HAL 9000 Is Afraid It Can’t Avoid This Parody Of Spike Jonze’s Her

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old


Think of all the romantic couples in cinema’s history who would have been the perfect valentines for one another. Rhett and Scarlett. Rick and Ilsa. Ripley and the alien. Well, it was a particularly lovely holiday for sci-fi’s newest “it” couple: Her‘s Theodore Twombly and the maliciously cordial HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Apparently the two recently met and hit it off like nobody’s business. We here at GFR expect to hear the pitter-patter of a load of red-faced, glasses-wearing cyborgs any day now.

As you can tell from the above video, this is all just a parody of Spike Jonze’s Oscar-nominated romantic drama Her, making it the umpteenth one that’s come out recently. I’m afraid of what the dismal spoofers Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (writer/directors of Epic Movie and the like) will do with Her if they ever make a sci-fi-tinged comedy. (Please, Alien Baby God, let them never ever make that happen.) But Joe Casey delivers a pretty solid mash-up that, if nothing else, made me consider what sexuality HAL actually falls into. Luckily, years of watching Bender’s loving travails on Futurama geared me up for this kind of mental exercise.

I really wish this would have taken more of an unsettling route, as Theodore’s unmatched responses to HAL’s clinical comments are slightly disturbing all on their own, but that dreadful music kills the mood. Not “that” mood, though. Even though Douglas Rain’s calm and reassuring tones are no match for the sultry sexuality that Scarlett Johansson’s voice exudes, I’m sure HAL’s OS could turn bones to spaceships in no time. Or at least less time than 2001 makes it out to be.

It’ll only be two weeks until we see just how well Her does at this year’s Oscars, as it’s nominated for five different awards, including Original Screenplay, Production Design, Original Song, Original Score, and Best Picture. My vote is on Jonze winning the screenplay category, and possibly Karen O. and Jonze’s “The Moon Song” taking home a trophy as well

For those who want to see more of Casey’s work, you can find a tribute devoted solely to Kubrick’s meditative classic below.

And because few videos in the world are better than blooper compilations, here are 50 of them.