tyler O
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2000
- Messages
- 165
Jack : Oddly enough, my father felt that faces of death and Fluci's masterpiece, The Gates of Hell, were far better viewing material for a child. At least I was able to watch Apocalypse Now and FMJ. I was never allowed to pick movies and we had no cable (only TBS, from which sprang my inane love of the 007 films). Most of my childhood was spent learning and studying. I was rarely allowed even out of the house. Cest la vie. At least now I am only tempered (and just barely so) by my wife and our meager financial means.
Thank the rest of you for your kind words.
To me, the saddest moment of film that I have witnessed with these eyes has to be the death of HAL. Never have I felt that any other creature has been so pitifully portrayed (and by that I mean that we should take pity, not that it was a bad acting job (How hard can a hunk o metal and a red light f#ck up a scene anyway?)). I mean, Selma in Dancer in the Dark comes close, but von Trier is just cruel. HAL had even less of a choice about his actions. I would like to reiterate that fact.
HAL had no choice about his actions.
A computer is programmed to carry out instructions. That is its prime directive. It is fed a series of instructions which it then decodes into binary. 1s and 0s. There is no gray. HAL was given some instructions provided to him by the programmers on Earth.
1) You are the only member of the team who is aware of all functions and reasons of the mission.
2) We are going to put to sleep the 3 members who are aware of some aspect of why the mission is being undertaken.
3) We are going to leave 2 caretakers, awake and sentient, around the Discovery should anything which is beyond your control require physical manipulation in order to be repaired. These caretakers do not have knowledge of the mission.
4) You are in total control of the Discovery. All operations, large and small, are your duty.
5) No members of the team are to be aware of the biggest picture until they are in reach of the prime directive. At this point, we will inform them of what is required of them.
6) The mission can not fail. This is the most important mission ever undertaken within the scope of humanity.
Much of this is presumption, but I feel it can be easily inferred by the way the drama unfolds. I do not feel that any took precedence over the other. They were all required bits of information. Add to this the millions of other instructions necessary in order to successfully and properly keep the space ship going. 1 and 4 seem to overlap somewhat, but they also contain important points inherent to HAL's following of his programming.
On the mission, things started occurring. HAL was uncomfortable with the fact that there were some things which he knew and that some of the members on the mission did not. Possibly he felt that without members of the mission knowing what mission they were on, that the mission could not possibly succeed. Upon voicing the glimmering of those concerns, he realized that he was not directly in violation of his directives. At this point I feel that he was attempting to warn the caretakers that, in the words of friend bear, "Something is not right here." He predicted a fault (predicted is the most important word here) in (i believe) the AE-35 unit. Importantly, a communication unit. This way he was not violating his 5th directive. Granted, no nine thousand series computer has ever had a record of a fault. In fact he says that a fault does exists, but that, in possibly his most important line in the movie, "(the fault) can be attributed to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been attributed to human error." I thought that this was hauntingly prophetic and also set the tone for what was going to occurr. The unit was detected not to have a fault, and was verified by his twin, who was able to crunch 1s and 0s the same as HAL, but did not have the same conditions required by HAL to be met. Her only conditions were to run the schematics and post a result. HAL would have answered the same thing had not he been programmed conflicting information.
1 has to equal 1.
In HAL's case, it does not. From here begins a downwards spiral of trying to meet each of the qualifications as set forth by the scientists. First he disobeys an order and does not rotate the pod when he can read the lips and knows what is being asked of him. He is doing this to gather information. Once he knows that after replacing the AE-35 unit that his higher cognitive powers he is due to be taken off line. At this point, he computes, that since he knows more about the mission than any and all of the rest of the crew members, that if he is taken off line, the mission will not succeed. This cannot happen. Frank is killed. Dave goes out to get the body, rushingly and without full thought before hand (thusly the helmet). The three in stasis are killed. In, to me, one of the most beautiful examples of Dave's knowledge of his impending doom, Dave releases the body of Frank. He lets the body go and knows that he will be unable to proceed encumbered with the body. (Read into this whatever speculations of ego-death, rebirth, and physical self not being needed where the Discovery is going that you so desire.) Dave places himself in mortal danger. Why? In order to go into the ship and disable HAL. At this point, he knows that he cannot exist or survive either outside or inside the machine. He grabs the first helmet he comes to (differently colored if memory serves) and then proceeds upwards. Having rid himself of the body, he moves on to rid himself of the brain.
HAL is impotent.
Dave is fully self contained. The caretaker has become the angel of death. HAL can do nothing to hurt or attack dave physically. He pleads. Begs. Expresses the basest human emotion of fear. Dave is adamant and will finish his mission. It is not until the final dying strains of a slurred repition of first words are spewed out that HAL feels he can let the human know why this happened. Garbage in, Garbage out. HAL had no choice but to do what he was programmed to. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been attributable to human error.
Or maybe he's just a big computer that couldn't get an axe and change his name to Johnny in order to announce his presence.
Again I offer my humble gratitude to Kubrick and Clarke. Also to all of you. Do not think that I am right. I am an opinion. I am no more that HAL, taking in information and spewing it out in a way that correlates with all data that I have amassed. Therein lies the beauty and perfection of this piece. What we bring in is what comes out.
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Share and Enjoy - The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
Thank the rest of you for your kind words.
To me, the saddest moment of film that I have witnessed with these eyes has to be the death of HAL. Never have I felt that any other creature has been so pitifully portrayed (and by that I mean that we should take pity, not that it was a bad acting job (How hard can a hunk o metal and a red light f#ck up a scene anyway?)). I mean, Selma in Dancer in the Dark comes close, but von Trier is just cruel. HAL had even less of a choice about his actions. I would like to reiterate that fact.
HAL had no choice about his actions.
A computer is programmed to carry out instructions. That is its prime directive. It is fed a series of instructions which it then decodes into binary. 1s and 0s. There is no gray. HAL was given some instructions provided to him by the programmers on Earth.
1) You are the only member of the team who is aware of all functions and reasons of the mission.
2) We are going to put to sleep the 3 members who are aware of some aspect of why the mission is being undertaken.
3) We are going to leave 2 caretakers, awake and sentient, around the Discovery should anything which is beyond your control require physical manipulation in order to be repaired. These caretakers do not have knowledge of the mission.
4) You are in total control of the Discovery. All operations, large and small, are your duty.
5) No members of the team are to be aware of the biggest picture until they are in reach of the prime directive. At this point, we will inform them of what is required of them.
6) The mission can not fail. This is the most important mission ever undertaken within the scope of humanity.
Much of this is presumption, but I feel it can be easily inferred by the way the drama unfolds. I do not feel that any took precedence over the other. They were all required bits of information. Add to this the millions of other instructions necessary in order to successfully and properly keep the space ship going. 1 and 4 seem to overlap somewhat, but they also contain important points inherent to HAL's following of his programming.
On the mission, things started occurring. HAL was uncomfortable with the fact that there were some things which he knew and that some of the members on the mission did not. Possibly he felt that without members of the mission knowing what mission they were on, that the mission could not possibly succeed. Upon voicing the glimmering of those concerns, he realized that he was not directly in violation of his directives. At this point I feel that he was attempting to warn the caretakers that, in the words of friend bear, "Something is not right here." He predicted a fault (predicted is the most important word here) in (i believe) the AE-35 unit. Importantly, a communication unit. This way he was not violating his 5th directive. Granted, no nine thousand series computer has ever had a record of a fault. In fact he says that a fault does exists, but that, in possibly his most important line in the movie, "(the fault) can be attributed to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been attributed to human error." I thought that this was hauntingly prophetic and also set the tone for what was going to occurr. The unit was detected not to have a fault, and was verified by his twin, who was able to crunch 1s and 0s the same as HAL, but did not have the same conditions required by HAL to be met. Her only conditions were to run the schematics and post a result. HAL would have answered the same thing had not he been programmed conflicting information.
1 has to equal 1.
In HAL's case, it does not. From here begins a downwards spiral of trying to meet each of the qualifications as set forth by the scientists. First he disobeys an order and does not rotate the pod when he can read the lips and knows what is being asked of him. He is doing this to gather information. Once he knows that after replacing the AE-35 unit that his higher cognitive powers he is due to be taken off line. At this point, he computes, that since he knows more about the mission than any and all of the rest of the crew members, that if he is taken off line, the mission will not succeed. This cannot happen. Frank is killed. Dave goes out to get the body, rushingly and without full thought before hand (thusly the helmet). The three in stasis are killed. In, to me, one of the most beautiful examples of Dave's knowledge of his impending doom, Dave releases the body of Frank. He lets the body go and knows that he will be unable to proceed encumbered with the body. (Read into this whatever speculations of ego-death, rebirth, and physical self not being needed where the Discovery is going that you so desire.) Dave places himself in mortal danger. Why? In order to go into the ship and disable HAL. At this point, he knows that he cannot exist or survive either outside or inside the machine. He grabs the first helmet he comes to (differently colored if memory serves) and then proceeds upwards. Having rid himself of the body, he moves on to rid himself of the brain.
HAL is impotent.
Dave is fully self contained. The caretaker has become the angel of death. HAL can do nothing to hurt or attack dave physically. He pleads. Begs. Expresses the basest human emotion of fear. Dave is adamant and will finish his mission. It is not until the final dying strains of a slurred repition of first words are spewed out that HAL feels he can let the human know why this happened. Garbage in, Garbage out. HAL had no choice but to do what he was programmed to. This sort of thing has cropped up before, and it has always been attributable to human error.
Or maybe he's just a big computer that couldn't get an axe and change his name to Johnny in order to announce his presence.
Again I offer my humble gratitude to Kubrick and Clarke. Also to all of you. Do not think that I am right. I am an opinion. I am no more that HAL, taking in information and spewing it out in a way that correlates with all data that I have amassed. Therein lies the beauty and perfection of this piece. What we bring in is what comes out.
------------------
Share and Enjoy - The marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
