2001: A Space Odyssey Man & the Natural World Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Quote #1

A leopard leaps down from the rocks and attacks a hominid. The screen fades to black as the leopard grips the hominid's neck and he struggles for his life.

The thing about the natural world is that it's a rather violent place. "Nature, red in tooth and claw," as Tennyson poetically put it. If not for the reassuring tones of Dave Attenborough's narration, you could make a horror cut of any Planet Earth episode. And why is it always the wildebeests who get it? Anyway, when the movie opens, our ancestors have no defense against the predators and dangers of the natural world, except the Scooby and Shaggy strategy of running away.

Quote #2

A mysterious black monolith has been placed near the hominids as they slept. Waking up, the hominids initially freak out but then get curious, eventually clustering around the artifact and touching it with almost a reverent quality.

The monolith's design instantly tells you it is not a part of the natural world. Its sharp right angles and uniform black coloring suggests something otherworldly given the weathered terrain of Africa.

Quote #3

After killing some tapirs with his new bone club, a hominid climbs a hill with a fist-full of meat and greedily chomps down.

Finally, things are starting to look up—well, unless you're a tapir. With the retooling the monolith performed on the early hominids, one has discovered how to use the first tool, and will drastically change the relationship between man and nature. Humans are on their way to subduing nature, as the Bible put it.