2001: Imperfect Notes by Ferret
I love Stanley Kubrick’s films, they are visually stunning. Every frame is carefully composed and often carries deeper meaning. I saw a restored version of the film last year at the BFT and I was just as impressed in 2011 as when I had seen it as a teenager in 1968. Its ground-breaking effects earned Kubrick an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. I wanted to make the solution to this puzzle visually attractive so thank you AJ for the care taken with the imagery of the printed solution. This puzzle was my attempt at a homage to a classic film. When I sent the puzzle to the editors I gave the solution as DVD sleeve notes. Below are the expanded Bonus Features which were not printed because they were not necessary to explain the puzzle. Kubrick never explained his films so it was entirely appropriate!
This puzzle is based on the third section of the film (Jupiter Mission Eighteen months later) which begins with collaboration between HAL and the crew and ends in clashes. Differences in the top half of the grid were resolved through collaboration: differences in the bottom half of the grid involved unresolved clashes. Bowman and Discovery are both symbolically positioned under the eye of HAL. The letters of D(ouglas) RAIN (the actor who gave HAL his voice) appear imperfectly in contiguous cells in the eye.
Quotes justifying the title…
HAL: I am completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly. (MACHINE: I’m Perfect)
HAL: The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, fool-proof and incapable of error. (MACHINE: I’m Perfect)
HAL: It can only be attributable to human error. (MAN: Imperfect)
Humans make slips all the time, hence answers to some MAN clues had to lose a letter; they are mixed imperfectly together with the normal clues. Initially HAL appears to function normally but later turns out to be making mistakes, hence MACHINE clues are arranged perfectly with all normal clues followed by all misprints clues. It would have been more accurate to make the grid depicting the HAL interface longer and thinner but the proportions of the sides of the 2D grid are 4:9, the proportions of the 3D monolith in 2001 were 1:4:9 (12:22:32). The misprints in MACHINE clues all shift back by 1, 4 or 9 places in the alphabet to give Stanley Kubrick. Treating a vowel as 0 and consonant as 1, the misprinted clues begin 00011111010001; converting binary to decimal gives 2001.
October 4th, 2012 at 10:12 am
The care some setters take is quite remarkable: that was even more stuffed with thematic material than I realised. Brilliant! Thank you, Ferret.
A familiarity with the film would be required to get the visual effect in the solution ‘perfect’. I think my own solution fair but it was based on a mixed bag of images found on-line. My memory from seeing the film 40 years ago was not sufficient.
October 4th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
A stunning film, a stunning puzzle. Ferret is fast becoming my favourite setter. Literally one day after watching the film again recently I started I’m Perfect and the coincidence, after discovering the theme, astounded me. Like the puzzle itself. A treat.