Space Odyssey File") and also made a non-speaking cameo appearance in the film. Kubrick had no involvement in the "2010" novel or film, or any of the later projects. The "Space Odyssey" series combines several science-fiction narrative conventions with a metaphysical tone. Since the stories and settings in the books and films all diverge, Clarke suggested that the "continuity" of the series represents happenings in a set of parallel universes. One notable example is that in the "2001" novel, the voyage was to the planet Saturn. During production of the film, it was decided that the special effects for Saturn's rings would
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) level of being that represents the next stage of human evolution. The film also conveys what some viewers have described as a sense of the sublime and numinous. Ebert writes in his essay on "2001" in "The Great Movies": In a book on architecture, Gregory Caicco writes that "Space Odyssey" illustrates how our quest for space is motivated by two contradictory desires, a "desire for the sublime" characterized by a need to encounter something totally other than ourselves—"something numinous"—and the conflicting desire for a beauty that makes us feel no longer "lost in space," but at home. Similarly, an article