Is this more influential than Star Wars : A New Hope ?

You have to imagine that in 1968, absolutely none of the technology shown was a thing. I remember seeing the call via videophone and thinking “No way will i ever want to see who I’m talking to!” It was totally foreign. Also cool to see the stuff they got wrong, pre-desktop and smart phone icons and apps.

But it’s more important than Star Wars, etc, bc it’s not a space opera. It’s just good, Hard science fiction, that makes you think.

Who sent the monolith(s)? Why? What did Humankind learn from it? And where is the human race guided in the long run?

I certainly hope it's more influential than Star Wars: A New Hope, but I'm not so sure ...

A better movie, absolutely. But has it captured the public's imagination the same way Star Wars has - I don't think so. I know I find 2001 more influential than Star Wars, but I can't say the same for the general population.

After Star Wars came out it resulted in a lot of action packed scifi movies to be released. Interestingly the first Star Trek movie went for the grandeur of 2001 and not the action of Star Wars.

I think the movies that have been inspired by this movie are better than 2001 itself. Moon, Interstellar, Arrival, Contact, Solaris Etc, Why Because they have Plots. I think the Whole Hal trying to kill everybody, was what 20 minutes long and that was only plot in the entire film. The rest is just monkey throwing sh!t, slow shots of space ships, black square in space and a acid trip. Its not exactly Shakespeare or Hemingway or anything else really. If you made a book exactly with the plot of 2001 a Space Odyssey (The Movie, Not Clark Book), nobody would think it was a Masterpiece.