2001: A Space Odyssey: Revisited|Movies|Forum|Forum: Apocalypse & Armageddon

  So I ended up working on this piece about "2001: A Space Odyssey" for some folks who said they "Didn't 'get'  Stanley Kubrick."   Well, this was my take  on a movie I think affected a lot of us back in its time, which is when we have to try and understand it,  before we had actually put a man on the Moon and space travel was itself a "character" in the movie.  And yes, I still have my original FEPU "Film student Educational Version" from 1982 described below.

You might want to read through the whole piece once before you go back and play the YouTube music links with the second reading.
 
  2001: REVISITED
 
   To go back and shine a little light upon what I was doing in 1982 when I made my Pink Floyd audio dubbed Music Video version of Arthur C. Clarke's/Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey"  in case it is ever dug up and watched and listened to again.
 
 By the way:  I have to interupt here because of all these YouTube and Wikipedia Corporate Blocks for alleged  "Copy" right infringement.  I've had to replace some YouTube links.  My Audio Dubbing "Film Student Demo" is FEPU: For Educational or Personal Use Only which are clauses  in the Copyright Law allowing for both Educational reproduction and Personal reproduction of "Copy."  The term "Copy" in Copy-right is a noun  meaning "Legal Fiction Text,"  in the case of "Video (which is not actual text/copy)," and not a verb  meaning to "Reproduce," as the Entertainment Industry wants you to believe (re: "The Nature of Copyright: A Law Of Users' Rights;" University of Georgia Press).  So anybody can have a FEPU reproduction of this video if they ever find it.  This is important because We should not even be saying "Copy" right; We should be saying "Text-right."  When some Corporation blocks  a "Legal Fiction Text" video from YouTube, on pretense of "copy-right" infringement, they are actually violating  "Personal reproduction Use" and philosophically "Educational reproduction Use" for "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts…" Among The People; and then the Corporate Jack-asses are shooting themselves in the Greedy-little-foot from Free "Word of Mouth" advertising  (see my post elsewhere on this Site on "Copy" right). 

   "Text-right" was established in the very first Article I (not amendment), Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution as the original Freedom of Speech  and Freedom of the Press  statements and Protection for Authors, Granted by The People,  from the traditional Piracy (theft)  by Publishers, Corporations and Governments (British,  remember there had just been a Revolution over these rights) from stealing their "Text/copy-right."  It is for that Statute Protection extended by The People  that Authors have an Obigation to allow The People "Personal reproduction Use (and this includes computer back-up software)" and "Educational reproduction Use" for "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts…(Article I, Section 8)" Among The People.   For without The People's Statute,  Author's have No Protection  from theft by Publishers, Corporations and Governments (suppressions of Freedom of Speach and the Press) who had been the original "Text-right" Pirates, and are the same ones making all the fuss attempting to get back in on the Theft of Profits and Freedoms game today and want you to think the word "Copy (the Text)" in copyright means exclusive reproduction.  God did not give "copy" right to Authors, Publishers, Corporations or Governments!

…back to story… 
 
  You have to remember that MTV had just been launched in August of 1981 and the "music video" 3 minute single format really wasn't a consideration for me at the time.
  However I was hanging out in Southern Cal with some friends who liked to Trip and Discuss the "Meaning of Life" and all that kind of stuff.
  An ex-Marine Pal, and My Best Man when Dawn and I got married, then in Film School, came to visit and so I dreamed up this "Version" of "2001: A Space Odyssey" that would allow me to show the, for it's time, excellent science-fiction cinematography, set to music that was a whole heck of a lot more fun to watch it with than the original, somewhat mundane, Cinerama travelogue sounding soundtrack.
  I took a VHS tape of the movie and transferred it to Scott's Betamax video tape machine, and then took that and transferred it back to my ancient Mono Hi-Fi VHS top loader, and after having picked the music pieces that matched the action, both musically and lyrically and recorded them from vinyl LPs (albums) to cassette tapes in a twin deck Boom Box, I stopwatch timed out and Audio Dubbed the Boom Box cassettes onto the my ancient 50 lbs. video tape machine.  The only remote the VHS deck had was a little box with a "Pause" on/off switch with an actual wire that you had to plug into the front of the VHS panel, and "Pause" was its only remote function.
  Since making this and copies of it getting around and being shown in Southern Cal, over in Japan when I was there 1983 – 1984, and then Scott using it and some other audio dubbings I did (e.g. "Le Mans") as Teaching Aids, when he was a Teaching Assistant at the University of Maryland's Film, Television and Radio Department, so students could better get an idea how to create soundtracks; over the years it has got back to me in a statement form, "Did You know you can take Pink Floyd's album 'Dark Side of the Moon' and start it as you start the movie of '2001: A Space Odyssey' and it is just like Pink Floyd wrote the music for the movie."
 
  Well, no it's not!
 
  Because I experimented with "Dark Side of the Moon" and a number of other combinations as at the time I did this project, really just for Scott and me, I had a collection of over 200 LPs.
  The main audio dubbing soundtrack came from Pink Floyd's album "Wish You Were Here" which music matched the action, but lyrics really went well with this movie about "Doctor Floyd" and his cover-up of indisputable proof of intelligent life off of planet Earth, probably Extraterrestrial,  with the finding of the Monolithic "Sentinel  (Arthur C. Clarke's title for the original short story)" beacon on the Moon.
  But I also use Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, and a Jean Luc Ponty piece appropriately titled: "Cosmic Messenger."  The only "Dark Side of the Moon" piece was "Time" which fit very well with the very end of the movie.
 
  I played around with Jethro Tull's "Bungle In The Jungle" for the opening of the movie of Early Man-like creatures discovering the use of "Tools and Weapons" after a little Extraterrestrial Monolithic prodding.  But the Stupid Dancing Naked Apes were not in the "Jungle" they were in the desert.  So I let the "Dawn Of Man" sequence stand "As Is," thinking someday I may find some piece of music to put there, and just never did.
 
  So we come to the famous, often satired, scene where the ape-like creature throws his primitive tool/weapon up in the air and the movie transcends millions of years of technology and the bone turns into a nuclear powered satellite out in space to the famous tune, also often satired, of "Also Sprach Zarathustra."  A piece of music which sent many of us looking for Nietzsche's book  by the same name–we did that kind of thing in the old days, "Wonder why he picked that song with that name to use there in that movie?"
  That music had to go, and that is where I started the Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" music with the song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," because of lyrics that mentioned, "Now there's a look in your eyes, like Black Holes in the sky." 
  Since this referred to Pink Floyd original band member Syd Barret's dilated pupils when he was dropping acid (a lot of Floyd's lyrics are actually about Syd Barret's influence on Roger Waters) I thought of the pupils as "Black Holes" and the Eyes as the "Windows of the Soul"  watching this outer space scene while the Ears, which I guess are the "Headphones of the Soul," got to hear this new spacey soundtrack.  And since the underlying theme about whatever the heck it was where Syd Barret's mind had gone and others attempted to follow with their own "Electric Kool-aid Acid Tests," it would be about perfect video & music for my friends who liked to Trip and Talk about whatnot and whatever.
  And, of course, we the movie viewers were reaching for "the Moon."
 
 
 
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND: PART 1
 
Remember when you were young, You shown like the Sun
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Now there's a look in Your Eyes, like Black Holes in the Sky
Shine on You crazy Diamond
 
You were caught in the Crossfire of Childhood and Stardom
Blown on the Steel Breeze
Come on, You Target for Far away Laughter
Come on, You stranger, You legend, You martyr, and Shine
 
You Reached for the Secret too soon, You cried for the Moon
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Threatened by shadows at night, and Exposed in the Light
Shine on You crazy Diamond
 
Well, You wore out Your welcome with random precision
Rode on the Steel Breeze
Come on, You Raver, You Seer of Visions
Come on, You Painter, You Piper, You Prisoner and Shine…

 
 
Then…  After the 1st astronaut has to change out the Antenna Black Box unit after the H.A.L. Artificial Intelligence computer has gone schizophrenic with the conflicting computer instructions of "Mission First, Crew Always,"which I set to Beethoven's 7th, 2nd Movement (haunting theme from the Sean Connery movie "Zardoz," by the way); when the 2nd astronaut takes his space walk I used the song "Echoes" from Pink Floyd's LP "Meddle."

  Here after H.A.L. caused the accident that made the other astronaut race out to save him in his space pod, but without his air helmet, I thought these lyrics were interesting about how some primitive lifeform crawled out of the ancient ocean waves towards the light and began the land-living chain of life that now is You that is an unbroken stream of progeny, that could never have been interrupted or else you would not be here reading this.  Strange thoughts that might be flashing, along with your life before your eyes, through the astronaut's mind as he faces his own mortality at being outsmarted by H.A.L.s Artificial Intelligence, which had "Read their lips," that they might disconnect H.A.L.  And the music fit the action.
 
 
ECHOES
 
Overhead the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In Labyrinths of coral caves
The Echo of a Distant Tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and sub-marine
 
And No-one showed Us to the Land
And no-one knows the Where or Whys
But Something Stirs and Something Tries
And starts to climb towards the Light
 
Strangers Passing in the street
By Chance Two Separate glances Meet
And I am You and What I See is Me
And do I take You by the hand
And lead You through the Land
And Help Me Understand the Best I can
 
And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one Flies Around the Sun
 
Cloudless everyday You fall upon My Waking Eyes
Inviting and Inciting Me to Rise
And through the Window in The Wall
Come streaming in on Sunlight wings
A Million Bright Ambassadors of Morning
 
And no-one sings Me Lullabies
And no-one makes Me close My Eyes
And So I Throw the Windows Wide
And Call to You across the Sky

Then…  We come to the "Star Gate" scene where the astronaut, who only has a limited supply of Oxygen falls into "The Light" of the giant sister monolith floating around Jupiter.  To this Jean Luc-Ponty's "Cosmic Messenger."

 
 Actually, he is dying (limited oxygen supply/movie time compression) and going towards "The Light" and becomes the 1st astronaut to fly a space pod to Heaven, to the "Other Side," to fly right into his own Afterlife.
 
  And since Nobody seemed to pick up on this sort of "Tibetan Book of the Dead" theme, I thought the lyrics, "Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far," were fitting.  And, of course, I was piling on my own many more Layers to this just for fun project.
 
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND: PART 2
 
Nobody Knows were You are, how Near or how Far
Shine on You crazy Diamond
Pile on many more Layers, and I'll be joining You There
Shine on You crazy Diamond
 
And We'll Bask in the Shadow of Yesterday's Triumph
Sail on the Steel Breeze
Come on You boy child, You Winner and Loser
Come On You Miner for Truth and Delusion and Shine

 
Then…   The astronaut has landed at the Pearly Gates Hilton, all done up in Angelic White.  And since this Heaven was sort of a Dull place while the astronaut had to put in his "Time" before he could be Reincarnated, well, timed to the movement of his eyes to the alarm clock ringing…   
 
 TIME
 
Ticking away the Moments that make up a Dull Day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in Your Hometown
Waiting for Someone or Something to Show You the Way
 
Tired of lying in the Sunshine
Staying Home to watch the Rain
And You are young and Life is long
And there is Time to kill Today
And Then One Day You find
Ten Years have got behind You
No One told You when to Run
You missed the Starting Gun
 
And You Run, and You Run to catch up with the Sun, but It's sinking
Racing Around to Come up Behind You again
The Sun is the same in a Relative Way, But You're Older
Shorter of Breath and One Day closer to Death
 
Every Year is getting Shorter
Never seem to find the Time
Plans that either come to Naught
Or half a page of Scribbled Lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English Way
The Time is Gone
The Song is Over
Thought I'd Something More to Say…

 
 Then…from the group Kansas for the expanded finale  2001 version on My "Montage For Frying Only"  6 DVD video set with the Audio Dubbed video from PBS (miracle of life) of the boy's actual live birth…  Here the theme is Mom never knows if her child will make a difference for Mankind or not, but that Potential is always being born into Existence (Being).
 
 CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON
 
Once I rose Above the noise and confusion
Just to get a Glimpse Beyond this Illusion
I was Soaring even Higher
But I Flew too High
 
Though My Eyes could See I still was a Blind Man
Though My Mind could Think I still was a Mad Man
I Hear the Voices when I'm Dreaming
I Can Hear Them say
 
Carry On My wayward Son
There'll be Peace when You are Done
Lay You're weary head to rest
Don't You cry no more
 
Masquerading as a Man with a Reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a Wise Man, well
It surely means that I don't Know
 
On a Stormy Sea of moving Emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for Winds of Fortune
But I Hear the Voices say
 
Carry On My wayward Son
There'll be Peace when You are Done
Lay Your weary head to rest
Don't You cry no more…No!
 
Carry On You will Always Remember
Carry On, Nothing equals the Splendor
The Center Lights around Your Vanity
But surely Heaven Waits for You
 
Carry On My wayward Son
There'll be Peace when You are Done
Lay You're weary head to rest
Don't You cry
Don't You cry no more…