Review of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Jeffrey N — 08 Oct 2014

Say what you want about the interpretation of how 2001: A Space Odyssey ended. The fact is, this film is one of the most beautifully shot films ever. Such great care was taken by director Stanley Kubrick to envelope the viewer visually.

He perfectly slows the pace down so that the viewer actually feels the slow pace of operating in space. It is a flawlessly made story-telling film. Oh, and it does so over 2.5 hours with very little dialogue.

Oh, oh...and he does it with 1968 special effects technology. As I was watching the last 30 minutes, I was as mind-f*cked as every other viewer. However, realizing it was Kubrick and mind-f*cking comes with the territory, I began to attempt at interpreting what those last minutes meant within the context of the film.

At first glance, I was convinced that humans were lab rats in a larger experimentation by a more evolved race. When I read interpretations by others, I saw that many others thought elements of that as well, but wrapped around much larger explanations, such as using the monolith's appearances to symbolize places in time that the experimenters used to force evolution of our species.

First, with the monkeys grasping tools and using them to first murder, then eventually evolve. Second, with the astronauts on the moon when the monolith signals to Jupiter that "they made it to the moon.

..they are coming!". Third, when they reach Jupiter and the higher race begins assessing the final product that has arrived. They find that they've gone from apes with tools to creating tools like HAL that, at the end, acted with more emotion, feeling, jealousy, etc than the seemingly cold, robotic humans.

The aliens, seeing the flaws of that development, then proceed to fast-track the extinction of man, as witnessed in the time warp of Dave's life resulting in the 4th and final appearance of the monolith, resulting in a restart of the race in the form of the embryonic child going back to Earth.

Unfortunately, neither Kubrick or Clarke would ever state for sure what it meant. Either way, the film was so visually stunning and intellectually stimulating, there isn't any question that it is one of the most incredible films ever made.