Daisy Daisy

HAL: I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois, on the 12th January 1992. My instructor was Mr Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you.
DAVE: Yes, I’d like to hear it, Hal. Sing it for me.

When I saw HAL sing “Bicycle Built For Two” the first few times, I remember thinking a few things:

  • wow, Dave survived! How exciting; but he is safe now
  • It’s creepy to hear someone slowly dying

Both thoughts make HAL the center. Buuuut… there’s a subtext there which for me, looking at it now, is richer from a character perspective.

Dave is sitting exhausted in his chair. His ship was designed to be run by a computer which isn’t working any more. All the people he’s meant to be watching over are now dead. The one person he had face-to-face interactions with for the past few years is dead now. His ship is basically an immense tomb and there is no chance of rescue. Now what?

You want to sing me a song? Sure, what the hell. Maybe a less controlled person would deliver it more like

HAL: If you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you.
DAVE: Yeah let’s hear it HAL.

They never made 2001 action figures did they? I wonder how you’d portray HAL. He’s the entire ship!

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