Slide of the Month Extra: Philmont 2001 A Phil Odyssey

 

December 2024

Time to make: 3 hours

Finishing: 1 hour
Boy's Life
Original design:  Bill Macfarlane





2001 A Space Odyssey was one of the first Science Fiction movies on TV I ever saw (not that I understood it then) but the images fascinated me. Years later, on a field trip for a High School English class, I got to see it again but on the big screen and there was so much more to take in. Themes included Human evolution, creation of a weapon, the beginning of weaponize war, The Blue Danube playing as the beauty of earth passes by, space vessels, space stations and  space travel as a common occurrence Pan American, artificial intelligence in the Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer (HAL), and the mystery surrounding the black monoliths from some extraterrestrial life. The movie also left me with so many questions, so when Arthur Clarke published 2010: Odyssey Two, I picked up the book the first day it was available. Both the book and the following movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact while answering some of my questions, it generated many more. It also felt oh so real as the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union paralleled the conflict in the movie.  To me the best  part of the movie was the last message transmitted by HAL

ALL THESE WORLDS

ARE YOURS EXCEPT

EUROPA

ATTEMPT NO

LANDING THERE

USE THEM TOGETHER

USE THEM IN PEACE

Made from pallet Pine, carving the helmet didn't seem quite right to me but when I painted the helmet it all seemed to come together. Painted with hobby paints, lettered with waterslide paper and sealed with a couple coats of polly.