2001 A Space Odyssey/Talk

Was it Saturn?

No, the book's conclusion was set at a moon of Saturn, but the movie was set around Jupiter.

the psychological strain on HAL causes him to sabotage the ship's antenna control system, breaking the link to Earth; HAL's behavior becomes increasingly suspicious

First, this may be interpretation; I always thought HAL to be acting quite <borg>efficient</borg>, not strained. I can't remember one thing though: Why (in its own logic) had it severed the connection? Was it only a ruse to get Bowman and Poole into a vulnerable position?

Yes, perhaps I was interpreting HAL's actions a little too much - I was partly relying on the analysis of HAL's actions given in the novel 2010. If nobody else does it, I'll review this section.

Second, the second sentence doesn't quite follow up. After the 'destruction' of the AO unit, there was no reason to be only suspicious.

--Yooden

---

There was no explanation of HAL's actions in the film. Watching 2001 and not the others and not reading Clarke's fiction, it's not immediately clear why HAL is acting the way he is. --KQ

---

Interestingly, I've heard that HAL is malfunctioning from the beginning: in the chess game, it is not nessacerily mate in three - it's mate, but he could survive for four moves. Is this the beginning of HAL's problems?

And then there's the whole IBM - HAL thing... and the product placement! :D Dave McKee

---

Wikipedia contains spoilers While it is true that HALs actions are not explained in the movie 2001, HALs actions *are* explained in [2010 a space odyssey]? (both the book, and the movie). Apparently HAL has the psyche of a young child. HAL is incapable of resolving the conflict in his orders. I somehow remeber a fragment of dialouge in 2001 about ground control explaining to Dave "We have been able to replicate the same problem in our own ground based computer...", and goes on to explain things. If someone could find a reference to this, that would be perfect! -- [Kim Bruning]?