This is one of my favorite pictures

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2000)

This is a movie that attempts to ask the question what is our destiny in the universe as humans. Along time ago we were apes. Now we reason, we are able to travel in space, we have built cities and societies, and we have created morals and religions. But still, we are imperfect. The source of human intelligence is depicted in the most surreal way one could imagine: as a single black box, a 'monolith'. The monolith affects humans in a unique way. First, apes learn how to create and use tools in the distant past . Second, a space traveler becomes a star child in the near future . We do not understand what a star child is but the message of is uplifting.

There are a few details about the movie that are remarkable. The hero is called 'David Bowman'. 'David' makes a connection between the hero and the legendary king of Israel. The late Stanley Kubrick was Jewish, I think. 'Bowman' suggests that the hero stretches himself to the limits of his human abilities. HAL is depicted as a flashing red bulb that looks like a single red 'eye'. This draws a parallel between HAL and the one-eyed cyclops which Odysseus defeated in Homer's Odyssey.