2001: A Space Odyssey

“2001: A Space Odyssey” is my favorite movie. Kubrick wonderfully captures the different scenes and beautifully directs his story. The music is just wonderful and the film as a whole is captivating long after the end. I gave it a 9.8 out of 10. Be aware that this review contains spoilers. I advise you to watch the film first.

I believe I have a unique theory for this great and famous movie. Kubrick himself explained what he wanted to achieve with the film and many movie lovers have theorized about the ending. Still, I think that every movie is different to different movie watchers and that no theory or idea can fully capture a movie. Hence, I would like to present my view on “2001: A Space Odyssey”:

The Dawn of Man

Monkeys eat grass more or less harmoniously next to a herd of pigs. Only the wind can be heard and the wide landscape conveys peace. Suddenly, a leopard jumps and kills one of the monkeys. Later, the same monkeys are gathered around a waterhole when another group of apes appears. They chase away the monkeys who flee to a nearby cave and spend the night in fear. A beautiful frame of a leopard throwing and eating a zebra shows that the world is not all that peaceful. The monkeys are obviously the hunted, the banished, and the oppressed.

In the morning, the monolith manifests in front of them. The viewer gets foreshadowed by an ominous humming-like music before the camera reveals the erect and perfectly smooth object. The monkeys gather all their courage and slowly start touching the monolith. Finally, they assemble around the imposing object and worship it. In the next scene, one of the monkeys looks at a skeleton and realizes that the bones can be used as weapons.

A new era begins for the monkeys. The monkeys all equip bones and start by killing one of the pigs to eat its flesh. The peaceful herbivores become violent carnivores. Strengthened, they return to the waterhole to reclaim it. However, the residing apes are not chased away easily. The monkeys are happy to display their newfound power by killing the ape leader with their bones.

The hunted and banished monkeys now become the hunters and banishers themselves. Conclusively, the monkeys evolve and progress from the oppressed into oppressors.

Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite

Throughout the movie, HAL constantly observes the humans on board the spaceship. Its eye (the red dot) is always turned on. In the end, HAL goes as far as killing the other crew member and trying to kill the protagonist, who can barely save himself. Accompanied by the same ominous music the monolith appears in space.

The protagonist seems to fall into a wormhole and starts seeing shapes and colors – without any reference point it is unclear if they are huge phenomena in space or miniscule movements under the microscope. Moreover, images of the protagonist’s eye flash across the screen; the focus is on his gaze. The landscape from the movie’s first scenes appears but with distorted colors and from the air rather than from the ground. Even the viewer has to focus to make out the lake and the mountains. Not only the protagonist but also the viewer now SEE.

The protagonist lands in a room with futuristic tiles and a Renaissance interior. He is already much older and starts to explore the different rooms. He finds a mirror and gazes at himself when he hears loud breathing. He is interested, turns around, and surprisingly sees an even older version of himself sitting at a table. His older self feels the gaze and turns around but cannot identify the beholder. In that moment, the younger self ceases to exist and turns into what he just observed. The younger self has become an immaterial gaze and the protagonist is now the old man sitting at the table. 

The protagonist (who is now at the table) then turns once more and sees himself lying on his deathbed. The man at the table also vanishes as soon as he starts to observe himself and turns into the dying man. The monolith appears one last time but without the ominous music. The dying protagonist looks at the monolith and points at the object before he transforms into an embryo. The embryo seems to be a godlike being (maybe the Übermensch from Nietzsche) that silently hovers around the earth.

The embryo is now liberated from its human body and the protagonist is finally free from HAL’s gaze, which could not be escaped throughout the movie. The embryo is left to observe the planet Earth. The protagonist has become a being more evolved than humans and turns quite literally from the observed into the observer.

The Monolith

The monolith on earth looks alien. It is deeply black, perfectly smooth, and has sharp edges. Contrarily, it is native in space. The viewer can only see the floating monolith because of the reflecting light from its perfectly smooth surface. Without light, the monolith would not exist to the gaze or the camera.

The monolith is imposing on its subjects. Still, the monkeys and the protagonist are both drawn to the object - The monolith is meant to be worshiped. The ominous cult-like humming that plays with the first two appearances of the monolith underlines this feature.

The monolith manifests when there is conflict and appears to the helpless or the searcher. First, the object of worship makes its subjects transcend the passive and enter the active state (the monkeys turn from the oppressed into the oppressor; the protagonist turns from the observed into the observer). Secondly, the now active subjects simultaneously evolve (the monkeys become humans; the protagonist becomes a being of higher consciousness).