Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was No consensus, default to Keep. Brief explanation of closure: While the title seems to suggest original research by synthesis, as was pointed out by many participants in the discussion below, the actual article ascribes each of the major interpretations to published secondary sources, and does not attempt to synthesise them into an original view on the part of the article's author; accordingly I did not discount the numerous Keep !votes in this discussion. WaltonOne 17:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Unencyclopedic original synthesis that might belong on a fansite but does not belong in Wikipedia. Groupthink (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete While it is the greatest sci-fi film ever made, this really is fansite material. Intersting read, but certainly doesn't belong here.  I'd go so far as to say that this article can serve no purpose... Lugnuts (talk) 17:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete purely original research. Ten Pound Hammer  • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 17:50, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep to improve it. It's a badly-written article, but most of it is sourced to reliable sources, not to fansites, and as far as I can tell the summaries are accurate. It certainly is NOT "purely original research". If somebody gave it some TLC it could become a good article. Cop 663 (talk) 20:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It certainly IS purely original synthesis, and while 2001: A Space Odyssey is most definitely noteworthy, no amount of TLC is going to make "interpretations of 2001" an encyclopedic topic in-and-of-itself. Groupthink (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by synthesis? Your understanding of it does not seem to tally with WP:SYN. Cop 663 (talk) 01:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * From WP:SYN: "Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research."  From the article:  "An allegory is a story in which the events are intended to represent some other, underlying meaning. One allegorical interpretation of the film is made by Leonard F. Wheat... An alternative allegory is provided by New Zealand journalist Scott MacLeod... Numerous other theories and interpretations have been put forward by amateur and professional movie scholars and critics alike, with a number of Web sites postulating the meaning behind HAL's behavior and the enigmatic journey into the unknown."  Hmm, so Messrs. Wheat and MacLeod (neither of whom merit their own Wikipedia article, BTW) have pontificated on 2001 as allegory, therefore there must be numerous other scholarly opinions.  Sounds like A + B = C to me. Groupthink (talk) 03:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No, that's weasel words - "unspecific disclaimers attached to what otherwise would be plain statements of opinion, rather than fact". I agree that it's crap, but a different kind of crap, and one very easy to fix by deleting the sentence in question. Cop 663 (talk) 14:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree that that sentence by itself contains weasely terminology, but it's also O.S. in the broader context of the article. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Groupthink (talk) 05:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep As the article's sources confirm, 2001 has been a film that has been subjected to many different interpretations since it first came out 40 years ago, which is what Stanley Kubrick was aiming for. Because the film is so bizarre, it's been the subject of speculation more so than most films.  Author's speculation is "original research".  However, an author's references to someone else's speculation is not original research.  Mandsford (talk) 01:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The article's sources most definitely do NOT confirm this. They confirm two published sources and one self-published website expositing a novel allegorical interpretation of 2001.  The citations/references fail to establish that "2001 has been a film that has been subjected to many different interpretations since it first came out 40 years ago, which is what Stanley Kubrick was aiming for.  Because the film is so bizarre, it's been the subject of speculation more so than most films." like you assert.  Even if that proposition could be substantiated, you'd still need to establish that the article's topic passes notability muster, which it does not (remember, notability is not inherited). Groupthink (talk) 03:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Two minutes of research reveals further evidence of the subject's notability:
 * * Robert Kolker, ed. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays (Oxford University Press) - from the blurb: "Almost all students have seen 2001, but virtually none understand its inheritance, its complexities, and certainly not its ironies. The essays in this collection, commissioned from a wide variety of scholars, examine in detail various possible readings of the film and its historical context ... 2001 is, like all of [Kubrick's] films, more than it appears, and it keeps revealing more the more it is seen."
 * * Michael Chion, Kubrick's Cinematic Odyssey (British Film Institute) - "In this multilayered study, acclaimed critic and theorist of film sound Michel Chion offers some keys to understanding 2001 ... He then conducts a meticulous and subtle analysis of its structure and style, arguing that 2001 is an "absolute film," a unique assemblage of cinema's elements, through which pulses a vision of human existence. "Animals who know they will die, beings lost on earth, forever caught between two species, not animal enough, not cerebral enough.""
 * And those are just the entire books on the subject. There will be many more academic essays on the subject. This article has great potential despite its currently unprepossessing appearance. Cop 663 (talk) 14:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Your citations merely further establish that 2001 itself is a seminal film which has inspired scholarly work. They do not establish that interpretations of 2001 is a notable topic, however.  Compare this search with this search this search as an illustration of my point.  Now, if they're not in there already, the citations you list above would make a great addition to the 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) article, but I'm still not convinced that the topic under discussion has independent, uninherited notability. Groupthink (talk) 05:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, this article was originally a section of 2001: A Space Odyssey (film) but grew too large and was siphoned off. So if readings of 2001 are worthy of inclusion, there is a practical need for a separate article. BTW, your Google search is picking up interpretations of every film made in the year 2001, so it's pretty meaningless...! :) Cop 663 (talk) 17:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies, I posted the wrong link for the 2001 search and have corrected accordingly, thanks for catching that. As for your first point, I disagree with your reasoning.  Formal criticism of 2001 is different from interpretations of 2001 for starters.  Even if an "Interpretations of 2001" section is worthy of inclusion in the main article, what's called for is fastidious pruning, not a separate article.  There may be enough material to create a separate article, but that's not sufficient to qualify said article's topic for inclusion in WP.  Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Groupthink (talk) 17:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Article is well sourced with reliable sources. Issues of synthesis can be edited out. Some of the statements in the article still require references, but I don't see any valid reason to delete the entire article. Rray (talk) 14:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You're contradicting yourself: the article can't be both "well sourced" and "still require references"... but that's beside the point.  It's the original synthesis that gives the illusion that this article's topic is notable.  Once the synthesis is "edited out" it's obvious that there are multiple valid reasons – notability foremost among them – which justify this article's deletion. Groupthink (talk) 05:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Some statements can have good sources while other statements still require references. I can see why you'd think I'm contradicting myself there, but I think you're also nitpicking, which I don't think should be necessary if the article really qualified for deletion.
 * But references can be added for statements which don't have good sources, or those statements can be deleted. Deletion isn't necessary or even preferable, although cleanup might be needed. Since entire books have been written on the subject, notability is well established, regardless of any cleanup issues. Rray (talk) 06:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * To reiterate, entire books have been written on the subject of 2001 itself, and I agree that its notability is well-established. However, we're not debating the notability of 2001 here, we're debating the notability of the topic "Interpretations of 2001", which is a fringe topic not sufficiently notable enough to merit its own article.  This isn't about cleanup, it's about being encyclopedic. Groupthink (talk) 06:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete -Per WP:NOT If you look back at the original version it most definitely was WP:OR. Since then editors have been trying to improve it by citing references and deleting sections that can not be verified. The article will always be WP:OR or it will be a complete recreation of Wheat's work both of which should not be here.  Gtstricky Talk or C 16:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, Wikipedia is not a Film School 101 class. Struct (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.