OK i'm just out of 3 hours classe on the movie 2001, space Odysse. My teacher was explaining some interresting theory about HAL and the movie ... so I was thinking putting here some of my note who I think is applicable in Eclipse Phase don't forget it's not something interresting in rule term but more in a narrative way for constructing a game This is an analyse so it can be a mater of author's subjectivity. Anyway go see the movie !!! first : The Monolith The Monolith is metaphore for a cinema screen, the proportion of this thing is 1x4x9 exactly like the photographic film (Super Panavision 70 mm). The movie is divied in 3 part. the first one with the great monkey but before the first image it had a 3 minutes music of Ligeti and a total black screen, the second one is in the middle of the movie just after the intermination title with the music of Ligeti and the 3 minutes black screen ... and the last one (this one is a bitch one) after the end credits always with the 3 minutes screen and music ... this seem stupide maybe but the monolith always appear with this music the only time we saw the full balck screen in the narrativity is when a travelling (camera moving) put the monolith in the screen when Bowman watch it at the end before he becomes the cosmic foetus this 3 Monlith like black screen seems to be a message from kubrick to is public. In the some interview Kubrick said that is movie was a philosical view of the humanity. So with this information we can assume that : the Monolith black screen of the beginning is when the spectator look at the first time of the monolith, Dah ! easy one. the second one (at the intermission) it's when HAL become to paranoïd, when it become "human". The grat Monkey Moon-Watcher look at the first time at the monolith and become aware of a tool, a tool it will use to kill. He become aware of death, he become human. In the same way it's when HAL (a tool) kill for the first time, it/he become aware of the death and of is possible death The third one is at the end completly of the movie when the spectator is after the movie and use is memory to go in the past like Moon-Watcher and HAL before him. At the beginnig Moon-Watcher watch the monolith and it disapear later at this moment the great monkey search for the monolith he projected himself in the past with is memory at this moment he see the bone and project himself in the futur killing a beast. In the same way the paranoïa of HAL will project him in the futur, the futur of is possible death second: Tool Ok this one is easy, when Moon-Watcher drop the bone in the air, it become a satellite. The killing tool become a satellite with a nuclear weapon in it (this one is in the book). This modification said : we have satellite but at the end we are monkey with a bone Habitat and vessel are a double sens all the time, yep sexuality !!! the easy on is the double torus (egg) and the ship (sperm) with the "danube bleu" valse and I stop talking of that all the tool (ship and habitat) have bone color and skeletal strucure direct reference at the beginnig third : the death at the beginning of the movie nobody, no personnages have subjectif shot (first person shooter style) but HAL have some before he die. In cinema the subjectif shot is use to create the identification to the person. But Why indetify our self to a computer ? The idea is simple, if we identify our self at an computer we give him our emotion (our soul) and in the same way we won the inanimated life of HAL (note : all the human in the Odysse are like robot who do all they are ask whitout asking question). So HAL is human and the passenger ar not but Bowman won the human title when he "kill" HAL, one of is peer, a intelligent behing. And at the end it is in dying that Bowman become the cosmic foetus Fourth : a last word on HAL the logic loophole that HAL do is a catch 22 from a short story with the same title HAL have a god like vue of the ship ... exactly like a camera (or the image in the screen of a cinema) the image of HAL, a camera in a rectangular frame, is a little funny at my sense. The rectangular frame have the same dimension of the monolith by the way fifth : the look at the end when Bowman is growing older in a look (in french we have a phrase : veillir a vue d'oeil, I translate with my best english like that : growing old with the look of an eye). This scene is in shot reverse-shot, so we see Bowman in subjective view of the monolith and the monolith in a subjective view of Bowman, up another time to Bowman but this time he died and becomes (evolves) in the cosmic foetus the scene skip and we see the foetus looking at earth, and the last thing the foetus watch is the spectator in the room so I hope it gives you some idea or juste funny thing to say in a geek party, in all case i'm sorru for my poor english and i hope you understand me I give all the credit to my teacher Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan (who rote an article in the "cahier du cinéma" of last month on th quebecer cinema) so if you use some of this text please say it's name