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Q. I recently watched Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey" once again. Crewman Frank Poole, played by Gary Lockwood, is engrossed in a game of chess with HAL 9000, the spacecraft's on-board computer/villain/genius. The chess position is clearly shown on a computer screen, and the dialog describes several moves, ending with HAL saying, "I'm sorry, Frank. I think you missed it. Queen to Bishop three, Bishop takes Queen, Knight takes Bishop--mate." Frank resigns. But there is something wrong here. Although HAL does, indeed, have an overwhelming attack, the explanation of the winning line is flawed. He should have said "Queen to Bishop SIX", not "three." Since a properly functioning computer would never make this type of mistake, there are two possibilities: (1) This is a flaw in the film, or (2) This is a deliberate hint, albeit a very subtle one, that something is wrong with HAL. As "2001" is my all-time favorite film, I would like to think the second of these is correct, but perhaps only Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke know for certain. (Clay Waldrop, Jr., Garland, Texas)
A. You went into great detail on the chess problem, even including a diagram of the board, and I will print your complete letter online on CompuServe (GO EBERT) and the Web (http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert.html). As for the answer, Kubrick is as usual incommunicado, so I took your query to Arthur C. Clarke, via e-mail to Sri Lanka. He replies: "Meaningless to me--I deliberately avoided learning even the basic moves of chess when I was a boy--afraid I'd be engulfed.