2001: The aliens that almost were

In a film like 2001, a project that started with the explicit purpose of investigating the possibility of extraterrestrial life, it comes as no surprise that Kubrick decided very soon in the production to tackle the problem of how to actually depict the extraterrestrials themselves.

Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke had met for the first time in April 1964: by the last months of that year the director had already set up a team working on hundreds of drawings about possible E.T. shapes – his wife Christiane was on board as well and worked on preparatory drawings – and in late 1965, the young and recently hired collaborator Anthony Frewin joined the team, researching on modern sculptures, paintings of German artist Max Ernst and modern art in general to try different ideas. (Here’s a detailed account by Frewin about his appointment to the movie and about Kubrick fondness of Ernst; thirty years later, Ernst’s influence resurfaced in a Ian Watson interview about the making of the movie that turned out to be Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence).

more…

Sorry CrazyN, totally off topic, but how did you embed that link in your post? I recently made a post including a web address and it didn’t appear as a link. Cheers. pdg

Pesce, if you click on Quote beneath Crazy’s post, you’ll see what he did.

CrazyNeutrino said:

2001: The aliens that almost were

In a film like 2001, a project that started with the explicit purpose of investigating the possibility of extraterrestrial life, it comes as no surprise that Kubrick decided very soon in the production to tackle the problem of how to actually depict the extraterrestrials themselves.

Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke had met for the first time in April 1964: by the last months of that year the director had already set up a team working on hundreds of drawings about possible E.T. shapes – his wife Christiane was on board as well and worked on preparatory drawings – and in late 1965, the young and recently hired collaborator Anthony Frewin joined the team, researching on modern sculptures, paintings of German artist Max Ernst and modern art in general to try different ideas. (Here’s a detailed account by Frewin about his appointment to the movie and about Kubrick fondness of Ernst; thirty years later, Ernst’s influence resurfaced in a Ian Watson interview about the making of the movie that turned out to be Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence).

more…

Ooops, didn’t mean to repost Crazy’s post without modification :)

This is another (quicker) way to do a link (click Quote to see what I did):

The aliens that almost were

Bubblecar said:

Ooops, didn’t mean to repost Crazy’s post without modification :)

This is another (quicker) way to do a link (click Quote to see what I did):

The aliens that almost were

OK thanks got it. .

I find this kind of interesting.

“Kubrick was arguing that the extraterrestrials would look like humans with some slight differences, maybe à la Mr. Spock (Ed. note: like Clindar). And Arthur was arguing, quite properly on general evolutionary grounds, that they would look nothing like us.”

I would have thought that, due the non-random effects of natural selection, if the ETs came from a planet similar to Earth, they would look very much like us. I wonder why Arthur Clarke would have thought the opposite? Maybe in his source material he conceived them as coming from a planet with totally different parameters from Earth. But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

pesce.del.giorno said:

But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

That never stopped the Daleks.

Skeptic Pete said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

That never stopped the Daleks.

Daleks don’t evolve, they just get superceded.

pesce.del.giorno said:

I find this kind of interesting.

But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

So, like an octopus then?

What if, they were so smart, they could move matter with the power of their minds!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kubrick was smart to not show the extraterrestrials, it’s the one thing that would have dated the movie very quickly.

Fascinating stuff CN..

The amount of material created and discarded for this movie was phenomenal.. including an original soundtrack.

Here would a good place to repost this -

2010: A Mandelbrot Odyssey

sibeen said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

I find this kind of interesting.

But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

So, like an octopus then?

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

i always thought that the monolith was chosen as the alien as it was something completely unexpected

it has no characteristics of life as we know it

its a machine – for whatever reason it requires man or some intelligent biological life to complete itself

watch the end scenes and you’ll see the savannah and the landscape where it all began – as it reveals to dave the mysteries of the universe

the only way to understand this film is on the big screen – if they are showing it somewhere go and see it

notice also the end scenes that are like fertilisation of an egg

those strange colours kick off a chain reaction to start the process of fertilisation, the monolith for whatever reason seems to require its creation to complete itself

the result of the fertilisation of the monolith by dave is the “star baby’ which is more of a figurative representation of a rebirth of dave into some other form and the end point of the monolith a sit bonds with dave

those pretty scenes at the end aren’t just for show ya know!

i always thought that the monolith was chosen as the alien as it was something completely unexpected

it has no characteristics of life as we know it

its a machine – for whatever reason it requires man or some intelligent biological life to complete itself

watch the end scenes and you’ll see the savannah and the landscape where it all began – as it reveals to dave the mysteries of the universe

the only way to understand this film is on the big screen – if they are showing it somewhere go and see it

notice also the end scenes that are like fertilisation of an egg

those strange colours kick off a chain reaction to start the process of fertilisation, the monolith for whatever reason seems to require its creation to complete itself

the result of the fertilisation of the monolith by dave is the “star baby’ which is more of a figurative representation of a rebirth of dave into some other form and the end point of the monolith a sit bonds with dave

those pretty scenes at the end aren’t just for show ya know!

the idea of the egg fertilisation is demonstrated many times

have a look at the 2001 spaceship – its a sperm cell

when sperm race to an egg the fittest most active sperm wins and gets to fertilise the ship

the deciding factor in this race is by the tool that the monolith has given to humans many moons ago

man makes the machine/ tool to harness and change the environment to his favour

the tool and waterhole in space are one, dave has to summon his creative juices like the apes and use his brain to survive man’s own creation

by a terrible process of elimination the tool given to man weed’s out the weakest sperm, the ones that don’t keep their wits about them – in a way and only one sperm is left to complete the journey to become another entity.

wookiemeister said:

the idea of the egg fertilisation is demonstrated many times

have a look at the 2001 spaceship – its a sperm cell

Then when Kubrick comes to the lightshow.

:)

Ian said:

wookiemeister said:

the idea of the egg fertilisation is demonstrated many times

have a look at the 2001 spaceship – its a sperm cell

Then when Kubrick comes to the lightshow.

:)

the fact the ship looks like a sperm cell is overlooked by everyone else.

it was so in your face no one realised what it was

PermeateFree said:

sibeen said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

I find this kind of interesting.

But at the very least, to become a technically advanced species, prehensile limbs would be required.

So, like an octopus then?

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

Octopus lifespan can be greatly increased by removing the optic gland.

morrie said:

PermeateFree said:

sibeen said:

So, like an octopus then?

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

Octopus lifespan can be greatly increased by removing the optic gland.

—
Tis interesting to consider the octopi evolution if it ever lived more than a few years.

morrie said:

PermeateFree said:

sibeen said:

So, like an octopus then?

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

Octopus lifespan can be greatly increased by removing the optic gland.

Perhaps they will set up there own surgical procedure.

PermeateFree said:

morrie said:

PermeateFree said:

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

Octopus lifespan can be greatly increased by removing the optic gland.

Perhaps they will set up there own surgical procedure.

-

their

PermeateFree said:

morrie said:

PermeateFree said:

An octopus is about as close to an alien as you can get on our planet. It is an invertebrate, lives and breathes in water, is very intelligent and has prehensile limbs that can be manipulated to do many tasks. These animals only live a short time (year or two for most), but imagine what they might achieve if they had a lifespan similar to our own. Obviously if they could, their technology would be completely different to ours, as we rely heavily on the use of smelted metals to manufacture things, with electricity and fossil fuels for energy. Could be the makings of a good book.

Octopus lifespan can be greatly increased by removing the optic gland.

Perhaps they will set up there own surgical procedure.

See the second post here:

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/forum/cephalopod-species/physiology-and-biology/16289-optic-glands-in-octopuses

all that diesel dust is being breathed in every day

they’ve discovered that its nano dust that gets into the lungs