“The Sentinel” and “2001: Space Odyssey” are both narrative science fictions that describe some constructed environment, with the presence of human, in the future of the works’ creation time. Some of the shared themes are the brittleness of human civilisation, the plasticity of time, and the infinity of unknown.
The brittleness of human civilisation is shown in “the Sentinel” by the fact that the “pyramid” was on moon but not on earth. The more developed alien civilisation choose to place the pyramid in a place which indicates their doubt on human’s ability. While in “Space Odyssey”, the seemingly undefeatable little society was destroyed by an AI operating system they created themselves. The scene where Dave throw his partner away into the darkness (universe? unknown?) to be able to open the door and survive.
The plasticity of time is revealed by the way the two works display time. In “the Sentinel”, time is depicted as the eternal silence on the moon and the strangeness of the pyramid. The duration of time seems lost along with the loss of weight, which is the same as in “Space Odyssey”. Time is depicted here similar to an axis of information, which can easily be distorted by the environment. And this is also why Dave went through the cycle of life from birth to rebirth.
The area of unknown is not especially said, nor is it a main topic. But it is in the context all along. Because of the limitation of our knowledge, we attempted to explore space, we built AI, we try to explain life.
