These are the characters from 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel and film) and the rest of The Space Odyssey Series:
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Dr. David "Dave" Bowman
Dr. David "Dave" Bowman
Played By: Keir Dullea
The commander of the Discovery spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter. The mission's last living human survivor, he is swept up in the Firstborn's ancient experiments in advancing intelligent life, rising to a non-corporeal existence as the so-called Star Child, and continues to have an influence on events through the series.
- Adaptational Heroism: A minor case, but in the novel he doesn't go out to retrieve Poole's body, and leaves the three astronauts in cryo to their deaths when HAL vents all of the air from the ship.
- To be fair, had he stayed with the three cryonauts, he would have died as well.
- And I Must Scream: The flash-cuts of Bowman's horror as he's taken Beyond The Infinite. The journey reduces him to a quivering wreck—then he appears in the alien hotel room as an old man. It appears that that will turn out to be Bowman's purgatory, but it's ultimately averted as Bowman Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence.
- And Your Reward Is Infancy: Bowman becomes the Star Child at the ending of the film.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: See above.
- Broken Bird: In the 2010 novel, Curnow described him as "...a bit of a cold fish—not unfriendly, but whenever he entered a room, the temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees." Considering some of his past trauma, as mentioned in tropes below, it makes sense that he would be socially withdrawn.
- Cold Equation: When HAL opens the pod bay doors in the novelization, Bowman makes the decision to leave Whitehead to his death and save himself; given the circumstances, he had little choice.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The 2010 novel reveals some of his pre-series history: his older brother Robert died while trying to explore a lake by diving—they were using a common garage air compressor with a snorkel mouthpiece attached to breathe, which concentrated carbon monoxide in the air flow to deadly levels, with David at the controls when Robert dived. In the aftermath of that loss, he had embarked on a long-term relationship with Robert's girlfriend Betty, which ended shortly before Discovery departed for Jupiter—though he left her a son, who was originally attributed to her husband after Dave. One of the reasons he was chosen for the flight was that with the exception of his elderly mother, he had no real ties left on Earth.
- Death Seeker: Downplayed, but considering he leaves a shutdown or near-shutdown Discovery in the film to investigate the Monolith, and taking into account the traumatic events leading up to it, it's highly implied that he did not expect to return from this trip.
- Friend to All Living Things: In 3001, Frank relates a tale of him and Dave walking along a beach in Florida prior to Discovery's launch, and Dave had stopped to flip over a crab that had gotten stuck on its back. When Frank joked that the crab would just walk off and cut down someone's prized flower display, Dave agreed, but was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
- This trait also appeared to have carried through to Dave's Star Child form, as in 2010 he took steps (as far as his Firstborn "supervisors" would let him) to warn the crews at Jupiter to leave as soon as possible, and allowing one of the few exceptions in the ban on humans interacting with Europa in 2061 in emergency circumstances. In 3001, he (and HAL) were willing to put their combined existences at risk to prevent the Monoliths from taking actions that would threaten humanity's existence.
- Fusion Dance: As of 3001, he and HAL have fused their consciousness into a single entity nicknamed "Halman", though Dave's personality seems to dominate more.
- Final Girl: Dave is a Rare Male Example when he is the last crew member left alive to shut down HAL 9000.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: A Ph.D capable of helping run a nuclear-powered spacecraft, who's reasonably engaging in a TV interview.
- Heroic BSoD: Appears to have one of these while he hears the prerecorded briefing announcement after disconnecting HAL. Think about it; your friend just died, you had to sort-of murder another friend to save yourself, you're totally alone far out in space, and you just found out that aliens are real on top of everything else. Who wouldn't be a little shook up?
- Hidden Depths: Likes to sketch in his spare time; a production photo from the film shows him playing a keyboard in the ship's centrifuge, suggesting some musical talents as well.
- Kubrick Stare:
- Dave does it when he runs the diagnostic on the AE-35 unit, goes up to disconnect HAL, and arrives in the alien hotel room at the end.
- During Dave's EVA to rescue Frank, a lot of Dave's facial expressions come across this way, since he's constantly scanning his displays. It's played straightest in the face he pulls immediately before cutting back to the Discovery interior.
- The Stoic: As befitting an astronaut trained to spend over a year travelling to Jupiter in close quarters with one other cosncious human and an AI. Even when rushing out to rescue Frank from an apparent EVA accident, his voice remains steady.
- Not So Stoic: He still forgets his suit helmet in the rush to rescue Frank, and his calm demeanor cracks when arguing with HAL to be let back in. By the time of his disconnection of HAL, he's visibly distressed, and effectively loses what stoicism he has left in the Stargate/Beyond The Infinite sequence.
Dr. Frank Poole
Dr. Frank Poole
Played By: Gary Lockwood
The deputy commander of Discovery. During a repair mission, Frank was struck by an EVA pod piloted by HAL, sending him off into space with a severed oxygen hose. Effectively dead, his body drifted through the solar system until the year 3001, when he was recovered by a spacecraft outside the orbit of Neptune, and subsequently revived by the medical technology of the time. He is the main protagonist of 3001: The Final Odyssey.
- Ambiguously Jewish: As revealed in 3001, he grew up in Arizona, and a potential sexual partner during this period was disturbed to discover he was circumcised, such practices falling out of favor with a major shift in religious beliefs in the intervening centuries.
- Back from the Dead: After drifting through the outer solar system for centuries, a chance interception by a spacecraft outside Neptune's orbit has him brought back to Earth, where he is able to be revived. The explanation given is that the rapid depressurization of his suit preserved his tissues from freezing damage, making his revival possible.
- Deadpan Snarker: Downplayed in 2001, but his remark about "famous last words" counts. This trait becomes more apparent in 3001.
- Dramatic Space Drifting: After his oxygen line is cut by HAL.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: It takes a while for Frank to acclimate to a culture a millennium after he first died, but he takes to it rather quickly.
- Genius Bruiser: A highly-qualified astronaut whose preferred method of exercise is to run around the centrifuge and shadow-box, and is slightly more confrontational than Dave.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: A Ph.D capable of helping run a nuclear-powered spacecraft, who's reasonably engaging in a TV interview.
- Kubrick Stare: Poole does it before confronting HAL about why he alerted them to the failure when there was apparently nothing wrong with the AE-35.
- Sacrificial Lion: Once HAL cuts off his oxygen.
- Smart People Play Chess: Plays chess with HAL, though he doesn't quite pay attention to the details and concedes defeat too easily.
- The Stoic: As befitting an astronaut trained to spend over a year travelling to Jupiter in close quarters with one other conscious human and an AI. The best example of this is when watching his parents' birthday video, with an apparent bored expression on his face the whole time.
- Not So Stoic: When confronting HAL on his apparent error in predicting the AE-35 failure, he's not as good at hiding his incredulousness as Dave is. And one can only imagine how non-stoic he was trying in vain to reattach his oxygen line before expiring.
HAL 9000
HAL (Heuristically-programmed ALgorithmic Computer) 9000/"Hal"
Played By: Douglas Rain (English), François Chaumette (French)
The integrated AI of the Discovery spacecraft, the most advanced result of computing technology in the 21st Century. As a result of a conflict involving the true nature of the ship's mission and his core programming to accurately share data (tell the truth), he suffered the equivalent of a nervous breakdown, murdered Frank Poole during an EVA, shut down the hibernating astronaut's life support, and attempted to lock Dave Bowman out of the ship. Disconnected (rendered brain-dead) by Bowman after he regained access, he was returned to consciousness in 2010, and was brought to Dave's plane of existence prior to Discovery's destruction. Continues to appear in 2061 and 3001.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the book, HAL is a sympathetic character who is so human that he develops a psychosis, and his reasons for why he takes the actions he does are explained. The instructions that he was given from the White House to conceal the monolith clashed with his basic programming not to conceal information from the crew. HAL was working on a non-murderous solution to the problem, but overheard plans from Mission Control to temporarily disconnect him. HAL didn't understand the concept of sleep and thought that this would kill him, so he panicked. Kubrick chose to leave HAL's motives more ambiguous in the movie, which makes HAL seem more monstrous. The film is often cited as an example of A.I. Is a Crapshoot.
- Affably Evil: HAL is programmed to be friendly and easy to work with, albeit with a certain proud nature. YMMV regarding the evil part.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Upon nearing Jupiter, HAL acts suspiciously. HAL goes rogue and murders the crew of Discovery because of a Logic Bomb accidentally created by his programmers. This became an archetypal example of "malevolent AI" in popular culture, especially since the film version by design doesn't explain the reasons for his malfunction. The sequel movie 2010, at least, directly explains that he only went insane because he was given a conflicting set of orders by the US Government, making him a more sympathetic character.
- Alas, Poor Villain: HAL basically goes out begging for mercy and appealing to Dave's friendship while he is slowly lobotomized. Even Dave doesn't feel happy about doing it.
- And I Must Scream: HAL suffers a version of this as his higher mental functions are disconnected. The comic states that he has been reduced from an intelligent being to a routine monitoring device. Imagine having most of your mind stripped away, with just a little of the "automatic" stuff still running.
- Anti-Villain: His villainous actions are caused by conflicting orders, faulty programming and a well-intentioned desire to continue the mission. He goes out terrified and begging for his life, and it's implied that as he dies he reveals the classified orders to Dave so there remains a slight hope of salvaging the mission.
- Arc Villain: Of the "Jupiter Mission" segment.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: Joins Dave in his incorporeal state when Discovery is destroyed by the formation of Lucifer in 2010.
- Big Brother Is Watching: HAL has cameras in almost every compartment of Discovery that we see, save for the emergency airlock. They're also on the EVA pods as well.
- Character Signature Song: He will forever remain associated with the song "Daisy Bell".
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: HAL exploits the fact that Frank Poole is mouthing his moves in order to predict his chess strategy. This foreshadows the lip reading sequence as Poole and Bowman plot to deactivate HAL.
- The Computer Is Your Friend: Until he snaps and kills you, that is.
- Creepy Child: Depending on what "birth" year you use (1992 in the film, 1997 in the novel), HAL is less than 10 years old by the time of the Jupiter mission. Just try to imagine a human child that young doing what HAL did.
- Creepy Monotone: A downplayed example, HAL's voice probably set the standard for the use of this trope in AI, though it isn't a true monotone. While perpetually calm and polite, he's actually much more expressive than any other character. You can tell that he's starting to get annoyed when Frank keeps questioning him.
- Do Androids Dream?: As the first AI of his kind, HAL is subject to questions as to how genuine his consciousness and his emotions are—Dave's explicitly asked that question in the interview. This often ties into in- and out-of-universe discussions as to how much of his rampage was due to specific malice, panic, mortal fear, and/or mere programming errors. Naturally, his creator states that HAL has full sentience and should be respected as such, especially towards the climax of 2010.
- Both he and his sibling SAL ask "Will I dream?" of their creator, Dr. Chandra, in 2010—she, prior to her test disconnection, and he, prior to his assumed destruction in the escape from Jupiter.
- Electronic Speech Impediment: When Bowman disassembles HAL's neural circuitry, it reverts to demo mode and sings "Daisy Bell" in an increasingly slow, distorted manner before finally shutting down. This is a Shout-Out to Bell Labs' use of the same song for the first example of a computer-generated singing voice in the early 1960s. *
- Expositron 9000: The partial Trope Namer. While his expository role was limited in 2001, he is more of an Info Dump source in 2010.
- Eye Lights Out: When Dave turns him off.
- Eye Motifs: HAL's camera "eye" with a red iris and yellow pupil strongly resembles the appearance of the Sun from Earth's perspective in earlier scenes in the film.
- Faceless Eye: Probably the most iconic example.
- Fun with Acronyms: Though Clarke claimed it was unintentional, many readers have noted that if you shift each letter in HAL one letter forward, you get IBM. In-universe, HAL's inventor is asked if he chose the name "...to be one step ahead of IBM", and he angrily denies this.
- The expansion of HAL's acronym refers to how he was programmed with both Heuristic (rules-of-thumb, "common sense," and educated guesses that provide quick results but are not guaranteed accurate) and ALgorithmic (step-by-step procedures that are accurate but can be slow) computing concepts.
- Fusion Dance: Merges consciousness with Dave in 3001.
- Hidden Depths: Has an appreciation of art, based on his appreciation of Dave's sketches.
- Innocent Prodigy: Connected with the above Creepy Child trope, if one ignores the apparent rigid behavioral limits implied by being a computer, HAL's behavior could easily be described as matching that of a hyper-intelligent child who hasn't emotionally matured to the point where they can handle keeping a secret from those around them without succumbing to paranoia, mental breakdown, and homicide. In commentaries for home video release, Keir Dullea compares HAL to Lennie from Of Mice and Men in this way, save the prodigy part.
- Kubrick Stare: Even HAL's red eye seems to create this effect in certain shots (for example, right after killing the hibernating astronauts.)
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: HAL in 2010 has practically no memories of the Discovery mission covering the time period from the AE-35 "malfunction" through to his disconnection. Dr. Chandra engineered a tapeworm-type computer virus to delete specific memories and concepts, so as to avoid another homicidal mental breakdown. Presumably reverse once he becomes incorporeal.
- Logic Bomb: The reason why HAL killed the crew members of the Discovery, HAL was supposed to give accurate information to the astronauts but a hidden programming also made him withhold confidential information despite being programmed to always give accurate information. This causes him to go haywire and decides to kill the humans to accomplish both programmings.
- Non-Malicious Monster: While it's ambiguous whether or not he's sentient, his psychotic behavior wasn't strictly his fault, being caused by a Logic Bomb in his programming.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Subverted. While HAL is indeed unique for being integrated into Discovery as its brain and central nervous system, he has at least two "siblings": a twin unnamed 9000-series computer based on Earth to compare HAL's results (in the novel, there are two 9000-series Mission Control units, one of which undergoes a similar breakdown to HAL), and SAL 9000 from 2010, a model reengineered from the ground up to help investigate the possible causes for HAL's malfunction. In 3001, some form of sentient AI has also become omnipresent in human society, though it is unknown if they are as Turing-test passable as the 9000 series.
- Properly Paranoid: A contributing factor to his mental breakdown is knowing that through the communication link with Earth, Mission Control can theoretically monitor his every action, putting additional stress on him to maintain the secret—hence, his errant reporting of a failure of the AE-35 unit could have been an excuse to break communications for an unspecified length of time.
- As implied in the film (and explicitly laid out in the novel), HAL has never been disconnected since he became sentient; he may look upon it as being killed, and the way Dave and Frank describe it resembles being lobotomized and left a vegetable. So when the two of them consider disconnecting HAL as an option to his apparent malfunction, what seems like homicide turns into an attempt at self-preservation.
- Redemption Equals Death: In 2010, he's fully past his mental breakdown from the Jupiter mission, no longer having any conflicting orders messing with his internal logic. However, he's forced to remain on Discovery and die in the radiation blast from the monoliths turning Jupiter into a star. Ultimately subverted when Bowman is given permission from the Precursors to join HAL's consciousness with his own before HAL's death.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shares this with his younger "sister", SAL 9000. Aside from the eye color motifs, HAL has been more deadly that SAL has been, and SAL appears to have a sort of sense of humor, while as far as depicted, HAL is quite earnest in all of his statements.
- Resurrection Sickness: Following HAL's re-connection in 2010, he's stated to have a defective voice output (only in the novel), has issues with voice recognition (especially the Russian accents), and has partial face-blindness. The tapeworm Dr. Chandra made to clear his memory of the events of the mission contributes to this a little bit as well.
- The Speechless: In the novel version of 2010, post-disconnection HAL has a defective speech synthesizer output; while it gets better over time, he primarily communicates through text display to the Leonov crew.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: His sole desire is to see the Jupiter mission succeeds. However, his primary function of disseminating information without obfuscation or alteration conflicted with the White House's order that he keeps the true intention of the mission secret from Bowman and Poole. By killing the crew, knowing that he would be capable of completing the mission himself, he is simply trying to resolve the logical paradox causing him so much distress.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Transitions from "Not much" in the first film/novel to "Very much" as the series progresses. Especially with the revelation that his actions in 2001 were the result of conflicting programming outside his control, he's portrayed as one of the more sympathetic characters in the franchise.
Dr. Heywood Floyd
Dr. Heywood Floyd
Played By: William Sylvester (2001), Roy Scheider (2010)
The Chairman of the National Council of Astronautics from c. 1999 to 2001, Dr. Floyd was aware of the existence of the TMA-1 Monolith buried near Tycho crater, and was present at its excavation site when said Monolith transmitted its signal to Jupiter. In the wake of the Discovery mission, he was saddled with the responsibility for its failure, and ousted from the NCA, becoming Chancellor of the University of Hawaii. In 2010, he successfully lobbies to join the crew of the Alexei Leonov in a joint Soviet-American mission to salvage Discovery and reveal the truth of what happened during its mission. Returning from Jupiter, a medical issue kept him in hibernation until 2015; the resulting permanent adaption to microgravity left him incapable of returning to Earth, making him a permanent resident of outer space. In 2061 at the age of 103, he becomes a passenger of the spacecraft Universe as it intercepts Halley's Comet, and participates in its attempt to rescue its sister-ship Galaxy from a crash-landing on the surface of Europa.
- The Atoner: Feeling responsible for the failure of Discovery and the loss of its crew, he seeks closure for the mission, and is willing to leave his family for nearly three years to find it.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: In the 2010 novel, he's able to make a connection from the Chinese government order of a large number of high-capacity water pumps from a fire engine company to the design and mission of the spacecraft Tsien: by landing on Europa to refuel their engines using water from its subsurface ocean, they can beat the Leonov to Discovery despite leaving Earth later despite the seemly one-way nature of their transit.
The Hominids
The Hominids
A group of Australopithecus "man-apes" from 4 millon years BCE. Barely surviving on rocky plains somewhere in central Africa, a group led by "Moonwatcher" (portrayed by Daniel Richter) is visited by a Monolith, whose effect on them will start blazing a path to the rise of humanity.
- Ascended to Carnivorism: What the man-apes do with help from the Monolith.
- Battle Chant: Subverted. When Moonwatcher's group first encounters another group at the waterhole, the two groups shriek and howl at each other until Moonwatcher's group retreats. Soon after, Moonwatcher's group has contact with the monolith. When the two groups meet again at the waterhole, the second group makes a cacophony, while Moonwatcher's group is eerily silent. The second group mistakes this for weakness, and their leader charges. Moonwatcher and his group easily clubs their foe to death, causing the second group to quail and retreat. Silence, in this case, proved more unnerving than bluster.
- Clash of Evolutionary Levels: Moonwatcher's group being artificially enhanced by the Monolith results in this during the second portrayed confrontation at the waterhole. In the first instance the two sides are evenly matched, resulting in a rough stalemate. In the second, Moonwatcher and his companions have a clear advantage and easily Curb Stomp their rivals for domination of the territory. Also demonstrated by contrasting the behavior of the two sides - while the rival group is loud, chaotic, and confined to moving about on all fours, Moonwatcher's group is quiet, tactical, and standing upright, freeing the use of their arms to wield bone clubs.
- Ear Ache: The leader of the rival man-ape group is called One-Ear in the novel. He's probably the one who ended up getting beaten to death by Moon-Watcher's bone in the movie.
- Hell Is That Noise: The man-apes' screeches and howls are decidedly harsh and borderline unnatural in the film, helped by the fact that they were modified using an analog pitch-shifter to make them deeper and more resonant.
- Meaningful Name: Moonwatcher (as named in the novel, but not explicitly so in the film) is named for the fact that unusually for hominids of this time period, he spends a lot of time looking at the night sky.
- Motivated by Fear: The man-apes initially have to fear being predated on by leopards, and in the scene where they hide in their underground shelter at twilight, one can see the terror on their faces as they hear it prowling around, and they all try to keep as quiet as possible.
