Frozen Journey

This is a mess of thoughts I had while I read the story.

I may be looking too much into this, but I think that the ship was partly to blame for messing up Victor. He was in charge of bringing up the memories, but he failed because he didn't know how to deal with scary human emotions that with them. Memories are emotional, which is why we remember them. We remember the emotions that are tied to memories, regardless if the memories are actually accurate. 

For this reason, I don't think the ship was sentient. Although a funny character, it only cares about having to deal with Victor for the next ten years rather than caring about how much he's suffering. In the end, he contacts Martine to travel to the their destination. The ship is probably only does this because it doesn't want to be responsible with the death of a human, because then Asimov's robot rules (I'm assuming this applies). But that doesn't mean sentience, like we see in the I, Robot short stories. Victor was just a really fragile person to begin with, that needed humans to deal with him because only humans have the compassion. 

Overall, I just really pitied Victor. I completely sympathized with what he went through because that would totally be me if I was in that situation. If the story continued, I wonder if Victor could be able to return to (somewhat) normal self, at least one that could tell the differences between reality and fiction. Our own minds can play a pretty convincing part in tricking us, like with illusions and stuff or those dreams that you have where you wake up and get ready for school but then you wake up again and realize you were asleep the whole time. And then you really have to get out of bed now.

2OO1

Well, Ms.Swan was right, definitely the weirdest movie I'd ever seen (and probably will ever see). I tried to explain to my friend the plot, only to realize their was no plot. There were just a lot of stories smooshed together that shared a central theme. If there were to be a 'story', I would have to say it'd be the story of Hal and Dave, since we actually get names from them, making it a more personal connection for the viewer. The movie also ends with them, so I think it's supposed to be the one you think about last, like it's supposed to stay with you.
The whole heavy breathing deal made me so mad, until I realized that it's supposed to be like the monkeys (things) from the beginning, telling us that we are just like we were back then. Vulnerable and afraid, but strong. I read an online thing that talked about how it's supposed to show how machines can be more human than humans. They backed this up with evidence about Hal being the only one that talked about emotions, (like Frank being asleep whilst his family wished him a happy birthday), although I agree to some extent, I don't think that was the whole point. Sometimes humans are driven to do some pretty non-human things. Like when Dave let Frank go so he could get into the station. Although one might argue that there was a way that he could have brought them in, there really wasn't. Dave was forced to do that. Between his life and Frank's already dead self (harsh I know), he had to chose himself. Maybe Hal is supposed to be a human in our most primitive state (like Dave was forced to be after letting go of Frank). He acted impulsively after he heard that Dave and Frank were planning to shut him down, and when Dave does unplug him, he goes back to saying things like his name, and his birthday, some of the first things we learn as children. Maybe this isn't anything just some ideas that were floating around.
Total disclaimer, I didn't really understand the story line of the guy with the space conference and sippy cup food. Maybe I missed something.