HAL 9000, IBM and the year 2001
Late last night I found myself watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’d seen all my other movies several times over, although it’s not like I haven’t seen 2001 a few times, but hadn’t seen it in a while, so I thought I might take another viewing.
I remember all those years ago, back in the early days of the year 2001, I heard that A Space Odyssey was going to be re-released in Australian cinemas. I was really excited that I would be able to experience it in the medium it was intended. I was planning to go with a friend of mine when it came out in Brisbane, but it never did. Towards the end of the year, I read something in a magazine saying that it had been released that year, but only to a limited number of cinemas in Melbourne or wherever. I guess I’ll have to be content with DVD for now.
Also I think I was a little disappointed that the year 2001 had come and gone and that mankind was still squabbling around here on earth. There were no manned space flights to Jupiter, IBM had not developed an ultra-reliable, super-intelligent, computer brain capable of self-aware, conscious thought. The next stage in human evolution it seemed was further away than Stanley Kubrick imagined.
