2001: A Space Odyssey

Stupidity: In the shuttle, when the fountain pen is floating in zero gravity, the flight attendant grabs the pen and puts it in the pocket of the sleeping passenger. She doesn't put the cap on. She puts it in his pocket nib down. Even though there is no gravity, the capillary action of the nib touching the shirt will pull the ink into his clothing and stain his shirt and jacket. (00:19:40)

luchador

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Who said it's a fountain pen? 2001 is set in an imaginary future with imaginary technology, one of which might be leak-proof pens.

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Mistakes

Revealing mistake: When we see the space station from the cockpit of the approaching shuttle, the station does not appear to rotate because the shuttle is rotating at the same speed. OK...except that the station IS still rotating with respect to the sun, which means that the light source and shadows on the station should be moving.

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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

Trivia: The little girl on the picture phone is director Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian. (00:27:50)

Larry Koehn

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Questions

Question: If Hal is supposed to be this flawless computer that never makes a mistake or gives false information why then does it tell the astronauts Frank and Dave that a system will fail when that turns out to be wrong?

Answer: This is gleaned from the Internet: The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and the specific orders requiring him to withhold the mission's true purpose from Bowman and Poole. HAL reasons that if the crew is dead, he would then not need to lie to them. He fabricates the failure of the AE-35 unit so that their deaths would appear accidental. In other words, HAL is asked to lie, and he doesn't take to it very well, to say the least. The conflict between his mission objectives backs him into a corner where he has to make some pretty big (and cold) leaps in logic in order to reconcile the paradox in his programmed orders.

raywest ★

Answer: In the sequel, "2010" it was revealed HAL was programmed with all the information about the mission to the monolith, but Frank and Dave were not. HAL was programmed not to reveal anything until the scientists were taken out of hypersleep. When Frank and Dave tried to uncover the mystery surrounding the mission, HAL was forced to lie in the only way he knew how. He was not programmed to lie.

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