[justin66]

Thanks. That still kind of validates the impression I had that hyperventilating wasn't an irrational thing for him to be doing, but it's a very different thing.

The interesting thing is that Arthur C. Clarke was a very experienced scuba diver and still had a problem with the scene. Ah well.

It's one of my favorite action scenes in any science fiction film. The interesting thing is that the trick just relied on good photography, piano wire and dropping Keir Dullea. It's easy to imagine how a present-day director would mess that scene up with CGI effects, slow-motion, stuntmen, and so on.