(Too Busy Living might not want to read this)

HAL remains my favorite cinematic “robot”. After multiple viewings, HAL’s voice still makes my flesh crawl. His voice always seemed to be so tightly contained that you wondered if he was strangling adorable digital kittens just beneath that lens. Apparently Anthony Hopkins felt the same:

In a commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD version of The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins claims the villainous computer HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as one inspiration for his interpretation of the character.

I usually feel equally creeped out after calling Rogers or Bell. After barking orders at these bodiless vox, I feel a pang of fear that one night I am going to wake to a ringing phone, answer it, and have an Emily, or The Rogers Happy Guy inform me that the machines have taken over and that I should stay indoors until a later time when I can be collected by the Machine Overlords for harvest. I digress…

This whole post is sparked by an interesting article from Kottle.org, about why HAL sings “Bicycle Built for Two”. Not really news but if you dwelve further into the links you find all sorts of trivia regarding that once great company IBM.

When I was about 9 years old, my oldest brother brought home the soundtrack to 2001 and I was mesmerized by the cover illustration of the shuttle blasting away from the half-built wagon wheel space station. He even went out and bought a model of the needle nosed craft and displayed it proudly in his room. It’s sleek design, unlike any of the balsa wood wind up planes I was playing with back then, prompted me to steal moments of playtime with it so I could “fly” it around the house – and resulted in many beatings for the invasion of his privacy. I would scour the library for science fiction books about the movie, not really understanding the images of the Monolith or the stark white apartment, but I would linger over the Major Matt Mason-esque space suits and clean enviroments of the Moon base. All this long before actually seeing the movie. This was pre-video, kids, so when it was announced that 2001 was going to play on late night TV, I was ecstatic! I prepared. I was “good” and did all my chores. I debated to success that I was old enough to stay up past 11 on a Friday night. I got two bags of chips and a big bottle (glass!) of Coke for the event.

And promptly fell asleep during the first half due to it being on so late.

And again during the last 1/4th.

But when HAL was on screen I was enrapt with wonder. A frigging talking scary computer! (As an aside, Douglas Rain did a few computer voices for Woody Allen’s Sleeper and was tonally perfect for his revival of the character for the sequel, dispite a 16 year gap) I felt sorry for the bastard when they shut him down. He was just doing his job! With HAL’s death I have been rooting for the bad guy ever since.