Walter Curnow Quotes in 2010 (1984)

Dr. Vasili Orlov: What was that all about?

Chandra: I've erased all of HAL's memory from the moment the trouble started.

Dr. Vasili Orlov: The 9000 series uses holographic memories, so chronological erasures would not work.

Chandra: I made a tapeworm.

Walter Curnow: You made a what?

Chandra: It's a program that's fed into a system that will hunt down and destroy any desired memories.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Wait... do you know why HAL did what he did?

Chandra: Yes. It wasn't his fault.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Whose fault was it?

Chandra: Yours.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Mine?

Chandra: Yours. In going through HAL's memory banks, I discovered his original orders. You wrote those orders. Discovery's mission to Jupiter was already in the advanced planning stages when the first small Monolith was found on the Moon, and sent its signal towards Jupiter. By direct presidential order, the existence of that Monolith was kept secret.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: So?

Chandra: So, as the function of the command crew - Bowman and Poole - was to get Discovery to its destination, it was decided that they should not be informed. The investigative team was trained separately, and placed in hibernation before the voyage began. Since HAL was capable of operating Discovery without human assistance, it was decided that he should be programmed to complete the mission autonomously in the event the crew was incapacitated or killed. He was given full knowledge of the true objective... and instructed not to reveal anything to Bowman or Poole. He was instructed to lie.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: What are you talking about? I didn't authorize anyone to tell HAL about the Monolith!

Chandra: Directive is NSC 342/23, top secret, January 30, 2001.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: NSC... National Security Council, the White House.

Chandra: I don't care who it is. The situation was in conflict with the basic purpose of HAL's design: The accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment. He became trapped. The technical term is an H. Moebius loop, which can happen in advanced computers with autonomous goal-seeking programs.

Walter Curnow: The goddamn White House.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: I don't believe it.

Chandra: HAL was told to lie... by people who find it easy to lie. HAL doesn't know how, so he couldn't function. He became paranoid.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Those sons of bitches. I didn't know. I didn't know!

Walter Curnow: You had us scared for a moment.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Nice work. Are you all right?

Chandra: Yes, I'm all right.

[Pulls out sabotage device Floyd had Curnow install in HAL's power circuit and gives it to Floyd]

Chandra: I thought you might want this.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: [clears throat] When?

Chandra: Wasn't very hard to find. Yeah I knew you'd do something like this.

Heywood Floyd: [referencing Discovery's schematic diagrams] Are these the power connections for all the control-based circuits?

Walter Curnow: Most of them, yeah.

Heywood Floyd: What other ones are there?

Walter Curnow: Well, all the environmental controls are fed with this one here...

Heywood Floyd: Yeah yeah yeah, but this is the one that feeds into HAL, right?

Walter Curnow: Right.

Heywood Floyd: Okay... I want you to install this little beauty... right about... there. Just inside the cable trunking.

[hands a small device to Curnow]

Heywood Floyd: I want you to put it where no one can find it without a deliberate search.

Walter Curnow: No shit?

Heywood Floyd: No shit.

Walter Curnow: This is pretty sweet... Non-conducting blade, so there won't be any short-circuits when you trigger it... Where's the remote control?

Heywood Floyd: If I trigger it. The control's in my compartment. Little red calculator? You've seen it. You put in nine '9s'. Take the square root, and then hit 'Integer.' In an emergency, even you could do it.

Walter Curnow: What kind of emergency?

Heywood Floyd: Well if I knew that, I wouldn't need this stupid thing now, would I?

[holds up the device]

Walter Curnow: Y'know, Chandra'd have kittens if he found out.

Heywood Floyd: Yeah. But he isn't gonna find out, is he.

Walter Curnow: Not from me. They could tear off my fingernails, I won't talk.

Heywood Floyd: Good. Install it tonight when he's asleep. If he ever does sleep.

Walter Curnow: How can you tell?

Heywood Floyd: I'd love a hot dog.

Walter Curnow: Astrodome. Good hot dogs there.

Heywood Floyd: Astrodome? You can't grow a good hot dog indoors. Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been boiling since opening day in April. Now that's a hot dog.

Walter Curnow: The yellow mustard or the darker kind?

Heywood Floyd: The darker kind.

Walter Curnow: Very important.

Walter Curnow: I feel so stupid. How do you say, 'stupid'?

Maxim Brajlovsky: Durak!

Walter Curnow: That's me.

Maxim Brajlovsky: You shouldn't feel like that. The same thing happened to me the first time I did this.

Walter Curnow: When have you ever done this before?

Maxim Brajlovsky: Never!

Maxim Brajlovsky: Easy as cake, huh?

Walter Curnow: Pie. Easy as pie.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: [Seeing Curnow has woken from hibernation] How do you feel?

Walter Curnow: Ugh. Like shit.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Maybe Max should extend the pod's arms. Put the hands out.

Dr. Vasili Orlov: Are you serious?

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Yes.

Walter Curnow: I don't know about you, but that thing with its claws in the air would scare the piss out of me.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Maybe you're right.

Walter Curnow: *It's shrinking! It's shrinking!*

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Curnow, have you heard the one about the marathon runner and the chicken?

Walter Curnow: Don't patronize me. I'm getting nauseous.

Maxim Brajlovsky: If you vomit, you will choke.

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Don't close your eyes. Look at the middle of Discovery. The middle, not the ends. Look at the part where it's moving the least. Don't take your eyes off it.

Walter Curnow: l'm gonna throw up. I'm an engineer, goddamn it! Maybe you'd better patronize me a little. What about the marathon runner?

Dr. Heywood Floyd: Ah - I made it up.

Maxim Brajlovsky: Piece of pie!

Walter Curnow: Cake! Piece of Cake.

Walter Curnow: If it has to taste like this, I don't care if my electrolytes are imbalanced or not.