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Originally posted by aspviper666Ah, wittiest comment I've seen on this forum. And, unfortunately, that doesn't fit 🙁 (Yes, I tried). Anyhow, did some IMDB searching and found the following.
It's [b] all relative.[/b]
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Mine is but one view. So, be aware it isn't a definative interpretation.
One reason it's considered a masterpiece is because how radically different from other films, especially sci-fi filsm, this is. It's practically the oppisite of 'Star Wars' in terms of style.
Now, the story.
The black stone is called the monolith. It is appearently a super-tool of a sort that has some weird powers. In the case of the man-apes (not monkeys), it influenced them to use tools to gain an advantage in life, and to eventually evolve to become modern humans.
You see to understand Floyd's trip to the space station and the moon, so I won't go into detail there. Ditto for the Discovery's in flight events.
Now, at Jupiter, the third monolith transports Dave, the astronaut, through a 'stargate' of a sort. He sees the universe's weirdest sights.
He then winds up in a lab of a sort, make to look like a normal dwelling.
Now, somehow, time goes awry in there, because he sees his future self, much older. And it happens again when he's eating, after he breaks the glass.
Laying on the bed, near death as it were, the elderly Dave then sees the monolith again.
The monolith then transcendes Dave to a super-evolved form, and then he goes back to Earth.
So, hope that clears up some of the story for you.
It's a miracle of evolution all this machine does; swim, eat, and make little sharks.
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I would like to go watch the first half though.
Originally posted by cmsMasterA pretty bad explanation. I'm going to see if I can find one that makes sense. 🙁.
Ah, wittiest comment I've seen on this forum. And, unfortunately, that doesn't fit 🙁 (Yes, I tried). Anyhow, did some IMDB searching and found the following.
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Mine is but one view. So, be aware it isn't a definative interpretation.
One reason it's considered a mast ...[text shortened]... ----------------------
I would like to go watch the first half though.
Originally posted by cmsMasterexcerts about the end:
A pretty bad explanation. I'm going to see if I can find one that makes sense. 🙁.
The stone is the great impetus for the human race. At every turn it comes in and saves the human race from itself. The first time that it appears it saves the apemen from certain extinction. The second time it appears it saves the human race from the technical domination of this age. Without the intervention of the monolith this course would lead to certain extinction also. The third time it appears, it initiates Bowman into a kind of cosmic consciousness. Bowman has been to the end of the universe and back. He knows that he is locked in a prison of his own design, which is the meaning of the last few scenes in the hotel-like room. But Bowman's ultimate realization that he is completely trapped is revealed, symbolically, by Kubrick, with his breaking of the wine glass. Even after all that he has been through Bowman still makes mistakes. The wine glass is like a zen koan that illuminates the mind in a flash. His own fallibility thrusts the scene towards it's climax as the old man dies on the bed and sees the monolith for the last time.
The Great Work of the stone is complete. There is now a man, a human, who understands the greater universe. This man also understands that he is trapped in a jail that his own consciousness has designed. With the realization of his own fallibility, and his own trapped spirit, he is finally liberated from the realm of the hotel prison, or the world of illusion. In that instant he understands what the book of stone is trying to tell him. He lifts his hand in a gesture of understanding. And in that moment he is transformed - without dying - into the Starchild.
The stone has given Bowman the gifts that the Philosopher's Stone has always promised. Bowman has achieved complete gnosis, or knowledge, and now he has become immortal by overcoming physical death and being reborn. In that moment, he passes through the monolith one last time. The Earth is ahead of him now and he will be reborn on that planet. Bowman will be a new human, just as different from Homo Sapiens as Homo Sapiens are different from that apeman who picked up that bone all that time ago. Nietzche's ape to man to superman theme, from his 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' essays, is mirrored perfectly by Strauss' music and Kubrick's movie. Kubrick has evoked the spiritual and physical evolution of our race as it has been transformed by this magical black stone.
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Originally posted by cmsMasterWhy is everything about Bowmann??
The third time it appears, it initiates Bowman into a kind of cosmic consciousness. Bowman has been to the end of the universe and back. He knows that he is locked in a prison of his own design, which is the meaning of the last few scenes in the hotel-like room. But Bowman's ultimate realization that he is completely trapped is revealed,