2001: A Space Odyssey, the theory of evolution, HAL 9000 & GLaDOS

When analysing Stanley Kubrik's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey in relation to Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas and theories it appears to be a clear representation of these and other german idealist philosophies.

The film essentially has no real narrative which is very Nietzche. The first scene, entitled 'The Dawn of Man' starts with the dawn of time and explores the darwinian theory of evolution through natural selection. Apes were apes for millions of years and only became homoerectus (standing on two feet) 3.5 millions years ago and then became homosapiens (humans as we know them now) 30 thousand years ago. If you were wondering why this beginning scenes with the apes went on so long it is because it was timed in elapse of the film, the then split second shift to 2001 is relative to rest of the film. It took 10 millions years for apes to become homoerertus but only 30 thousand years for the homoertus to becomes homosapiens and the timing in the film is a representation of this. Since then our evolution time has decreased, for example technology took about 30 years from when electricity was invented for the phone to be invented, about 10 years form when the phone was invented for mobile phones to be invented then about 2 years from when mobile phones were invented for 3G to be invented.

The film then shows the origin of the state and language with apes. Language was made to intimidate and this is show by the apes grunting and screaming and the other apes to intimidate each other. It also shows Moonwatcher making a weapon from the bones of a dead animal and then realising that he can now kill other animals and eat them, red meat contains a lot of protein and though eating lots of this it will make his brain grow, enabling him to evolve. Essentially this makes him a super-ape as he can now kill other apes. This super-ape would then become the first human being. The same thing could possibly happen with human beings where a super-human will emerge, there could already have been a few, like Jesus Christ, Alexnder the Great, Napoleon and possibly William Shakespeare. There could also be many super-humans among us now like many artists as ordinary people do not understand modernist art or modernist music because they don't have the heightened sensibility that the artist super-human has.

The obilisk is first seen by the apes and they are unable to work out what it is. This links to Immanuel Kant's theory of 'what is the nature of the perceivable object?' This philosophy is a phenomenology. This is questioning that when you perceive something it has nature but when you dont perceive it it's just there. This can be linked to the commonly used example of if a tree falls down in the middle of a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a noise?

The main ape in the film, Moonwatcher, as he is called in the book, then makes the scientific discovery that he can now kill animals with a bone that he has picked up, after he makes this discovery, it is then shown he can stand up as apes are now much more clever and they have been eating a lot of red meat which contains protein and helps the brain grow. This was also the time when the apes learnt war, so they are evolving very quickly now, considering at this point that they had been around for 10 million years.

2001: A Space Odyssey represents Neitzsche's idea that mankind must be overcome, however we don't know what the future will be like and how we will over mankind similar to how apes wouldn't have been able to imagine spaceships. The film excessively emphasises the inability of mankind to survive in space and this in effect shows that we are trapped on earth and that we are not evolved enough to exist outside of earth. To survive in space we need to rely on an incredible amount of technology and this technology is just too difficult. With that being said that means that the species of mankind is doomed because eventually the earth will collide with the sun and there is no way mankind can escape the earth.

It can be speculated as to what HAL 9000 represents in the film. However, it could be the human conscience and that's why it tries to kill all the spaceman on board the spaceship and does succeed for all but one. This shows that humans are at their weakest when they are space and they need to be on earth and that is possibly why HAL kills them.

HAL won't let Dave, the last spaceman alive, evolve and to evolve Dave must kill HAL. Dave could be compared to Zarathustra. He will not naturally evolve and has to overcome humanity. Dave eventually manages to kill HAL but only by deconstructing human logic, which is what we base our life around. When he does kill HAL he is the last man and there is no human logic left in the world. Dave as the last man is incapable of biological life. At this point in the film there is no logic left so the film doesn't make sense and is very abstract. Before Dave dies and the human race is extinct he is living just in the mind. The end of the film shows a fetus in space which doesn't breathe, indicting this is next evolution of mankind. This race is named the ubermench.

Throughout the whole film there is no theatrical explanation of the obelisk and before the film even begins the viewer is subjected to almost five minites of a black screen which is in fact the obelisk personally addressing the viewer as they are seeing it and, like the apes, do not know what to make of it. It is geometrically perfect so it could not have been made by the apes, it is a perfect logical object, which could only exist in the mind and could not exist in nature. The obelisk is an artistic representation of the Kantian idea of the 'noumenal world', it exists, but from another realm. It is beyond understanding, from a world with a higher consciousness that the apes nor us, can understand.

In the video game Portal, the main antagonist GLaDOS is very reminiscent of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. However in 2001: A Space Odyssey the book it is said that HAL is not self aware and driven to his actions in an attempt to rationalise two conflicting orders which are concealing the true mission objective and to never hide anything from the crew. Because GLaDOS became self-aware, and developed a sinister personality, I would assume that she is more alive, and more antagonistic, than HAL 9000. The video below shows the final fight with GLaDOS where she constantly tries to disuade you (the main character) from killing her similar to how HAL tries to disuade Dave from killing him.