Quote:
Originally Posted by Startrek
I absolutely love this movie but .......
One of many many technical faults in the movie
“Sound does not transmit in the vacuum of Space” so why are the astronauts trying to block their ears when standing near the monolith ?? Or is the alien monolith transmitting some spurious quelch signal in their communications headsets ?
Yeh I know it’s Science Fiction.....
Stanley Kubrick always leaves you wondering, pondering , guessing
Brilliant man !!
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Hi Martin,
It's coming through their radio headsets.
When HAL is being shutdown, Bowman is startled by a voice that
says, "Good day gentlemen".
A pre-recorded video by Heywood Floyd has been triggered.
He explains that for security reasons, it has only been known by HAL.
(We as the audience then realise HAL had been programmed to lie,
which is the possible reason for his breakdown)
Floyd explains that the first evidence of intelligent life off the Earth
has been discovered, buried on the Moon.
The last words spoken in the film are :-
"Except for a single, very powerful radio emission aimed at Jupiter,
the four-million year old black monolith has remained completely inert,
its origin and purpose - still a total mystery."
So the monolith has triggered a radio alarm once it was exposed to the
light of the Sun, which is telling the beings that built it that we are on
our way.
Kubrick knew full-well there is no sound in space and he uses that
to powerful effect several times in the film.
There is the wonderful juxtaposition of the sounds within the pod -
the pinging of the radar, the chimes and alarms of the onboard avionics
and the whooshing of the air circulation system inside, to the
absolutely silent exterior shots of the pod coming directly toward
the camera.
When we see the exterior shot of Bowman retrieving Frank's body with
the pod's arms, it is poignantly silent.
On the EVA's when we hear the astronauts breathing to retrieve and put
back the supposedly faulty AE-35 unit, it is the sound within the suits.
The most magnificent juxtaposition is the sounds of the various stages of
alarms when Bowman arms the explosive bolts. The exterior shot
from within the airlock shows the blast and his human cannonball
entry, sans-helmet. When he reaches for the latch and closes the door,
the sound of air comes rushing back.