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Originally Posted by Oriphiel
(1) So the monoliths that appear whenever a great technological/intellectual leap is made.
(2) Face it, this isn't even an argument that can be won or lost.
(3) If that was the case, then Clarke would never have felt compelled to write his own version of the story.
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(1) No. The monoliths were there from the very beginning. They were planted. They didn't just appear.
(2) Why do you refer to it as an argument? It's a spirited discussion. One that would be so much better if you'd read the companion novel.
(3) One last time. Clarke and Kubrick worked this together. There's no different version. Why do you keep falling back on this?
One of the better aspects of the novel is the first section. Where Kubrick can only show how Moon-watcher exists and then ultimately reacts to the monolith and it's message, Clarke is able to put the reader inside Moon-watcher's primitive brain. He's such a great writer and pulls it off so well.
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In the background to the story in the book, an ancient and unseen alien race uses a device with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds all across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent life.
The book shows one such monolith appearing in ancient Africa, 3 million years B.C. (in the movie, 4 million years), where it inspires a starving group of hominids to develop tools. The ape-men use their tools to kill animals and eat meat, ending their starvation.
They then use the tools to kill a leopard preying on them; the next day, the main ape character, Moon-Watcher, uses a club to kill the leader of a rival tribe. The book suggests that the monolith was instrumental in awakening intelligence.
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