The 2001: A Space Oddessey essay. An excersize in avoiding the subject.

I didn’t see the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey in class. I don’t remember the movie all too well. This essay is about a cartoon parody. The Cartoon “Recess”, which chronicles the lives of the 4th graders at Third Street Elementary, recreated the film, without anyone dying.

It begins with “the dawn of man”. No monolith, but it did have monkeys. And the fight scene. And when the Alpha Monkey throws the bone up into the air, it turns into… a football.

Cut to: the modern day. It’s recess, and the main characters are outside, playing. (Hence the name “Recess”.)

The school clock, and bell system, is being taken out, and is being replaced with a SAL 3000 system. Gretchen (the geek) thinks it’s great and wonderful and the advancement of science in our lives and she starts using a whole series of words that fourth graders shouldn’t know.

Okay. Fine. So, the school continues to function relatively normally, until SAL goes completely insane. It’s cuts recess short. It insults the teachers. So on and so forth. T.J. (another main character, and the equivalent of Dave) gets the others to crawl inside the Jungle Gym, where SAL can’t hear them, and they plot to dismantle SAL (against Gretchen’s wishes).

SAL can read lips (big surprise there).

AL decided the teachers aren’t necessary, dismisses them, and takes over in teaching. In the process of explaining it to the students, SAL insults Gretchen’s intelligence (which is bad, because she’s the smartest in the school, and, until that point, SAL’s only remaining supporter).

The main characters sneak down to the basement, through the ventilation ducts, and shut down the computer. In it’s final coherent moments, it sings “School Days” (which I think is from the original movie) before it finally shuts down.

Yay. The School is saved.


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