Aleksandar Zubic
05/03/2018
Dr. Sasser
UH-155: Literature and Film
Loss of Humanity to the Machines
What makes us human? The ability to communicate with abstract ideas and display
emotion. It is easy to get lost in the monotony of day to day life and forget about the true beauty
of humanity. 2001: A Space Odyssey does not let us forget this fact. Both the novel and film are
great examples of what happens when technology is taken too far are holds a grasp over our
lives. Kubrick and Clarke worked together in these works to create such an incredible
atmosphere of spectacle that it is easy to get lost in it further highlighting the danger they are
trying to warn us about. In order to suggest that reliance on technology creates devolution of man
and degrades us as humans, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey routinely depicts robotic human
interaction and severe technological dependence, such as when HAL 9000 begins to fail.
To begin, the beginning of both film and novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey depicts a
rudimentary tribe of so-called man apes struggling to survive as they are starving and continually
hunted by a leopard. Until the monolith appears to them and begins to alter their brain and allow
them to become more intelligent. Here, at the dawn of man, we see the origins of technological
dependence. Although in this circumstance it is for the case of survival, but it sets up an
important relationship between man and technology. One of the main differences between film
and novel is the depiction of how Moon Watcher “discovers” how to use tools. In the novel,
Moon Watcher sees a group of wild pigs come across his cave and has the idea to attack the pig
with a rock he finds and kills it, while in the film we see Moon Watcher look at a pile of bones of
a pig and slowly learn how to utilize the tools as a weapon to kill, creating the transition from
scavengers to hunters. The difference between the two mediums is made to highlight the
difference between the ways of communication. The novel is efficient in telling what is
happening inside the minds of the man apes and can effectively communicate the idea of the
evolution of intelligence. The film, on the other hand, takes advantage of showing the transition,
as Moon Watcher slowly figures out how to save his tribe. Both of the scenes, despite their
differences in describing the change, show the dependence of the man apes on the technology
that they develop as a method of survival. The dependence depicted in the first part of 2001 is
different from the dependences in the remaining of the film and novel, but as previously stated,
the idea of technological dependence is carried over from the evolution of the man ape to modern
age human.
