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© Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
The special effects in this movie are still amazing. The mistake, that I noticed, happens when the men in space suits descend into the excavation in the crater on the Moon, to examine the monolith that they have dug up. The Earth shines on the horizon. When they touch the monolith, and it emits a piercing sound, we see the Earth much higher in the sky. The Earth does not move in the lunar sky, let alone that fast. See the addendum, below.
Later in the movie, when Dave wants to get back into the space ship, and HAL won't let him, Dave does a small space walk (tumble) without a space suit. Many people think that this was a mistake, that an unprotected human body would explode in a vacuum, as seen in many other SF movies. Not so. The human body does fairly well in a vacuum. There are dangers (the bends) and discomforts (tears evaporating). But as long as the exposure to vacuum is brief, there is little problem.
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2001 was released in 1968. That year, Planet of the Apes won the Academy Award for makeup, for the ape makeup. 2001 wasn't nominated for its ape makeup. People have guessed that the reason for this is that many of the Academy may have thought that the apes in 2001 were real apes.
Back when I originally saw 2001, I guessed why HAL went crazy. I was rather proud of my guess. And it was eventually verified in the movie, 2010. HAL kept bragging that no HAL 9000 computer had ever distorted any information. And yet, it was obvious that HAL was lying to the crew members, and had been ordered to lie. The crew members were not told that there was something related to extraterrestrial intelligence, that they were being sent to investigate. As a computer, HAL always followed orders. And it was against HAL's nature to follow this particular order, and lie. It was an unresolvable conflict, and he went crazy.
I had no clue what was going on in the psychedelic last part of the movie. Apparently Dave was somehow transformed into the next stage in the evolution of human life, and became the "star child" baby that we see at the end. I don't think that was very clear in the movie.
In the book, 2001, the mission was supposed to go to Saturn, to the odd moon Iapetus in fact. In the book, The Making of 2001, we find that the people who made the movie chose to go to Jupiter instead, because they couldn't build a convincing model of Saturn. About the same time, the movie Silent Running had a wonderful model of Saturn.
Addendum:
I just watched 2001 again today. Very good, amazing realism and attention to detail. But the flaw that I noticed above, is part of a string of multiple mistakes or carelessness in the movie:
In the "dawn of man" sequence, the apes discover the monolith (which is about to change the apes into humans, by making them killers) in the morning, with the Sun right on the horizon. When they touch it, we see the Sun, Moon, and monolith line up, and we are looking almost straight up. The Sun is not straight up yet. Either they goofed, or this whole event is intentionally strange and symbolic.
The base on the Moon is in the huge crater Clavius, which is very far south. The scientists then travel to the monolith in what later is described as "a small crater near Tycho." During this trip, we see a map which seems to show the coordinates 10 degrees west and 44 degrees south (there is glare obscuring the 44 degrees). This is a small unnamed crater just within the rim of Tycho. Tycho is about 300 miles almost directly north of Clavius. If they travelled in a straight line (as I assume they would) from Clavius to Tycho, they would be travelling at a slight angle to the Earth. In the movie they do this, but the angle changes, and at one point they seem to be travelling straight east. Maybe they had their reasons.
During the above trip, some of the images of the Earth appear to be backward. Sometimes the Sun illuminates the Earth from the left, sometimes from the right. As we look at the Earth, the Sun is at an angle behind us. We witness two landings (of vehicles) on the Moon (one was earlier). Both times the dust swirls in a turbulent clouds. In a vacuum, dust goes in straight lines and parabolas, like sand would on Earth.
When the men in space suits enter the excavation around the monolith on the Moon, the Earth is right above the horizon. It is too low, in my opinion, for the crater to be near Tycho. When they are having their photo taken with the monolith, it begins to screech, and we see the Sun, Earth (judging by its size relative to the Sun), and monolith lined up similar to the earlier line up. We are again looking up high into the sky; the Sun and Earth have moved dramatically from where they were just a moment ago. Again, this may have been done intentionally, just because it is satisfying to have a planetary alignment be part of a dramatic event.
Also, they found that the monolith beamed a "radio" signal to Jupiter. That is why they sent the mission to Jupiter. I think they would have to be very lucky to tell where a radio signal was sent.
Of course these mistakes are minor. But they amaze me, because of the great attention to detail otherwise. An example is the amazing docking of the space liner with the space station, done to the Blue Danube Waltz.
The psychedelic light show at the end now makes much more sense to me. I think it represented this sequence of events: (1) Dave approaches the monolith in space, and it lines up with Jupiter and the distant Sun. (2) Dave travels a huge distance at warp speeds, maybe not through real space. He may also be seeing dramatically sped up astronomical events. (3) He arrives at a vividly colored planet, and we see a lot of its surface from the air. (4) Dave lands in an elegant house, where he grows old (maybe very rapidly). (5) We see the star embryo (supposedly Dave has become this soon to be born child, as the next step in human evolution).