Kubrick's Odyssey: 2001

 It’s 1966, and Stanley Kubrick is facing what could be the downfall of his career. He’s halfway through filming 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the production is spiraling out of control—literally. The massive centrifuge set, designed to simulate artificial gravity in space, is malfunctioning. The lights attached to the centrifuge are overheating and exploding, sending shards of glass flying across the set. Crew members are now forced to wear hard hats to protect themselves from the constant danger.

As if that isn’t enough, artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky is nearly killed when a pipe wrench falls from the rotating centrifuge, missing him by mere inches. The set has become a hazardous environment, but right now, the exploding centrifuge is the least of Kubrick’s problems.

A Story Nobody Understands

Kubrick’s real nightmare lies in the script. Nobody seems to understand the story, not even Kubrick himself. There are large portions of the screenplay he doesn’t know how to film, and the biggest problem is looming: aliens are supposed to show up in the third act, and Kubrick is wracking his brain trying to figure out how to depict them without making them look like the clichéd, corny aliens of earlier sci-fi films.

The pressure is mounting, and Kubrick—the director’s director—is beginning to think this might be his Waterloo.

The Origins of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Kubrick’s journey to make 2001: A Space Odyssey begins in 1964 when he reaches out to science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke with a proposal to create the first truly great science fiction film. Kubrick believes that nothing of the sort exists at the time. Clarke, though, suggests Kubrick check out Things to Come (1936). Kubrick’s response? He hates it so much he tells Clarke never to recommend another movie to him—of any kind—ever again.

Despite their differences in taste, Kubrick admires Clarke’s writing and scientific background. Clarke, a former scientist, has proposed the concept of geostationary satellites, which will become the foundation of modern satellite communications. Kubrick is particularly impressed with Clarke’s short story The Sentinel, which tells the tale of explorers on the Moon who discover an ancient alien artifact. Kubrick sees potential in this story and options it, along with six other of Clarke’s stories, to serve as the foundation for their film.

After the success of Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick secures a green light from MGM for the film, based on the premise of taking viewers on a “Journey Beyond the Stars” in Cinerama, an immersive widescreen format. The title, however, doesn’t make much sense—there is no space beyond the stars. Kubrick and Clarke soon change it to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The promise of 2001 is to make the audience a “fly on the wall” during a manned mission to Jupiter. To achieve this, Kubrick knows he needs to bring a documentary level of realism to the space travel depicted in the film, which means that every detail has to be meticulously researched and vetted.

A Script That Isn’t a Script

Kubrick begins pre-production with what could barely be called a script—more like a rough treatment. As sets are being constructed on the MGM lot in Borehamwood, England, Kubrick spends most of his time directing a growing army of technicians, artists, scientific advisors, and aerospace experts. Among those impressed by the production is George Mueller, who leads NASA’s Apollo moon program. When Mueller visits the set in late 1965, he is so impressed by the accuracy of the models and sets that he dubs the studio “NASA East.”

Principal photography begins in December 1964, but Kubrick is still unsure about large chunks of the story. Any other director might pause production to iron out the script issues with the writer, but that isn’t Kubrick’s style. He is, at heart, a gambler.

Kubrick supports his young family by hosting poker games for Hollywood hotshots after moving to Hollywood, often beating them soundly. This confidence carries over into his filmmaking. For all his perfectionism, Kubrick is willing to gamble on his vision, even when he isn’t entirely sure how to execute it.

But behind the scenes, Kubrick is panicking. According to his wife Christiane, Kubrick is privately terrified that he won’t be able to solve the film’s bigger story issues.

The Jupiter Mission and a Crucial Fix

2001: A Space Odyssey has a highly unusual structure, divided into four segments:

1. The Dawn of Man – Depicting the evolution of early humans and the discovery of tools.
2. Moon Discovery – Following a mission to the Moon where a mysterious monolith is found.
3. Jupiter Mission – Focusing on the journey of the spaceship Discovery One and the conflict between the astronauts and a malfunctioning AI.
4. Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite – A surreal encounter with an alien intelligence near Jupiter, culminating in the transformation of astronaut Dave Bowman into a giant space fetus.

Of these segments, the third—Jupiter Mission—is the most memorable, centered on the conflict between the ship’s caretakers, Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, and the AI HAL 9000.

In the original script, HAL discovers that Bowman and Poole plan to deactivate him after overhearing a conversation with Mission Control. But this setup feels weak. It makes Bowman and Poole passive, and HAL’s discovery of the plot seems too coincidental—something Kubrick’s intuition tells him isn’t right.

Gary Lockwood, who plays Poole, is troubled by this plot point but is hesitant to voice his concerns to Kubrick. Sensing Lockwood’s unease, Kubrick presses him to speak up. When Lockwood finally confesses that he feels the plot point is weak, Kubrick listens. Kubrick sends Lockwood home with some bagels and lox, telling him not to return until he has a solution.

Lockwood does indeed find a solution: what if Bowman and Poole have a private conversation in one of the ship’s pods, cutting off HAL’s ability to listen in? But unbeknownst to them, HAL can read lips. This fix is brilliant, shifting the scene from a passive overheard conversation to an active, tense exchange that places the audience squarely in HAL’s perspective.

Kubrick loves the idea, adding the genius touch of HAL lip-reading. This change turns a weak plot point into one of the film’s most suspenseful and memorable moments, making HAL’s paranoia both understandable and terrifying.

The Alien Dilemma

While Kubrick and his team manage to create stunningly realistic depictions of space travel, they struggle to figure out how to convincingly portray the aliens. Kubrick is adamant that his aliens should look realistic, not like men in rubber suits. But despite endless testing, they can’t come up with a satisfactory solution.

Ultimately, Kubrick makes the bold decision to make the aliens invisible, using the monoliths as a stand-in for their presence. Initially, the monoliths are meant to be screens onto which the aliens would project educational films for humans to watch. For example, in the script, a hominid named Moonwatcher learns how to use a bone as a weapon after watching one of these “movies.”

But as Kubrick sits in the editing bay, he begins to question this choice. Showing an educational movie to a hominid feels too on-the-nose, even goofy. Instead, Kubrick decides to concentrate on the spellbound faces of those confronting the monolith, leaving the lesson a mystery to the audience. This approach adds complexity and allows viewers to project their own interpretations onto the scene.

Negative Space and Ruthless Editing

Kubrick’s decision to withhold information and rely on the audience’s imagination reflects the concept of negative space—the idea that what’s left out of the story can be as powerful as what’s included. This principle becomes a guiding force for Kubrick as he edits the film.

Originally, 2001 is meant to begin with a 10 to 20-minute documentary prologue featuring world-renowned scientists discussing space travel. Kubrick has his producer travel the world to film these talking heads, but at the last minute, he cuts the entire prologue. His scientific advisors are outraged, fearing the audience won’t understand the complex scientific concepts without this explanation.

Kubrick’s co-writer Arthur C. Clarke also believes the prologue is essential. Clarke has written extensive voiceover narration to bridge sequences, explain the bigger picture, and fill in the narrative gaps Kubrick is creating with his ruthless editing. But Kubrick isn’t satisfied. He cuts every word of the voiceover narration, leaving the audience to figure things out on their own.

The Shocking Premiere

2001: A Space Odyssey premieres in April 1968, and the reaction is not what anyone expects. The film opens with a 20-minute sequence of apes, which leaves audiences baffled. Then, a spaceship rotates to the strains of Strauss for what seems like an eternity. There’s no dialogue until 30 minutes into the film, and the final 30 minutes—a surreal journey through a stargate—leaves viewers utterly confused. Bowman ends up in a strange space hotel, only to transform into a giant space fetus.

The studio executives are furious. Critics pan the film, calling it “monumentally unimaginative” and “a disaster.” Kubrick’s close friend and co-writer Arthur C. Clarke is heartbroken, storming out of the theater at intermission without saying a word to Kubrick.

He cut 20 minutes of footage. As for the voiceover that everyone is begging him to restore, Kubrick stuck to his guns and refused to put it back in. Such was his clout that MGM had no choice but to release the film as Kubrick wanted it.

Early reviews were not great. Ray Bradbury, the greatest science fiction writer of all time, wrote a review criticizing the film’s confusing story. His solution was that the the film should be “run through the chopper, heartlessly.”

Bradbury wasn’t alone. The leading critics of the day all pretty much hated it. Pauline Kael said “It’s a monumentally unimaginative movie.” John Simon said “ the direction and acting is deplorable.” Andrew Sarris said “2001 is a disaster”.

The reviews were harsh and older people just didn’t get it. But younger audiences started to flock to it. Kubrick himself never smoked a joint or dropped acid, but his audiences sure did and they found it a transforming experience.

In the end, Clarke came to love Kubrick’s vision for the film and appreciate that viewers who want to know the secrets of 2001 can always read his novel, which came out shortly after the movie was released.

2001 went on to become a massive success and one of the most influential movies of all time. It remains Kubrick’s high water mark. And for an entire generation of filmmakers that followed, 2001 became a benchmark for a new kind of cinema.