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Quotes

Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

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Trivia

The Computer Science department at the Engineering School at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, have a "birthday party" for HAL every January 12th - the date & place HAL became operational in the movie. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - 42 mistakes

Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Gary Lockwood (add more)

Genres: Adventure, Sci-fi

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Continuity: For most of the sequence during which the Orion space shuttle closes in to dock with Space Station One, we see the space station rotating counterclockwise, as viewed from the side the Orion is approaching. But the first two times we see the station (immediately before and immediately after the scene in which Floyd's pen floats free aboard the Orion), it is rotating clockwise. It is also apparently rotating clockwise in the shot from inside the station, looking out at the approaching Orion. The stars in this shot are turning clockwise, implying that the station is moving anti-clockwise, hence must be rotating clockwise when observed from the Orion.

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Factual error: In the sequence of the shuttle approaching the moon the pilot talks to Dr. Floyd. Floyds food-tray moves away from his knees because of the zero gravity in the shuttle. But it doesn't drift straight away, it swings like a pendulum, so it`s obvious, that the tray hangs on a string.

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Continuity: On board the Aries Moon Shuttle is the famous scene when the Pan Am flight attendant serves a meal to Dr. Floyd and then retrieves additional meals, enters the doorway and walks 180 degrees up the wall and over to be upside down to deliver the meals to the shuttle pilots. However, from the outside view of the spacecraft, the pilots are sitting perpendicular to where the passengers sit and she should only have walked up the wall 90 degrees.

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Continuity: When Astronaut Poole goes on the EVA to retrieve the AE-35 unit from Discovery's antenna, the scene shows the Pod coming directly over the top of the sphere. However, the view from inside the Pod has it off to the side of the spaceship.

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Visible crew/equipment: In both EVA scenes, first when Dave retrieves the AE-35 Unit, and when Frank goes to re-install it, there are shots of Discovery in the background, the pod in the foreground and the astronaut floating between. And in both of these shots, the pod rotates 180 degrees. In the front window of the pod, we can see reflected images of the film set and equipment as the pod rotates.

Edit Submitted by John W Rosa
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Continuity: When Bowman attempts to rescue Poole, he enters "G-pod" which, from HAL's vantage point, is the right-most pod. But when we see a close-up of the pod's door closing, we see it is located on the center pod platform, meaning this is B-pod, not G-pod - yet B-pod is the one Poole was using and it is tumbling away in space at this time. We can also see, just barely, that all three pods are present in this same shot.

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Continuity: As Bowman enters B-pod to retrieve the AE-35 Unit, he lifts his right foot into the pod first. But as Poole is watching him do so on a monitor, Bowman lifts his left foot into the pod first.

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Continuity: Early in this chapter of the film, we see Discovery has three EVA Pods (from HAL's view, left to right they are C-pod, B-pod and G-pod). When Poole is killed, we see he was using the center pod. Bowman then goes after Poole with G-pod. This leaves behind the C-pod. Bowman gets back aboard Discovery by blowing explosive bolts to release his pod's door. After Bowman deactivates HAL, we can presume he recovers the now-damaged G-pod he ejected from. It can only be placed in either the right or center pod locations, and as we learn in 2010, it is found sitting in its original right-side location. So to leave Discovery for the last time, Bowman must use the C-pod which is on the left, yet is shown emerging from the center doorway B-pod originally launched from.

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Audio problem: When Bowman is getting ready to leave Discovery to retrieve the allegedly-faulty AE-35 Unit, he instructs HAL to "open the pod doors (plural), HAL" when he should be well aware it has only one door. He is not asking HAL to open the pod bay doors.

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Continuity: In several scenes, we are given HAL's visual perspective as if seeing through his lens. This is done with an overlayed image of the lens on whatever area is in sight of the lens. As Dave is entering HAL's memory circuit room (red lighting), one shot again suggests we are again seeing what HAL sees, but there is no HAL lens located and oriented to provide the angle we see. A lens would need to be mounted on the narrow wall directly opposite the circular doorway, yet HAL's lens in this room is mounted on the 'ceiling'.

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Continuity: When Bowman leaves Discovery to retrieve the AE-35 Unit, he asks HAL to prepare the "B Pod" and HAL powers up and rotates the middle of three pods. Later, when Bowman asks Poole to help him with a problematic transmitter in "C-pod", they go to the pod bay and enter the middle pod which must still be B-pod as no two pods have left the ship and returned to shuffle their positions.

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Continuity: When Dave begins to disconnect HAL's circuits, one angle shows him unlock the first, second, then third unit. Just as he's about to remove the key from the third lock, the angle changes and he's pulling the key from the second lock and then goes for the third again. We know this is consecutive time as HAL is pleading with Dave the entire time.

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Continuity: In the white hotel, the first transition shows a middle-aged Dave with graying hair. In the shot over middle-aged Dave's shoulder to show that the pod is gone, he has dark hair again.

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Continuity: During Heywood's meeting with Elena and Dr Smyslov, he is introduced to their colleagues, including Dr Kalinan who is the women in the olive dress/suit. When they shake hands her coat is folded neatly over her seat, but before she sits down again with the camera now facing Heywood, the coat disappears. In an earlier shot prior to the introduction, the majority of Kalinan's coat is off the seat and when she stood the first time it probably fell, suggesting the handshake sequence was re-filmed after the actual meeting.

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Factual error: The transmission from Earth says that Discovery left three weeks previously, that transmissions take seven minutes and that the journey will take the better part of a year. The speed of light is 186,282 miles/sec. In seven minutes, light travels 78,238,440 miles so the movie statement that Discovery is 80,000,000 miles away from Earth is reasonable. To cover that distance in three weeks, the speed would be around 158,000 mph. To travel half a billion miles at that speed would take a mere nineteen weeks, not the "better part of a year".

Edit Submitted by seasnj Time
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Factual error: The scene at the Tycho excavation site where the uncovered monolith emits a radio signal after being illuminated by the rising sun incorrectly shows the sun directly overhead. This would be impossible as the crater Tycho is in the moon's southern hemisphere and the sun would never rise that high during the lunar summer.

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Factual error: The spacecraft Discovery has a rotating centrifuge-room that the astronauts use to avoid the detrimental effects of prolonged weightlessness. We see the rotation when Dave first enters the room and again later when he and Frank re-enter the room after inspecting the AE-35 Unit. But by Newton's laws the torque on the centrifuge must be countered by an equal anti-torque, so the surrounding body of the ship ought to be counter-rotating to conserve angular momentum.

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Continuity: Dave only takes one utensil on his tray, later he has two.

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Revealing: When the lead ape-man is attacking and beating the rival ape-man group leader with a pig bone, the bone bends with each blow, revealing that it was made of rubber.

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Visible crew/equipment: When the astronauts are approaching the monolith on the moon, you can see the reflection of the cameraman in the visor of the first astronaut off the ramp, in the close up of him walking around the monolith. This shot was personally filmed by Stanley Kubrick and the reflection is his own.

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