THOSE of us who have had the privilege to see that astonishing Stanley Kubrick film saw it coming. Arguably the greatest sci-fi film ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dealt with apparently staple science fiction themes—evolution, technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and extraterrestrial life. But Kubrick was no Cold War pushover. Instead, he assembled his severe dislike for campy cheapness and tacky thrills, science writer Arthur C Clarke, spectacular special effects, minimal dialogues, surreal imagery, and the waltzes of Johan and Richard Strauss. The resultant kinetic energy and meditative power of the film is still unrivalled but what is genuinely lingering is how much Clarke and Kubrick were philosophically concerned about the limit of human intelligence. And here intelligence meant both—that we are cognisant of ourselves; and we are able to decipher similar intelligence elsewhere. That pivotal scene where astronaut Dave switches off HAL to dull its desire for control of the ship is in some ways the metaphor for the predicament that humanity in general, and cinema in particular, faces in the present.
Should we be insurgent and turn off the seduction of futuristic technology; or should we grudgingly hand it over to machines?
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