damnation, and salvation. The preamble to this law reads as follows: "Whereas (1) "THE WIZARD OF OZ" is an allegorical representation of the Bible, (2) L. FRANK BAUM, its author, therefore represents the Bible's author, God, (3) DOROTHY'S HOUSE'S LANDING in Oz, and the attendant appearance of Oz on the scene, depicts the Creation of the Universe, (4) the film's subsequent SWITCH FROM BLACK-AND-WHITE TO TECHNICOLOR when Dorothy arrives in Oz symbolizes God's command, "Let there be light!," on the first day of Creation, (5)KANSAS, where Dorothy yearns to go, is heaven, created by God on the second day of Creation, (6) the SCARECROW, protector of vegetation, symbolizes the vegetation created by God on the third day of Creation, (7)the EMERALD CITY is the sun, created by God on the fourth day of Creation, and the many sparkling EMERALDS there are the stars, also created on the fourth day, (8) the COWARDLY LION symbolizes the living creatures God created on the fifth day of Creation, (9) the TIN WOODSMAN, an image of man, is man, created by God in his own image on the sixth day of Creation, (10)the WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST, on whom the house lands, is an unrepentant sinner, condemned to eternal damnation, (11) the CYCLONE that drops the house on the witch is the Wrath of God, (12) the AREA UNDER THE HOUSE, where the witch's body lies, is hell, (13)the WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST is Satan, (14) the WINGED MONKEYS are Satan's demons, (15) Dorothy represents Jesus, the epitome of goodness and purity, (16) Toto symbolizes Jesus' disciples, who follow their Master wherever he goes, (17) GLINDA THE GOOD is the Holy Spirit, which guides Dorothy [Jesus]in her efforts to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West [Satan], (18) the WIZARD is the prophet Elijah, who is carried off to heaven [Kansas], (19) the Wizard's BALLOON is the chariot in which Elijah is carried off to heaven, (20) AUNT EM AND UNCLE HENRY, who are already in Kansas [heaven], are angels, (21) the YELLOW BRICK ROAD is the road to salvation, (22) Dorothy's act of THROWING WATER ON THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST symbolizes baptism, which removes a major barrier to salvation, (23) the rosy RED SLIPPERS are a rosary, which enhances the power of Dorothy's prayer, and (24) Dorothy's famous words "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME" symbolize prayer, which delivers her to heaven [still Kansas], now therefore be it resolved that "The Wizard of Oz" is ideally suited to be the official Kansas State Allegory. Three generations of Kansans have now been raised under our Official State Allegory. So every Kansan who is "officially" educated and pure of thought (that rules out a few atheists and Communists and Unitarians)knows that God did indeed create the universe (item 3), that he did so in six working days (items 4-9), and that all 24 things allegorically symbolized must be true because item 5 says Kansas is heaven, which is obviously true (an axiom of Kansas Creation Science),in which case everything else must be true too. Therefore, evolution is a whole bunch of malarkey, and Creation Science is indeed a science, and godless people like you should spend more time studying "The Wizard of Oz" and less time studying Darwin.
When commenting on this topic, you must recognize that the immediate problem is in Kansas. Kansans have a long history of institutional stupidity. Back in the late 19th century, the Kansas State Legislature passed a law governing railroad engineers. The law said that, when an engineer on a moving train sees another train approaching on an adjacent track, that engineer must stop and remain stopped until the oncoming train has passed. I'd like to have been there the first time an engineer stopped, then saw that the oncoming train had also obeyed the law. Some of the ancestors of those Kansas legislators were apparently on the Kansas Board of Education. Given their limited analytical skills, they were unable to perceive the difference between science and superstition, between quarks and angels, and between empiricism and faith.