"We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."
HAL 9000 on the 9000 series.
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A Riddle Wrapped In a Mystery Inside an Enigma
TIME April 4, 1968
2001: A Space Odyssey
A herd of hairy simians chatters and skirmishes beside a water hole. It is, says the screen, "The Dawn of Man." From somewhere, a strange rectangular slab appears, gleaming in the primeval sunlight. Its appearance stimulates one of the simians to think for the first time of a bone as a weapon. Now he is a man, the killer; the naked ape has arisen, and civilization is on its way...
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Intermission. By this time, almost 1 hour and 40 minutes have passed and the non-sci-fi fanatic may feel as benumbed as the scientists in their "hibernaculums. In depicting interplanetary flight 33 years from now, Director Stanley Kubrick and his co-scenarist, Arthur C. Clarke, England's widely respected science and science-fiction writer, dwell endlessly on the qualities of space travel; unfortunately they ignore such old-fashioned elements as character and conflict.
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