2001: A Space Odyssey Analysis

2001 tends to be more about setting than plot. The book covers huge amounts of time, from the dim distant prehistoric past on earth into the future. It also covers huge amounts of space, from earth...

The narrator in 2001 knows everything. He knows what the slab is, what's wrong with Hal, what the aliens are doing and why, and what David Bowman is thinking when he's a super-baby. The narrator of...

This is one of the science-fictionyest of science-fiction novels. Clarke is often seen as one of the most important sci-fi authors, and 2001 has many of the hallmarks of classic mid-20th century sc...

2001 is impressed with itself. It tells a story of big, honking, cosmic events, and it thinks those big, honking, cosmic events are pretty cool. The narrator is constantly nudging you to tell you h...

Clarke often uses repetition, and semi-Biblical cadences to try to create a sense of solemnity, or importance: The ancients, had, indeed, done better than they knew when they named this world after...

2001: A Space Odyssey sneaks an allusion into its title. The Odyssey is a long Greek poem by Homer about a dude named Odysseus who goes on a long voyage. So what's up with the title is that Clarke...

The end of 2001 has David Bowman as space baby starchild whooshing through hyper-awesome-whatever-space back to earth. The earth people say, this ending sucks, and they shoot nuclear missiles at hi...

2001 the film is impressionistic and confusing. The book fills in all the gaps in a breezy, accessible style. The book is almost a Shmoop guide to the film—and as you know, Shmoop guides are deli...

Back in the Dim Dawn of Man-ApesThe first section of the novel is a kind of prequel—to the book and to the human race. Aliens turned man-apes to people via psychic slabs. That's the initial situa...

The CallYou can see the "hero" in 2001 as the human race itself. From that perspective, the call to the journey here is issued by the slab, which drops down to earth to tell the man-apes that if...

Man-ape, meet slab. Slab, meet man-ape. Evolve together.Heywood Floyd, meet bigger slab. Bigger slab, meet Heywood Floyd.David Bowman, meet even bigger, bigger slab. Bigger, bigger slab, meet David...

2001 included 205 special effects shots, which was a lot for 1968. But Star Wars, in 1977 had 350—and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) included 2200. Now that's what we call prog...

2001 has no sex, no romance, no love, and not even a chaste kiss. As far as sex goes, everyone in the future (or for that matter in the past) might as well be a disembodied brain like Hal or the al...

Alpha Centauri (32.2, first reference)—The closest star to the earth's solar system.Callisto (19.1)—A moon of Jupiter.Canopus (32.2)—Second brightest star in the night sky, as viewed from ear...