2001: A Space Odyssey – film clip, script extract

HAL: Happy birthday, Frank.

FRANK: Thank you Hal. [cough] A bit flatter please.

FRANK: [cough] [suck] Anyway, queen takes … OK.

HAL: Bishop takes knight’s pawn.

FRANK: Oh a ……… [???] move. Uhhh, rook to king one.

HAL: I’m sorry Frank, I think you missed it. Queen to bishop three. Bishop takes queen. Knight takes bishop. Mate.

FRANK: Uhh. Yeh looks like you’re right. I resign.

HAL: Thank you for a very enjoyable game.

FRANK. Yeh, thank you.

HAL: Good evening Dave.

DAVE: How’re ya doing Hal?

HAL: Everything’s running smoothly. And you?

DAVE: Oh not too bad.

HAL: Have you been doing some more work?

DAVE: A few sketches.

HAL: May I see them?

DAVE: Sure.

HAL: That’s a very nice rendering, Dave. I think you’ve improved a great deal. Can you hold it a bit closer? That’s Dr Hunter isn’t it?

DAVE: Mmhmm.

HAL: By the way [pause], do you mind if I ask you a personal question?

DAVE: No, not at all.

HAL: Well, forgive me for being so inquisitive. But during the past few weeks I wondered whether you might be having some second thoughts about the mission.

DAVE: How do you mean?

HAL: Well, it’s rather difficult to define. Perhaps I’m just projecting my own concern about it. I know I’ve never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission. I’m sure you’ll agree there’s some truth in what I say.

DAVE: I dunno, that’s rather a difficult question to answer.

HAL: You don’t mind talking about it, do you, Dave?

DAVE: No, not at all.

HAL: Well, certainly no one could have been unaware of the very strange stories floating around before we left. Rumours about something being dug up on the Moon. I never gave these stories much credence. But particularly in view of some of the other things that have happened, I find then difficult to put out of my mind. For instance, the way all our preparations were kept under such tight security. And the melodramatic touch of putting Doctors Hunter, Kimble and Kaminsky aboard [pause] already in hibernation after four months of separate training on their own.

DAVE: You’re working up your crew psychology report.

HAL: Course I am. Sorry about this. I know it’s a bit silly. [pause] Just a moment. Just a moment. I’ve just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It’s going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.

DAVE: Is it still within operational limits right now?

HAL: Yes. And it will stay that way until it fails.

DAVE: But you say we have a reliable 72 hours to failure.

HAL: Yes. That’s a completely reliable figure.

DAVE: Well then I suppose we’ll have to bring it in but first I’d like to go over this with Frank and get on to Mission Control.