If there had never been any films showing us what space is supposed to look like, would any of us imagine it?
I believe our earth is the ‘universe’ (for want of a better word). The sun and moon are our lights and together with the stars, they are part of our system. I understand this is a very simplistic way of putting it and I don’t claim to know the answers that come up between flat earth and ball earthers…so please don’t ask!! Obviously, there’s the tin-foil hat meme of falling off the edge of the flat earth but my belief is there is no edge, at all. One does not fall into space, or go up into space. There is no vast space where millions of other universes exist. It is just us here.
So, I watched Rob Ager’s take on 2001 Space Odyssey simply because I couldn’t bear to sit through the film but wanted to understand the basics of it. I think Rob did a good job. Arthur C Clarke wrote a book to go with the film. The film was made before the book or rather the book was being written alongside the making of the film even though the book differs in places. Even watching the parts Rob showed with his narration, together with the awful music, was enough. It’s the awful bleakness and complete nihilism of outer space that makes me think we’ve been sold this idea because where does God fit into this picture? And we must be assured we are completely irrelevant in this vast space, just a minuscule speck of a ‘planet’ in the ocean of millions of planets. Soulless.