knudsen@ihnss.UUCP (12/16/84)
<all these bytes are yours, except the message...> *****SPOILER WARNING! NOT A DRILL! NOT A TEST!*** I just saw 2010 tonite, having read the book this summer, and found aMAJOR plot error near the end which nobody's mentioned yet. When the RUssians and Floyd concur about getting out of there early, the questioons comes up (and is put to Chandra) whether HAL will go along with a flight plan that is suicidal for him/her/it. Both the book and film cover this. However, in the movie they decide to play it safe and LIE to HAL; only at the last moment does Chandra give it to HAL straight. The hooker: The lie consists mostly of denying the danger of hanging around Jupiter. HAL keeps asking (in the movie) "Why leave and miss this great phenomenon (growing black spot) unless there is danger here?" Chandra, under orders, keeps lying to HAL about this. But... it was HAL who received and passed on the message from the erstwhile D. Bowman in the first place! HAL was the first to know of the imminent danger! So how come these dumb humans could lie to HAL? This is ridiculous. If I recall right, the book avoids this inconsistency: the crew never consider lying to HAL, but merely question his reaction to kamikaze missions (so much for Japanese 5th-generation computers). Other than this, I thought the film was beautiful, exciting, well made, and quite true to the spirit of the book with one major exception, but that's another posting. mike k