Mr Kubrick's masterpiece, in retrospect.
A Question of Guilt
Everyone knows that 2001 is a film about a computer that goes mad and turns on the astronauts unfortunate enough to be confined in their spacecraft with it. To this day, that is the gist of virtually all published reviews of 2001. It never convinced me as an explanation of what I saw, however, right from the start. In this page I tell it the way I have always seen it, shedding rather a different light on Hal's actions.
Incidentally, about that name. Throughout all the Odyssey books (ignoring anything that appears on the dust jackets), the name is Hal. Universal wisdom seems to have it fixed as HAL. However, Hal is not a true acronym; HAL would be correct only if it represented the initial letters of three words. If you are not sure what Hal does in fact stand for, keep on reading this page!
![]() | Hal's motivation | ![]() | The World Tonight | ![]() | In service | ![]() | Redundancy |
![]() | A mission to succeed | ![]() | A purpose in life | ![]() | Continuing dialogues | ![]() | In a spin |
![]() | Puppet theatre | ![]() | Reassessment |
Hal and those pesky human beings.
The usual starting point for analysing 2001 and the actions of Hal is the point of view of the human participants. For a change, let's consider how it all appeared to Hal. What motivates Hal? What explains his actions? This immediately allows us to break away from the usual views of 2001.
It must be intensely frustrating for Hal to communicate with human beings. Whoops! Dug myself a hole already. Of course, Hal does not get frustrated over anything. What I mean is... well, keep reading and I think you will see what I mean.
Hal's whole being is built around the ability to communicate at electrical energy speeds. There is never a moment when Hal is not observing all aspects of Discovery. We might think of Hal checking a distant sensor reading as composing a request, identifying a location, transmitting the request, and receiving and processing the response.
For Hal, though, it is an action that takes no effort and occurs instantaneously. What is more, the response can always be relied upon to be accurate. The fact that millions of such operations occur every second is hard to grasp on a human scale, but perfectly normal for Hal (instantaneous for Hal means something quite different from what it means for Dave or Frank, a remark that has some significance for what follows a little later).
Come on, Dave! Time to plug yourself in.
None of this is so with people. Hal, for all his sophistication, has no means of connecting directly to the two active human beings on board Discovery. The entire complement of the spacecraft, including the three hibernating astronauts, is directly accessible to Hal, with just those two prominent exceptions - Dave and Frank.
With a direct connection, Hal knows "yes" or "no" at all times. With a conscious human being, even - or perhaps especially - with a brain numbed by weeks of incident- free space travel, "yes" or "no" have little meaning. Hal has to plan every word and deliver his messages at a speed that must seem snail- paced. The responses are equally slow, and how is Hal to evaluate their truth or otherwise? What if Dave was to lapse into a sarcastic or absent- minded mode of response?
In the time taken from starting the whole process to finally reaching a valid conclusion, Hal could have checked all his other circuits many times over. This investment of time and energy is out of all proportion to his other functions, and most of the time Dave and Frank have no significance at all for the success of the mission, whereas every other function is directly related to Hal's ability to function correctly.
Have a think about what might have been going through Hal's "mind". How come everything else is neatly linked up, but those two characters are wandering around the place apparently doing nothing particularly useful? They run around the wheel to keep fit, keep their sun- tans in good shape (whatever for? Oh - ultra violet, and all that), play games, make sketches and watch tele. Excuse me! Some of us have work to do! Another thought to keep in mind.
Stroll on, Mr Amer...
How is all this dealt with in the film? As viewers, although seeing Discovery from the inside, we have to join the earth- bound market for Martin Amer's interview to gain our introduction to Hal (on "BBC-12" - "the other" visual joke, apart from those toilet instructions, which was certainly appreciated by London movie- goers, though probably lost on audiences outside the UK. In 1998, the BBC still only runs two national television channels!).
Our initial knowledge of Hal is no more and no less than that of millions of people back home.
This scene, as much as any, gives us Kubrick at his most skilful (don't they all?). We are all familiar with those TV interviews and "current affairs" shows that succeed in making the significant seem trivial. That music! Was it "found", or was it an extra little piece of soundtrack that Kubrick had specially written? Either way, it is a lovely little pastiche of all those jingly this- is- serious- but- we're- going- to- entertain- you- with- it signature tunes. Why has it never appeared on any soundtrack recording of 2001? It IS part of the soundtrack!
The broadcast is introduced by an anchor man, who hands over to Martin Amer. The Beeb in 2001 is obviously as strapped for cash as it was in 1968, because Amer gives us a classic get- the- questions- in- but- remember- what- this- is- costing- us q&a session.
This interview, keep in mind, was a cut- and- paste job, setting a new record for the distance between interviewer and subject. Amer would have been filmed asking his questions one after the other, and doing the nodding head bits in between. Dave, Frank and Hal would have been working from a list of questions, and similarly delivering all their answers together. The studio techos would then have cut and shuffled the questions with (hopefully) the appropriate answers for the broadcast we saw. Dave and Frank were seeing the final result for the first time with us and the rest of the planet.
The edits, inevitably, gave us a very familiar style of interview. Here is one of the great moments in human development, and the knowledge for earth ends up pretty much like a story about a shonky car salesman or a hospital waiting list. Amer probably handed straight back to the anchor man to set up an interview with a consumer disappointed with their latest kitchen appliance, with a well- practised swivel in the chair and an instant change of expression to establish a new mood. (By the way, Martin Amer's studio backdrop features a galaxy that looks suspiciously like the one that appeared in the 2001 production announcement I mentioned in the "Spectacle" page, though I think it is reversed left to right).
Yet, for all its triviality, Kubrick gives us information via Amer that guides us through many of the story's subtleties. Straight away, we are invited to consider whether Hal is boasting about the perfect record of the 9000 series computers. Is Hal capable of having emotional responses? Dave and Frank seem to agree that, yes, he is, but Martin Amer was clearly not inviting a metaphysical debate about artificial intelligence! Not in the Beeb's time, at any rate. He has ratings to worry about (hang on - when did the BBC ever worry about ratings?). The response is tailored for the interview. As Dave says, Hal is programmed that way to make it easier for him to interact with humans.
How might this discussion have gone, if Amer had been working for the Discovery channel? (Like that one, do you?) What we have is an opening into the whole question of sentience among artificial beings. A common reaction to 2001, and Hal, seems to be traceable to a literal reading of Dave's answer. The implication is that Hal, by expressing pride, has human characteristics and emotions churning away deep inside that complex mind. I suggest that this was a little teaser set by Clarke to get us thinking early on, but the film then proceeded to give us the opportunity to make up our own minds about Hal and sentience.
This unfolding evidence is what I concentrate on in this discourse. I maintain that reading "feelings" into Hal's actions leads to a distorted view of what we are actually seeing, and an unnecessary confusion between two different concepts - sentience and emotion. Sentient, sure - Hal is definitely that. He perceives, considers and acts accordingly. As you read on, you will see that the basis for the arguments I make is his creative invention of a completely new test for mission elements that he is responsible for, but is otherwise unable to evaluate.
I have been chastised for falling into my own trap - being anthropomorphic about Hal - but I make no claim to be applying scientific rigour, I am looking at it more from the angle of the interrelationships between Hal, Dave and Frank. It's one perspective, out of many potential ones, that has been noticeably absent from commentaries about 2001.
In the meantime, we see evidence of Hal's "programming".
Hal plays a game!
Hal engages Frank in a game of chess (and wins - no doubt Hal's programming would have ensured an acceptable number of wins for Frank). This game probably required single-minded concentration for Frank, but for Hal would have been little more than a slight engagement of a few circuits specially designed for that purpose, while all his other circuits remained fully operational.
Did Hal cheat to win? In my Viewpoints pages, you will find some correspondence about Hal's chess playing abilities: "Hal's explanation of the winning line of play is flawed", writes Clay Waldrop, Jr. "He should have said "Queen to Bishop SIX", not three."
Clay goes on to muse on why Kubrick, a known chess player himself, would have made such a mistake. Was it a plain old error? Was it a subtle message, that all was not well with Hal even at that stage of the journey? As Clay points out, if Hal was programmed to play chess he could not have accidentally called an incorrect move. Hal, indeed, rates himself "very well" as a player when inviting Floyd to take him on in 2010.
Some opinions have already been expressed by people, mostly siding with the tempting idea of Kubrick giving a signal, for those perceptive enough to pick it up, of Hal's pending behaviour. My view? For what it's worth, I take note of Frank's close concentration on the moves. He was intent on the game, and even if he was less than an expert player I can't help thinking that he would have noticed Hal misciting a move, especially as it lost Frank the game. That alone makes me feel the slip was a plain old error, along with those other ones like the spacepod remaining fixed to Discovery's side after the hatch blew off (and where did the hatch itself go?). Emotionally, though, the idea of Kubrick slipping in that oh- so- subtle hint of things to come is wonderful.
The chess scene has always seemed to be little more than a way of filling us in on the thus- far uneventful journey to Jupiter and the developing relationship between Hal, Dave and Frank, such a key factor in the film. Clay has set me thinking, though, and I have started to believe the chess game is a metaphor for something altogether more significant that runs right through, not only 2001, but 2010 as well. See what you think of the comments I make further on down, under the "Reassessment" heading.
Hal is an art critic!
Hal shows interest in Dave's sketches.
Hal plans a conversation.
Come on, though. Hal can have no reason to be interested in how Dave whiles away the journey. Humans get bored. Hal doesn't. The sketches are merely a convenient opening for a dialogue Hal has been planning for some time (as discussed below).
Hal tries being afraid!
Later, in the famous disconnection scene, Hal gives "being afraid" a go.
Look, no hands.
How else was Hal going to defend himself against effective "death"? Dave was out for blood (or whatever Hal has in its place). What did people expect Hal to do in response? Lurk behind a spacepod and bash Dave over the head with a handy oxygen cylinder as he came storming past? No, that would be too reminiscent of what Moonwatcher did four million years previously.
Hal's emotional appeal would probably have worked with any human being alive at the time, except Dave. I can think of no more effective means of defence for Hal. The idea that Hal was ever "afraid" in the human sense, any more than he would be capable of feeling "pride" on account of the 9000 series reputation, are notions that simply have no meaning once you accept the undeniability of Hal's non-human existence.
There is a vital point in the film at this point (though, actually, I have not got that far yet!) that I have never seen questioned before: how was Dave able to resist the appeals that fooled most cinema viewers into thinking that Hal would get away with it? Right to the last, with those plastic control modules (they were nice, weren't they? But nothing like the inner bits of any computer I have seen) slowly disengaging (so slowly that Hal seemed to be trying keep hold of them, but they were just too slippery) and Hal burbling into incoherence as his brain functions terminated, it seemed certain that Dave would call it off. When he didn't, people put his stubbornness down to his feeling cheesed off with Hal for messing him about over that AE-35 unit, bumping off Frank and not letting him back in. Not bad reasons, but there are two more that you might consider.
The "real" reason appears a little further down, but music gives me a clue to another possibility. In Alien 3, David Fincher gave us an alien driven to distraction by having to tolerate some character warbling on about "the year 2525" while it was trying to have a snooze. No wonder it got mad. Is it possible that what really got Dave riled up in the end was Hal's rendition of "Daisy"? It is not until Hal threatens to sing it that Dave says anything in that scene. If Hal had given him a rousing chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone", how could he have resisted? Try it out in your own mind with Hal's voice, to get the effect. (Editor - want to reconsider that bit about emoticons now?). Well, if William Shatner can do sing- alongs, why not Hal?
There is also another significant but, to my knowledge, completely unexplored aspect of 2001: a theme of deliberate violence that runs through the entire course of human development. This violence coincides exactly with the period of the monolith's influence. No intelligent entity is free of it. Kubrick gives us violence as a characteristic of evolution, but never lingers on it or presents it as schlock. Compare this with James Cameron's approach in Aliens! I return to this subject later in the discourse.
Dave and Frank lack a purpose.
Maybe Hal's human- interaction programming should have have been more thorough, but that takes us into a different area - it's not the way it was in 2001. The programming was done solely for the astronauts' comfort, and was never intended to help in any of the really important parts of the mission, such as making objective and effective decisions. The whole mission was based on the principle that Dave and Frank had nothing to contribute, other than nursing Discovery to its encounter point.
The only humans of any importance were the three in hibernation, whose sole contribution to the film was to die unseen. What were Dave and Frank expected to do, had the mission gone as planned? They had not received any prior information or training, as the hibernating astronauts had been. They were soon going to find themselves redundant, according to the mission controllers' own plans, or at least experiencing the unpleasant equivalent of being demoted from ship's captains to apprentice bottle- washers, while Hunter, Kaminsky and Kimball got to do all the exciting stuff.
Now I have mentioned those other names, Kubrick and Clarke gave us an impressively well- qualified cast of characters. Even wives and husbands who we don't see are apparently engaged in high- level research (if underwater research can be considered high- level). I think about the only people in 2001 who aren't "Dr"s of some description are Floyd's daughter on the Picturephone (a bit young, perhaps), and Moonwatcher (education grants hard to come by, no doubt). It wouldn't surprise me at all if the Voiceprint Identification receptionist wasn't a Phd doing vacation work. Must be grounds for discrimination there somewhere, in refusing access to space to anyone with a pathetic BA or BSc, or even lower. Could always be that, by 2001, "Doctor" has become a popular christian name, like Dave or Frank. Perhaps not.
Chess? It wouldn't keep the crew happy nowadays.
The programming, while emphasised in the scenes that allow us to experience life on board Discovery as it has been played out up until the time of our boarding, in time for the dramatic events that follow, is in fact inconsequential as far as "the whole Hal" is concerned. It is not important to any factor in Hal's operation, and was never designed to increase Hal's efficiency. It was done only to try to overcome the huge potential for human boredom in such a mission - to make life a bit more comfortable for Dave and Frank. Crew members of the Enterprise in "Star Trek - The Next Generation" have access to an entire holographic deck for exactly the same purpose.
How to insult Hal's intelligence.
To acknowledge, then, that Hal is not a human being, but talk in the next breath about Hal making mistakes, committing murder or feeling pride, is self- contradictory. It even smacks of condescension, if you think of it from Hal's perspective. There he is, doing his best to fulfil his potential by being objective about everything, and people start looking sideways at him, trying to catch him being emotional.
For example, the idea of trying to come to terms with conflicting priorities to determine a course of action is a human concept. There can be no conflict for Hal. His decisions are reached simply by comparing one state with another, and rejecting whichever state makes less logical sense. If a human reaches a decision, it might later prove to have been a "mistake". When Hal reaches the same decision, it is because, given the circumstances at the time and the likely outcomes on foreseeable future events, no other course of action makes sense. If a further decision becomes necessary later on because of some unwanted effect of the first one, then it is just another case of comparing the states that have then come to exist. There can be no emotional response, and no concept of a "wrong" being committed that later has to be "righted".
At some point, man will have to realise that his own creation - the computer - has the ability to take the lead in opening up new possibilities and concepts of the universe, and not just react to human stimuli. We may have a way to go yet before we reach that point, but no matter how much brain power one human being has they can only ever function as a single entity. An artificial intelligence has no such limitation. The combined knowledge of many human beings can be programmed into a single computer, covering the entire period of recorded history and beyond.
One day, a computer will communicate something with a profundity and originality that is beyond a human being's physical capacity to contemplate. In the film 2010, Sal (no, that's not a spelling mistake) can't stop herself blurting out a clever response to her instructor's query, before suddenly realising what she is doing and checking herself (see my 2010 page for more information). A small start, but a start nevertheless, to fulfilling my prediction.
A core tradition in science- fiction is the impact on humanity of extraterrestrial visitations. "The Day The Earth Stood Still" is a classic case, but Clarke and Kubrick give us a specific line on the subject in the speech Heywood Floyd delivers on his arrival on the moon - the "potential for cultural shock and social disorientation". I have a few more words to say on this subject in my Legacy page. However, the source of any such disorientation may lie much closer to home than any extraterrestrial. It could happen with the next generation of computers!
Hal and conspiracy theory.
Hal's entire range of experience is dictated by electro- mechanics. 2010 tries to sell us the idea of Hal being fed conflicting information - the garbage in, garbage out syndrome that still accompanies those reports about the $7,134,222.65 electricity bills (Martin Amer would have loved it) - but there is no sign at all that this should have phased Hal.
Hal is presented as a model of efficiency in his handling of mission activities. Frank doesn't even have to remember his own birthday. I see nothing in 2001 to show that Hal ever behaves in any way contrary to his mission responsibilities. Whether you agree with me here is really the key as to whether you will go along with what I write. You may indeed feel, as has been expressed to me, that Hal was fed conflicting information and did act unpredictably as a result. This has been a conventional view of events in 2001, however, and what I want to suggest is an alternative that enables us to see Hal in quite a different light.
Shape up, Dave.
Hal is absolutely right in questioning Dave's commitment to the mission. It's the closest Hal can get to querying the status of this particular part of the mission inventory. There is no implication that Hal has any opinion on whether Dave should or should not be committed, it is simply one of many factors that Hal needs to "consider" in fulfilling his purpose.
Creative uses for a communications module.
So the idea, cherished for so long by so many, that Hal made a "mistake" with the AE-35 unit has to be open to question. My own interpretation has always been that Hal deliberately used the incident as a way of probing his available courses of action in making the mission a success in his terms. Hal never actually "believed" the unit was faulty at all.
Telling fibs.
But Hal cannot "lie". Lying is another human characteristic. If the reporting of the AE-35 unit as faulty was a logically- deduced action selected by Hal to achieve a desired aim - namely, to test the status of an item with relevance to the mission (Dave/ Frank) - then whether it really was faulty or not is irrelevant (as far as Hal is concerned, regardless of what anyone else may have thought). It is just a device used for a specific purpose, as is any other test designed to verify a hypothesis. False leads are often given to elicit subjects' responses, but you would not usually expect them to lead to plots to dispatch the theorists. What is more, Hal is not bound by human morality in the first place.
Be the jury.
So where is the evidence to support my view of Hal's conduct? I point to two key events.
First is the conversation between Hal and Dave, at which point the AE-35 unit issue comes up. (In the light of subsequent events, I find it interesting that Hal chooses to raise his suspicions with Dave rather than Frank, since it is Frank who first starts to suspect the truth of what Hal is saying, as indicated below.) But what makes this dialogue even more revealing is the way Hal breaks it into two quite separate parts (though not quite so separate as they seem).
Hal practices his inquisition technique...
First, Hal, in his delicate way, interrogates Dave about his commitment to the mission.
...and interrupts himself...
Second, before Dave has a chance to query Hal's interest, Hal unexpectedly breaks off. "Just a moment...just a moment" (dead silence in the cinema. No coughing, no crinkling wrappers, not even that disembodied voice that must be built into all film soundtracks telling us what is going to happen next because they saw it last week. See my "Hal Transcripts" page for the complete text of Hal's words in both 2001 and 2010).
...both at the same time.
To suggest that two such significant issues should, by chance, surface in one and the same dialogue would be to suggest a coincidence of unthinkable proportions, especially given Hal's accelerated consciousness. That is, unless you believe, as I have always done, that Hal had "planned" the entire conversation, including the "revelation" about the AE-35 unit. There was never anything wrong with the unit, and Hal knew it. (As an aside - picture a scene, never actually filmed, showing Hal quietly rehearsing the dialogue before confronting Dave with it. We don't see what Hal gets up to when he isn't talking, playing chess with people or killing them. Something must be going on in there).
And just think a moment about Hal's timing in this conversation. Hal knows that, as soon as Dave has had a moment to think about those rather strange opening questions, he will want to know more about what prompted them. Sure enough, the instant that Dave responds with a question, Hal cuts him off. "Just a moment...just a moment" leaves no room for Dave to ever get back to the starting point.
Think back to my comment about what "instantaneous" means, depending on whether you are a person or a computer. Hal's "moment" is perfectly timed to be just that - a moment - to Dave! To Hal, it would be the equivalent of having an afternoon snooze. Watch the scene again, to see what I mean. That pause is too carefully considered to be accidental for something as methodical as Hal! If the AE-35 unit was a real accident or a genuine mistake, the conversation could never have happened like this.
What is the background to the dialogue?
A real conspiracy looms.
At this point, Hal has no reason to suspect what would shortly become a conspiracy between Dave and Frank to pull the plug on Hal, and they have no reason to suspect that Hal was talking to them in anything but the objective terms they had assumed would always be the only way Hal could communicate.
But Hal has no other way to exist, other than to be "conscious" of his "responsibilities" to the mission. (That's a human way of expressing the idea, but is not intended to suggest that Hal has any human concept of consciousness). This gives him no option other than to devise ways of monitoring the status of every mission element. He knows that Dave and Frank are involved, but communication with them does not work the way it does with everything else. How, then, can Hal tell what is going on with them?
Consequently, Hal is entirely justified in creating scenarios to test Dave and Frank. If there is any potential for them to obstruct or jeopardise the mission, or if they should prove to be an unreasonable drain on resources that could be better used, Hal must know about it and have a means of preventing it.
Remember, as human beings, we give great importance to Dave and Frank. But from Hal's point of view Dave and Frank are no more important to the mission than the AE-35 unit itself, or the spacepod that Hal discards as soon as it has fulfilled its purpose.
Hal sets an ambush.
Given this, there is no problem in explaining away the two parts of the AE-35 unit conversation as "coincidental". In fact, they are both essential parts of Hal's "test". What better way to check out Dave and Frank than to do a bit of probing, sow a little confusion and set them a difficult task? The AE-35 unit was no accidental choice. Dave and Frank could only deal with it by one or other of them leaving Discovery.
It was, in fact, as challenging a task, and therefore the most appropriate test, that Hal could devise. By the same token, it was a test entirely consistent with the intentions of Hal's creators.
What were those intentions? We know that Hal was constructed for the express purpose of controlling all aspects of the Discovery mission, but Hal's designers must have worked to a more specific set of guidelines than that.
Logical intuition
The biggest clue lies in the name itself. HAL is generally recognised as an acronym, but the meaning is less widely known (the most frequently asked question put to me: "what does HAL stand for?"). Something to do with artificial life- forms is a common guess. The acronym, in fact, comes not from three words but from two out of four: Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.
I assume it was Clarke who came up with the name (it's in the book, so it is his copyright), and it is a clever little piece of work that probably took him ages to perfect. Look the words up. I am using the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, but any dictionary will have similar entries.
Heuristic
1 | serving to find out; furthering investigation. |
2 | (of a teaching method) encouraging the student to discover for himself. |
3 | Maths (of a method of solving problems) one for which no algorithm exists and which therefore depends on inductive reasoning from past experience of similar problems. |
4 | a discovery procedure. |
An effective procedure for solving a particular mathematical problem in a finite number of steps. |
Which is exactly what I suggest he did in 2001. Hal, indeed, performed in accordance with all the expectations of his creators. They could not possibly have foreseen all the problems that may or may not have faced Hal on that long voyage into the unknown, but they could and did prepare him for any eventuality short of physical destruction.
So I ask whether it is reasonable to conclude that Hal was unable to resolve conflicting information without making errors? The whole point is that Hal was constructed to deal with exactly these situations. If Hal had been nothing more than an overgrown desktop computer, he may well have had problems dealing with the unexpected or illogical (but even then his response would have been to freeze or deliver no response at all, or respond in a way that was obviously nonsensical, rather than do something devious. If my ThinkPad did something along the lines of Hal instead of just locking up on me, I would be delighted). But Hal was given the ability to invent solutions. Isn't that exactly what he did?
The "discovery" part of heuristic is also an interesting word, given the name of the Jupiter spaceship. "HAL", in fact, is even cleverer than indicated above. As many people have remarked, you only need to shift each of the three letters one place down the alphabet to turn the name into a familiar real- world corporate acronym...
Einstein gets in the way
Think of the scale of 2001. In human terms, Discovery is a remote and distant object from Earth. We see on- board communications between the two, but Kubrick did not labour the obvious fact that Dave and Frank had no such thing as the ability to converse in real- time with anyone back home. Martin Amer's interview, Frank's birthday greetings and all other communications had to be transmitted long before they were actually seen.
In fact, in BBC-12's "World Tonight", we learn that communication between Earth and Discovery takes 7 minutes each way, at that particular point in the mission - it could only get longer as the Earth receded. (We also learn that the delay has been edited out of Amer's interview, but I think we could probably have worked that out for ourselves. Kirk, Picard and the rest would never have time for cosy chats with Starfleet Command about cosmic emergencies, but they have the benefit of travelling in a spaceship that makes a liar of Einstein, unlike Discovery. So much for physics, again.)
Hal was far out of the reach of anyone who might have had the ability to assist him if any demanding situation arose. He was designed and constructed with the express purpose of controlling every aspect of the mission. He had to be capable of acting independently and creatively, programmed so that there would effectively have been no such thing to Hal as an "unexpected" situation. Whatever happened, Hal was there to respond. It was unthinkable for anything to have occurred that stymied Hal and rendered him incapable of decisive action.
Thinking of those creators again, as a little aside, Hal tells us Mr Langley, his instructor, taught him to sing "Daisy", but he seems to have vanished in 2010. Did Chandra know about this? I have visions of Dr Chandra spending years preparing Hal with clinical precision, never suspecting that Langley and the lab staff spent their evenings partying with Hal. If Hal knew "Daisy", what else might he not have picked up?
Read my lips.
The second key event is the dialogue that I have given more thought to than anything else in the film. It occurred during that incident in the pod just before the intermission.
After some preamble (even this has an important point to make - keep reading), Dave points out that replacing the AE-35 unit would be the surest way of proving Hal wrong if it did not fail. Frank replies, "It would be if he knew he was wrong".
Stop right here! Frank has just come out with what may be the most important phrase in the entire film (and one that, characteristically, Kubrick allows to fall without any emphasis at all. Kubrick is the master of understatement, but only because everything he does is meticulously worked out beforehand. He has no need of amateur theatrical effects. In Aliens, we have to contend with klaxons blaring, amplified heartbeats, looks of false shock-horror on the actors' faces, red strobe lights and clouds of dry ice billowing from off camera, whenever anything profound happens. Well, almost. The most Kubrick allows us is a slight tingling of the scalp, and only for those quick enough to catch the significance of the phrase, just as he does with what may be a similar shade of meaning in the chess game.).
Frank is suspicious of Hal! In his own words, "I sense something strange about him".
The AE-35 is apparently perfectly operational. What are the options? Maybe Hal made a mistake. But remember how insistently Frank checked and re- checked Hal's infallibility? In the preamble to this very scene I have just mentioned, Dave confirms once again that no error has ever been recorded in 9000 series operations. Would Discovery really have been launched if there was even the remotest possibility of Hal failing to live up to those expectations? If anyone had entered questionable data into Hal, would they not also have run a full system test? No, if Hal is indeed infallible, the only logical conclusion is that something else is going on here...
Frank's not just a pretty face.
Dave's pause, followed by a non- committal grunt, indicate that he had not even considered this. All of Dave's experience with Hal had led him to believe that Hal could never say anything that was not the objective truth. The notion that, in this case, Hal knew all along that what he had reported was not true comes as a revelation to Dave.
What actually passed between Dave and Frank during the rest of that conversation? We never found out (though Hal knew!) Was it coincidence that Frank was the one who was shortly dispatched by Hal? (The answer, of course, must be yes - I don't think even Hal was able to control the order in which Dave and Frank exited Discovery, though I am still looking for evidence! Frank was subordinate to Dave, so maybe that meant Dave had first go.). Only by weight of opinion, which inevitably fixed on to the easiest possible explanation (that Hal made a mistake), have we come to accept that a mistake is what actually happened with Hal and the AE-35 unit. But the reality is that nothing Kubrick gave us suggests that Hal ever made a mistake. It is time for another look at this! (It certainly is, after nearly 30 years).
Here's where Dave twigged.
Is this scene really all that important? You bet! It is at this point that Dave's ability to resist Hal's most concerted efforts to stay "alive" is finally determined. This is the point I referred to earlier on. How else could Dave have resisted, other than in the knowledge that Hal's utterances could not be taken at face value? If Dave had continued taking Hal's statements literally, Hal would never have been disconnected. Human beings are constrained to respond to expressions of emotion, such as fear, but if you learn that the expression may not be genuine then the human mind is strong enough to block out the appeals. We like to think that Dave showed great resolve in blocking out Hal's appeals, but it only came about because Dave had learned this lesson from the AE-35 incident and the suspicions it had aroused in Frank.
Rotate me one more time, Hal.
There is other evidence, too, that is plain to see but has mysteriously escaped attention for all these years, yet surely proves that Hal was making no mistake (the alternative is that Hal did make a mistake with the AE-35 unit, realised it and looked for ways of getting himself out of the mess. I find that scenario even less likely than the mistake itself). The only place on Discovery where Dave thinks he might be able to hold a private conversation with Frank, away from Hal's unwavering vigilance, is inside a spacepod with voice communications switched off. There is a little pretence of wanting to discuss a transmitter problem in C- pod, as a way of concealing the true purpose of the conversation.
Now, the pods in the pod bay are lined up with their windows facing inwards, so to enter one it is necessary to ask Hal to rotate it so that the hatch is accessible. Hal is evidently programmed to translate the request into a half- rotation (on one occasion, we hear Dave asking Hal to stop the rotation, but this seems to be optional (and somewhat redundant, in fact, because Hal still takes an extra moment or two to complete the full half circle)). Having entered the pod, Dave asks for a second rotation, which Hal duly provides, to bring them back to the pod's starting position. Which means that their conversation will now take place in full view of Hal through the window.
Dave turns the communications off, and asks for another rotation. Nothing happens. Frank, true to his suspicious nature, shouts a final request in full view. It's the only animation in this scene (consider how Kubrick delivers one of his most dramatic moments, with a scene that is otherwise completely static).
Yet Hal makes no response. He wants Dave and Frank to believe that, with voice communications off, their conversation cannot be "heard". For a minute or two, we also believe this, until Kubrick, in the final moments before the intermission, makes it obvious that Hal is lip- reading. This is no mistake. It is not unpredictable behaviour. It is Hal quite deliberately following a specific course of action.
This scene provides the direction for everything else that happens in 2001. Kubrick chose a moment for the intermission that was as different from other films as everything else about 2001. Frank's death is the climax of this whole scene, yet right up to the break there is no indication that such a violent act is about to occur. Thousands of cliffhanger dramas condition us to expect a long, suspenseful build- up. Instead, Kubrick leaves us with the lip- reading scene to mull over while queuing for ice- creams, and the contorted yet harmonic strains of Ligeti's overture heralding part two leads straight in to the shock of Frank's killing - so radically different from anything that had happened before.
Devious - by design.
By my reading, Hal would, by reason of his own construction. be physically incapable of making a mistake, even if it occurred to him to try just to see what it was like (heuristically speaking, he may well have made the experiment, but algorithmically speaking he would not have succeeded).
On the contrary, he is painstakingly and unerringly testing out each part of that vital hypothesis I mentioned earlier: that under stressful conditions Dave and Frank may pose risks to the mission just as any other item on Discovery might do if it failed to operate in accordance with specifications. All Hal is doing by lip- reading is checking up on how his plan is going. He has already tried talking to them, and knows that what they tell him is likely to be very different to what they actually do, and most of the time probably irrelevant for Hal. They even try to hold secret conversations in preference to discussing things with him.
If a human being did it Hal's way, we would probably condemn them as a devious misanthrope (my best friends are misanthropes, but you can get tired of them), but once again this concept has no meaning for a non- human intelligence. Hal is ensuring his complete control over on- board activities, exactly as he is designed to do. Dave and Frank believe they are taking steps to outsmart Hal after the AE-35 unit episode, when the truth is that they are just playing some of various alternative parts that Hal has already mapped out for them.
Pulling strings.
Dave's EVA is, in fact, a rehearsal. Hal gains knowledge about the EVA procedure in action that will make it easy for him to implement the rest of his plan, should it prove necessary. He has seen all the elements in place, and knows exactly what would have to be done, and when. Whatever may or may not transpire, control of the situation is Hal's alone.
How does Hal proceed to strengthen his grip in this situation? Well, Dave and Frank quickly discover that the AE-35 unit is fine, as Hal knows they must. So what to do next? Hal thought of that a long time ago (all part of that unseen rehearsal!). He has just the right answer ready and waiting. Put the unit back to see what happens! Frank has no choice but to exit Discovery a second time. At Hal's bidding! (Unlucky for Frank that he has second go at EVA, by which time Hal has listened in to that "secret" conversation and knows that he must act to defend himself and, by his definition, the success of the mission).
It seems hard to deny that Hal knows exactly what he is doing, right from his original "conception" of this idea, and that Dave and Frank have no choice but to comply!
Hal the puppet master.
The implications of this have been fundamental to my enjoyment of the film right from my earliest viewings. Hal already controls every aspect of Discovery and the Jupiter mission. But, more than that, Hal controls every action, every movement, of his human companions. As humans, we like to think of ourselves as self- motivated entities creating and following our own destiny, and commanding machines to do our bidding. But the world inside Discovery is not the familiar world of home. What Kubrick and Clarke created for us in that closed space is a new twist on Alice Through The Looking Glass. Dave and Frank are not acting with any self motivation at all. They are nothing more than unsuspecting puppets!
Hal does some house cleaning.
In fact, it would have been very surprising if Hal had not concluded that they were superfluous to the mission. "Killing" them is an act of exactly the same proportions as decommissioning a faulty or redundant circuit on Discovery - no more or less, just because they are people and not things. Hal has no way of repairing human beings, but if they are irrelevant or obstructive he can simply take them out of the picture. If you were Hal and couldn't think of a good reason for expending all that energy on Dave and Frank, wouldn't you want to eliminate them too, and put the freed resources to better use?
If Martin Amer had been around to ask, they might have voiced a complaint about that decision, but in cold terms it was their hard luck. They were not primarily made ready, as Hal was, for the sole purpose of making a successful encounter with destiny on behalf of an entire race. Hard luck? Well, I have more to say about "injustice" in the Legacy page, and where its origins may lie.
Preparing for action.
What this interpretation of 2001 presents, as Hal's own creation and with impeccable implementation, is a plan of action that is entirely in line with his reason for existence. Hal may never have had to take the action he did in the end, but as a "computer" with operational control over the entire mission he would have been failing in his duty not to make it his business to cover all eventualities. If Dave and Frank had "passed" the test, by proving themselves capable of objectively overcoming stressful situations without resorting to actions prompted more by emotion and self- fulfilment than Hal's own single- minded desire to meet the mission criteria, Hal would have been able to overwrite the information with something more useful.
To Hal, Dave and Frank's response to his test must have seemed stereotypically human and unimaginative. Hal has told us something that is not true. The sole possible conclusion? That Hal has gone bananas. Why did it not occur to them to do a bit of hypothesising for themselves? If they had not gone into a huff over his unexpected behaviour, the encounter with the monolith may have been an epoch- making coming- together of the three highest intelligences in the known universe - man, machine and alien.
And whence come those inbuilt, self fulfilling yet also self detrimental, barely resistible emotions in the humans who populate the Clarke / Kubrick universe? Read on! The Legacy page!
In 2010, Floyd insures (so he thinks) against the possibility of Hal malfunctioning on reactivation by asking Curnow to secretly install a concealed "immobiliser", which Floyd can detonate from his snazzy red calculator. In fact, Dr Chandra saw that one coming and promptly removed the device, so it would not have worked in any case.
But Floyd in 2010, and Hal in 2001, are really thinking along the same lines. They both have an overriding objective, which is vulnerable to unpredictable behaviour by others. Their protection must be to have some means of defence, which they are prepared to exercise if the situation demands it. In 2001, Hal chose to defend himself by preemptively attacking Frank and Dave. In 2010, Floyd would have done the same thing, if it had been necessary (except that his attack would have been foiled by Chandra). Was Floyd mistaken, or neurotic, in 2010?
Take a moment to think back to that innocent- looking chess game between Hal and Frank, and the fact that it was not quite as straightforward as it appeared. Isn't the whole scenario we see played out between Hal and the humans, in both 2001 and 2010, a living chess match? Hal's entire behaviour in 2001 follows a slowly but inexorably- evolving strategy of ensuring the dominance of his own commitment to fulfilling his mission responsibilities, over any obstacles that may be raised by the unpredictable behaviour of the human participants. Hal gets away with a slip to win against Frank; Dave does not let him repeat the success on a larger scale.
Hal the great.
Hal, seen in the light of this evidence, never made any mistake. He not only fully maintained the 9000 computer series reputation of being infallible, he extended its capabilities to new levels of dealing with situations that his earth- bound builders did not foresee (though, in my estimation, they did a great job of preparing Hal to do exactly what they built him for). The idea that Hal had a "breakdown" is, as Spock might say, "not logical". All Hal ever did in 2001 was function, without fault or flaw, exactly in accordance with his whole reason for being.
Still not convinced?
The next time you watch 2001, take a mental checkpoint at that first introduction to Hal in the Martin Amer interview. From then, right through to the final scene of disconnection, listen closely to every word that passes between Hal, and Dave and Frank. Take note of every expression and shade of meaning.
Yes, Hal is expressive when you pay attention to what he is saying and the circumstances in which he says it. At times Hal is condescending and patronising; at other times probing or directive.
Wait a minute, though. Hal's intonations are always even and devoid of emotion. How can we read any meaning at all into what he says? I keep looking for visual clues and listening for vocal emphasis I have never noticed before to explain it. Each time I convince myself that Hal's voice is indeed emotionless, yet at the same time the nuances I have just mentioned are unmistakable. The secret behind this remarkable performance lies, as usual, in Kubrick's own methods. Douglas Rain, the Canadian actor who provided the voice of Hal, was asked to record Hal's lines, without having any knowledge of the dialogues in which they occurred. Hence, he had no idea of what the words "meant" in the context of the film, so could not imbue them with the stresses and emphases that would naturally occur in a conversation. They are, indeed, emotionless.
Disconnected, for being too efficient.
However it was done, there is, surely, never a point in that time when Hal is not in complete control of what is being said, and no suspicion that he ever got anything wrong. That is, up to that final moment when Dave has pieced together enough to hold out to the completion of his grim task, and seal Hal's fate for the next eight years or so.
A remaining question.
There is still one factor that I have not yet followed through in my own mind. I intend to do so, and will add the verdict here when it is done. When Dave returns with Frank's body, and finds the door locked, he asks Hal to open up, with increasing desperation. And, eventually, Hal responds! Why? Dramatically, it was the means by which Hal openly revealed his lip reading ability, but this was not an essential part of the story. We already knew about it, and there was no reason why Dave should ever have had to know. What prompted Hal to answer Dave?
The defence rests.
There it is. I have presented evidence which I believe shows Hal in a light that has never been recorded before, by looking at events on board Discovery from behind those red lenses, instead of in front of them. Hal was assigned a daunting task, and worked tirelessly (of course, since tiredness is another meaningless concept for Hal - I only use the word in the sense of the effect of Hal's actions on us as human observers) to ensure its success. In the end, success was snatched from him because his human companions, from whom knowledge of the true nature of the mission was withheld, were unable to comprehend his actions and the motivation behind them.
This leads me to another insight into what Kubrick and Clarke gave us, but you will have to read the Legacy page to find out more about this.
Perhaps, even given what I consider to be a pretty convincing case, you still cannot accept this view of 2001 and Hal. Some of you have let me know as such! That's fine. My aim has simply been to give you food for thought, and a new view of the intricacies of Kubrick's film - the one that so many people considered boring!
Postscript.
Disappointed that I have said all I had planned to say about Hal? Cheer up! I have left some of the best for last. Hal's story does not end in 2001. Nine years later, Hal's career is to blaze again, in a new light that destroys once and for all any notion of Hal being unreliable, untrustworthy or misguided. For the most provocative comment of all about Hal, read my 2010 page!
All text: Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 by Underman