The sound of breathing and the view in space indicates a second EVA. When we
see Bowman in the Discovery's command seat, we realize it is Frank Poole that
is performing this one. Poole, we know, is out to replace the second AE-35
unit with the original, allegedly defective one. The yellow space suited Poole
pushes himself out of the pod and floats toward the antenna complex just as
Bowman had done earlier. At the point where Poole appears to be halfway
between the pod and the antenna, the pod suddenly rotates one hundred and
eighty degrees. The arms stretch outward and it begins to move forward. Here,
we clearly see for the first time, that there is a red eye of Hal on the front
of the pod. The breathing stops abruptly and Poole and the pod are seen
spinning off in different directions. Poole frantically tries to re-attach his
severed air hose. Seconds later, Poole is no longer moving as he had failed to
fix his air supply.
Bowman has rushed to the pod bay. He asks Hal if he has a track on Poole's
location. Hal responds affirmatively. Dave then asks Hal about what happened.
Hal responds "I'm sorry Dave, I don't have enough information." Now,
Dave is in a pod in pursuit of Frank's spinning body. Assuming that Frank was
struck by the pod at nearly maximum velocity and considering that there is
nothing in outer space to slow Frank's momentum, this will be a long chase.
Dave has to use radar to follow Frank since he has drifted so far away, he
can't be seen in the pod window. Dave eventually catches up to him and gently
grabs him with the mechanical arms of the pod. Now Dave has to take the long
trek back to Discovery.
The point of view changes to Hal back in the Discovery. He is focused upon the
three men in hibernation and the monitors showing the status of their life
support systems. An alarm goes off and we see a message flashing
"Computer Malfunction". The life functions of Hunter, Kaminsky, and
Kimball start to fail. There is no one on board the ship to do anything about
it as we agonizingly watch the three men slowly die. The monitors show
different parts of their life support flatlining. Occasionally, the view
changes to that of the men. They are still asleep. There is no struggle or any
sign of realization of what is happening to them. When they are dead, we see
one of them and we realize that visibly, there is no difference between
hibernation and death.
Bowman has returned. He does not yet know that he is the only human left alive on
the mission. He asks Hal to open the pod bay doors so he can re-enter the
Discovery. There is no response from Hal. Dave begins to repeatedly call Hal
and there is no response. Finally, after many attempts at communication, Hal
responds. Dave repeats his request for Hal to open the pod bay doors. Hal
responds "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Dave asks Hal
why and Hal responds that he can't allow Dave to jeopardize the mission. Hal
tells Dave that he knew about the plans for disconnection. Dave fakes
ignorance by responding "Where the hell did you get that idea, Hal?"
but Hal reveals that he read his and Frank's lips earlier when they were
together in the pod. Dave, realizing his dire situation, informs Hal that he
can still get into the ship via the emergency airlock. Hal sarcastically tells
Dave "Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather
difficult." Dave can only respond by pleading with Hal one more time to
open the door. Hal informs Dave "This conversation can serve no purpose
anymore, goodbye."
Dave futilely calls out to Hal but Hal stays true to his word and does not
respond, thus, leaving Dave to die in the pod. Dave knows his only chance of
survival is to get back to the ship and to do that will require every bit of
resourcefulness he can muster. He first releases Frank, realizing it was a
useless gesture to try to retrieve him. Dave aligns the pod with a tall,
door-like opening of the Discovery. Using the mechanical arms of the pod, Dave
opens the emergency airlock door. He systematically goes through the procedure
of setting up the pod door, which we see from the wording on a sign, has
explosive bolts. Dave has to expose himself to space by hurling himself into
the manually-operated airlock and have the wherewithall to find and be able to
close the airlock door within the few seconds of consciousness he will have.
Dave winces as he moves into position. He pushes the final button to initiate
the procedure.
Dave succeeds.
Meanings
It is odd that Dave was the first man to perform an EVA, but Frank is doing
the second one. The novel had Frank perform both EVA's and even stated that
although both were capable, Frank Poole was the designated crewmember for
extra-vehicular activities. What was the purpose of having Dave Bowman perform
the first one? The only answer I can come up with was to show the particularly
methodical and careful nature of Dave.
In the earlier article, Discovery
(Film Synopsis Part 7), I referred to the Discovery's pods as arms,
keeping with the theme of Man's tools acting as replacements for body parts.
It can also be argued that the pods serve as eyes. They do look like eyes with
a large spherical body and the window appearing much like an iris. We now know
that Hal has an eye in each pod, reinforcing this concept.
When Frank's air hose has been cut, we hear the utter silence of space. It's
eerie, shocking, and unexpected. Note how this is similar to the death of the
man-ape earlier. He too was struck and died without making a sound. Then you
have the deaths of the other three men. Again, utter silence except for the hum of the
Discovery. All the deaths in this film are quite chilling and the silence has
much to do with that.
As mentioned several times before, we know that there is an outside
intellligence involved in the story. This intelligence harmonizes with the
universe significantly more than Man. One of the ways we know this is we've
learned to associate 3-way cosmic alignments with it. Man-made tools don't
naturally align. In fact, to even align a tool with just one object in space requires great effort. Witness the long docking process of the Orion and the
space station, the Aries and the moonbase, the moonbus and the landing port,
and now Dave tracking Frank's body. However, we also witness a scene where the
pod appears to be aligned with the floating Frank Poole and the Discovery
itself. This is shown just prior to Hal apparently taking control of the pod.
Does this mean that Hal is more similar to the outside intelligence than Man?
For the first time, Dave acts rashly. Right after Frank is struck by the pod,
Dave rushes to the pod bay and immediately orders Hal to prepare a pod.
Contrast this with the careful, meticulous way Dave had acted before. We know
that Dave was actually careless enough to not bring his space helmet along.
This one mistake nearly cost him his life.
The real question is: Did Hal somehow know or calculate that Dave would forget
his helmet? One interesting thought is this scene is much different than that
of the novel. In the novel, Dave realizes he can't save Frank and never goes
after him. Dave attempts to revive the hibernating crew and during the
revival, Hal opens the airlock in an attempt to kill Dave and the hibernating
men. Why did Stanley Kubrick change this scene? I believe one reason is he
wanted to show another example of how Hal was inside Dave and Frank's heads.
This scene also represents how Hal planned on winning the chess match. With
all options gone of convincing Frank and Dave that he was right and Mission
Control was wrong, Hal had to kill the humans on the Discovery. This would
alleviate the issue of concealing information and yet, the mission would
continue as Hal was briefed and could fully carry out the mission functions.
All would be okay in Hal's mind because he felt that killing the crew would
ensure the best chance of accomplishing the mission.
Other Notes
There is an odd editing error in this sequence. As we see that it is a yellow-spacesuited
Frank Poole performing the second EVA, there is a shot inside a pod showing a
red spacesuited astronaut from behind wearing gloves and a helmet. Yet the
very next shot shows red-suited Dave in the control room of Discovery without
gloves or helmet so seemingly, it was not him in the previous shot. This seems
like the type of continuity error that is common in films. The type that
nobody notices the first time the film is seen. However, many Stanley Kubrick
fans refuse to accept that Kubrick would ever let slip so obvious an error.
Continuity errors in Kubrick films are often attributed to flash forwards or
backwards that hint at a hidden theme or storyline. An example of this are the
two earlier shots of the monolith aligning with two eclipsing heavenly bodies.
Is this the case here?
When working out the action of this scene, Arthur C. Clarke expressed worry
concerning Bowman being exposed to vacuum. It was unknown at the time how a
human would react. This worried the Kubrick enough to cause him to pose
the question to NASA scientists. Kubrick and Clarke were
assured that it was possible to survive and stay conscious in space for a long
enough time to make the scene plausible.
