MovieChat Forums > 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Discussion > THE ENDING

THE ENDING

posted 4 years ago by darb112 (95)
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I apologize in advance because there are probably several other threads pertaining to the ending, but I found this bit about Kubrick explaining the ending:

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick-explains-ending-video-1201981455/

Sounds really cool. The problem is Kubrick didn't execute the beginning sequence or the ending sequence of the movie well. The novel apparently explains it a lot better and talks about the "zoo". The novel also explains the beginning a LOT better about the monolith helping with the evolution of man moving things along. I didn't think that was clear in the movie. If the beginning and ending had a little bit more clarity, this movie really would be genius. I know there had been plans for a series. I think that would be really cool to see if they were able to go into more depth and explore it all further.

[–] strntz (12686) 4 years ago

2001 is one of my favorite movies. I love the plot, the characters, and yes, even the pacing. The effects are probably better today than they were in 1968. Talk about aging well.

But I always turn the movie off in the last 20 minutes because it just turns into a Woodstock reefer smoking haze. My older brother read the book, but I never did. Chatters who have read the book say the movie makes sense. Too bad that understanding the ending requires having read the book as a prerequisite.

I guess I should read it at some point, and maybe when I get some time, I'll follow the link you posted.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

I understood the ending without reading the book. So did a great many others. Kubrick trusted his audience to think & extrapolate while immersed in the experience of the film.

[–] strntz (12686) 4 years ago

That's fine, but there was no prerequisite of IQ required before allowing patrons to buy a ticket. At least on a roller coaster, people too short are kept off the ride. If people of low IQ like me are unable to grasp the meaning of the ending, they should have warned people before collecting their money.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

I've never taken your posts to be indicative of low IQ. If the ending doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. Different tastes, different likes & dislikes, nothing more.

[–] darb112 (95) 4 years ago

You understood that he was in a "zoo" at the end? There is nothing to indicate that in the movie unless you care to tell us what? I think you're trying to say you came up with your own ending which may have been Kubrick's intent, but there is no way anyone would have come up with the "zoo" ending, that Kubrick indicated in the interview posted above, simply by watching the ending of the movie.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

The "zoo" was Clarke's take on it, as the novel was his version of the story. Kubrick left it more to the imagination of the viewer, but it was obvious that Bowman was being observed & was undergoing a transformation. Was it a lifetime? Was that lifetime compressed into just a few moments? Did human concepts of Time even apply there? Clarke told a specific story, Kubrick went farther than that & offered an experience that offered more. Yet he made it clear that the unseen alien presence had changed Bowman, enabling his evolutionary growth to another, higher level of being. Kubrick simply told it in visual poetry, rather than prose. Those are two very different approaches, each one valid ... but I think Kubrick made the wiser choice. All that the viewer needs to know & understand is given in that ending, which is to be experienced & felt, rather than read & interpreted as a text is read & interpreted.

[–] darb112 (95) 4 years ago

So in the end, the "aliens" were taking Bowman further along an evolutionary path beyond mere humanity? I kinda like it. I guess the movie doesn't really show him being much different than other humans though...just simply aging. Then in the beginning of 2010 they try to tie it together when Bowman says "My God, it's full of stars"...perhaps that's a nod to the viewer letting them know Bowman has reached a higher evolutionary level. I like your take. I do think Kubrick could have tied it together a lot better at the end, but it is what it is.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

That was my overall take on it, anyway. And maybe they wanted a basically average, representative human being, rather than someone especially & unusually gifted, indicating that they felt that as a species, humanity as a whole was ready to take the next step?

[–] Redsfan001 (6180) 4 years ago

The funny thing is that the last 20 min were real popular with the hip set of the era who liked to drop acid half way through the movie.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

That's probably an urban myth, or a gross exaggeration. I don't remember any stories or new reports of widespread drug use connected with this movie.

It wouldn't surprise me to know that it did happen the odd time but, mostly as a means to get through that final 'star gate' sequence. I really enjoyed this movie, but even my patience was tested by how long that bit goes on for.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

As someone who saw the film when it first came out, I agree that the LSD myth is largely that: a myth. Yes, it happened a few times. But drugs were never as prevalent as younger viewers today seem to think. They were part of the zeitgeist, but it was the zeitgeist itself that was opening & expanding the minds of so many people then. The decade was alive with new ideas, old ideas revived, new possibilities, new perspectives & philosophies (and old ones too); there was incredible synergy everywhere, as can be seen in the explosion of new styles & approaches in all of the arts, in attitudes, in cultural mores. It wasn't unique to that time, as it's happened many times in the past: the Romantics, the Transcendentalists, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Symbolists, Dada, Surrealism, the Existentialists, the Beats ... of course, drugs have always been part of such things, but not the necessarily the primary driving force. They're an adjunct, not a source.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 4 years ago

The movie isn't like the book. It has a far different ending. I'm not sure if I can say they're close. It is and it isn't.

If humans are to reach Mars or Jupiter, then likely we won't be able to live there. We may not be able to get off this planet unless we find a monolith.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

Yes, I saw the "zoo" as being more of a comfortable & reasonably familiar habitat for Bowman while he was undergoing his transformation. The alien intelligence apparently wanted him to be at ease, not frightened or overwhelmed after his shattering journey—perhaps out of consideration for a less advanced creature, perhaps because it helped with the transformation, or perhaps even both?

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 4 years ago

Did they call it a "zoo" in the movie? We don't know exactly what happens to Bowman and his pod. Nor know that it was aliens. It is pulled into the vortex of colored lights, which I thought was controlled by the large monolith orbiting Jupiter. This would be the third encounter with the largest monolith yet.

We sorta think we know what happened to the apes and their monolith because it was in the past, but didn't know what happened with the second one. The film was made in 1968, so it was in the near future that the US landed on the moon. With them, there was a mysterious ear piercing sound that engulfed them. Those in the know were hiding their discovery of the evidence of other worldly intelligence. I think this was key for the time and what people thought about any discovery as such and what would the government or governments do.

It also pulled us into the more future in that there was third one discovered. This would be in our future now as we haven't gone to Jupiter or even Mars yet, i.e. human landing.

What I'm getting at is this movie has aged and it has aged well. The movie still leaves it to the viewers for their own interpretations unlike the book. It's still a gripping and thought-provoking movie. How it was done, who it inspired, and what happened to sci-fil and space films afterward is still being talked about today, not just Kubrick's film story. All of it is pretty mind blowing (to use a idiom from the late 60s haha).

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

Well said!

And we could use a little more mind-blowing these days, too. :)

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Yeah, I think that would be an accurate description. It's semantics whether you call it a 'zoo', a 'laboratory' or similar, the intent is the same.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

Everything the viewer needs to know is there in both the beginning & the ending. It's not spoon-fed, but films from that time (my own youth) seldom were. The viewers were assumed to be smart & aware & capable of reading the visual language of the film, without having everything spelled out for them.

[–] TandyMan (11192) 4 years ago

I think the zoo theory is silly. My take was just as the monolith evolved apes into man, we're witnessing man being evolved into the next phase, only this time we get to travel into the Monolith when it happens. And to our primitive understanding of what's going on, all we see is a man in a weird hotel room. Cause that's the extent that our tiny brains can perceive the process. It was also my feeling from the film that there's no (active) aliens at all in this story. The monoliths are just machines left over from some ancient race, seeding life throughout the cosmos. Their makers long since evolved into something beyond even taking notice of the universe they left behind.

I've read the books too, but this is one Clarke tale I didn't really care for. Definitely prefer the film. It's wide open and prompts endless theory and speculation, while the books present a very narrow and finite vision. It's like Clarke watched the movie then gave his take on it, but being the author, it just became the definitive version.

[–] Owlwise (1536) 4 years ago

Agreed. I think Clarke tried to explain too much in his novel. Others of his, such as The City and The Stars, offered mysteries, explained some of them, but ended by having those explanations open up even bigger mysteries left answered. Perhaps unanswerable, in fact. And that book was better for it. Kubrick made the right choice in leaving much unexplained.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

"It was also my feeling from the film that there's no (active) aliens at all in this story. The monoliths are just machines left over from some ancient race, seeding life throughout the cosmos."

That wasn't my take, but I think yours is equally valid.

I think that it was Stephen Hawking who speculated that self-replicating AI could eventually outstrip humans in evolutionary intelligence.

Imagine a future, where AI machines do indeed outstrip human intelligence. Instead of waging war on humans a la Terminator and similar movies, they instead simply leave Earth to explore the universe, abandoning Earth and our solar system to the humans.

They would live forever -- or close to it since they can self-repair -- and not be limited by human lifespans in the distances they could travel. Eventually, they would find other worlds, some of them with primitive life forms on them. Would they/ could they tweak the evolution of those lifeforms as some sort of experiment, or perhaps as some sort of programming of their original mission? In the meantime, as you speculate, the human race would have long gone extinct.

Or, to flip it around a bit, AI machines don't explore space. After all they wouldn't have an emotional need to explore as humans do. Instead, they set about to repair Earth and make life more comfortable for humans as they were programmed to do. They evolve faster than us, but always continue to serve their primary purpose. Eventually, we could be reduced to monkeys wandering around a world that caters to our every need, but with no understanding of how it all works. Maybe we would even forget after a time that we are being cared for.

Now imagine an alien scout ship discovers Earth. They explore and discover a sophisticated global AI. They try to find out what happened to the original builders of the AI, with no clue that the primitive apelike creatures that wander about the planet's surface ARE the original builders of the AI.

Somebody should make that movie...