APPENDIX

The original theatrical screening of 2001 included a three-minute musical overture set against a blank screen. The music played during this prelude is Ligeti's Atmospheres, and its purpose is twofold. First, it is an eerie, unusual music that puts the audience into an expectant mood; the feeling is of something important about to happen. Atmospheres is repeated twice during the movie's running time, at certain key moments (the Intermission, and Dave Bowman's journey into the Unknown). The meaning of this music will become clear later in the film.

The tone of 2001 is set in the very first scene, before the opening credits themselves: Sunrise over the planet Earth. It's a breath-taking sight as the triumphant Also Sprach Zarathustra echoes through the heavens, the Moon moves away and the Sun rises in its dazzling brightness across the face of the Earth. This planetary alignment has always been significant to Man, and Kubrick makes the most of it here. "The mystical alignment of the Sun, the Moon, and Earth, or of Jupiter and its moons, was used throughout the film as a premonitory image of a leap forward to the unknown," he says. The image is repeated several times throughout the movie, to signify an important event in human history.

Filmguide to 2001 offers an additional explanation of this scene that makes sense: it may be the point-of-view of the Aliens themselves. Travelling through our Solar System, they come across a bright little planet teeming with life -- and this is what they have been looking for. There may be other possibilities, including one theory that says that the open credits are, in fact, the same scene that takes place at the very END of the movie. This view of the Earth could be the point-of-view of the Star Child himself, and we are seeing the world through his eyes. If this is so, then the entire movie becomes a flashback, finally ending with this exact same moment - and the same music, as the movie also ends with Also Sprach Zarathustra.

RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 2001: a space odyssey重新展開旅程