The Evolution of the Star-Child

The Evolution of the Star-Child

Film both reflects and creates social culture. Indeed, a film indicates social trends, presents ideas, and analyzes history for its contemporary time period; thus, by viewing a film it becomes possible to infer and make judgments about a society's culture. The filmmaker's message is embedded within the plot and symbolism, and filmmakers often critique social culture through their movies. It is possible to view the evolution of culture through the progression of films over time.

Religious films in the pre-1968 era distinguish themselves as literal interpretations of the Old and New Testaments. America, in this era, held religion as central to everyday life. DeMille's “King of Kings” and similar movies that follow in form support this inference. Consider the context of DeMille's 1932 movies, “Sign of the Cross.” Depression and the great dustbowl were commonplace across America. The masses embraced religion and this is evident in the literal bible story films. Additionally, the righteous people in the films represented the working class people of America, and the blasphemers represented the elite minority. They were usually powerful, corrupt, and sometimes Jewish.

American culture has evolved as technology has advanced. In 1968, the paradigm of religion in film shifted with the release of Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Rebellion, social activism, drugs, sex and most importantly, technology, dominated social culture. Kubrick's film challenges all previous religious film movies, yet this epic movie contains powerful symbols that reflect the changes in social thought.

Thus far, evolution of movies and culture has been discussed. “2001: A Space Odyssey” is interesting because Kubrick realizes this concept of cultural evolution. Thus, he created his movie to embody this concept and manifest itself in man as a physical being. The underlying theme of Kubrick's movie is evolution: the progression of monkeys to humans, humans to machines (HAL), machines to the star-child. That “2001” concedes to evolution validates science and technology, while it detracts from religion. Thus, this slow paced film indicates the inevitable evolution of all things. The star-child, spurred by the monolith, represents the destiny of humans as they evolve with technology.

The monkeys loose their innocence and become corrupted when the monolith presents itself. This is because the monolith prompts the monkeys to explore ways in which odds and ends in nature may be utilized; in other words, the monkeys develop tools. The monolith is not a deity in the sense that it is a physical creator. Rather, the monolith served as the catalyst of creation that spurred evolution to take place. Yet the monolith is like the tree of knowledge because it led to the monkeys to kill, which is a sin. The monkeys look towards the bone, the remains of deceased animals, to promote violence and death. Contradiction is prevalent in this symbol for the remains of the dead are used to promote death. Yet, one-fact remains, now that technology has arrived all species must take this into account if they wish to survive; the monolith doomed mankind to technology.

In the second movement of the movie, intelligent humans contact and touch the monolith that leads to technological advancement as in the case of the monkey scenario. A crew sets off on a quest in deep space accompanied by their on-board computer, HAL. (As a side note, HAL's creation parallels the creation myth of the Old Testament. Man was created in God's image and HAL was designed with all dimensions of man without physically representing a man.) HAL is like the bone weapon of the monkey population, just significantly more complex. Also, HAL is composed of small rectangular compartments similar to the monolith. Because the monolith stimulates change, HAL is also capable of significantly manipulating