Reading 'Space Odyssey': Part Two
Note: This is the final part of a two-part review of Michael Benson's Space Odyssey . It is assumed that the reader has already seen the movie. Kubrick wanted to shoot the beginning of 2001 immediately after finishing Dullea's “hotel room scene.” But, he had a problem, actually several problems. No one had yet produced a man-ape costume that didn't look like a man stuffed in an ape suit. Nothing looked like a realistic Australopithecus africanus , which was precisely something Kubrick and Clarke agreed upon in their collaboration to make a scientifically legitimate science fiction film. So, the director decided, not for the first time, to defer the Dawn of Man until something more believable came along. Discussions about the opening phase on the film, intended to happen 4 million years ago, continued between Kubrick and Clarke. Kubrick thought Clarke was being too literal in how the alien intelligence illuminated Moonwatcher's mind. The differences betwee