Novelist: Arthur C. Clarke
By SHAWN BEHLEN
Staff Writer
"I spent 10 years thinking it
was impossible to write a sequel
to "2001," says Arthur C.
Clarke, co-writer of "2001" with
Stanley Kubrick and writer of
the novel "2010."
And now he's thinking of a
third in the series.
"I have agreed in principle to
write a third part," he says. "I
will wait until I feel like it and
wait until the Galileo mission to
Jupiter in Aug. '88, when I'll
start thinking about the next
stage."
Clarke says he decided to
start the series back up with a
definite purpose in mind.
"The reason for writing '2010'
was to create a self-fulfilling
prophecy," he says. "I talked
about this at a recent Senate
hearing, 'You may not remem
ber that the Apollo-Soyuz mis
sion was itself directly inspired
by a Hollywood movie.'
"Frankly, one of my purposes
for writing '2010' was to start
people thinking seriously again
about space exploration."
Both "2001" and "2010" have
become major motion pictures,
of course, and Clarke has had
several other novels optioned.
He says the two mediums place
different restrictions on the
story and that he is pleased
with the total narrative that has
come from both movies and
both books.
"There are things you can
spend time on explaining in a
novel that you can't spend time
on in a film," he says. "In
'2010,' Hyams cut out com
pletely the Chinese section, in
side Europa, inside Jupiter.
That would have been very dif
ficult to do of course and made
it a billion dollar, thirty hour
film, so he was right to make
that decision.
"But all the spirit, all the feel
ing, all the storyline was there.
It's amazing how much he got
into two hours running time, as
it is. I think there was a dull
quarter of a second in the third
reel, but that was it."
Clarke agrees with most
viewers of "2010" that it is more
accesible to a general audience
than "2001."
"It's a much more emotional
film," he says. "It's a two or
three handkerchief movie,
which '2001' certainly wasn't."
And he thinks the flashback
sequences at the beginning of
the film make it enjoyable to
people who haven't seen its
predecessor.
"It was very well done," he
says. "That put it across very
well for the three or four people
who haven't seen the original
movie."
Clarke thinks Director Stan
ley Kubrick will be pleased with
the sequel to his classic "2001."
"The first thing I said to Peter
after the screening was, T think
Stanley would have been jeal
ous.'"
Kubrick's film dealt very little
with the notion of politics in
comparison to the treatment
that subject receives in "2010."
Clarke says that makes the film
timely and in line with the
mood of his novel.
"Peter has strength in that,"
he says. "He made it more crit
ical, more crucial and I think
quite rightly, I must say I had a
pretty weird feeling about some
of the narrative in the film. That
was written a year ago and it's
in today's headlines.
"One of my friends has
coined the phrase aggressive
cooperation. We must make
them (the Russians) see that it's
to their benefit to cooperate.
The Russians won't do any
thing, because they're suspi
cious and paranoid. They've
earned their paranoia the hard
way.
"We've got to build up trust
and that's really what this book
is about. And the movie."