Hey yall, I just wanted to ask a question for any Space Odyssey fans out there. Please don't be offended by the ignorance of this question if you like the movie because I am a big science fiction fan, but what in the world was that movie about because I just don't get it. I mean, I like movies that are somewhat interpretive in their them and in concepts throughout the movie but when it becomes so abstract that you struggle to make sense of it then it becomes aggrivating to me. I only watched it for the first time in the past year so my interest in understanding it is fairly new. If you think you have it figured out and you understand what was happenen, please let me know. I don't understand the black box on the moon and at the beginning of time and I definately don't get the ending at all. Any comments or thoughts are welcome.
A rundown on
2001? Been a while, but here goes:
The "black box" or monolith seen at the beginning with the early hominids and then again on the moon (and later in space) were alien devices that (as I understand it) were a very sophisticated type of computer/communications device, perhaps having some organic aspects as well (I'm going strictly from the film here, not the books, in the last of which, I understand, more information is given... but I've not read that one). Via these devices, an alien race gave our ancestors a slight "nudge"... a very tiny tinkering with our reactions... to give us a possibility of evolving into a complex intelligent species. It nudged us into being toolmakers, essentially, launching us on the path to a technological civilization, but leaving the full development to us; in part, I'd say, to see if we could achieve such without "nursemaiding", and also to see what variety of technological civilization we would develop.
The monolith on the moon was buried there so that, should be achieve that level of sophistication (space travel to our satellite), it would challenge us to find it and, once it was exposed to the sun's rays, it acted as a communications beacon, letting the originators of the device know how far we'd come; sort of an early warning system to let them know we were on the way (at least, that we
might be... we were getting there). By tracing where it's signal was aimed, we were given a clue where to head to meet with them -- or whatever remnants of their civilization existed at that time. (For all we knew, they might have become extinct in the interim.)
As for the ending... I assume you mean once Dave Bowman goes through the Stargate? Well, that's a part of the lightshow, if you will... the travel through an alien "corridor" to where the originators live(d). Hence, very alien landscapes, distortion of sensorium, etc. The portion at the end, where we see Dave go through various ages... he is under study as a representative of the human race... his individual development being studied, for instance, and also a probing of his reactions and psychology as they decide their next step where we are concerned. In the end, a circle is closed, and Dave is both sent back and forward to an embryonic state... he becomes the potential of the "New Man"... an evolutionary jump, as it were, as we become a species on the brink of genuine travel into the deep universe. Thus he is a symbolic guidepost to the future, that next step looking back on the world as it is, poised on the threshold of the past and the future. (A favorite theme with Clarke during those years; cf.
Childhood's End.)
Now... the novelization of the film, done by Clarke, added a few things to this, especially at the end, where there is the idea of the Star Child (Bowman) confronted with the nuclear warheads of our world, which still clings to the violent simian reaction of destroying what it does not understand... but he is so far beyond that that they are not actually a threat. It's been a very long time since I read the book (about 20 years, I think), but, as I recall, it ended with the Star Child pondering what to do with them, and ending on the ambiguous note of "He would think of something."
As I said, this isn't taking in the later novels, which went in somewhat different directions, but the film itself (except for that last note), and my interpretation of that. I would imagine others would be able to give other readings of this, as it is very symbolic and intended to have many mythic layers to play on....
