2001: A Space Odyssey, what did the ending really mean?
2001: A Space Odyssey is a slow-moving sci-fi adventure and when I watched it for the first time, I was confused and a little bored. It is about a small group of scientists who, after finding a buried monolith on the moon, set out on a mission to head to Jupiter where another monolith was predicted to be. However, after HAL 9000 calamity, Dave is the only survivor and after reaching the orbit of Jupiter, some seriously strange and peculiar things happen to Dave when he enters what is a Stargate.
The Stargate is represented as two walls of flashing colors slightly angled in towards each other, and are very quickly moving as Dave passes through faster than the speed of light. The walls of the Stargate also twist and then loses a wall adding a horizontal view where shapes appear and what seems to be pictures of a planets birds-eye view of its land. Dave is actually sent into the Stargate by the third monolith in Jupiter's orbit which does not make an appearance in the film and is where the radio communication ping of where the monolith buried on the moon is to. The Stargate was created by the aliens to transport other creatures into their enclosure where they evolve into Starchildren. The Stargate can be portrayed as some kind of zoo containing different creatures from around the universe and being watched by the dominant alien species.
Towards the end of the Stargate traveling sequence, there are shots of Dave with his face flashing where he seems frozen into place and is constantly screaming, I found this scene very weird and a little bit scary as Dave is frozen in terror. After that, Dave’s eyes begin to change color first from normal to orange then back to normal then after a series of those, it changes from color to color every time he blinks. Apart from its strangeness, this is supposed to show that Dave is learning everything about the universe in a matter of seconds and the knowledge is tampering with his physical form which is his eye color.
Dave and his pod is teleported into his enclosure which is a neoclassical themed room having the colors of an olive green and dim white to create a soothing look. The room is aesthetically pleasing and contained; a bed, a dinner table for one person, a piano, multiple chairs, and decorated walls with old paintings and sculptures. The enclosure is created by the alien species to contain Dave for the rest of his human life, until he evolves into a Starchild. The room has lit up floors defining that it still holds a futuristic look as the white floor lighting isn’t a warm yellow that a candle would give off but the recent LED lights used today. The aliens designed the room very spacious but compact as in there aren’t multiple levels for living but has considerable space to move about between objects.
When Dave arrives at the enclosure inside his pod, he sees another astronaut walking around, the camera jumps to the walking astronauts view as he watches another person eating on the small dinner table, this person is slightly older, the man drops a glass of water then the camera transitions to a man on the bed, who is very old and frail who then points towards another monolith and the scene is over. All three people in the scene are just Dave aging and this is either that Dave is aging rapidly and this is all happening at once or that this is simply a montage of Dave’s life throughout around 50 years. When Dave is to die on his bed, he points towards a towering monolith in front, this is generally skimmed over however it actually is a recreation of the famous painting, ‘The creation of Adam.” Dave is Adam as he is being created into a new being and the monolith is god. In a controversial manner, the alien species in the film are god and it is implied that the god humans believe are non-existing. 2001: A Space Odyssey took a lot of fire for this as they said god did not exist and a third of the religious people in the world are christian or catholic.
Dave then transforms or evolves into a Starchild fetus by the monolith. And with ascending music, Dave is sent back to Earth by the Aliens to spread his knowledge with the other humans. The fetus is irregular to a normal human fetus and is the dawn of mankind 3.0 as there were apes, homo-sapiens and now the Starchildren. The fetus has one eye open and then two eyes open displaying Dave’s consciousness and new awareness. He was thought to be dead and his body transformed but actually both his mind and body is transformed into the Starchild. The movie then ends and it is predicted that the humans are enlightened and possibly find the next monolith.
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References
Chiasson, D. (2018). “2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/23/2001-a-space-odyssey-what-it-means-and-how-it-was-made [Accessed 9 Jul. 2018].
Ebert, R. (2018). 2001: A Space Odyssey Movie Review (1968) | Roger Ebert. [online] Rogerebert.com. Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968 [Accessed 9 Jul. 2018].
Hoad, P. (2018). 50 years of 2001: A Space Odyssey — how Kubrick’s sci-fi ‘changed the very form of cinema’. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/02/50-years-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick [Accessed 9 Jul. 2018].
Jones, T. and Steinberg, D. (2018). The Most Intriguing Theories About 2001: A Space Odyssey. [online] Gizmodo Australia. Available at: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/04/the-most-intriguing-theories-about-2001-a-space-odyssey/ [Accessed 9 Jul. 2018].
Reynolds, D. and from Dolan, S. (2018). What Does The Ending Of 2001: A Space Odyssey Really Mean?. [online] WhatCulture.com. Available at: http://whatculture.com/film/what-does-the-ending-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-really-mean?page=2 [Accessed 9 Jul. 2018].
Lehan Jayatilake.