Top left: The communications antenna mechanism (the single large round dish with a smaller dish on each side) is normally pointed roughly opposite the direction Discovery One is traveling in, which is consistent with its being pointed toward Earth, since the ship is headed from Earth to Jupiter. Top right: We note that the antenna is rotating about its vertical axis, while Bowman is removing the (supposedly) faulty AE-35 unit. The antenna, which normally only rotates by small increments as necessary to remain pointed to Earth, due to slight deviations in the spaceship's course, must be continuously rotating while the unit is being replaced. Note that we're never actually shown Bowman installing the new unit. Above left: The antenna is again rotating when Poole goes to re-install the (again, supposedly) faulty unit. Above right: When Bowman leaves the ship in his pod to retrieve Poole's body, the antenna has stopped rotating and is again pointed opposite the direction of travel (click image to enlarge). HAL doesn't want the mission film or broadcast being transmitted to Earth, to show any evidence of the attack on Poole; and, he doesn't want any further communication to be possible between Bowman and ground control after the attack. HAL therefore severs all communication with Earth at some point before the attack. As mentioned previously in the analysis, it must be the case that the alien and HAL are working together at this point in the movie, with HAL initiating the chain of events by falsely stating that the installed AE-35 unit will completely fail within 72 hours; then later, the alien makes Bowman forget to put on his space helmet when he goes out to retrieve Poole. Therefore, since the alien represents the 'evil feminine', Kubrick is, in fact, depicting the 'evil female component' in our society (e.g., radical feminists) as being one of the parties responsible, for the way things have turned out insofar as the 'perpetual doom' cycle within which mankind has been trapped.
[Note: Recall that in part 11 of the analysis, it was observed that the aliens in the movie can influence the thoughts of human beings; this is why the alien is able to make Bowman forget to put on his space helmet. The aliens are non-material in nature, consisting of pure energy, and thus, as mentioned previously in the analysis, an alien individual has been able to store itself in Discovery One's circuitry. It has been 'hiding' there during the Jupiter mission, which explains how it knows what's happening on the ship. A clue about the aliens' non-material nature is obtained by expanding out the spelling for "TMA-1" to get "TMA-One", one anagram of which is "no meat".]
From The Silence of the Lambs: Top left and right: FBI trainee Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) communicates with her boss, Agent Jack Crawford, while Crawford is on an airplane on his way to Calumet City, Illinois. Above left: Communication between Starling and Crawford is lost when Crawford's plane banks hard left and accelerates to change its heading. Above right: Hannibal Lecter standing in his Memphis cell, with police officer Boyle lying dead on the cell floor. Lecter has killed Boyle, and while doing so he spattered Boyle's blood on the cell floor, in a symbolic re-enactment of the Jewish Passover, to protect the serial killer, Jame Gumb, in his basement 'underworld', from the angel of death, Clarice Starling. All along it appears to the movie audience that Lecter is helping Starling to catch Gumb, but Lecter is in reality attempting to lead Starling to her death at Gumb's hands. Lecter has 'set up' a situation within Starling's psyche such that if she defeats Gumb, who represents a 'pupil' of Satan, then she will have 'assimilated' Gumb, her opposite. Lecter is then to become Mercurius (whom as we've mentioned, is a union of all opposites), when he assimilates his Jungian opposite, Clarice Starling, in the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal.[a]
The makers of The Silence of the Lambs have provided us not only with a hint about Discovery One losing communication with Earth, but they've given us one big clue about the alien's overall plan, the setting up of the situation within Bowman's psyche, etc. Just as Lecter, who represents the 'evil Jew' in The Silence of the Lambs, hopes Gumb will defeat Starling, so the alien hopes Bowman will lose to HAL. And, just as Lecter has set himself up to become Mercurius if things should turn out that Starling defeats Gumb, so also the alien has set itself up to become Mercurius if Bowman defeats HAL: If he defeats HAL, Bowman will have assimilated HAL, his 'opposite' ('good Jew' assimilates 'bad Jew'); then, the alien is to unite with Bowman. Note that there are not one-to-one correspondences between representations in the two movies: Lecter represents the 'bad Jew', a personification of Satan, and the Greek god, Hermes (in that he is a psychopomp); Gumb represents Satan's (Lecter's) pupil (i.e., the Freemasons); and Starling represents not only Melusina, the feminine aspect of Mercurius, but as indicated above, she is also an angel of death, sent by God to destroy Gumb. In Kubrick's movie, the scenario is that HAL represents a combination of the evil Jews and the evil Freemasons, Bowman is the 'good Jew' and the active, masculine half of Mercurius, and the alien is Melusina.
a. The novel, Hannibal, ends with Lecter assimilating Starling; however, the movie has a different ending in which Clarice escapes from Lecter. It was felt by the movie-makers that audiences would not buy the idea of Lecter and Starling running off together.
