Frank Poole

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Frank Poole is a fictional character from Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. In Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Poole was portrayed by Gary Lockwood.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Poole is an astronaut aboard the spacecraft Discovery One on the first manned mission to Jupiter (Saturn in the novel). He and Dave Bowman are the only passengers who are not in suspended animation.

Poole and Bowman discuss disconnecting HAL 9000, the ship's computer, after it mistakenly predicts that the AE-35 unit (an electronic unit in the ship's main antenna) has failed. They realize that HAL is capable of error, and privately discuss disconnecting him. They believe themselves to be out of HAL's hearing range, but the computer, which can read lips, learns of their plan and resolves to get rid of the threat.

Shortly afterward, Poole begins replacing the AE-35 unit. In an act resembling the human response of survival, HAL rams Poole with one of the ship's pods, killing him. HAL then refuses to let Bowman return to the ship after his attempt to rescue Poole.

In the novel 3001: The Final Odyssey, Poole's body is discovered after drifting in space for a millennium. Given Poole's exposure to vacuum (he was flash-frozen so his body was fully intact after 1,000 years), the advanced medical technology of the time is able to revive him and Poole is brought back to life. Poole must then contend with the trio of Monoliths that hold sway over our solar system, and what Bowman has become. He also marries a woman named Indra Wallace and has two children, Dawn and Martin.

[edit] Trivia

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• Tom Hanks once expressed interest in directing a film version of 3001, in which he would have played Poole.
• In 3001, his birthdate is established as being 1996; this is a retcon from previous stories, where he was born 30+ years earlier.