Wow what an interesting film

Rating: 6/10 (17 April 2010)

First time I watched this movie as a kid I expected a film like Star Wars, but I was disappointed. I later found,like myself many people thought the music was great and the scenes were beautiful, but the movie had no point. I just watched it again for the second time and was amazed, my opinion has changed and I think this film is wonderful.
It's one of those movies that is like a song with metaphors and nothing hinting at the truth and everything hinting at the speculation as to what it is about. Art and music, and in cases such as this film, it's for the viewer to walk away with what he needs to take from it.. you are not told how to feel, or told an explanation as to what you see, you just watch and feel whatever, and most people will have different views. The writer and/or director were inspired by things and had their own visions as to what they were trying to show you and what they were trying to say, yet they made sure not to be blunt or factual about these truths and reasoning.
This film starts with several minutes of silence and a black screen which to me symbolizes nothing..nothing is what we all came from, not a god but some unknown particles bonding to form something that became something else... The film does not show these evolutionary happenings, yet it goes into the dawn of man. The apes that we derived from - scared beings who must learn and grow. They must defend themselves from other creatures just like them, but different..enemies...competitors. I must say the monolith was what made the film first get truly interesting..I see that as symbolic of the things that we know nothing about, yet the thing we worship, desire and crave. The apes are intrigued and eventually like all things, the monolith becomes apparent and a steak in reality. The beasts..us.. eventually learn to kill and life gets better, life gets worse, life gets going. Man's true nature is to kill, protect and survive.
The movie goes straight from the dawn of man to space. To me this symbolizes many things, one we all know what happened so why retell it, also the past straight into the future says that once man learned to kill and hate and survive thats all we have basically done for centuries...Love and hate, life and death, faith and free will all go hand in hand and space is our way of trying to search for life in other places, perhaps to learn, but definitely to conquer, it is mans way of needing more, needing answers. Space is the one thing untouched by man and it was indeed "a final frontier" waiting to be discovered.
We see inside a space craft and the civilized world it seemed to have. The truths of how it would be, the call for your "Christian" name, the lobbies with Howard Johnsons promotions and big business getting its greedy paws in a space-station if there were ones...very subtle truths.
The spaceship is ran by a super-computer called the HAL-900 which for a movie in 1968 foretold a greater truth that the world relies too much on machines, they place their life in this computer. It's a great factor and a major plot to this film.
They find another monolith on the moon, it's the unknown. It's basic squealing which deafens those who arrive at its presence is an obvious way of it telling people to leave it alone, yet they go to Jupiter to see a larger version of it. This is when Hal sees problems with the bigger picture and the mutiny planned to disable him and he seeks revenge.
David Bowman disconnects HAL and heads on alone through the an atmosphere of vivid colors, we see him as an old man, looking at himself as an older man. Perhaps trying to say "what is the point in life". Seeing yourself about to die, seeing yourself dying, see yourself older than you are and the emptiness you have when being alone. You live life knowing it will come to an end.
The monolith symbolizes the things we search for our entire life, until our last breath we will question so many things, god, meaning of life, where our soul goes. The monolith represents that which we can never find.
The movie ends with a baby, the forming of a baby and it looks like David Bowman. The true end, is perhaps the new beginning, Maybe our soul takes form in where we go and we start over somewhere else as a baby. Maybe we are reincarnated and take over life here as what will become someone else. Or perhaps neither, perhaps the new baby was symbolic of something completely different, someone completely new.. Either way it says that whatever we ponder, what ever mysteries we have we leave them in the end for someone else to start over and do it all again.
This movie was beautiful, direction was great and these shots were breathtaking. The music was perfection and has became iconic, the actors did well and this movie is something great to watch and to think about. It is an obvious inspiration to hundreds of movies to follow from Star Wars to Alien and beyond. The technology was was beyond its time and set standards for thousands of films to come along.
It is an art film, it is science fiction/drama. It has many long boring parts, but it's a must see film.. I can say if you are not a true lover of movies and one to respect and admire many aspects of film making then this may not be for you. I give it 6 out of 10 stars...truly delightful...I could talk about this movie for days. Its a perfect movie to watch and discuss with people.