#StarTrek #2001:ASpaceOdyssey

Here's a little tidbit about "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968):

When I was working on the first Trek film ("Star Trek: The Motion Picture" - ST:TMP - 1979), one of my coworkers was a brilliant gentleman who had been a TD (technical director) on 2001. As I recall he had a collection of little HAL 9000 stickers that would show up in various places around the facility.

Anyway, he had been in charge of all those wonderful data displays in 2001, in the ships and everywhere else. Keep in mind that this was before CGI so everything was done via conventional animation and/or computer motion control camera techniques.

I had been fascinated by those displays ever since I originally saw them. One day we were chatting and I asked him, "How the hell was anyone supposed to be able to interpret all that data from those displays with so much there?" And he replied, "Lauren, that was the whole point! No human could. That's why the mission was impossible without HAL!" -L