2001: A Space Odyssey Quotes
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HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Context
This line is spoken by Dr. Dave Bowman, played by Keir Dullea, in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1968).
Dr. Dave Bowman is on a mission in space. A mission that's going horribly wrong. The other members of his crew are dead, and when he tells the ship's computer to open up the doors to their space pod so he can bring a body back inside the ship, things don't go so well.
The ship's computer, HAL 9000, is having a bit of a breakdown. See, he's the one that killed the other crewmembers because he knows what they were up to. They were trying to shut him down. HAL can't have that, so he decides to let Dave die, too. Sensible.
Where you've heard it
Sometimes folks break this out when talking to stubborn technology. Like the time when your computer shut down and died and lost your entire term paper? Machines can be touchy like that.
Additional Notable References:
- What happens if you ask Siri to open the pod bay doors?
- The spaceship in the movie Wall-E contains an Autopilot 9000. It's no surprise when the ship's computer turns on its human overlords.
- This quote was actually #78 on the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
Showing a computer who's the boss is never a pompous thing to do. Though the computer might see it a little differently.