"Dr. Frank Poole SMOKES!!" Topic

As evidence, here's the largest pic I can find of Dr. Frank Poole (portrayed in '2001: A Space Odyssey' by actor Gary Lockwood). Enlarging it, one can see a little something tucked into his right shirt pocket:

picture

It's possible that HAL's sensitive memory and hardware was interferred with by Poole's second-hand smoke. Maybe HAL was offended enough to "off" him?

Just a thought.

2001 was written/filmed in the sixties. (Almost) everyone smoked back then. Arthur C Clarke predicted a lot of changes – many of which are actually coming to pass now, just not quite to Clarke's schedule – But I'm not sure if smoking becoming unfashionable (and the common perception of it being dangerous) was one of them. :)

True, Scutatus. I'm old enough to remember the Marlboro Man and other classic cigarette advertising on television before their being banned in 1971. On a personal note, one reason why I found taxis fascinating as a kid was because of what I called that "taxi smell". Little did I know that it was the residual smell of the driver's cigarette and/or cigar.

Still, I find it amusingly "human" to see a pack of smokes in someone's pocket in what was the antiseptic, far-flung future.

Says a lot for the life support equipment being assumed. Sure it CAN filter a lot of the burn products out, but why force it to?

"…the common perception…"

It's perceived as dangerous because it is.

It's perceived as dangerous because it is.

I'm pretty sure Scutatus knows that, XRaysVision. I think when he says "perception" he's talking about the common knowledge people had in the '60s. Despite many reports of smoking's risks, there were still *many* people in the late '60s who didn't believe that smoking was at all harmful – take most of my relatives, please. Remember, doctors and celebrities were still pitching cigarettes on TV and in print ads when "2001" came out.

Quite so. :)