WHAT AN EXPERIENCE! | German reacts to 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) | First Time Watching 

It's a fantastic movie. A masterpiece that gets better every time one watches it.

2001 a space Odyssey is a movie for the mind and the eye

29:23 - You asked about the Intermission being a Kubrick thing. No, it was common to have an intermission during a movie. People need to pee and drink, and have a snack. Most of the audience would leave the theater room to go to the toilets and the catering counter. But usually films would stop being projected during the intermission and a slide show with commercials would be shown. Kubrick was special in that he lets the movie run through as an almost stand-alone sequence with the sound continuing. That's why this intermission is on the DVDs while other digitised movies do not have that gap. The start of the movie, with that blackness, was to let the audience trickle in and being brought to their seats. Once the opening scene comes he wanted everybody to be seated.

In the theater, it was shown on 70 millimeter with full stereo sound. It was an incredible experience.

The overture and intermission music are exactly that. In the 50’s and 60’s special epic movies, particularly musicals, had music playing in the theater, as you walked in, played over the curtain, then during the intermission, and as you were leaving. Those musical cues were found and restored to the home video.

I was 12 when the movie first came, and saw it about two dozen times in the theaters -- quite an experience on a large screen. The most common reaction I heard from the audience members when the film ended was -- "Brilliant film ... I have no idea what it's about!" Nothing's changed in 54 years.

The sequel 2010: the year we make contact, does a pretty good job of explaining why HAL did what he did, but also show what the aliens are more or less up to. They are gardening. Raising peoples from animals, then weeding if needed.

Seeing this on a big theater screen with great sound is so much better than watching it on a computer or TV screen. Makes for a very different experience.

The sequel 2010 is worth watching. It explains a lot about what happened to HAL and has more of a conventional plot. The visuals are not anything groundbreaking like 2001, but it has one scene that was what made my young self realise that space itself is terrifying. 2001 is rightly held up as a masterpiece while 2010 is forgotten, but I actually prefer 2010.

My all time favourite film. When I try to explain this movie to someone who has never seen it before I simply can't think of another movie that I can point to and say "It's a little like this film". It's unique in cinema.

I think that audiences of TODAY would actually respond EVEN WORSE to THIS movie than audiences of the late sixties did because of all the big dumb action movies that the Hollywood movie industry has been heaping on the movie going public for the past thirty or so years and that today's audiences have been practically nurtured on. Now, if any movie does not feature ohhhhh guns, car chases and explosions every minute throughout its whole duration then today's viewers will pretty much call it "booring" or say that "nothing is happening in it".

This film helped popularize the opening of Strauss's "Also sprach Zarathustra," which was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche, who also provided the ape/man/superman template for this film.

If 2001 is the oldest movie you've seen than you are truly missing out on Casablanca.

You just can't believe how mind-blowing this was to see in the theater in 1968. It was considered an acid trip on film. To understand the story better, just read the book.

At 8:16 that is not a space ship, it is an orbiting H-Bomb. That throwing the bone up into the air scene was to illustrate man's first weapon, the bone club, then a shot of his ultimate weapon the orbiting H-Bomb.

This movie was filmed in1967 and '68 and released in '68. This was a year before we actually landed on the moon so everything was speculation. Just how right did they get it? The effects were almost totally practical. The circular ring was to simulate gravity and they actually built this on a soundstage. The entire wheel turned and they could then get the effect of them running around the ring. Basically the same thing was done in smaller scale for the flight attendant and astronauts in hub shots. This movie was a huge achievement given the lack of any digital FX.

If I remember correctly, they weren’t originally going to go with a classical score, which is crazy considering how much these pieces became connected to this film.

"It's my first time watching. I don't know anything about it. Oh there's HAL." "AE35 unit? Don't want the communications system failing". This is not the movie to pretend you've never seen before.

HAL is conscious and therefore capable of emotion. His fear is palpable as he feels his mind shutting down. I empathize.

It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Kubrick the award for his direction of the visual effects. The film is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

My Aunt took me to see this in 1968 when it came out, she knew I was a big Star Trek fan, I was 10, I found it visually stunning, but confusing.

Before home video, many movies had an "overture" or musical intro as the audience settled in to the big screen. A lot of movie theaters will screen 2001 for a summer festival, etc and it is worth seeing it in it's original restored format.

This movie proves. You don't have to cram information down our throat every 3 minutes.

Your father, like many others, is wrong about HAL's name. Arthur Clarke wrote: "...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence."

I loved this movie. A while back I was curious about the reception when it premiered and apparently over 200 people walked out. People are impatient. Some more than others.

I am one of those, that considered this a masterpiece

it is both the greatest film of all time and incredibly confusing at the same time. I suspect that in 1968 many people viewed it under the influence of assorted illegal substances. That would explain the end

Groundbreaking special effects for the time, of course people got their money's worth. Nothing like it before and you see the influence on sci fi films afterwards. A true turning point and game changer.

The basic idea is that millions of years ago, advanced aliens noticed our ancestors' difficulties and decided to give them a little push in the right direction. To do this they sent a machine, the monolith, to help them by giving them the basic idea for the club, which set them on the road to tool making. On their way out of our solar system, the aliens left one more monolith on the Moon and one at Jupiter. The monolith at Jupiter did for Dave what it had done for the apes - took him to the next level. The purpose of the monolith on the Moon was to tell the monolith at Jupiter that humans had developed basic space travel and would be coming soon. Hal killed the astronauts because Dave and Frank had said that they might have to disconnect him. It wouldn't have been sensible for him to just kill Dave and Frank and leave the astronauts in suspended animation alive. Once they were revived, after talking to Earth and looking at records, etc., they would have been suspected Hal of killing Frank and Dave. It was simple self-preservation.

This movie has been on my top spot for 20 plus yrs until I watched interstellar which stole it. I feel that people these days always need answers for everything and never like having to take their own interpretations etc . Not really blaming them but movies today are built mainly for short attention spans and all the information is given to you so you dont really need to think.

I saw this in the cinema. It was a different time. Large screen. 8-channel surround sound. Those blank scenes were: 1: people getting seated and setting the mood through music; 2: The intermission. where people went to the toilet or bought more snacks. Most movies had these but Kubrick filled that gap with modern classical (and creepy) music to signify the mystery of space.

I was 13 when this movie came out in theaters. Many people didn't "get it" at the time, but I did! I was blown away, absolutely loved it. I've watched it dozens of times and it never gets old.

Read the book.

"Giving us more brains and, uh....now we're here. Watching videos." SLAYED ME.

...gotta watch the sequel 2010...... Peace!

HAL 9000 is more of a victim than a villian.

I'm glad I did not watch it like this guy is..

Both Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke repeatedly denied that HAL had anything to do with IBM, and that they would have changed it if they had noticed. Clarke even had his *characters* deny it when he made the sequel, "2010: Odyssey Two." However, that bit of dialogue was omitted from the movie sequel.

Many important questions you asked were answered in the dialogue. But it is hard to know what things are really important in that dialogue, so to really get a good understanding requires a second viewing. You did a good jib anticipating actions, but then you had some prior exposure to the story. One of the difficult questions is whether HAL faked the failure of comms unit. One can argue for both scenarios. Regarding the odd editing at the end, to compress many years of Dave’s aging at the end, Kubrick liked the effect of faking out the viewer an an innocuous way: Dave looks at himself years forward, but he cannot see backwards. Then there is the nascent super being Dave becomes at death, the Star Child. I like that Kubrick didn’t explain it further. It’s a story of enabled evolution. Thanks for the reaction.

"Was that the dawn of man, the first weapon?" I think you missed the larger context. It's a tool. We used those tools to feed ourselves, and used those same tools to defend (or take) resources, like the water hole. Kubrick then, famously, transitions from the bone tool to the spacecraft, yet another more advanced tool, one we currently use.

To understand this movie one would have to read the novel this movie was made from by Arthur C. Clark. The super advanced beings that created the monolith captured Dave Bowman when he entered the larger monolith orbiting Jupiter and he went through a metamorphesis of death in order to travel to where they brought him in a makeshift earth type room where he witnessed segments of his life if he had not died but was reborn by these beings for a reason they had in mind for him. And if you want more answers as to why HAL acted the way he did you'll have to watch the movie 2010.

This is a great film . Truly a classic

I think idea at the end is that he traveled through a wormhole to other dimension/lvl of existence where consciousness space/and time behave illogical to us. Different laws of physics and reality. And he was put in a sort of cage like in a zoo by aliens/entities that created the monoliths. Sequel is more "normal" movie lol and explains a lot about HAL behavior and supposed purpose of the monoliths.

You asked how it was for people to watch this movie when it came out. I was 14 years old, and my father took me and my brother to see it, because his friends told him it was special. It was. I was flabbergasted and in awe. And also I was spoiled for the rest of my life, having seen such quality and such devotion to a director's vision. When later stuff like Star Wars came out I was shocked. How could anyone make such crap after knowing the existence of the masterpiece 2001, A Space Odyssey ? I still am sad that nothing as brilliant like this has ever been made since. (maybe Lord of the Rings comes close).

I first saw this in 1968/9 (several viewings) on a giant Cinerama 70mm curved screen with multi-channel sound... it blew my mind. I've watched it many, many times since, in 70mm, 'Scope, VHS, TV, DVD, Blu-Ray. It continues to blow my mind. Number 1 on my list of favourite films since the 60s.

You need to watch the WHOLE film, not just disjointed clips. THEN you'll understsand.

To tell the "whole story," one should know that when this movie was made, it was filmed in "Super Panovision," and was released in the US Cinerama theaters. These theaters were unique, in having curved screens and (for the time) a very wide aspect ratio. It was the "I Max" of the day, and having seen the movie in a Cinerama, I can say that at the time, it was a breathtaking experience. Seeing it exactly as it was envisioned to be viewed elevates its impact.

I am pausing at 5:30 and you have just wondered that the monolith has not done anything. It occurred to me that to appreciate that moment you would have to put yourself in it and see that these early humans had what to them would be a freaky and bizarre encounter unlike anything they had experienced before A FLAT SURFACE, RIGHT ANGLE CORNERS, A GEOMETRIC SOLID. It is literally impossible to describe what a similar encounter would be like for you or I because If i could describe it, it wouldn't be alien enough. That alone could have been sufficient spark.

If you want answers you need to react to the sequel "2010 The Year We Made Contact". It's a much more conventional movie but it does provide a satisfying conclusion. You should also read the book "2001" by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick: it's worth the effort!

Given the way the movie falls so neatly into its three parts, I don't understand why you're so mystified: I saw it in the theatre in 1968 and thought its basic plot crystal clear. A subset of proto-man is given an evolutionary bump (the means don't really matter--we're left free to speculate about the motives of the aliens we never meet) that gives it an advantage over its competitors for resources. Fast-forward to 2001, and the descendants of this subset have flourished: their tools now include vehicles space-worthy enough to permit them to step off the planet, and computers that for all intents and purposes are conscious. Astronaut Dave is the pinnacle of this evolutionary development (which in the most fundamental sense is a journey of discovery--an 'odyssey'), but the difference between him and the proto-human who discovered the first tool is simply one of scale. The mind-blowing part, although again it's obvious, is that between the astronaut and what the star child presages, we're on the verge of yet another leap in scale that will leave the civilization and technology of 2001 as far in the dust as 2001 leaves proto-man. As we step out into the cosmos, we become again as infants, feeling our way along a developmental path we currently have as much chance of understanding as a dog has of understanding how dog food gets inside of cans. We're given some interesting loose ends to play with, but these are what make the movie a story, not just an essay about quantum leaps in evolution. How conscious is HAL, for example, and why does he go rogue? Well, remember the precautions Dr. Floyd and his colleagues thought appropriate to take, to minimize humanity's possible sense of 'disorientation' at the discovery we aren't alone in the universe? To the extent that HAL's consciousness is a human creation and inevitably exhibits some human features, couldn't he be the case that confirms these fears aren't groundless? Knowing more about the mission and its significance than anyone else, isn't it possible he could become disoriented too, ultimately cracking under the load of his awesome responsibility?

2001 & 2010 was back when film making was an art and commercial... This film has become a benchmark for other films. This is a thinking film, the type you leave talking about it. Why do you see "the first weapon" and not the first tool?

The story was written jointly with Arthur C Clarke, and I read his novel of 2001 before seeing Kubrick's film. That meant I had no problem following the plot or understanding what was being shown, when I finally got to see it at the cinema. On the downside, it also meant that I was kind of limited to a single interpretation on first viewing (i.e. Clarke's), but it did mean I was able to enjoy it and worry about alternative perspectives later. I recommend reading the novel (it's quite short), and then maybe watching the film again at some point in the future. Film as art, in every sense of the word.

I swear, watching people watching this picture for the first time is about as good as watching this picture the first dozen or two times.

The 20-minute cartoon version that Kubrick made for the American market is easily the best.

This film is an audio/visual masterpiece. Kubrick was an absolute genius. Excited for your reaction 😄 👍

This movie is the most complex layered, and puzzling of Kubrick movies. Kubrick movies always have a puzzle layer to them. Figuring out the puzzle is part of the fun of Kubrick movies. Beware, spoilers ahead. The movie is illustrative of Friedrich Nietzsche's 1883 book, "Also sprach Zarathustra". Zoroaster has nothing to do with Nietzsche's character Zarathustra. Nietzsche just thought it was cool to name his character after a founder at the root of religion, particularly Christian religion, to give him authority while the character Zarathustra decries religion, particularly Christian religion. "Also sprach Zarathustra" is the name of that grand title music, the music during the scene where the monolith teaches the ape to use a tool, and the end where it turns the man into a super being. Nietzsche's character Zarathustra posits the Übermensch (superior man) as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The Übermensch represents a shift from otherworldly death oriented religious, particularly Christian, values and manifests the grounded life affirming human ideal. The Übermensch is someone who has "crossed over" the bridge, from the comfortable, easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes to the mountains of unrest and solitude. Zarathustra is the narrator of a series of short stories to illustrate, and teach the points to support the position ending each story with "Also sprach Zarathustra", "Thus spoke Zarathustra". In this movie the monolith has the role of Zarathustra, narrator, and teacher. Now you know the monolith character has a name. Zarathustra. Zarathustra tries to show that the comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes, is mediocre, and repulsive to the superior man. As inferior, and repulsive as the ape is to man, man is more so to the ubermench. The transition from ape to man takes place from one frame of the movie to another. That's how close man is to ape. The entire 4 million year history of the transition of ape to man is but a blink of the eye in comparison to the transition of mench to ubermench. Zarathustra is disappointed as man, instead of being repulsed by the mediocre, embraces the mediocre comfortable easy, mindless acceptance of what a person has been taught, and what everyone else believes. This is illustrated in the movie by all the food is repulsive, and has something wrong with it, grubs, raw meat, food sucked through a straw, sandwiches that should be chicken, and ham but are not. But "They're getting better at it" but the coffee's too hot. The paste food trays are also too hot. Despite how we see the effects as fantastic the people in the movie practically sleepwalk through that life, and their movements are clumsy. The people are so mediocre (practically dead) Frank, and Dave aren't tippy top fighter jock alphas with "The Right Stuff" of the 1960s space program. They are so alike when they do talk in the pod they agree about everything. So bland, and mediocre their breathing doesn't even quicken when they go EVA. They don't even talk to each other until they have to leave their comfort zone, and plot against HAL. Their first words to each other are a lie. They know they are killing a conscious entity. That's what they're discussing when the sound cuts out in the pod. "No 9000 computer has ever been shut down before.", "Well no 9000 has ever fouled up before.", "That's not what I mean", "?", "I'm not so sure when you think about it...". Out with Christian morality to affirm, and fight for life. In "Also sprach Zarathustra" a dwarf shoves a tightrope walker off into an infinite abyss. That's HAL killing Frank. The ship represents the tightrope. That's why it's long like that. "The Trip", as the psychedelic sequence is called, represents the "crossing over the bridge to the mountains of unrest and solitude". All the food is repulsive except the last meal, it's perfect, comfortable. Except for the broken glass. The most startling moment in movie history. Puzzling too. "What does it mean?" Our hero has reached comfortable middle age. But he's not yet perfect. He's on his death bed before he reaches for perfection. He reaches for the black monolith, the dark side. Then he becomes the superior being. Zarathustra says we must embrace what religious morality says is the dark side to be a superior man. Religious morality says the darkest side is to reject their other worldly god. Zarathustra says "God is dead". Face it, own it. Don't turn to the comfort of false belief in other worldly reward by throwing away the treasure of life banking your treasure in heaven. God is dead, and heaven is bankrupt. Everyone who says otherwise is a lying, thieving beast feasting on your death, and your fear of death. The fear of death is contradictorally a fear of life. A fear of wasted life. The fear of which becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. Sacrificing life for the comforting false promise of reward after life until it's too late to live a life. Zarathustra ends the narration saying his story is over, and it's the transformed mench to ubermench hero's story now, and it's just beginning. The movie ends with the image of the hero as a not yet born super being. His story has not yet begun. The monolith is the same shape as the movie screen. During the beginning, and intermission it's the only presence on screen for a long time. Black, and exactly the shape of the monolith. The monolith takes a horizontal orientation at Jupiter like the movie screen. The change in orientation is depicted again in the corridor of light. The movie screen has been the narrator of this movie. Its story is over, and we are the hero of our own story, and our story has not yet begun.

I don’t know if you know that the Strauss musical score is.now public domain and not under copywrite so you don’t have to cut away every 5 seconds, I mean it would be nice, but RU-vid used to be a free place where good movie reactions could be made, but unfortunately now it just doesn’t really work anymore.

This was filmed BEFORE man landed on the Moon.

This and Barry Lyndon are my two favorite movies of his. Maybe my top 2 in general.

"no one understands what is going on" Many people do.

This is definitely a Kubrick masterpiece. But it also was created by Arthur C. Clarke. It would not be the same without him.

I saw this in 1968, in the format that Kubrick intended. I do not mind the 35 minutes of no words. Not at all. I recall my undergraduate experience in coursework in video composition. The first and strongest lesson in visual storytelling is the dictum, "Show, don't tell". Kubrick seems to have taken pains in most of his films to follow that advice.

Did you not hear them say it had been buried there millions of years ago?

Watch 2012, The Year We Make Contact. many of your questions will be answered.

I was 11 in 1968 when my mother dropped us kids off at the mall to see 2001. She just wanted us out of the house and didn't know or care what the movie was about. *welcome to growing-up in the 1960's* 😉

you should watch it on a theater screen. It was incredible.

HAL's been told by the powers that be that HE is the most essential piece of the mission, more important than any of the people. When he finds out that Frank and Dave are planning to turn him off, they're officially jeopardizing the mission and he decides to kill them. He also knows that when the others wake up, they will come to the same conclusion (given that Frank and Dave are dead, or if alive, they'll tell the others what's going on) and try to turn him off. HAL has been told he CANNOT let that happen b/c the Jupiter mission is of absolute importance and HE is more important than any of them. Also the monolith is there to mark the LEAPS in Human evolution from caveman to man, from man to star child. The reason we CAN'T understand what's going on at the end is because WE, the audience, are still in the 2nd stage, so the 3rd stage must be incomprehensible to us, by definition.

Your reaction to the film upon initial viewing is understandable. But I encourage you to rewatch it. Almost every scene and every spoken word conveys layers of meaning. I pose to you the following questions (there are many more): 1. How did the food change over the course of the film and why? 2. How many birthdays are mentioned in the film and why are they mentioned? 3. Why is the astronaut named David Bowman? 4. What are the first words spoken? The last? 5. Why did the glass break in the Louis XIV room? 6. What happened after each encounter with the monolith? So what was it?

Films in the 60's had an intermission mid way through and staff came down to the front to sell icecream, sweets and drinks. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang cut to the intermission just as they were going over the cliff, a literal cliff hanger :D Luckily I was already reading sci-fi when this came out (I was 8 years old) and I'd already ready the book, so unlike most of the audience I wasn't confused.

I see you wonder what is the meaning of the black screen sequences during the beginning & intermission. I'll give you thought experiment, what do the monoliths look like? E.g., Shape/dimensions. Now what would they look like turned 90 degrees? (They even do this for you in the movie) Got it? Good. Now you can begin the rel meta-analysis of the meaning of the monoliths. Specifically in relation to the movie itself.

my 2nd post .. Your preconceived notions in the year 2022 just goes too show the ability of an audience too sit still for a minute without needing a set of car keys shook in front of them... Your technologies have crippled your ability too WONDER and IMAGINE. the turned page of a book is your enemy in the time it takes too turn...

Bergman and Resnais set the stage for audiences to deal with long, slow paced movies in the 1960s. Jean Luc Godards Alphaville addressed the problem of AI in a sci fi movie. Very different approach with no special effects. Purposely tilted, fakey acting.

Perhaps a fresh point of view regarding the Human Error to which HAL attributed the faulty/operational equipment?

I think the movie makes it clear that its theme is that human evolution is being guided by some alien civilization via the black monolith at certain critical points. The monolith spurs the use of weapons which leads to the use of tools which eventually leads to humankind's first steps in conquering space. This is indicated by the imagery of the first weapon being thrown upward followed by the quick cut to the satellite near the beginning of the movie. Near the end of the movie, the imagery of Dave meeting himself at different ages is indicating that the next step in evolution that the monolith initiates is about humankind conquering time. This evolution requires the death of the old Dave and the birth of a new Dave that is the archetype of the new man that is not limited by space or time. The use of the developing fetus imagery is brilliant since in the outdated but influential recapitulation theory, each stage in the embryo's development repeats a stage in the evolution of life (recall Haeckel's phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"). This theme is underlined by Kubrik's use of Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" based on Friedrich Nietzsche's novel of the same title in the movie soundtrack. The theme of Nietzsche's novel is that "Mankind is just a bridge between animal and overman" as stated at this link www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/zarathustra/summary/ ("overman" is a translation of the German "ubermensch" which is sometimes also translated as "superman," and which represents Nietzche's idea of mankind's next step up in evolution to a superior being.) Having the AI HAL 9000 make an error which leads it to kill humans to preserve its own existence implies that humanity's next step in evolution to try to transcend current human limitations cannot be via artificial intelligence since as a creation of fallible humans, artificial intelligence cannot be infallible. Thus, humanity's evolution beyond its current limitations requires external assistance from higher beings, which in this case are the beings that built and control the black monolith. Dave's journey through the trippy lighting effects represents his journey to an understanding of his new nature as the archetype of the new man. This new understanding cannot be put into words and cannot be understood by current humans. It would be like trying to explain to those early hominids at the beginning of the movie that the step in their evolution that the monolith initiated would lead to modern man and the "miracles" of his modern technology. In the same way that those early hominids have no points of reference that would enable them to understand this step in their evolution, modern humankind has no points of reference that would enable us to fully comprehend our next step in evolution that the monolith is initiating with Dave.

Read the books (Movie was based on the book of the same title by Arthur C Clarke) 2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001. 3001 will explain who/what this 1:4:9 monolith really is

It's a movie to be experienced, not understood. It is simply the evolution of mankind and not technology.

When I first watched this movie I thought it was a brilliant piece of work and still do 👍👍👍👍

i like to think this movie is making a compeback. i saw it in the theatre in 1968, as a 8 year old. will always be my favorite movie. you know the term God Tier? in a monotheistic universe, This is the oNLY god tier. brahman tier, atman tier, etc.

Kubrick makes his audience start the movie staring at a horizontal obelisk for 2 minutes and again at intermission, and they had no clue.

Kubrick eliminated a spoken commentary telling us there are orbiting weapons.making the link between the primitive bone weapon and the space weapon which was going to be destroyed by the star child at the climax but that looked too much like Strangelove so no explosion.

Put yourself in the situation and think about the stream of consciousness. It's not a film to understand but to experience.

The unseen aliens are helping mankind to survive and evolve. The penultimate monolith near Jupiter is a star gate. The final monolith causes Dave Bowman to be reborn as a guardian of Earth.

The purpose of having a black screen with music playing, before the film proper starts, is to give people time to get seated in the theater, settle down with their popcorn, and be all set for the movie to start. The intermission is, as you say, a toilet break. When you come back to your seat, you once again have the chance to settle down with your new box of popcorn.

I always prefer science fiction films and stories when they attempt to have credible science in them.

Ending shows birth of mankind on a moon of Jupiter. The monolith and HAL are trying to stop man from interfering. Dave is shown new life, at the cost of his own.

If you want some answers watch 2010 - The Year We Make Contact

You seem to be incapable of patience and letting the story unfold in its own time. Nor are you reflecting on what you see. Kubrick is not one to spoon-feed the watcher.

Also this is a totally differnt experience on a huge cinorama movie screen and aa TV. not even comparable

*Here's an explanation I recorded from the radio in 1969 or so:* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CpsEhCJioyg.html

Its interesting in a pandemic in the 1968 they create a cover story to hide the real reason Alien contact.. looks back at 2020

If we ever contact an alien civilisation then they will be millions of years ahead of us and we will be confused. So feeling confused at the end of the movie is how you're supposed to feel

Sarcasm is not helping. It is interstellar travel. The monolith is in total control

. . . what film is your "cup of tea" ? good job ! good react !

Meeting an alien intelligence, incomprehensible on terms of understanding, none the less an experience that transcends the story. As is it is about the next evolutionary stride in humankind. Dave is the next uber kind.

My father took my brothers and I to see it in the theater. I thought it was very psychedelic given that time period. And of course what does it mean? Kubrick has a RU-vid video where he explains the story. Something to do with a higher intelligent beings taking Frank Poole and observing him. Then, perhaps being reincarnated and sent back to Earth. But, overall, you have to admit how visually appealing the cinematography was. It really is a masterpiece and visually artistic.

I read the monolith as evolving an ape to modern man, and millions of years later on the moon they evolve again, then at the end, the conflict began with the mission control telling hal not to tell the crew, but he has to tell the crew.. and that caused the "mental" breakdown, according to the Lore, they threatened to "kill" hal by turning him off,so you were right about survival

More processing, please and less overthinking.

That intro alone say's the audience of today is broken

All the opening scenes were filmed on sound stages at MGM

Clavius is a Moon crater that they built a base on for this film.