Four Movies on TV, Part 3

[A series about four movies I saw one particularly lazy night a few days back]

The 1967 Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey has, for many years, been the yardstick with which I have been measuring our own space program's progress. Made before the first human touchdown on the moon in 1969, 2001: A Space Odyssey envisioned a future that had sophisticated moon bases by 1999, as well as an enormous double-ringed space station (neither of which we have come anywhere close to accomplishing). The movie's creators assumed, I guess, that the U.S. government would continue to fund manned spaced exploration on the same level as that in the 1960s under Kennedy and Johnson. But that funding dropped with the Nixon administration, and many (albeit worthwhile) non-manned NASA projects (satellites and probes) have syphoned off many of the funds that could have gone into establishing a permanent moon colony. However, the movie also foretold a more primitive future than we currently have in one important respect.

In 2001's second half, Hal, the computer running the Jupiter-bound ship Discovery One, had a memory that took up much space there. Its logic center alone took up a room. In a "real" 2001: A Space Odyssey reflective of today's level of miniaturization, a small console might do the same trick. Of course, if you saw the movie you would easily recognize the dramatic value of having Hal gradually losing "his" mind with astronaut David Bowman painstakingly manually disconnecting large logic circuits, one by one.

Alas, 2010, 2001's later and relatively disappointing sequel, predicted the U.S. and U.S.S.R. being on the brink of nuclear war because of troubles in Central America. Contrast that with the situation today in 2009: no more U.S.S.R., the communists now in opposition in Russia, almost all of the former Warsaw Pact satellite nations now in NATO, three former Soviet republics now in NATO with two more slated for future membership, East and West Germany reunited with the Berlin Wall torn down, and (incredibly) Russia now allowing American military flights over its territory to help prosecute its war in Afghanistan, of all places. Yes, I think we're doing a lot better than the gloomy picture painted by 2010.

My favorite scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey was when Dr. Heywood Floyd and his colleagues, on the moon, walked down the slope leading to the mysterious monolith that had been partially unearthed (oops, I mean un"mooned") near the crater Clavius. It was suspenseful and creepy (so I naturally liked it). There was also a scene when Dr. Floyd spoke with his very young daughter on the phone from the space station. Remember that this is happening in 1999. Floyd asks his daughter what she wants for her birthday, to which she replies "a bush baby". In the real universe, "bush baby" George W. Bush was effectively appointed as president the following year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Next and last of the "four movies": the James Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me.