In the mid-1960s, as the screenplay for 2001 was taking form, computer manufacturers were marketing their machines as belonging to the new “Third Generation:” the first using vacuum tubes, the second discrete transistors, and the third integrated circuits, or silicon “chips.” Good, who later joined the Department of Statistics at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, carried this further, to what he called “Generation 7”-the “Intelligent Machine,” or a machine that unexpectedly blurts out “Cogito Ergo Sum” (“I think therefore I am”). (I was happy to see that his character had a brief role in that film.)
#2001 SPACE ODYSSEY MOVIE#
Popular accounts, including the movie The Imitation Game, starring Kiera Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch, celebrate the genius of the mathematician Alan Turing at Bletchley, but Good was there as well. Their work was kept secret for many years, but recently the world has come to know of what they accomplished. A lot of their work was done with pencil and paper, but among the tools they used were monstrous mechanical computers called “Bombes,” and an electronic machine called “Colossus,” arguably the first electronic computer in the world. It has been argued that their work shortened the war by months, if not years. During World War II he was among the “boffins” who toiled in secrecy at Bletchley Park, north of London, where they decrypted intercepted German radio transmissions. “Jack” Good (1916-2009) was literally present at the creation of the computer age. Credit: Virginia Polytechnic and State University Archives That was the work of one of the advisers on the film, who is less well known but who was nevertheless a true pioneer in computing and AI as it existed in 1968: Irving John Good.įilm advisers Fred Ordway (left) and Jack Good (right) on the set of 2001, A Space Odyssey. Clarke collaborated with Kubrick in writing the screenplay, but I do not think that either had much to do with the creation of HAL. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL” remains one of the most frightening lines in any sci-fi movie. I need not remind viewers of recent advances in voice-recognition and artificial intelligence, which make HAL so relevant to the 21 st century, even if computers in 1968 were large mainframes that took up a lot of space and consumed a lot of power.
It has long been my belief that Kubrick set out to make a movie about space and ended up making a movie about computers. HAL is one of the most malevolent monsters in science fiction, even if “he” was represented only by a glowing red light. Another reason-and this is why the movie remains my favorite – is the character “HAL,” the computer that runs the ship. Another is the role of the legendary author Arthur C. One is how director Stanley Kubrick took great pains to portray the basics of spaceflight to an outer planet as accurately as possible – the tedium of a long journey, the silence of space, the need to place most of the crew in suspended animation to save on food and oxygen, etc. Among the many space-themed science fiction movies that have come out in recent decades, this one stands out among fans for a number of reasons.
This year marks the 50 th anniversary of the premiere of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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