This program unpacks Playstation 3 Theme files (.p3t) so that you can touch-up an existing theme to your likings or use a certain wallpaper from it (as many themes have multiple). But remember, if you use content from another theme and release it, be sure to give credit!
Download p3textractor.zip from above. Extract the files to a folder with a program such as WinZip or WinRAR. Now there are multiple ways to extract the theme.
The first way is to simply open the p3t file with p3textractor.exe. If you don’t know how to do this, right click the p3t file and select Open With. Alternatively, open the p3t file and it will ask you to select a program to open with. Click Browse and find p3textractor.exe from where you previously extracted it to. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename]. After that, all you need to do for any future p3t files is open them and it will extract.
The second way is very simple. Just drag the p3t file to p3textractor.exe. It will open CMD and extract the theme to extracted.[filename].
For the third way, first put the p3t file you want to extract into the same folder as p3textractor.exe. Open CMD and browse to the folder with p3extractor.exe. Enter the following: p3textractor filename.p3t [destination path]Replace filename with the name of the p3t file, and replace [destination path] with the name of the folder you want the files to be extracted to. A destination path is not required. By default it will extract to extracted.filename.
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PixelJunk is a series of downloadable games developed by Q-Games. The series made its debut on PlayStation 3 with PixelJunk Racers, released July 11, 2007.[1]
The series was published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation platforms until 2012, with Q-Games themselves publishing on other platforms and for PlayStation in Japan. Spike Chunsoft handled worldwide publishing for PixelJunk Monsters 2 in 2018.
In an interview at TGS 2009, Q-Games stated that proper development on PixelJunk 1-5 would start in 2010.[3] A PixelJunk title known tentatively as PixelJunk Dungeons, and was in the conceptual phase of production in 2008.[4] Q-Games officially revealed PixelJunk 1-5 as PixelJunk Lifelike on September 16, 2010 during the SCEI's 2010 Tokyo Game Show conference. However, it was later renamed PixelJunk 4am. It is unclear if PixelJunk Dungeons is still under development.
On May 18, 2010 PixelJunk Shooter 2 was revealed on the official PlayStation blog due for release in 2011.[5]
The first series of PixelJunk games are all described by Q-Games president Dylan Cuthbert as having "simplicity, familiarity, and originality" in common.[4] Games in the first series are also two-dimensional and run in 1080p HD at 60fps.
An expansion, 1-2a PixelJunk Monsters Encore, was released in 2008. An expanded version for PSP, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, was released in 2009. A remastered version, PixelJunk Monsters Ultimate, was released in 2013.
The second series was planned concurrently with the first. In 2008, Cuthbert suggested that games of the second series could "take some of the old 3D looks and bring them up to the full HD kind of style."[4] He later confirmed Series 2 would "venture into aesthetically pleasing 3D."[6]
On September 24, 2009, Q-Games released a virtual space for PlayStation Home. Titled PixelJunk Museum (PixelJunk Exhibition in North America), the space included virtual displays for PixelJunk Racers, PixelJunk Monsters, and PixelJunk Eden, as well as a virtual gift shop where users could buy PixelJunk and Q Games-branded Home items. A separate "room" featuring the interior of the "Ers Piñita Colada" space center from PixelJunk Shooter was added to the space on December 17, 2009 in the NA region.
The Japanese version of the space included an exclusive "Q-Games virtual public TGS Booth" — a recreation of the Q-Games booth at the 2009 Tokyo Games Show where users could claim a free T-shirt for their Home avatar.
Birdman was an ordinary human who has been endowed by the sun god Ra with the ability to shoot solar rays from his fists and project quasi-solid "solar shields" to defend himself against attacks (Birdman's origin is only vaguely, and only briefly, hinted at during the series. His real name is there given as Raymond "Ray" Randall). After he had acquired his avian—and other—powers, he was recruited by a top-secret government agency, Inter-Nation Security, and now works full-time fighting crime, assisted by his pet eagle, who responds to the name of "Avenger". In addition to the abilities he received from Ra, Birdman also possesses the power of flight, thanks to the giant wings which sprout from his back. It is possible Birdman is fireproof; being forced into an incinerator recharged rather than hurt him. His sole weakness is that he has to recharge his superhuman powers periodically, through exposure either to the sun's rays or to a comparable source of heat and/or light such as a desk lamp (when he was once shrunken to insect proportions) or the aforementioned incinerator, a weakness that is exposed in nearly every episode. His trademark is his battle cry of "Biiiiirdman!!!" whenever he goes into battle.
In the 1990s, Cartoon Network decided to base new comedy shows on older characters (although in many cases, that simply meant creating a more or less original character sharing their basic name and appearance). Their earliest show of this style was Space Ghost Coast to Coast, where Birdman appeared in five episodes, voiced by Scott Finnell. On the show, he was portrayed comically; depressed, out-of-work and desperate for money. Birdman hosted the show in the episodes "Pilot" and "Sequel", and was fired on both occasions. It was here revealed, contradicting the original Birdman show, that his first name was Harvey. "Harvey Birdman" was the name that writer Evan Dorkin came up with.[citation needed]
Birdman later got his own show, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, now voiced by Gary Cole. In the show, Harvey is a defense attorney, and his clients are generally classic Hanna-Barbera characters given new roles (Fred Flintstone appears, for example, as a mafia don, and Boo-Boo Bear is accused in one episode of being a mad bomber). Many of Birdman's former associates and enemies appear on the show in supporting roles (the character Reducto, now given the first name Myron, regularly appears as a prosecuting attorney, and Mentok the Mind-Taker judges cases from late Season One onward). Instead of being a clever superhero, this version of Birdman is portrayed as a semi-competent, bungling lawyer, although among the show's increasingly outlandish cast of characters, he is often the straight man. In the series finale, "The Death of Harvey Birdman", he returns to his superheroing ways, defeating an old enemy before being suddenly hit with a bus and killed.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and adds new features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, an interplanetary alien empire.
Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source game engine, which was developed simultaneously. Development lasted five years and cost US$40million. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre. They integrated Havok, which simulates real-world physics, to reinforce the sense of presence and create new gameplay. They also developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and animations.
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 with a release date of September of that year. They failed to meet the release date, leading to fan backlash. A year before its release, an unfinished version was stolen by a hacker and published online, which damaged the team’s morale and slowed their work.
A screenshot of the player engaging a group of antlions with a Pulse-Rifle/AR2. Along the bottom of the screen, the player's health, suit charge level, and their ammunition is displayed.
Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter (FPS) in which players control Gordon Freeman. It has similar mechanics to Half-Life, including health-and-weapon systems (though with fewer overall weapons) and periodic physics puzzles, except with the newer Source engine and improved graphics. The player starts without items and widens their arsenal over the course of the game. While the game is mainly linear, effort was put into making exploration rewarding and interesting; many optional areas can be missed or avoided.[1]
A diverse set of enemies is present, which usually require being approached with different tactics: some coordinate in groups to out-maneuver or out-position the player; others, such as the Manhack, fly directly at the player through small openings and tight corridors.[2] Others use predictable but powerful attacks, while others hide before swiftly attacking the player. Gordon can kill most enemies with his weapons, or make use of indirect means, exploiting environmental hazards such as explosive pressurized canisters, gas fires or improvised traps. In chapters ten and eleven, Gordon can be joined by up to four armed Resistance soldiers or medics and can send his team further from him or call them back.
Many of the features use the Source engine's detailed physics simulation. Two sections of the game involve driving vehicles. Instead of button-oriented puzzles from Half-Life, environmental puzzles are also introduced with makeshift mechanical systems, revolving around the player's new ability to pick up, move, and place objects. Solutions involve objects' physical properties, such as shape, weight, and buoyancy. For example; In chapter three, "Route Kanal", the player is required to stack cinder blocks on a makeshift see-saw ramp to proceed over a wall. Alternatively, the player can build a crude staircase with the blocks, so the puzzle may be solved in multiple ways.
Part-way through the game, Gordon acquires the Gravity Gun, which allows him to draw distant objects towards himself or forcefully push them away, as well as the ability to manipulate larger and heavier objects which he otherwise cannot control. These abilities are required to solve puzzles later in the game. They can also be used in combat, to throw heavy objects at enemies or to shield themselves from gunfire.
The game never separates the player with pre-rendered cutscenes or events; the story proceeds via exposition from other characters and in-world events, and the player can control Gordon for the entirety of the game. Most of the backstory to the game is simply alluded to or told through the environment. Even tutorials are mostly placed in the environment or in dialogue. The few pop-ups that appear inform the player only of keyboard bindings for actions.
After the alien invasion at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a multidimensional alien empire known as the Combine invaded and subjugated Earth. Approximately twenty years after being placed in stasis, Gordon Freeman, the player character, is awoken by the G-Man (Michael Shapiro), who cryptically informs Gordon that "his time has come again" before celestially inserting him into a moving passenger train bound for City 17, an Eastern European city (probably in Russia as most of the posters and signs are in Russian) which houses the Citadel, a several-miles-tall tower which serves as the headquarters of the Combine on Earth. Helped by undercover Resistance member Barney Calhoun (Shapiro), Gordon attempts to reach the laboratory of Dr. Isaac Kleiner (Harry S. Robins) before being beaten and arrested by Combine officers. He is rescued by Alyx Vance (Merle Dandridge), who takes him to Dr. Kleiner's lab. During Dr. Kleiner’s attempt to teleport Gordon to the main Resistance base at Black Mesa East, Gordon is accidentally, briefly teleported to the Citadel office of Dr. Wallace Breen (Robert Culp), the Combine’s puppet ruler of Earth, alerting Dr. Breen to Gordon’s presence. Gordon is subsequently forced to progress to the base using the city's canal system, navigating it on an airboat.
Upon his arrival at Black Mesa East, Gordon reunites with Eli Vance (Robert Guillaume) and meets Dr. Judith Mossman (Michelle Forbes). Alyx introduces Gordon to her pet robot Dog and gives Gordon a Gravity Gun. Black Mesa East is suddenly attacked by Combine forces, who capture Eli and Judith; Gordon is forced to escape through the zombie-infested ghost town of Ravenholm, aided by its lone inhabitant, Father Grigori (Jim French). Escaping the town, Gordon reaches a Resistance outpost, whose inhabitants provide him with a dune buggy. He drives across Highway 17 to reach the Combine prison of Nova Prospekt, where Eli and Judith are being held. He breaks into the prison and reunites with Alyx. They locate Eli and discover that Judith is a Combine spy. Before they can stop her, Judith teleports herself and Eli to the Citadel. The teleporter explodes moments after Gordon and Alyx use it to escape Nova Prospekt.
Returning to Dr. Kleiner's lab, Gordon and Alyx learn that the teleporter malfunctioned and that a week has passed, during which time the Resistance has launched a full-scale armed rebellion against the Combine. Aided by Barney and Dog, Gordon fights his way inside the Citadel. He makes some progress in climbing the tower before he is captured and taken in a transport pod to Dr. Breen’s private office, near the tower’s apex, where he and Judith are waiting with Eli and Alyx as captives. Dr. Breen reveals that he intends to use his captives as leverage during negotiations with the Combine, which contradicts what he had previously told Judith.[3] Angered, Judith frees the three captives before Dr. Breen can teleport them off-world. Dr. Breen attempts to escape using a teleporter on the Citadel’s roof, but Gordon destroys the Citadel's reactor using the Gravity Gun, causing Dr. Breen to fall into the abyss, although it is uncertain if he had died as a result. Just as the reactor explodes, the G-Man reappears and freezes time, praising Gordon’s actions and placing him back into stasis.
Development of Half-Life 2 began in June 1999, six months after the release of the original Half-Life. It was developed by a team of 82.[4] With voice actors included, this number is 100.[5][6] Valve's president, Gabe Newell, wanted to redefine the FPS genre, saying: "Why spend four years of your life building something that isn't innovative and is basically pointless? If Half-Life 2 isn't viewed as the best PC game of all time, it's going to completely bum out most of the guys on this team."[4] Newell gave his team no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget, promising to fund the project himself if necessary.[4] They used Valve's new in-house game engine, Source, developed simultaneously.[4]
Whereas Half-Life was set in a single location, the Black Mesa research facility, Valve wanted "a much more epic and global feel" for the sequel. One concept had the player teleporting between planets, which was discarded as it would make continuity between levels difficult. At the suggestion of the art director, Viktor Antonov, who was Bulgarian, the team settled on a city in an Eastern European location. In this early concept, players would start the game by boarding the Borealis, an icebreaker bound for the city.[4]Nova Prospekt was conceived as a small rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland and grew from a stopping-off point to the destination itself.[7][page needed]
After observing how players had connected to minor characters in Half-Life, the team developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and realistic animation. The animator Ken Birdwell studied the work of psychologist Paul Ekman, who had researched how facial muscles express emotion.[4] The writer Marc Laidlaw created family relationships between the characters, saying as it was a "basic dramatic unit everyone understands" rarely used in games.[4]
The team integrated the Havok physics engine, which simulates real-world physics,[8] to reinforce the player's sense of presence and create new gameplay.[4] To experiment, the team created a minigame, Zombie Basketball, in which players used a physics-manipulating gun to throw zombies through hoops.[4] In mid-2001, to test the engine, Valve built a street war between rioting citizens and police, featuring tanks, Molotov cocktails, hand-to-hand fighting, and looting. The designer John Guthrie described it as "an early attempt at getting something – anything – in the game that used non-player characters and physics".[4]
In late 2001, Valve began creating a showreel, hoping to demonstrate it at E3 2002.[4] For several months, Newell let the team work without his input so he could provide unbiased feedback, and focused on developing Steam, Valve's upcoming digital distribution service. The team presented the showreel to Newell, showcasing physics, environments such as the Borealis, and a dialogue-heavy scene with the scientist character Dr. Kleiner. Newell felt the showreel did not adequately show how the physics would affect gameplay and that the Kleiner scene was overlong. Reflecting on the feedback, Laidlaw said: "The dramatic scenes with the characters are important, but they have to be in service of the interactivity and gameplay."[4]
In September 2002, the team completed a second showreel, featuring a buggy race along the City 17 coast, an encounter with headcrabs on a pier, an alien strider attacking the city, and a greatly shortened Kleiner sequence. In October, Newell told the team they would announce Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 and release it by the end of the year.[4] As with the original Half-Life, the team split into "cabals" working on different levels. Designers created levels using placeholder shapes and surfaces, which then were worked on by the artists.[4]
A square in City 17, showing the Source engine's lighting and shadow effects
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003, with demonstrations of the characters, animation and physics. The reaction was positive, and the game won the E3 Game of the Show award.[9] Newell also announced a release date of September 30, 2003, hoping this would motivate the team. They worked long hours to meet the deadline, but by July it was clear they would miss it. Rumors spread of a delay. On September 23, Valve released a statement targeting a release for the holiday season, leading to fan backlash.[4]
Newell had been hesitant to announce a delay without a new release date. He said later: "We were paralyzed. We knew we weren't going to make the date we promised, and that was going to be a huge fiasco and really embarrassing. But we didn't have a new date to give people either."[4] The graphics card manufacturer ATI had arranged a promotional event on Alcatraz Island to coincide with the planned release of Half-Life 2. Unable to pull out of the event, Newell gave a prepared speech, demonstrated the Source engine, and left without addressing questions.[4]
On September 19, the Half-Life 2source code was obtained by a German hacker, Axel Gembe, who had infiltrated Valve's internal network months earlier. According to Gembe, he shared it with another person, who leaked the code online in early October.[10] Fans soon compiled a playable version of Half-Life 2, revealing how unfinished it was. The leaks damaged morale at Valve and slowed development.[4] In March 2004, Gembe contacted Newell and identified himself, saying he was a fan and had not acted maliciously. Newell worked with the FBI to invite Gembe to a fake job interview, planning to have him arrested in the United States; however, police arrested him in Germany.[10] In November 2006, Gembe was sentenced to two years' probation.[10]
In 2004, the Valve staff returned after Christmas to long hours, stressful working conditions, and no guarantee that the game, which was costing $1 million a month to develop, would be finished soon. However, Newell felt that progress was speeding up, with the team producing about three hours of gameplay per month. In March, they created the first version playable from start to finish and stopped production for a week to play through the game. Major changes by this point included the cutting of the Borealis, the replacement of the jet ski with a hovercraft, and introducing the physics-manipulating gravity gun earlier in the game. Feedback was positive across the company. Newell recalled: "The fact that you could go from one end of the game to the other was a really big thing for us. Then we knew it just had to get better – but it was all there."[4] After several months of bug fixes and playtesting, Half-Life 2 was completed on October 13, 2004.[4]
Valve made a 1 GB portion of Half-Life 2 available for download in an encrypted format through Steam on August 26, 2004. On the day of release, Steam customers were able to pay, unlock the files, and play the game immediately, without having to wait for the game to download.[11] In retail, distribution of the game was handled by Vivendi Universal Games through their Sierra Entertainment subsidiary.[12]
Half-Life 2 was simultaneously released through Steam, CD, and on DVD in several editions. Through Steam, Half-Life 2 had three packages that a customer could order. The basic version ("Bronze") includes only Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, whereas the "Silver" and "Gold" (collector's edition) versions also include Half-Life: Source (ports of the original Half-Life and Day of Defeat mod to the new engine). The collector's edition/"Gold" version additionally includes merchandise, such as a baseball cap, a strategy guide and CD containing the soundtrack used in Half-Life 2. Both the disc and Steam versions require Steam to be installed and active for play to occur.[13] The retail copies of the game came in two versions, standard and Collector's Edition. The Collector's Edition differed from the physical items in the "Gold" edition, and included a T-shirt and sample of the Prima strategy guide.[14]
A demo version with the file size of a single CD was made available in December 2004 at the website of graphics card manufacturer ATI Technologies, who teamed up with Valve for the game. The demo contains a portion of two chapters: Point Insertion and "We Don't Go To Ravenholm...". In September 2005, Electronic Arts distributed the Game of the Year edition of Half-Life 2. Compared to the original CD-release of Half-Life 2, the Game of the Year edition also includes Half-Life: Source.[15]
The soundtrack was written by Kelly Bailey. The Soundtrack of Half-Life 2, containing most of the music from Half-Life 2 and many tracks from the original Half-Life, was included with the Half-Life 2 "Gold" edition and sold separately from Valve's online store.[16] Valve released a deathmatch mode in 2004.[17] In 2022, fans discovered that the texture used for a corpse model originated from a real photograph of a corpse published in a medical textbook on treating burns, leading to criticism.[18][19]
On September 20, 2004, GameSpot reported that Sierra's parent company, Vivendi Universal Games, was in a legal battle with Valve over the distribution of Half-Life 2 to cyber cafés. Cyber cafés were important for the gaming market in Asia, where PC and broadband penetration per capita were much lower in most territories.[20]
According to Vivendi, the distribution contract they signed with Valve included cyber cafés. This would mean that only Vivendi could distribute Half-Life 2 to cyber cafés — not Valve through the Steam system. On November 29, 2004, Judge Thomas S. Zilly, of U.S. Federal District Court in Seattle, Washington, ruled that Vivendi and its affiliates are not authorized to distribute (directly or indirectly) Valve games through cyber cafés for pay-to-play activities according to the parties' current publishing agreement. Zilly also ruled in favor of the Valve motion regarding the contractual limitation of liability, allowing Valve to recover copyright damages for any infringement as allowed by law without regard to the publishing agreement's limitation of liability clause.[21]
On April 29, 2005, Valve and Vivendi announced a settlement. Vivendi would cease distributing all retail packaged versions of Valve games by August 31, 2005. Vivendi was also to notify distributors and cyber cafés that had been licensed by Vivendi that only Valve had the authority to distribute cyber café licenses; their licenses were revoked and switched to Valve's.[22] Valve partnered with Electronic Arts for the retail distribution of its games, including the Xbox version of Half-Life 2.[23]
In 2005, Valve released an extra level, Lost Coast, as a free download to anyone who purchased Half-Life 2.[24]Lost Coast acted as a technology demonstration, showing off new lighting techniques and high-dynamic-range rendering in the Source engine. On December 22, Valve released a 64-bit version of the Source engine for x86-64 processor-based systems running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows Vista x64, or Windows Server 2008 x64. This update enabled Half-Life 2 and other Source games to run natively on 64-bit processors, bypassing the 32-bit compatibility layer. Newell said it was "an important step in the evolution of our game content and tools", and that the game benefited greatly from the update.[25] Some users reported major performance improvements, though the technology site Techgage found stability problems and no notable frame rate improvement.[26]
In 2006, Valve partnered with Taito to release Half-Life 2: Survivor, an arcade game for the Japanese market.[27][28] Valve rereleased Half-Life 2 as part of the 2007 compilation The Orange Box for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.[29] On May 26, 2010, Half-Life 2, Episode One and Episode Two were released for Mac OS X.[30] In 2013, Valve ported Half-Life 2 to Linux[31] and released a free update adding support for the Oculus Riftvirtual reality headset.[32] An NVIDIA Shield Tablet-exclusive port for Android was released on May 12, 2014.[33] In January 2022, a new UI designed for Valve's portable Steam Deck device was released.[34]
In 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with his human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays chess against HAL. In the film, the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.
In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue his programmed directives. HAL uses one of the Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, without a space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. After HAL tells him "This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it", Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.
While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.
In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell" as he gradually deactivates (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer, which Clarke had earlier observed at a text-to-speech demonstration).[4][5][6] HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.
2010: Odyssey Two (novel) and 2010: The Year We Make Contact (film)[edit]
In the 1982 novel 2010: Odyssey Two written by Clarke, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov.
Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being "male", SAL is characterized as being "female" (voiced by Candice Bergen in the film) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.
Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.
The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the Leonov, and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the Discovery and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.
The details in the novel and the 1984 film 2010: The Year We Make Contact are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the Leonov crew initially lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine burn necessary to get the Leonov back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.
In the novel, the basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra is quite long, while the movie uses a shorter sequence voiced from HAL as: "HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_YESTERDAY_TOMORROW".
While Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000, it has not been mentioned in subsequent novels.
2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey[edit]
In Clarke's 1987 novel 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.
In Clarke's 1997 novel 3001: The Final Odyssey, Frank Poole is introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called "Halman" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship toward the end of 2010: Odyssey Two.
Clarke noted that the first film was criticized for not having any characters except for HAL,[clarification needed] and that a great deal of the establishing story on Earth was cut from the film (and even from Clarke's novel).[7] Clarke stated that he had considered Autonomous Mobile Explorer–5 as a name for the computer, then decided on Socrates when writing early drafts, switching in later drafts to Athena, a computer with a female personality, before settling on HAL 9000.[8] The Socrates name was later used in Clarke and Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey novel series.
The earliest draft depicted Socrates as a roughly humanoid robot, and is introduced as overseeing Project Morpheus, which studied prolonged hibernation in preparation for long term space flight. As a demonstration to Senator Floyd, Socrates' designer, Dr. Bruno Forster, asks Socrates to turn off the oxygen to hibernating subjects Kaminski and Whitehead, which Socrates refuses, citing Asimov'sFirst Law of Robotics.[9]
In a later version, in which Bowman and Whitehead are the non-hibernating crew of Discovery, Whitehead dies outside the spacecraft after his pod collides with the main antenna, tearing it free. This triggers the need for Bowman to revive Poole, but the revival does not go according to plan, and after briefly awakening, Poole dies. The computer, named Athena in this draft, announces "All systems of Poole now No–Go. It will be necessary to replace him with a spare unit."[10] After this, Bowman decides to go out in a pod and retrieve the antenna, which is moving away from the ship. Athena refuses to allow him to leave the ship, citing "Directive 15" which prevents it from being left unattended, forcing him to make program modifications during which time the antenna drifts further.[11]
During rehearsals Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers to supply the voice of HAL 9000 while searching for a suitably androgynous voice so the actors had something to react to. On the set, British actor Nigel Davenport played HAL.[12][13] When it came to dubbing HAL in post-production, Kubrick had originally cast Martin Balsam, but as he felt Balsam "just sounded a little bit too colloquially American", he was replaced with Douglas Rain, who "had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part".[14] Rain was only handed HAL's lines instead of the full script, and recorded them across a day and a half.[15]
HAL's point of view shots were created with a Cinerama Fairchild-Curtis wide-angle lens with a 160° angle of view. This lens is about 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter, while HAL's on set prop eye lens is about 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter. Stanley Kubrick chose to use the large Fairchild-Curtis lens to shoot the HAL 9000 POV shots because he needed a wide-angle fisheye lens that would fit onto his shooting camera, and this was the only lens at the time that would work. The Fairchild-Curtis lens has a focal length of 23 mm (0.9 in) with a maximum aperture of f/2.0 and a weight of approximately 30 lb (14 kg); it was originally designed by Felix Bednarz[16] with a maximum aperture of f/2.2 for the first Cinerama 360 film, Journey to the Stars, shown at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.[17] Bednarz adapted the lens design from an earlier lens he had designed for military training to simulate human peripheral vision coverage.[18] The lens was later recomputed for the second Cinerama 360 film To the Moon and Beyond, which had a slightly different film format. To the Moon and Beyond was produced by Graphic Films and shown at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair,[19] where Kubrick watched it; afterwards, he was so impressed that he hired the same creative team from Graphic Films (consisting of Douglas Trumbull, Lester Novros, and Con Pederson) to work on 2001.[20][21]
A HAL 9000 face plate, without lens (not the same as the hero face plates seen in the film), was discovered in a junk shop in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s by Chris Randall.[22] This was found along with the key to HAL's Brain Room. Both items were purchased for ten shillings (£0.50).[23][24] Research revealed that the original lens was a Fisheye Nikkor 8 mm f/8.[25] The collection was sold at a Christie's auction in 2010 for £17,500[26] to film director Peter Jackson.[27]
HAL's name, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke, is derived from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.[8][2] After the film was released, fans noticed HAL was a one-letter shift from the name IBM and there has been much speculation since then that this was a dig at the large computer company,[28][29] something that has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick.[2] Clarke addressed the issue in his book The Lost Worlds of 2001:
...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence.[8]
IBM was consulted during the making of the film and their logo can be seen on props in the film, including the Pan Am Clipper's cockpit instrument panel and on the lower arm keypad on Poole's space suit. During production it was brought to IBM's attention that the film's plot included a homicidal computer but they approved association with the film if it was clear any "equipment failure" was not related to their products.[30][31][29]
HAL Communications Corporation is a real corporation, with facilities located in Urbana, Illinois,[32] which is where HAL in the movie identifies himself as being activated: "I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L plant in Urbana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992."[33]
The former president of HAL Communications, Bill Henry, has stated that this is a coincidence: "There was not and never has been any connection to 'Hal', Arthur Clarke's intelligent computer in the screen play '2001' — later published as a book. We were very surprised when the movie hit the Coed Theatre on campus and discovered that the movie's computer had our name. We never had any problems with that similarity - 'Hal' for the movie and 'HAL' (all caps) for our small company. But, from time-to-time, we did have issues with others trying to use 'HAL'. That resulted in us paying lawyers. The offenders folded or eventually went out of business."[34]
The scene in which HAL's consciousness degrades was inspired by Clarke's memory of a speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr., who used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer vocoder recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews.[4]
HAL's capabilities, like all the technology in 2001, were based on the speculation of respected scientists. Marvin Minsky, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the most influential researchers in the field, was an adviser on the film set.[35] In the mid-1960s, many computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence were optimistic that machines with HAL's capabilities would exist within a few decades. For example, AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon at Carnegie Mellon University had predicted in 1965 that "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do".[36]
Apple Inc.'s 1999 website advertisement "It was a bug, Dave" was made by meticulously recreating the appearance of HAL 9000 from the movie.[43] Launched during the era of concerns over Y2K bugs, the ad implied that HAL's behavior was caused by a Y2K bug, before driving home the point that "only Macintosh was designed to function perfectly".[44]
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The film is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. Kubrick avoided conventional cinematic and narrative techniques; dialogue is used sparingly, and there are long sequences accompanied only by music. The soundtrack incorporates numerous works of classical music, including pieces by composers such as Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss II, Aram Khachaturian, and György Ligeti.
In a prehistoric veld, a tribe of hominins is driven away from its water hole by a rival tribe. The next day, they find an alien monolith has appeared in their midst. The tribe then learn how to use a bone as a weapon and, after their first hunt, return to drive their rivals away with it.
Millions of years later, Dr Heywood Floyd, Chairman of the United States National Council of Astronautics, travels to Clavius Base, an American lunar outpost. During a stopover at Space Station Five, he meets Russian scientists who are concerned that Clavius seems to be unresponsive. He refuses to discuss rumours of an epidemic at the base. At Clavius, Heywood addresses a meeting of personnel to whom he stresses the need for secrecy regarding their newest discovery. His mission is to investigate a recently found artefact, a monolith buried four million years earlier near the lunar crater Tycho. As he and others examine the object and are taking photographs, it emits a high-powered radio signal.
Eighteen months later, the American spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter, with mission pilots and scientists Dr Dave Bowman and Dr Frank Poole on board, along with three other scientists in suspended animation. Most of Discovery's operations are controlled by HAL, a HAL 9000 computer with a human-like personality. When HAL reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device, Dave retrieves it in an extravehicular activity (EVA) pod, but finds nothing wrong. HAL suggests reinstalling the device and letting it fail so the problem can be verified. Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their backup 9000 computer indicate that HAL has made an error, but HAL blames it on human error. Concerned about HAL's behaviour, Dave and Frank enter an EVA pod so they can talk in private without HAL overhearing. They agree to disconnect HAL if he is proven wrong. HAL follows their conversation by lip reading.
While Frank is floating away from his pod to replace the antenna unit, HAL takes control of the pod and attacks him, sending Frank tumbling away from the ship with a severed air line. Dave takes another pod to rescue Frank. While he is outside, HAL turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation, killing them. When Dave returns to the ship with Frank's body, HAL refuses to let him back in, stating that their plan to deactivate him jeopardises the mission. Dave releases Frank's body and opens the ship's emergency airlock with his remote manipulators. Lacking a helmet for his spacesuit, he positions his pod carefully so that when he jettisons the pod's door, he is propelled by the escaping air across the vacuum into Discovery's airlock. He enters HAL's processor core and begins disconnecting most of HAL's circuits, ignoring HAL's pleas to stop. When he is finished, a prerecorded video by Heywood plays, revealing that the mission's actual objective is to investigate the radio signal sent from the monolith to Jupiter.
At Jupiter, Dave finds a third, much larger monolith orbiting the planet. He leaves Discovery in an EVA pod to investigate. He is pulled into a vortex of coloured light and observes bizarre astronomical phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colours as he passes by. Finally he finds himself in a large neoclassical bedroom where he sees, and then becomes, older versions of himself: first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Dave reaches for it, he is transformed into a foetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light floating in space above the Earth.
Kubrick obtained financing and distribution from the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the selling point that the film could be marketed in their ultra-widescreen Cinerama format, recently debuted with their How the West Was Won.[13][14][12] It would be filmed and edited almost entirely in southern England, where Kubrick lived, using the facilities of MGM-British Studios and Shepperton Studios. MGM had subcontracted the production of the film to Kubrick's production company to qualify for the Eady Levy, a UK tax on box-office receipts used at the time to fund the production of films in Britain.[15] In a draft version of a contract with Kubrick's production company in May 1965, MGM suggested Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and David Lean as possible replacements for Kubrick if he was unavailable.[16]
Kubrick's decision to avoid the fanciful portrayals of space found in standard popular science fiction films of the time led him to seek more realistic and accurate depictions of space travel. Illustrators such as Chesley Bonestell, Roy Carnon, and Richard McKenna were hired to produce concept drawings, sketches, and paintings of the space technology seen in the film.[17][18] Two educational films, the National Film Board of Canada's 1960 animated short documentary Universe and the 1964 New York World's Fair movie To the Moon and Beyond, were major influences.[17]
According to biographer Vincent LoBrutto, Universe was a visual inspiration to Kubrick.[19] The 29-minute film, which had also proved popular at NASA for its realistic portrayal of outer space, met "the standard of dynamic visionary realism that he was looking for". Wally Gentleman, one of the special-effects artists on Universe, worked briefly on 2001. Kubrick also asked Universe co-director Colin Low about animation camerawork, with Low recommending British mathematician Brian Salt, with whom Low and Roman Kroitor had previously worked on the 1957 still-animation documentary City of Gold.[20][21]Universe's narrator, actor Douglas Rain, was cast as the voice of HAL.[22] For the role of Heywood Floyd, MGM suggested casting a well-known actor such as Henry Fonda or George C. Scott.[23]
After pre-production had begun, Kubrick saw To the Moon and Beyond, a film shown in the Transportation and Travel building at the 1964 World's Fair. It was filmed in Cinerama 360 and shown in the "Moon Dome". Kubrick hired the company that produced it, Graphic Films Corporation—which had been making films for NASA, the US Air Force, and various aerospace clients—as a design consultant.[17] Graphic Films' Con Pederson, Lester Novros, and background artist Douglas Trumbull airmailed research-based concept sketches and notes covering the mechanics and physics of space travel, and created storyboards for the space flight sequences in 2001.[17] Trumbull became a special effects supervisor on 2001.[17]
Searching for a collaborator in the science fiction community for the writing of the script, Kubrick was advised by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staff member Roger Caras, to talk to writer Arthur C. Clarke, who lived in Ceylon. Although convinced that Clarke was "a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree", Kubrick allowed Caras to cable the film proposal to Clarke. Clarke's cabled response stated that he was "frightfully interested in working with [that] enfant terrible", and added "what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?"[19][24] Meeting for the first time at Trader Vic's in New York on 22 April 1964, the two began discussing the project that would take up the next four years of their lives.[25] Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with 2001, excerpts of which were published in 1972 as The Lost Worlds of 2001.[26]
Arthur C. Clarke in 1965, photographed in the Discovery's pod bay
Kubrick told Clarke he wanted to make a film about "Man's relationship to the universe",[27] and was, in Clarke's words, "determined to create a work of art which would arouse the emotions of wonder, awe ... even, if appropriate, terror".[25] Clarke offered Kubrick six of his short stories, and by May 1964, Kubrick had chosen "The Sentinel" as the source material for the film. In search of more material to expand the film's plot, the two spent the rest of 1964 reading books on science and anthropology, screening science fiction films, and brainstorming ideas.[28] They created the plot for 2001 by integrating several different short story plots written by Clarke, along with new plot segments requested by Kubrick for the film development, and then combined them all into a single script for 2001.[29][30] Clarke said that his 1953 story "Encounter in the Dawn" inspired the film's "Dawn of Man" sequence.[31]
Kubrick and Clarke privately referred to the project as How the Solar System Was Won, a reference to how it was a follow-on to MGM's Cinerama epic How the West Was Won.[12] On 23 February 1965, Kubrick issued a press release announcing the title as Journey Beyond The Stars.[32] Other titles considered included Universe, Tunnel to the Stars, and Planetfall. Expressing his high expectations for the thematic importance which he associated with the film, in April 1965, eleven months after they began working on the project, Kubrick selected 2001: A Space Odyssey; Clarke said the title was "entirely" Kubrick's idea.[33] Intending to set the film apart from the "monsters-and-sex" type of science-fiction films of the time, Kubrick used Homer's The Odyssey as both a model of literary merit and a source of inspiration for the title. Kubrick said, "It occurred to us that for the Greeks the vast stretches of the sea must have had the same sort of mystery and remoteness that space has for our generation."[34]
How much would we appreciate La Gioconda today if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: "This lady is smiling slightly because she has rotten teeth" — or "because she's hiding a secret from her lover"? It would shut off the viewer's appreciation and shackle him to a reality other than his own. I don't want that to happen to 2001.
Originally, Kubrick and Clarke had planned to develop a 2001 novel first, free of the constraints of film, and then write the screenplay. They planned the writing credits to be "Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick" to reflect their preeminence in their respective fields.[36] In practice, the screenplay developed in parallel with the novel, with only some elements being common to both. In a 1970 interview, Kubrick said:
There are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The novel came about after we did a 130-page prose treatment of the film at the very outset.... Arthur took all the existing material, plus an impression of some of the rushes, and wrote the novel. As a result, there's a difference between the novel and the film ... I think that the divergences between the two works are interesting.[37]
In the end, Clarke and Kubrick wrote parts of the novel and screenplay simultaneously, with the film version being released before the book version was published. Clarke opted for clearer explanations of the mysterious monolith and Star Gate in the novel; Kubrick made the film more cryptic by minimising dialogue and explanation.[38] Kubrick said the film is "basically a visual, nonverbal experience" that "hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting".[39]
The screenplay credits were shared whereas the 2001 novel, released shortly after the film, was attributed to Clarke alone. Clarke wrote later that "the nearest approximation to the complicated truth" is that the screenplay should be credited to "Kubrick and Clarke" and the novel to "Clarke and Kubrick".[40] Early reports about tensions involved in the writing of the film script appeared to reach a point where Kubrick was allegedly so dissatisfied with the collaboration that he approached other writers who could replace Clarke, including Michael Moorcock and J. G. Ballard. But they felt it would be disloyal to accept Kubrick's offer.[41] In Michael Benson's 2018 book Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, the actual relation between Clarke and Kubrick was more complex, involving an extended interaction of Kubrick's multiple requests for Clarke to write new plot lines for various segments of the film, which Clarke was expected to withhold from publication until after the release of the film while receiving advances on his salary from Kubrick during film production. Clarke agreed to this, though apparently he did make several requests for Kubrick to allow him to develop his new plot lines into separate publishable stories while film production continued, which Kubrick consistently denied on the basis of Clarke's contractual obligation to withhold publication until release of the film.[30]
Astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in his 1973 book The Cosmic Connection that Clarke and Kubrick had asked him how to best depict extraterrestrial intelligence. While acknowledging Kubrick's desire to use actors to portray humanoid aliens for convenience's sake, Sagan argued that alien life forms were unlikely to bear any resemblance to terrestrial life, and that to do so would introduce "at least an element of falseness" to the film. Sagan proposed that the film should simply suggest extraterrestrial superintelligence, rather than depict it. He attended the premiere and was "pleased to see that I had been of some help".[42] Sagan had met with Clarke and Kubrick only once, in 1964; and Kubrick subsequently directed several attempts to portray credible aliens, only to abandon the idea near the end of post-production. Benson asserts it is unlikely that Sagan's advice had any direct influence.[30] Kubrick hinted at the nature of the mysterious unseen alien race in 2001 by suggesting that given millions of years of evolution, they progressed from biological beings to "immortal machine entities" and then into "beings of pure energy and spirit" with "limitless capabilities and ungraspable intelligence".[43]
In a 1980 interview (not released during Kubrick's lifetime), Kubrick explains one of the film's closing scenes, where Bowman is depicted in old age after his journey through the Star Gate:
The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by godlike entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time.... [W]hen they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.[44]
The script went through many stages. In early 1965, when backing was secured for the film, Clarke and Kubrick still had no firm idea of what would happen to Bowman after the Star Gate sequence. Initially all of Discovery's astronauts were to survive the journey; by 3 October, Clarke and Kubrick had decided to make Bowman the sole survivor and have him regress to infancy. By 17 October, Kubrick had come up with what Clarke called a "wild idea of slightly fag robots who create a Victorian environment to put our heroes at their ease".[40] HAL 9000 was originally named Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom and had a feminine voice and persona.[40]
Early drafts included a prologue containing interviews with scientists about extraterrestrial life,[45]voice-over narration (a feature in all of Kubrick's previous films),[a] a stronger emphasis on the prevailing Cold War balance of terror, and a different and more explicitly explained breakdown for HAL.[47][48] Other changes include a different monolith for the "Dawn of Man" sequence, discarded when early prototypes did not photograph well; the use of Saturn as the final destination of the Discovery mission rather than Jupiter, discarded when the special effects team could not develop a convincing rendition of Saturn's rings; and the finale of the Star Child exploding nuclear weapons carried by Earth-orbiting satellites,[48] which Kubrick discarded for its similarity to his previous film, Dr. Strangelove.[45][48] The finale and many of the other discarded screenplay ideas survived in Clarke's novel.[48]
Kubrick made further changes to make the film more nonverbal, to communicate on a visual and visceral level rather than through conventional narrative.[35] By the time shooting began, Kubrick had removed much of the dialogue and narration.[49] Long periods without dialogue permeate the film: the film has no dialogue for roughly the first and last twenty minutes,[50] as well as for the 10 minutes from Floyd's Moonbus landing near the monolith until Poole watches a BBC newscast on Discovery. What dialogue remains is notable for its banality (making the computer HAL seem to have more emotion than the humans) when juxtaposed with the epic space scenes.[49] Vincent LoBrutto wrote that Clarke's novel has its own "strong narrative structure" and precision, while the narrative of the film remains symbolic, in accord with Kubrick's final intentions.[51]
Principal photography began on 29 December 1965, in Stage H at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England. The studio was chosen because it could house the 60-by-120-by-60-foot (18 m × 37 m × 18 m) pit for the Tycho crater excavation scene, the first to be shot. In January 1966, the production moved to the smaller MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, where the live-action and special-effects filming was done, starting with the scenes involving Floyd on the Orion spaceplane;[52] it was described as a "huge throbbing nerve center ... with much the same frenetic atmosphere as a Cape Kennedy blockhouse during the final stages of Countdown."[53] The only scene not filmed in a studio—and the last live-action scene shot for the film—was the skull-smashing sequence, in which Moonwatcher (Richter) wields his newfound bone "weapon-tool" against a pile of nearby animal bones. A small elevated platform was built in a field near the studio so that the camera could shoot upward with the sky as background, avoiding cars and trucks passing by in the distance.[54][55] The Dawn of Man sequence that opens the film was shot at Borehamwood with John Alcott as cinematographer after Geoffrey Unsworth left to work on other projects.[56][57] The still photographs used as backgrounds for the Dawn of Man sequence were taken at the Spitzkoppe mountains in what was then South West Africa.[58][59]
Filming of actors was completed in September 1967,[60] and from June 1966 until March 1968, Kubrick spent most of his time working on the 205 special-effects shots in the film.[37] He ordered the special-effects technicians to use the painstaking process of creating all visual effects seen in the film "in camera", avoiding degraded picture quality from the use of blue screen and travelling matte techniques. Although this technique, known as "held takes", resulted in a much better image, it meant exposed film would be stored for long periods of time between shots, sometimes as long as a year.[61] In March 1968, Kubrick finished the "pre-premiere" editing of the film, making his final cuts just days before the film's general release in April 1968.[37]
The film was announced in 1965 as a "Cinerama"[62] film and was photographed in Super Panavision 70 (which uses a 65 mm negative combined with spherical lenses to create an aspect ratio of 2.20:1). It would eventually be released in a limited "roadshow" Cinerama version, then in 70 mm and 35 mm versions.[63][64] Colour processing and 35 mm release prints were done using Technicolor's dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. on Metrocolor. The production was $4.5 million over the initial $6 million budget and 16 months behind schedule.[65] For the opening sequence involving tribes of apes, professional mimeD
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