Comparing Today to 2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 Movie Wasn’t Far From Accurate in Predicting Future
Nov 1, 2009
The dominant technology in use today compared to that found in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is the cell phone. When character Hayward Floyd phones home from space, he’s able to see his daughter on a video screen, but since his wife isn’t around, Floyd tells his daughter that he’ll call back the next day. Obviously, his wife doesn’t carry a cell phone, if one even existed in the minds of the movie’s creators, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
There is one bit of technology that exists today, which probably fantastical in 1968. On the craft that takes Floyd to the moon for a meeting, TV screens play movies in the back of the passengers’ seats. Those video screens are still pretty novel, being found mainly on Jet Blue airplanes and overseas flights.
High-Tech Security and Handheld Photography
High-tech security in the movie included voiceprint recognition to enter a secure area, a technology not widely used in the new millennium. Fingerprint recognition is more widely used today.
Handheld photography in Kubrick’s flick is primitive compared to today’s technology. While the operator was able to point and shoot without a flash, the devices shown in the movie were much larger than what is used in 2009. The camera used on the moon to photograph the iconic monolith of the movie was about the size of a milk carton and had to be rotated after every shot.
A computer-generated chess game in 2001: A Space Odyssey looked like the two-dimensional version popular in the 1980s. In 1968, the idea of playing chess with a computer was quite novel, but by today’s standards, the movie version was quite rudimentary, compared to contemporary 3-D interactive versions available.
Computers Today Have Nothing on HAL
Still, while the technology in everyday use in the new millennium is slightly ahead of what the movie predicted, the development of a “conscious entity” computer like HAL hasn’t been developed yet (that anyone knows of), and if space travel to Jupiter or Saturn is even possible, such a mission is far in the future. Plus, putting human bodies in suspended animation has not yet been perfected, or accepted, yet.
In the 1960s, the new millennium seemed light-years away. After all, in the 40 years before Kubrick’s movie was made, technological advances were massive, from Kitty-Hawk to the moon landing. Estimates for future advances in space travel were likely exponential. In reality, instead of being used to explore space, more dollars and brain power have been poured into making technology faster, smaller, and more affordable than in exploring worlds beyond our own.
