2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY Meaning of the Monolith Revealed PART 1 (2014 update) 

Folks, an updated version of this video has since been posted on Oct 25th 2021. The new version is less explicit in its explanation than this 2014 version, but it also contains additional information. Watch it here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KYcekxnsjyY.html

I know Kubrick's real intention here: Film you cellphone's videos in the horizontal position, people!

This is a better version than your new video. I can just listen to this and not be forced to watch it or be annoyed by the beeps.

I'm sure the beep at the end of the video was relevant in more than a few ways but fuck me my ears.

I like the idea of the monolith representing the cinema screen, but it's from the other side. When anyone looks at it curiously, they're looking at us, the audience, who have always been there, but just went unnoticed. This whole realising that your life is a movie for somebody else's entertainment thing is the evolution of consciousness.

I saw 2001 in London when it first came out in 1967 at the Odeon Leicester Square. It was shown in Cineraama with Dolby surround sound. The Graduate was being shown at the Cinema opposite at the same time. We chose 2001. Fantastic. Apart from taking Acid it was the most mind blowing experience that I had had. I was 22.

Thanks for killing my ears at the end

The monolith is a Hershey chocolate bar.

Watched the film for the first time last night on my phone. My mind was completely blown before the movie even ended. But, it wasn't too long into the intermission that I began to feel a little uneasy. I didn't want to skip past it for fear of missing any important details, so I sat patiently, just staring at the reflection of myself in my.... in... the..... 😱.

I have a much simpler explanation for the monolith. The monolith serves the purpose of a catalyst for the thought. The world of the apes is full of chaotic shapes, rough surfaces and lack of geometry. The monolith has a flawless smooth monochromatic surface, sharp acmes and precise straight lines. These characteristics are totally absent from the objects that surround the apes. The impact the monolith has on the thinking of the apes, is crucial as it unlocks "thinking processes" in their brains that were previously almost impossible to unlock. Eventually, the thinking level of the apes would allow them to use simple tools but this would take a lot more time without their interaction with the monolith. The monolith was put there to speed up some processes that otherwise would take a lot more time to happen and that's why i think the monolith is some kind of catalyst.

Seeing the precisely shaped monolith in such a prehistoric setting was very artistic and abstract art on film and of so ahead of its time. It plays with your mind so effectively. You can't sit and readily accept what you're seeing. All very deliberate.

For anyone out there who is thinking of mentioning the book/movie 2010, just remember that Arthur C Clarke himself stated that all the books and films take place in slightly different universes, and should be treated as both singular stories as well as anthologies.

I recall way years ago in college writing about 2001, and got an A+ based on my interpretation based not only the movie but what was actually more revealing by reading the book. One thing I never considered way back in 1979 in college though was that the film and monolith were representative of the viewing ratio of 16:9 (or thereabouts), something that was so unique in 1968 when I first saw it (even in 1979). An amazing cinematic representation of what is commonly used today in widescreen. So many things about the film depicted technologies that now are a given...videoconferencing, ATM's, retinal scans, and much more. What an epic film (and novel) it was! I doubt it could ever be recreated again (hope NOT). I recall that even NASA said that the depiction of the spacecrafts were technologically correct in depicting artificial gravity and the design of the ships. Regardless of what the monolith represented, the movie and novel depicted the evolution of man.

when the alpha ape realizes he could use bones as tools, the monolith flashes then he turns his head about 90 degrees

That beep sound in the end almost gave me a heart attack.

3001 a laced odyssey

Here after found in Utah

Now. Kubrick was just one of those once in a lifetime kind of person

such good stuff Rob, coming back to these videos years later still top class

really you gotta end it with that fukn annoying noise and screen? please dont...

in modern age, the monolith also closely resembles a smart phone

I get that people are mad that he hurt their ears at the end, but it is pretty cool to have people naturally reenact the moon scene where the characters hold their heads in pain at the feedback sound.

One of my favorites. Thanks for the new updates!

The monolith being the screen theory was mind blowing. Sir you had my curiosity but now you have my attention.

You REALLY had to put that ear shattering electronic shriek at the end ? That made your video a Screamer, Dude. Seriously, turn down your volume at 7:31.

The impressive thing about this is, you just pointed out one thing Kubrick put into this, but not the only meaning for it.

I've been mindfucked

Fantastic update! Really looks like you're having more fun with your videos these days.

The monolith is a sled that Dave remembers fondly from his youth.

I've seen "2001:ASO" at least 23 times theatrically, including at least 3 times on a Cinerama screen, and innumerable more times on the glass teat, and have to say I enjoyed your thematic analysis. Very interesting interpretation. I don't entirely agree with it, but you've motivated me to dig my disc of it out again and rewatch yet again. Thanks! Who knows, I might have to come back here and argue with you. :)

I've been reading your site for years. I was surprised to see you update on 2001 because your analysis seemed so complete. I love re watching movies after reading your theories, especially A Clockwork Orange. Just wanted to say I'm a big fan.

Your videos continue to blow my mind; I am impressed.

Thanks once again, Rob. Your work has changed my perspective on watching movies. I know that you tend not to analyze movies that have been recently released. But I wanted to put this one in your queue, if you had not done it yet. I recently watched "Under the Skin", starring Scarlett Johansson and directed by Jonathan Glazer. I also watched "Snowpiercer", starring Chris Evans and directed by Joon-ho Bong. I was thinking about your analysis techniques when watching these films, so I thought these films would be right up your alley as films to dissect. These films were "a breathe of fresh air". I knew these films had something, simply by trying to describe them to my family and friends. Their response was that I was crazy or smoking something - the same reaction when trying to describe Kubrick's films. Love your work!

Basically he is talking for 6.30 minutes to say, that the monolith is a 90 degree tilted movie-screen...and some conspirancy theories thrown in.

And -BOOM- just like that, a new wave of minds blown! I am very excited for this update and always looking forward to new projects. Your work means so much to me, Thank You

I really like the suspense that you had going on midway through the video :P

thank you for making this video

The song used in the beginning and end of the film is "Thus spoke Zarathustra"by Richard Strauss. The song is a tone poem mirroring the sentiment of the book written by Nietzsche with the intent to make music that isn't anti-semetic or pro proto-Nazi. The meaning is to "think for yourself". Strauss wrote a sequel to the song in 1898 called, "A hero's life" where he demonstrates being an "superman" doesn't have to include hating the Jews. Wagner and Germans upset with the banking industry openly criticized the song implicating that it was an autobiographical arrogant self-congratulation because it deconstructed the plan of utilizing Nietzsche philosophy to justify racial driven socialism. When the Nazi's lost WWII they were brought to the US under project paperclip and started NASA.

I left a somewhat mean spirited comment on the updated video due to the awful noise you put in, but watching this version, I have to say you really are one of the best channels on youtube. Thanks for everything you do Mr. Ager!

Great Update, your videos always blow my mind

Rewatching 2001 after having seen your vids. Early on in the film, after the first appearance of the monolith, when that single primate seems to be looking at the monolith as though he's getting an idea, I think it's interesting that in the midst of his inspiration he turns his head sideways to look at it. Would you attach any significance to that? Seems to fit well with your analysis.

I heard a telephone conversation with Kubrick and he said the whole Monolith and ending were meant to depict Alien lifeforms...

The monolith is the screen between the programmer and we, the program. This movie is a story of man discovering we are all a simulation, Gods game.

I find this interpretation of the monolith most appealing. Its like a story inside a story; it recalls Magritte's surealist painting "This is not a pipe" or Velasquez "Meninas" were us viewers are subtle, but direct participants. Congrats!

Interesting analyses indeed, no need for the sharp sine wave tone at the end though !

are you seriously telling us that kubrick put together this amazing film just to troll everyone??

Great video .... Thanks for the work!

The resemblance to a smartphone is uncanny. It is absolutely blowing my mind.

I love this new take on your monolith revelation vid. It's a bit more dramatic and tongue-in-cheek. Hey, I would love to hear what you have to say about the 1960s TV series The Prisoner. I feel like the commentary delivered by that show is more than the depth most people see. I know, I know ... "it's a commentary that we're all in the village, prisoners" blah blah... but there's more than that.

What do you think of the movie Pan's Labyrinth directed by Guillermo Del Toro? I think there's a lot of hidden meaning and symbolism in it, especially pertaining to Spanish culture and Ofelia's own feelings.

You are next level Rob, keep up the hard work.

You blow my mind every time I watch one of your videos.

It is because of you that i started looking for a deeper narrative in film.

The 7 “things” during the space out transportation from the second monolith is mirrored from the seven things on the back of Dave helmet. He’s no longer thinking with the back of the mind he’s now learning using his frontal lobe and knowing a deeper knowledge of himself and his true purpose of existence. It’s all about an individual subconscious learning experience. Everyone sees it differently no matter how similar some opinions may be.

6:22 "Please refrain from causing any paradoxes please."

“I tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content. I intended the film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does; to ‘explain’ a Beethoven symphony would be to emasculate it by erecting an artificial barrier between conception and appreciation. You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film - and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level - but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point.” - Stanley Kubrick: Playboy Magazin (1968)

Could the Monolith be representing Sacred Geometry and the pattern of Nature? The Golden Rectangle, fractals and Fibonacci sequence etc.

I always interpreted the last scene as some kind of post-Einstein commentary on space and time or even the solitude of a human life and detachment ( maybe even Nietzsche-Ian as some commentators noted). I've always been more interested in that meaning of that scene than the monolith for some reason.

Very well said! Even Arthur C. Clark never knew how the pyramid turned into a rectangular thing. If you've read "3001 The Final Odyssey", then you find out what the monolith is.

I can add, to further support to your interpretation, that before the beginning of the movie we hear the same music that is later heard inside the monolith. And before the beginning of the movie, all we can see is a black horizontal screen.

I could not disagree more with your interpretation but I do commend your passion for this film. To your monolith explanations, just because Kubrick wanted to avoid the monolith appearing akin to an electronic visual screen does not mean that this is what the piece symbolically represents. My impression is that the piece masterfully demonstrates the power of silence and the finesse of higher order intelligence. While there is no mention of extraterrestrials, this information is implicitly inferred in the very beginning of the film. Clearly the monolith did not come from Earth. Thank you for posting this video! Interesting to ponder.

This is just amazing work!! Congrats!!

The reason why Kubrick did not elaborate on the 'deeper level' is because there was not a deeper level. The book by Clarke explains it all.

I️ really enjoy your videos!

Hi Rob, I was introduced to your work last night. I am honestly impressed by the depth of your analysis. However, and with all the respect due, I disagree with your interpretation. I think, mostly in the case of someone as brilliant and ahead of his time as Mr. Kubrick, that assigning one univocal meaning to such a complex symbol is not the right approach. I agree that on a first level of interpretation the idea of the monolith standing for the cinema screen is a brilliant one. I can also be persuaded that this is intentional on behalf of the master. Yet, to me, it is a cue to read the film at a deeper level, an invitation to pass this threshold of interpreation and step into one of free association where no meaning is completely wrong or right. As you point out in your analysis Kubrick's goal was (in every single one of his films?) to allow the audience to bring their interpretation and experiences to the cinematic event. Hence, to me, the monolith stands for the capacity of abstract thought, to our ability to imagine. Cinema is probably the ultimate manifestation of this ability of ours. The ape's first contact with the monolith says it all to me. Perfect forms do not exist in nature. The apes are confronted and lately interact with this unnatural object. As such, the object cannot be found anywhere in their symbolic system, it is outside it. By interacting with it the apes must therefore expand their symbolic system with that which is not "real". The interaction then leads the apes to the use of tools or, in other words, to the use of their imagination and abstract thought. This is Plato and his "universals". Kubrick, in my book, is asking the audience to free itself, and cinema!, from the stylistic shackles of the 19th century realist novel. Instead, he, much like Malick in his latest work, is saying that both our imaginations and cinema must be freed if we're ever to reach a higher state of understanding. Or, in other words, that creative thought is the complete opposite of reason and causality. It's quite interesting, I think, that he created Barry Lyndon so shortly after.

anyone here because of the Utah finding? 2020

Wow, your documentaries are well made visually.

In the novel, The Monolith has dimensions 11'x5'x1.25' (11'x5' without depth). This means that The Monolith has a length to width ratio of 2.2:1

So you think the “true” meaning of 2001 is something far less interesting and meaningful than the common interpretation? “It’s all just a movie”... wow no shit, really deep stuff.

I do love the symbol of the monolith as a movie screen. It reminds me of the holographic principle in physics

Great vid, love your work

It freaked me out when you said it was supposed to be viewed on its side… and here I am staring at my phone on its side, same black rectangular prism.

Learn about "PLATO'S CAVE". You don't realise the "prison" you live in, until you feel free.

The drinking glass changed to shatters when it broke down, and the astronaut understood that he was living in an abstract illusion, just like the ape realized the same when he started to dismantle the bones. The symbols we take granted without ever trying understand the deeper context are a jail for our way of thinking. Tilting the head/monolith 90 degrees is to change our perception of the world. The movie starts showing the planets in 90 degree angle, because in space there is no up or down, hence the planets can not be "wrong way" even if turned 90 or 180 degrees - somebody just decided that north is "up" and south is "down". It is a fascinating way to think that the planet could rotate the sun vertically and not horizontally, the whole horizontal rotation is just inside our head. At the end of the film in the astronaut's room, the monolith also stands takes a place where the door should logically be.

Damn, I never even thought that Kubrick was trying to convey space race propaganda through use of the monoliths when I watched your earlir 2001 videos, but it makes alot of sense now that Rob explains it. Keep up the quality content Rob; whether it's movie analysis, character analysis, video game analysis etc. I know it's gonna be interesting :)

So what happened to Bowman? always wondered, also at some point does he realise he's in a movie? I know its up to my own interpretation but it always seemed like it with all the screen symbolism and how he's acting in the room.

I've never done this before, so please allow me to indulge. *ahem* First.

I like this interpretation.Infinite recursion as consciousness turns its eye upon itself.

Love your ending to this. Stops my mind from wandering

that scene with the monolith in space is so brilliant...

Getting up out of your seat and going to touch the screen in a cinema is only going to get you yelled at and quite probably removed from the premises.

I recently saw this film and if there's one thing that I think really makes this thing special is just the series of debates sprawled from this movie. Like seriously reading these comments have been interesting seeing everyone's different theories. Movies that really get people talking that much about what meant what I think is cool.

They found a steel or something kinda monolith in uttah dessert or somewhere....!!

Wow. I've watched this movie maybe 100x in my life, and these are some mind-blowing interpretations. I never thought about the 90 degree angles and orientation of the monolith. Very clever. Don't know if I agree yet, but I appreciate the depth of the analysis.

I don't really know what the controversy is. When I watched the movie, I came to a similar conclusion, that the monolith was a kind of symbolic mirror. Which can be interpreted in dozens of different ways. But that being said, I don't really think either your interpretation or mine is really the correct one. Kubrick left it open ended for that reason.

Everybody now here cause of utah monolith

Question, have you ever analyzed the 1977’ film “Saturday Night Fever” in the movie the club that they attend is called “2001 Odyssey” wondering if it’s any other unforeseen parallels in the film..

Now the monolith is in our pocket/hand.

The screen metaphor is there alright and you've documented it very well. Kudos! I don't see a "true" meaning here though. More like a hidden layer or maybe even something as harmless as an easter egg. Problem is, that the simple level of the story as you call it, is too carefully thought out to simply dismiss it. It's a modern take on some of the greatest works of literature and philosophy out there so why would you turn it into a stab at IBM and a critique of budget spending on space ships? The story in itself is huge in scale while this additional layer is funny at best. It makes no sense IMO.

I myself think that your theory is pretty thin and i have read all the novels - the monolith is a machine that seeks out the potential for a lifeform to evolve and be intelligent, if it determines you have little to no potential it ignores you or in the case of jupiter, that had lifeforms on it that it deemed to have very little chance of evolving past what they were, destroying them in favour of the Europan life forms. This is pointed out by Dave Bowman who does not agree with this philosophy as who gave them the right to decide who lives and who dies based on their point of view hence he and hal help Poole to destroy the monoliths at the end of 3001. It is also pointed out that the creators of the monolith trancended physical existence just after the monolith arrived on earth and then promptly forgot about them thus leaving the monoliths to continue to decide the fate of any life they find without any control or restraint. Kubrick picked the shape of the monolith not because it represented a cinema screen or such nonsense but he wanted to show the intelligence behind them in the simplest way - the square root of 1,2,3 = 1x4x9, using this the monolith could be as small or as large as you wanted it but still retain the same dimentions. I dont agree with your interpretation but i respect your opinion but it seems that anyone who contradicts your view is wrong full stop and that you dont respect theirs, you dont seem to be able to accept that you may be wrong, personally i didnt watch one of the best sci-fi movies ever made in order to make up a pretty stupid theory behind it - i watched it to enjoy it and for it to spark my imagination as to the films meaning, not kubricks, but mine, and that is why he is a brilliant film maker, i dont give a shit what kubrick meant by it or what hidden meaning he (supposedly) put into it.

All I know is that the scene with the sun above the monolith and the moon above the sun has something to do with the mercury symbol

You missed an interesting feature of the monolith: it's dimensions are 1 x 4 x 9 (feet it would appear) -- that's a sequential series of squares (perfect triple), 1^2, 2^2, 3^2.

*anyone here because of the monolith in Utah”comments incoming

Care to comment on the following? "Gerard Loughlin claimed in a 2003 book that the monolith is Kubrick's representation of the cinema screen itself: “it is a cinematic conceit, for turn the monolith on its side and one has the letterbox of the cinemascope screen, the blank rectangle on which the star-child appears, as does the entirety of Kubrick’s film."The internet-based film critic Rob Ager later produced a video essay also espousing this theory. The academic Dan Leberg complained that Ager had not credited Loughlin." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_2001:_A_Space_Odyssey#The_Monolith

Real Original Content..appreciate your interpretation it is very insightful. Thanks!

Dude this is awesome!

I always believed that the monolith represents the evolution of mankind and the consciousness of mankind. When the apes approach the monolith it allows them to evolve. Then when it appears on the moon it gives mankind a chance to evolve again if they can prove themselves worthy by traveling to Jupiter. After the whole HAL situation the main guy reaches the monolith which then allows him to evolve which is illustrated at the end of the movie as the creature seen in the last shot above the Earth.

so basically you point is that there is no point

"Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid Without fluctuation, hard as adamant Black as marble of Egypt; impenetrable Bound in the fierce raging Immortal." -William Blake

Your perspective and description of these films are both sharp and eloquent. Do American Psycho or Mulholand Drive!