10 Surprising Movie Character Traits Everyone Missed

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is an all-timer sci-fi classic for many reasons, not least the presence of its villainous malfunctioning computer, HAL 9000 (Douglas Rain).

If HAL serves as David Bowman's (Keir Dullea) opposition throughout the film, the computer's greater sense of duplicity is hinted at prior when it takes on Dr. Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) in a game of chess.

The match ends with HAL's victory, naturally, though those who pay extremely close attention to the scene will notice that HAL actually "cheats" in order to win.

He tells Poole, "I'm sorry Frank, I think you missed it: queen to bishop three, bishop takes queen, knight takes bishop, mate," prompting Poole to resign the game without questioning HAL.

But in actual fact, HAL should've said, "queen to bishop six," which would've allowed Poole to continue playing a short while longer, even if HAL's victory was more-or-less inevitable either way.

Given Kubrick's penchant for infuriating attention-to-detail in his movies, it's unlikely this was a simple mistake.

More likely, it was a concerted attempt to sew the seeds of HAL's malfunction, albeit subtly enough that only seasoned chess players would likely ever notice it - and even then, probably assume it was a continuity error.