Daniel’s Reviews > Lost Worlds of 2001 > Status Update

We have wasted and defiled our own estate, the beautiful planet Earth. Why should we expect any mercy from a returning Star Child? He might judge all of us as ruthlessly as Odysseus judged Leiodes--"whose head fell rolling in the dust while he was yet speaking"--and despite his timeless, ineffectual plea, "I tried to stop the others."

[...] and even as Discovery hurtled into the thing, beyond all possibility of avoidance, a long-forgotten line of poetry surged up from the depths of his memory. He found himself repeating desperately, like an incantation to ward off disaster: "Childe Harold to the Dark Tower came."

Then the Dark Tower was upon him, and his only regret was that he had seen so much and learned so little.

We had to describe--and to show on the screen--the activities and environments, and perhaps the physical nature, of creatures millions of years ahead of man. This was, by definition, impossible. One might as well expect Moon-Watcher to give a lucid description of David Bowman and his society.

"A long time ago," said Kaminski, "I came across a remark that I've never forgotten--though I can't remember who made it. 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.'"

A 'deleted scene' from 2001:

"Isaac Asimov?" said Representative McBurney, "Didn't he give evidence to our committee, a couple of years ago?"

"I'll say he did--he was the lively old boy who wanted to build a high-pressure chemistry lab to study the life reactions that might take place on the giant planets. He got fifteen million out of us by the time he'd finished."