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> That said, a part of me has always wished this sequence gave more thought to the physics and what it might be like to visualize the experience of traveling through a gate/wormhole like this. I don't think the coloration, visual patterns, or sequencing represents much understanding of the then-current physics theory on what this sort of thing might possibly be like, and I'm not sure it even captures it well in the abstract.

'Interstellar' did some of that, and they had to hire Kip Thorne as a consultant, and run a render farm to raytrace the relativistic effects.

I'm not sure the theory was quite at the same level in the '60s, and the cinema technique was definitely not the same. It would have been a lot harder to do any degree of realism.

Yeah, Interstellar definitely scratched this itch for me, and I appreciated it for doing so.

Certainly the theory has developed greatly since then. But being even somewhat informed about the contemporary physical theory would've made the sequence even more impactful and satisfying, for me personally.

I don't think technique would've necessarily required greater complexity or difficulty. For example, one might have used the same planing technique, but used different patterning and colorization, based on more mathematically derived outputs. Not suggesting any kind of simulation or super-advancement. Just using the same technique, but informing the visuals based on more physical theory.

I think that would have been literally impossible in 1969.

Firstly there was no theory of wormholes back then. Black holes were incredibly obscure mathematical abstractions in physics journals that weren't accessible to most people.

Secondly, this was 1968, when the world's faster supercomputer ran at 36MHz. Evans and Sutherland were just getting started when 2001 was being made. There were no GPUs, no digital frame stores, and monochrome bitmapped displays were still exotic.

It's easy to take computers for granted today. You can plot and animate almost anything, and you can do it at home - or on your phone.

Not so in the late 1960s. Mathematically derived animations would have needed a mountain of cash to pay for computer time just to get something very rough and approximate.

Why do you assume computers would've needed to be involved? One can plot space-time warping by hand. Indeed, Einstein had no benefit of computer assistance in developing his theories of relativity and gravity warping.

Why assume a complete theory of black holes or wormholes was necessary? Clearly the concept existed. Clearly we had General Relativity. One could imagine a more speculative but still physics-based visualization of what might happen in traveling through such a nexus of space-time.

I always felt it was from David's perspective of what is unimaginable to any human, and the scene is just his feeble mind attempting to make sense of something that his body can't. Much in the same way he experiences himself grow old and be reborn; he's being shown something he can't comprehend in a way that makes it easier for him to experience and understand. It's not meant to really be literal. At least that's my take, I could be wrong!

Yes. Metaphor. That's what it is.

The movie doesn't say it's a wormhole. The gate could be an entirely psychological experience, for all we know.

Nor does the book as a matter of fact. Having recently rewatched the film with my girlfriend who had not seen it I felt compelled to explain, in far less eloquent fashion than Sevrene has in this very thread, that well, what the fuck else would it look like? This is the culmination of mans contact with being(s) of godlike intelligence and apprehension. Would you expect that experience to make sense? Or be translatable?