A film of hidden meanings

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2001)

The compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary could do worse than defining the expression "thought provoking" as "a film such as 2001".
The Dawn of Man sequence at the start of the film could yet prove to be the most visionary piece of work ever made. I don't know of any previous philosophy or writing which challenges the theory of evolution in this unique way.
Mankind has been searching for over a century now for the so called "missing link" between the apes and homo erectus. What Arthur C Clarke is suggesting is that the missing link never existed and that knowledge was bestowed on man in one fell swoop. Surely after 100 years of digging and not finding the missing link we should be prepared to at least examine the possibility that mankind is in fact an introduced species.
All life forms on planet earth are dependent on one of those life forms developing the intelligence necessary to travel to new worlds and take the other life forms with it. If this were not the case, then we might as well shoot all the giant pandas and endangered species now because eventually the sun will expand and burn everything on earth to a crisp.
Strange isn't it that by consensus we are prepared to accept the big bang theory where everything in the universe was created in a split second but we shy away from Clarke's theory about the creation of intelligence.
It was strange for Kubrick of all people to make this film. We are all aware of his fanatical obsession with attention to detail so it must have been a personal nightmare to create spaceships and orbiting space stations that would stand up to public scrutiny.
2001 is a marvellous film and for those of you who believe in omens, in a recent TV interview Arthur C Clarke stated that on the evening that he agreed the final script for the film with Kubrick, they stood outside their hotel in Manhattan and watched a UFO climbing into the sky.