This HAL 9000 Replica Is Made From The Original Blueprints, Dave

By Nick Venable | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

I woke up two days ago and opened my refrigerator to get some milk for my coffee, when I saw the water droplets lined up all along the walls and on the inside of the plastic drawers. Ice had built up on the vents over the fans, and everything inside was slightly less than cool to the touch. After a few minutes of misguided troubleshooting, I realized there was no way I alone would figure out what went wrong with the refrigerator. All that was missing was for a glowing red eye from a panel on my wall to tell me, “It can only be attributed to human error.”

Thanks to the marketing and development geniuses at ThinkGeek, the HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica can be yours to purchase and curiously consider before hiding from in fear. And it isn’t a cheap knock-off like an E.T. Halloween mask, it’s the most realistic model ever made, designed from the actual blueprints for Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece. The lens features a red LED covered in custom-ground glass that even has the Nikkor company sticker on it, just like in 2001. More importantly, it’s voice-activated, and will randomly spit out 15 of HAL’s most memorable quotes. Though if you don’t feel like actually addressing HAL himself, you can use an IR remote, but make sure you ask HAL first. If he says it’s okay, you can watch the following video from the ThinkGeek squad.

With a $499 price tag attached to it, it’s not something you’ll be giving your boss for Valentine’s Day, but 2001 is the kind of movie with adamant fans, so you probably know someone for whom this would be the end-all be-all of gifts. And maybe you can get HAL to cooly threaten an ATM machine and see about getting some of that money back.