David Bowman

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Keir Dullea as David Bowman.

David Bowman is a character in the Space Odyssey series. He first appears in a story jointly written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, called 2001: A Space Odyssey (which is both a book and a movie). The character later appears in the sequel to the book, 2010: Odyssey Two and the sequel to the movie, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. The character also returns in two more books by Arthur C. Clarke, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey.

In the two movies, the character is played by Keir Dullea.

[edit] Bowman's history

[edit] 2001: A Space Odyssey

David Bowman going into shock after entering the second TMA monolith's star gate in 2001.

In both the book and movie 2001, astronaut and scientist David Bowman is on a mission to track the source of an alien artifact found on the moon, which leads to a moon around the planet Jupiter (in the novel, Saturn); the story takes place in the year 2001. He has to interact with both a human crewmate and an intelligent supercomputer named HAL 9000. The HAL 9000 computer utility suffers an apparent malfunction which leads to the death of all humans on board except David Bowman. Through determination and cunning, David is able to outwit the supercomputer and regain control of the spaceship Discovery. Upon orbital insertion around Jupiter, however, David Bowman is confronted with a huge, black featureless monolith with the exact proportions of 1 by 4 by 9 (the squares of the first three ordinals). He takes a space pod to investigate, and he is greeted by arguably the most surreal sequence of scenes in science fiction film history.

[edit] 2010: Odyssey Two (book) & 2010: The Year We Make Contact (film)

In the end of the 2001 movie, David Bowman is led through a metamorphosis from a material being to an energy-like being. This state, and David Bowman's incarnation of himself in this state, is referred to in the 2001 book as the Star Child.

The visual representation of David Bowman's new state in the movie(s) is that of a variety of human David Bowman bodies at various ages (from embryo to elderly).

In 2010, David Bowman returns to Earth in his Star Child form, and in the book version he detonates an orbiting nuclear weapon and absorbs the radiation and energy, derailing the onset of a war. In 2010 this is revealed to take place in the year 2011, meaning that David Bowman had been away from Earth for ten years in real time. After defusing the nuclear weapon, he goes down to Earth and contacts his ex-wife Betty (who has since remarried and had a son Carlos) and his mother, who is dying. In the novel 2010, after that he goes to Europa and observes the different life forms living in the liquid ocean beneath the ice shell, and then goes to Jupiter and sees the life forms living in the gas giant's atmosphere.

David Bowman then attempts to communicate with the main character Dr. Heywood Floyd, by proxying messages through HAL's communication system. Dr Floyd at first assumes that HAL or another human crew member is playing a trick. Ultimately, David shows himself to the character, to warn him that the recovery team for Discovery that has traveled to Jupiter orbit aboard the Leonov must leave within only fifteen days (two days in the movie version) before Jupiter is artificially turned into a new star, Lucifer, in order to give the Europans the chance to thrive and excel.

[edit] 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey

In 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.

In 3001: The Final Odyssey, we meet the merged forms of Dave Bowman and HAL. The two have merged into one entity called Halman after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship towards the end of 2010: Odyssey Two. Halman helps Frank Poole infect the monolith (which it once served) with a computer virus; as the life in Jupiter's clouds were sacrificed to make Jupiter into a sun to warm Europa, it is feared that humanity would in turn be sacrificed for the new life on Europa.

[edit] Etymological significance of David Bowman's name

The following is a possible etymology of the name David Bowman. The first name "David" is believed to point to the biblical David, who killed the much stronger Goliath through skill not power. The second name "Bowman" is assumed to be a reference to Ulysses, whose skill with the bow is often described in the Odyssey. Ulysses also blinded the one-eyed Polyphemus with a trick, as Bowman deactivates one- (camera-) eyed HAL 9000. Hence a potential reason for the name of the film: "2001 A Space Odyssey".

Another possibility is that the surname "Bowman" refers to Arjuna, one of the heroes of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. Arjuna, a master archer and revered warrior, is granted cosmic vision by Lord Krishna thereby allowing Arjuna to see Krishna's awe-inspiring 'Universal Form'.

David Bowie made a reference to the title Space Odyssey in making his famous song, Space Oddity.

David Bowman is also the name of an obscure American novelist. Bowman (born 1957) is the author of the novels "Let the Dog Drive" and "Bunny Modern."

Another supernatural Bowman reference comes in Stanley Kubrick's last directed movie, Eyes Wide Shut. In a scene that represents SoHo, a sign on a building reads BOWMAN in bold letters.