What happened to the future?

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2003)

2001 is a thought provoking piece of film history, that for me is a mini time capsule containing all the hope and optimism of the late 60's Apollo generation. Kubrick and Clarke honestly believed that we would be doing such wonderful things by 2001, and why not? We were landing men on the moon, space stations were in the works, off-world goals were in scientists minds - what happened?
After seeing this film for the 100th time (or so), it dawned on me how purely bittersweet this film has become. Maybe after another 100 viewings I'll have a more optimistic opinion, but for now it represents mankind's failure to evolve and a failure to openly, unselfishly embrace the wonders of the universe, including mankind itself.