50年了，我们离《2001：太空漫游》还有多远？
In the spring of 1964 the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried. NASA was about to fly the Mariner 4 space probe past Mars.
1964年春，美国航天局(NASA)的“水手4号”(Mariner 4)航天探测器即将飞过火星，电影人斯坦利·库布里克(Stanley Kubrick)不禁忧心忡忡。
At the time he was deep in development of a blockbuster film about the discovery of alien intelligence. Word was that MGM had bet their studio on the film. What if Mariner discovered life on Mars and scooped them?
当时他正在潜心构思一部关于寻找外星智慧生物的卖座影片。有消息称米高梅(MGM)已经把片厂的未来压在这部影片上。如果“水手”在火星上发现了生命，抢了他的先机怎么办?
Kubrick looked into whether he could buy insurance against that event. He could, but the price was astronomical. Kubrick decided to take his chances, according to a new book about the making of the movie, “Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece,” by Michael Benson. (Simon & Schuster 2018)
库布里克研究了是否可以针对此事购买保险。可以，但价格是天文数字。迈克尔·本森(Michael Benson)关于这部电影拍摄过程的新书《太空漫游，斯坦利·库布里克，阿瑟·克拉克以及一部杰作的诞生》(Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece)中说，当时库布里克决定冒这个险。
That was 54 years ago. We still haven’t discovered intelligence or even believable evidence of pond scum anywhere else in the universe — not for lack of effort. A new spacecraft, TESS, designed to look for habitable nearby planets just vaulted into space, and an interstellar asteroid recently spotted streaking through the solar system was inspected for radio signals. Another robot is on its way to listen in on the heart of Mars. We still don’t know if we are alone.
那是在54年前。迄今我们依然没有发现宇宙中其他任何地方存在智慧生物，也找不到可靠证据证明哪怕最微不足道的生物存在——这不是因为不够努力。刚刚发射的航天器凌日系外行星巡天卫星(TESS)旨在寻找附近的宜居行星，最近有一颗闯入太阳系的星际小行星受到了无线电信号探查。还有一个机器人正在前往聆听火星心脏的途中。但我们仍然不知道，宇宙中是否只有我们。
Mr. Kubrick’s movie, “2001, A Space Odyssey,” finally debuted, late and over budget in April 1968, to baffled film critics and long lines of young people. John Lennon said he went to see it every week. It was the top-grossing movie of the year and is now a perennial on critics’ lists of the most important movies of all time, often the first movie scientists mention if you ask them about sci-fi they have enjoyed.
库布里克的电影《2001太空漫游》终于在1968年4月首映，上映时间延迟了，而且超出了预算，当时的影评人和一队队的年轻人都对它感到困惑。约翰·列侬(John Lennon)说自己每周都会去看它。它成了年度票房收入最高的电影，现在已成为影评人列举的“史上最重要电影名单”中的常客，如果你问科学家们最喜欢什么科幻电影，第一个被提到的往往是它。
In honor of its 50th anniversary it is being rereleased at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday and then in various cities around the world in a shiny new version overseen by Christopher Nolan, the director of “Dunkirk” and “Inception,” among other films. He told The Los Angeles Times the original film had been a “touchstone” from his childhood.
为纪念该片上映50周年，它的全新修复版本于周六在嘎纳电影节上重新发行，然后将在全球各个城市发行，该版本由《敦刻尔克》(Dunkirk)和《星际穿越》(Inception)导演克里斯托弗·诺兰(Christopher Nolan)监制。他告诉《洛杉矶时报》，他从小就将这部电影的原始版本当做“试金石”。
The movie, written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke (whose books and stories the movie was based on), and directed by Kubrick, is a multisensory ode to cosmic mystery, fate and the future. Long stretches happen with no explication or action except the zero-gravity ballets of spaceships immaculately imagined.
影片由库布里克和阿瑟·C·克拉克(Arthur C.Clarke)担任编剧(根据克拉克的小说改编)，由库布里克执导，是对宇宙的神秘、命运与未来的一曲多感官的颂歌。除了在太空船内构想完美的零重力芭蕾外，在一段段漫长的场景中，没有任何解说，也没有发生什么事情。
The movie broke with many of the conventions of the time, like mood music to tell you what to feel and think. “2001” left you alone in space with your thoughts.
这部电影突破了当时的许多惯例，比如它没有那种告诉你应当有什么的感受和想法的情绪音乐。《2001》让你独自一人置身太空，只与自己的思想为伴。
The story begins four million years ago in Africa, where a bunch of bedraggled primates are losing the battle of the survival of the fittest until a strange black monolith appears. To the thunder of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” one of those apemen is inspired to pick up a bone and use it as a club to kill the animals that have been pushing him around.
故事从400万年前的非洲开始，在适者生存的战斗中，一群脏兮兮的灵长类动物就要落败，直到一块奇异的黑色独石突然出现。伴随着《查拉图斯特拉如是说》(Also Sprach Zarathustra)的轰鸣，一个猿人受到启发，捡起一根骨头当棍子，杀死了身边推搡他的动物。
Suddenly, the apemen are eating meat and chasing their rivals away from the water hole. In a moment of exultation the ape throws the bone into the sky where, in what has been called the longest fast forward in film history, it turns into a spaceship.
突然间，猿人们吃上了肉，并将他们的对手从水坑边赶走。在欢欣雀跃的时刻，猿人将骨头扔向天空，这个地方被称为电影史上最漫长的快进，骨头变成了飞船。
Around that toss Kubrick pivots his movie and all of human evolution. Another monolith appears on the moon, and yet another in orbit around Jupiter, where an astronaut named Dave Bowman connects with it after subduing a neurotic computer, the HAL 9000, which has murdered his shipmates. In the finale, Bowman is sent through a “star gate” on a trip through space and time, death and rebirth, returning as a glowing Star Child to float like a fetus over the Earth.
库布里克以这一扔作为他的电影乃至整个人类进化的核心。另一块独石出现在月球上，又一块独石出现在环绕木星的轨道上，在那里，宇航员戴夫·鲍曼(Dave Bowman)制服了飞船上杀死船员的神经质电脑HAL 9000之后，与独石取得了联系。影片最后一幕，鲍曼在穿越时空、死亡与重生之旅中被送过一道“星门”，成了一个闪闪发光的“星童”，像胎儿一样漂浮在地球上空。
I first saw “2001” in the spring of 1968 in the same pharmaceutically compromised condition that all my friends did. I didn’t need that kind of help, anyway, having grown up reading Clarke’s stories, in particular the novel “Childhood’s End” and the short story, “The Sentinel.”
1968年春第一次看《2001》的时候，我和我所有的朋友一样，处于药物影响的状态之下。我不需要那种帮助，毕竟我从小就看克拉克的故事，特别是小说《童年的终结》(Childhood’s End)和短篇小说《哨兵》(The Sentinel)。
The last time I watched the movie (on VHS of all things on my tiny home television), was in 2000, on the eve of its eponymous year.
我上一次看这部电影(竟然是在我家的小电视上看的家用录像带)是在2000年，“2001”到来的前夜。
I never realized how much I had missed until I read Mr. Benson’s book, a deep, informative and entertaining dive into the making of the movie.
在读本森的书之前，我从未意识到自己忽略了多少东西，它深入、丰富而充满趣味地挖掘了这部电影的制作过程。
One revelation is how haphazardly the movie was made. Nevermind the special effects and the model spaceships, Kubrick and Clarke were making up much of the story as they went along. Up until the very end, Mr. Benson tells us, they were struggling with how to portray the alien being responsible for the monoliths, until they realized it couldn’t be done. We don’t know what is out there. It would be hubris to even try to imagine.
书中展示了电影的拍摄有多么随意。别说什么特效和模型太空船了，相当一部分的故事都是库布里克和克拉克一边拍一边写出来的。本森告诉我们，直到最后，他们还在苦苦思考，如何呈现那些送来独石的外星人，终于明白这个任务无法完成。我们不知道太空里有什么。哪怕试图去想象它都是自大的。
This is not a review of the book; Mr. Benson is a friend of mine, and I’m unabashedly ignorant of the history of cinema anyway. But it is a review of my own shifting attitudes and encounters with the movie itself over the years.
本文不是这本书的书评;本森是我的朋友，而且我对电影史一无所知。然而这篇文章是在回顾我自己多年来对该片看法的改变，以及同它一再相逢的经历。
One mark of the movie’s status as a masterpiece is that it has something different to say to us every time we encounter it anew.
有一点可以说明这部电影是杰作，我们每次看它，它都能给我们讲述新的东西。
Like the monolith it appears to give us what we need.
就像那块独石，它似乎能提供我们需要的东西。
Fifty years ago it was a harbinger of the future. We were about to win the race with the Russians to the moon. A whole generation was pumped and primed to tune in, turn on and transcend the whole dreary space-time continuum as we knew it.
五十年前，它是未来的预言。我们即将赢得与俄罗斯的登月竞赛。整整一代人被鼓舞起来，准备打开收音机或电视机，穿越我们当时所知的整个沉闷的时空连续体。
Thoroughly researched by Kubrick and Clarke, large swaths of the film were like a documentary of the future: the space station, the moon base, the grand-stepping outward just as Clarke and people like Werner von Braun had prophesied.
库布里克和克拉克的功课做得很足，影片的大部分内容就像是关于未来的纪录片：太空站、月球基地、向外太空迈出的一大步，就像克拉克以及维尔纳·冯·布劳恩(Werner von Braun)等人预言的那样。
“2001” comes back at another poignant time in history, especially as it relates to space and the cosmos. Once we got to the moon, the script of future history was abandoned by the Nixon White House.
在《2001太空漫游》归来之际，历史正处在又一个悲哀的时期，尤其因为它与太空和宇宙有关。我们一登上月球，未来历史的剧本就被尼克松的白宫抛弃了。
It’s now been 46 years since there was anyone on the moon. It’s possible to imagine a time in which there will be no humans alive who have been there.
从上次有人踏上月球到现在已经过去46年。可以想见，会有那么一天，到过月球的人都已离世。
But now the traditional sci-fi script has flipped. A generation of swashbuckling billionaires has taken center stage in the space business, as well as a new class of wealthy customers who can afford to indulge their services. Instead of Star Child these days we have the “Star Man,” launched into orbit past Mars in a Tesla convertible by Elon Musk.
但现在，传统的科幻电影剧情已经反转了。新一代有着传奇经历的亿万富翁以及一大群享受得起他们的服务的新富客户登上了太空行业的中心舞台。如今，我们看到的不是星童，而是“星男”，他坐在埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)的特斯拉敞篷车里被发射到太空中，飞向火星的轨道。
I once wrote that I no longer expected bootprints on Mars in my lifetime. Now I’m not so sure. It’s not crazy to think that private outfits like SpaceX, which seem to be running rings around NASA and Congress, could beat NASA into deeper space. I’d happily come out of retirement sometime in the 2030s to write the words that humans have landed and walked on Mars.
我曾经写过，在我的有生之年，我不再期待火星上出现人类的脚印。但现在，我不那么确定了。SpaceX等私人公司似乎已把NASA和国会远远甩在了后面，它们可能会超过NASA，进入更远的太空，这样的想法并不疯狂。在本世纪30年代的某个时刻，我可能会高兴地暂时脱离自己的退休生活，书写关于人类在火星上登陆和行走的文章。
Not that NASA has credible plans or the prospect of enough money to go anywhere exciting anytime soon. Under its new administrator Jim Bridenstine, a former congressman, NASA is taking steps to move forward on a long-range program of exploration and survey of resources that would lead to the establishment of a permanent base there.
短时间内，NASA并没有去往任何令人兴奋的地方的可靠计划，预计也没有足够的资金。NASA在新任署长——前国会议员——吉姆·布里登斯廷(Jim Bridenstine)的领导下正在逐步推进一项资源勘探和调查的长期计划，该计划致力于在那里建立一个永久性基地。
But Mars is having a moment in the popular imagination — from the Matt Damon film “The Martian,” which got high marks for scientific realism a couple years ago, to an upcoming television series “The First,” about settlers on Mars being planned by Beau Willimon, the producer and showrunner of the Netflix series “House of Cards.”
但是，火星现在正活跃在大众的想象力中，从马特·达蒙(Matt Damon)主演的影片《火星救援》(The Martian)——几年前，该片凭借其科幻现实主义获得了很高的评价——到即将播出的电视连续剧《第一》(The First)，这部关于火星移民的电视剧正在由鲍尔·威利蒙(Beau Willimon)筹划。威利蒙曾是Netflix电视剧《纸牌屋》(House of Cards)的制作和运作人。
This week space leaders and enthusiasts gathered in Washington, D.C. for The Humans to Mars Summit, sponsored by the aerospace industry. The meeting featured the release of a report outlining how humans could be on Mars as early as 2033.
本周，太空领袖和热心人士聚集在华盛顿特区，参加由太空行业赞助的人类登陆火星峰会(Humans to Mars Summit)。这次会议发布了一份报告，概述了人类最早在2033年登上火星的可能性。
Where the script has really flipped is in the future history of evolution.
在未来的进化历史中，剧情真的反转了。
Robots have taken over the sacred task of exploring for us. Increasingly sophisticated and smaller machines have spread out to every world of the solar system, buzzing the rings of Saturn, daring the dark voids beyond Pluto and landing on comets, scanning the heavens for new planets, new places to dream about. There have been enough robots, landers and orbiters violating the skies and surface of Mars to spark legends and myths and paranoia among whatever life-forms might be there.
机器人已经接过了为我们进行探索的神圣任务。越来越多的小型精密机器已经散布到太阳系的每一个世界，在土星的光环上空嗡嗡作响，在冥王星之外的黑暗空间里遨游，在彗星上着陆，在太空中寻找新的行星，新的梦想之地。已经有足够多的机器人、着陆器和人造卫星在入侵火星的天空和地表，激发那里可能存在的任何生命去讲述各种传奇、神话和恐慌。
The next generation extending our telepresence across the universe will be even smaller and cleverer. Plans are afoot to send fleets of spaceships the size of iPhone chips toward Alpha Centauri, like clouds of butterflies across interstellar space. Even if our bodies don’t ever cross the voids between the stars, our DNA surely will, in a microscopic cascade of space invaders that could still colonize the galaxy.
扩展我们在宇宙中的远程存在的下一代工具将会更小、更智能。正在进行中的计划是向南门二发射iPhone芯片大小的宇宙飞船舰队，就像一群在星际空间里穿梭的蝴蝶。即便我们的身体永远也无法穿越恒星之间的空间，我们的DNA也一定会通过这一大群微小的太空入侵者将整个银河系变成我们的殖民地。
We all carry HAL in our pockets now, and in a few years he, it, will be in our bloodstreams. The future, to the extent that humans are part of it, is bionic.
现在，我们都把HAL装在自己的口袋里，几年后，他……它会出现在我们的血液里。有人类存在的未来，是仿生的。
Computers, to the delight of surveillance states and the despair of civil libertarians, can now recognize faces. For all we know neural networks like Deep Mind can dream.
令监视公民的政府高兴、同时令民间自由意志主义者失望的是，电脑现在可以识别人脸了。就我们所知，Deep Mind等神经网络可以做梦。
Worse, we may all be part of the dream. The news from some physicists like the late Stephen Hawking is that the universe might be a hologram, an illusion like the three-dimensional images on a bank card. Some cosmologists have argued that it is not inconsistent — at least mathematically — to imagine that the entire universe as we know it could just be a computer simulation, as in “The Matrix” — another movie with long shadows. In effect, we are all made of bits, so the argument goes, removable, deformable at the click of an interstellar mouse.
更糟糕的是，我们可能都是这个梦的一部分。已故的斯蒂芬·霍金(Stephen Hawking)等物理学家认为，整个宇宙可能是一张全息图，是一种假象，就像银行卡上的三维图像。一些宇宙学家认为，我们所知的宇宙可能只是计算机模拟空间，就像《黑客帝国》(The Matrix)中描述的那样——它是另一部具有长远影响力的影片——这种想像至少从数学角度是说得通的。这种观点认为，我们实际上都是由比特组成的，只要点击星际鼠标，就可以拆装或变形。
In that case, I have a bone or two to pick with the director.
如果是那样的话，我就得跟导演挑一两根骨头了。
