SOURCE: “Rendezvous with HAL: 2001/2010,” in Extrapolation, Vol. 28, No. 3, Fall, 1987, pp. 255-68.

In the following essay, Shelton maintains that Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001—2010: Odyssey Two—is integral to understanding Kubrick's film as well as Peter Hyams's film 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

Although some of 2001: A Space Odyssey's cinematic mysteries were addressed in Arthur C. Clarke's novel of the same title and year (1968), the more enigmatic ones—HAL's breakdown, Bowman's trip through the Star Gate, and the appearance of the Star Child—were not solved until the 1982 issuing of Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two and, to a much lesser extent, the 1984 release of Peter Hyams's film 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Clarke's sequel is pivotal. Structurally and thematically, it tells us how to “read” both films—how to go back to his and Stanley Kubrick's classic to see it as a comedy of cosmic evolution, and forward to Hyams's...