I am convinced that the personal meaning of the film 2001, for its creator Stanley Kurbrick - and there is more than one level of meaning to the film - is meant to convey the idea that the cinema, and by extension modern audio/visual tools, is Kubrick's weapon that he (and the ruling class that he represented) has discovered useful in bludgeoning those who would oppose their capture of the modern-day equivalent of the film's primitive watering hole, i.e. the entire planet earth. This is a very literal interpretation of the film, perhaps the most literal possible, and one which I've never seen anyone point out. I did watch one person's video in which they interpreted the monolith as the actual cinema screen upon which we are watching the film, but then they did not take it further to create an exact and literal parallel of this cinema screen as the latest iteration, like the bone before it, of a weaponized tool for violent domination.

The very opening scene with the celestial body alignment and the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" music is the first instance of the celestial alignment, and the only alignment that takes place not concurrently with an appearance of the monolith. But this scene is actually happening with the intention of invoking the film and the screen it's being projected upon as the monolith, with the title of the film appearing on the screen to reinforce this. So this scene does actually stay consistent with the other occurrences of celestial alignments that are invariably coupled with an appearance of the monolith: The opening scene is meant to signify the film and the screen it's being projected onto as the overarching, evolution-inducing force that the black monolith symbolizes throughout the film. Also, the "Zarathustra" music occurs here and in total three times, so that in every case it accompanies an epiphany scene that leads to the dawning of a new era of greater social and material complexity.

Along this line, the puzzling last scene in the bedroom invokes the pre-industrial forms of myth perpetuation and their weaponization as a form of mass control: painting, sculpture, architecture, all cultivated by aristocrats or social elites. Experiencing an epiphany while eating his meal and accidentally breaking the wine goblet, Bowman has eaten all the meat on his plate, but not the vegetables, exactly parallel with the pile of animal bones the first ape was crouching over during the primitive epiphany scene, following which the eating of animals is initiated. The old man is then visited by the monolith for the last time, which is actually the cinema screen self-referencing itself as the very screen that we are watching (in fact the black monolith in the film is in 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the same ratio that the film was originally released in for theaters back in 1968). The "Zarathustra" music plays, signaling that a momentous epiphany has occurred and a new era has been initiated of a more advanced tool intended for violent domination. This is in perfect parallel with each previous shift ahead to a more advanced tool. The old man puts out his finger in a gesture reminiscent of Michelangelo's "The Creation", as though the new bone tool/monolith itself bestows new life to its discoverer as when God touches Adam. Old man Bowman is reborn and he (and we via a camera zoom) enters into the monolith. The next thing we see is the moon, moving upward, in exact parallel to the rising bone that the ape threw up into the air. The new tool for domination has been discovered: the cinema in general and, via the medium of the cinema screen, the faking of the moon landings in particular. As the moon moves upward, we realize that the camera is panning down to planet earth. The moon goes out of the picture and the star child is seen viewing the earth. I believe a triadic relationship is being set up here between the moon, the earth, and the star child, who represents Kubrick. In effect, we have moved into a new era of myth creation and mass control via the new bone-shaped tool of cinema. The cinema screen (black monolith) will be used as a new tool of violent domination. This cinematic tool, as the monolith symbolizes, has in fact been the teleologic force driving mankind through each phase in the film, and marking Kubrick's epiphany of its potential power as the most recent apotheosis of domination tool development.

In summation, Kubrick is revealing that he will employ the cinema to film the moon landings, thus inventing a new means for mythology creation that will be used to dominate the earth (i.e. watering hole) and its inhabitants (this is the triadic relationship established right after entering the monolith/cinema screen from the bed of old man Bowman). And in case there's any doubt as to the entirely insidious intention of this scheme, the star child turns until at last he is looking directly into the camera, meaning that this traumatic treatment is intended for all those watching the film (or at least, those who do not realize that the new tool will be used against them).

There are other details that reinforce this interpretation, some of which I only discovered once I realized the literal parallelism between the various coordinated appearances of celestial alignments, the monolith, the "Zarathustra" music, and the epiphany or realization of a new more advanced tool for violent domination. Of course, we are left no room for alternative interpretations on the first transition from a primitive weapon to a more advanced weapon, with the space ship literally replacing the bone on the screen. And this is obvious, of course, but how many people actually look at that space ship and also realize how much it looks like a gun? And of course, so much of NASA and space exploration being a hoax, pretty much the entire part of the space exploration program that was real has been a cover for military development of missiles and developing space as a theater of war. But of course, Kubrick is not so blatantly obvious in handling the final transition from the previous form of weapon to the next form of weapon. He does, however, clearly show us that the carniverous old man has had a transformative epiphany, that he has been reborn a new man, and has entered the monolith/cinema screen, and from the vantage point of the monolith (self-referencing itself as the screen we are looking at, just as in the very opening scene), we see first the moon going up, then the earth, then the star child viewing the earth, then the star child viewing us. And I might add that that child has a pose and a look on its face that are just ambiguous enough to be unclear, but could reasonably be seen as sinister.

From my new point of view, the film expresses unfathomable venality, as in to prostitute one's talents for mercenary considerations. But that is the meaning at the first or autobiographical level. And Kubrick confirms it through his moon landing hoax confession film, "The Shining" (see the online video "The Shining Codes 2.0"). I do believe there are also two other layers of meaning. One of these is that Kubrick most certainly crafted the film to also be a Masonic initiation ritual, which form it follows very closely, substituting, however, the modern scientific view of man's origins through the mechanism of evolution for the older creationist story used in traditional Freemasonry. The best analysis of this layer of meaning of the film was done by a guy named Jay Weidner, whose film "Beyond the Infinite: Kubrick's Odyssey II" is well worth the four-dollar rental fee at iTunes. The third layer of meaning is the exoteric message, the one intended for the masses, which is not entirely different in essence from the esoteric, masonic ritualistic message, but is more in line with a typical sci-fi story about future technology, aliens, what constitutes whether someone is a real living being, the nature of artificial intelligence, portraying future tech devices, and things like speculating on the way man will live in the future and the dehumanized context he will live in, as well as the government cover up of the discovery of the monolith on the moon. These are the popular themes that most people saw and understood and took away from the film, and which fill up the vast majority of commentary and interpretations of the film over the years. The presence of so many layers of meaning is a primary reason why the film is so amazing and thought-provoking.

There is, as well, the small but significant embellishment of the young photographer taking photos of Dr. Floyd on the moon: he has an uncanny physical resemblance to the young Kubrick, who himself started in professional photography. This photographer in the film is wearing a suit that very much resembles the skin of a leopard, similar to the leopard seen in the first part of the film. As well, similar to the flash of light we see in the leopard's eyes (due to the front projection screen light), we see a flash of light reflected off the photographer's cuff links which, because of their proximity due to him holding the camera with both hands, very much resembles the pair of leopard eyes. This relates well to the recurring themes of domination via violent tool development, and carnivory (with the photo camera here being linked to the later advancement of the cinema as the modern dominant tool par excellence, as well as marking Kubrick as the first true master of the new, more advanced tool). Something resembling flashing eyes also occurs in other scenes, such as in the landing scene of the ship that takes Dr. Floyd to the moon, as well as the small "eye ball" flight module that HAL uses to murder Frank.

Then there are other details like the fact that the lead ape is called Moonwatcher, and the lead astronaut's name is Bowman, the former invoking the moon, obviously, and the latter a reference to the god Apollo who was, among other things, the Greek god of archery. Bowman launched like an arrow into space to explore Saturn, but ended up discovering something even more exalted. Both names refer to the faked moon landings that Kubrick was preparing simultaneously to the film 2001 and for which 2001 was serving as a research and development project for. However, I don't think Kubrick made 2001 solely as a preparatory exercise for the moon landings. It may actually be the other way around: he may have agreed to do the Apollo con job in exchange for future unlimited budgets and unfettered artistic autonomy. Who could ever say how many untold millions of dollars officially allotted for the Apollo missions were siphoned off for Kubrick's productions, both 2001 and later films? Kubrick would have also demanded complete artistic autonomy for the rest of his life, which by the nature of his films it would appear he was granted. His films are towering marvels of tightly controlled artistic coherence. It's also tempting to suspect that Kubrick, as an occult adept, would have wanted to be the first artist/occult magician of the "new tool era" to recast the ancient esoteric mystery rites into cinematic form, as well as to be the first to splice into the ritual the new evolutionary biology in place of the old creationist accounts. He certainly left plenty of clues woven into the visual rite to loudly infer what he was up to, and how he himself, through creating this film and referencing himself within it, was personally participating in the age-old rite initiation. Besides newly adapting this rite for the screen, his most unique and individual contribution to this ancient initiation rite may actually be the principle depicted in the film in parallel occurrences in which those who bludgeon everyone else for control of resources set for themselves and everyone else the course of human evolution. In short, Kubrick's outlook here could be interpreted as a very sophisticated and artistically elaborate justification for the idea that "might makes right."

I am convinced that the personal meaning of the film 2001, for its creator - and there is more than one level of meaning to the film - is meant to convey the idea that the cinema, and by extension modern audio/visual tools, is Kubrick's weapon that he (and the class that he represented) has discovered useful in bludgeoning those who would oppose their capture of the modern-day watering hole, i.e. the entire planet earth. This is a very literal interpretation of the film, perhaps the most literal possible, and one which I've never seen anyone point out. I did watch one person's video in which they interpreted the monolith as the actual cinema screen upon which we are watching the film, but then not taking it further to create an exact and literal parallel of this cinema screen as the latest iteration, like the bone before it, of a weapon for domination.

The very opening scene with the celestial body alignment and the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" music is the first instance of the celestial alignment, and the only alignment that takes place not concurrently with an appearance of the monolith. But this scene is actually happening with the intention of invoking the film and the screen it's being projected upon as the monolith, with the title of the film appearing on the screen as well. So this scene does actually stay consistent with the other occurrences of celestial alignments that are invariably coupled with an appearance of the monolith: The opening scene is meant to signify the film and its projection screen as the overarching insight that the black monolith symbolizes throughout the film. Also, the "Zarathustra" music occurs here and in total three times, in every case accompanying an epiphany scene that leads to the dawning of a new evolutionary era.

The last scene in the bedroom invokes the pre-industrial forms of myth perpetuation and therefore mass control: painting, sculpture, architecture, all cultivated by aristocrats or social elites. Experiencing an epiphany while eating his meal and accidentally breaking the wine goblet, Bowman has eaten all the meat on his plate, but not the vegetables, exactly parallel with the pile of animal bones the first ape was crouching over during the primitive epiphany scene, following which the eating of animals is initiated. The old man is visited by the monolith for the last time, which is actually the cinema screen self-referencing itself as the very screen that we are watching (in fact the black monolith in the film is in 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the same ratio that it was originally released in for theaters back in 1968). The "Zarathustra" music plays, meaning an epiphany has occurred and a new era has been entered of a more advanced tool usage intended for domination, in parallel with each previous shift ahead to a more advanced tool. The old man puts out his finger in a gesture reminiscent of Michelangelo's "The Creation", as though the new bone tool/monolith itself bestows new life to its discoverer. He is reborn and he (and we via a camera zoom) enters into the monolith. The next thing we see is the moon, moving upward, exactly parallel to the rising bone that the ape threw up into the air. The new tool for domination has been discovered: the cinema in general, and, via the medium of the cinema screen, the faking of the moon landings specifically. As the moon moves upward, we realize that the camera is panning down to planet earth. The moon goes out of the picture and the star child is seen viewing the earth. I believe a triadic relationship is being set up here between the moon, the earth, and the star child, who represents Kubrick. In effect, we have moved into a new era of myth creation and mass control via the new bone-shaped tool of cinema. The cinema screen (black monolith) will be used as a new tool of violent domination. This cinematic tool, as the monolith, has in fact been the teleologic force driving mankind through each phase in the film, as though Kubrick's epiphany of its potential power were the most recent apotheosis of domination tool development.

In summation, Kubrick is revealing that he will employ the cinema to film the moon landings, thus inventing a new means for mythology creation that will be used to dominate the earth (i.e. watering hole) and its inhabitants (this is the triadic relationship established right after entering the monolith/cinema screen from the bed of old man Bowman). And in case there's any doubt as to the entirely insidious intention of this scheme, the star child turns until at last he is looking directly into the camera, meaning that this traumatic treatment is intended for all those watching the film (or at least, those who do not realize that the new tool will be used against them).

There are other details that fill in this interpretation, some of which I only discovered once I realized the literal parallelism between the various coordinated appearances of celestial alignments, the monolith, the "Zarathustra" music, and the epiphany or realization of a new more advanced tool for violent domination. Of course, we are left no room for variant interpretations on the first transition from a primitive weapon to a far more advanced weapon, with the space ship literally replacing the bone on the screen. And this is obvious, of course, but how many people actually look at that space ship and also realize how much it looks like a gun? And of course, so much of NASA and space exploration being a hoax, pretty much the entire space exploration program that was for real has been a cover for military development of missiles and developing space as a theater of war. But of course, Kubrick is not so blatantly obvious in handling the final transitioning from the previous form of weapon to the next form of weapon: He does, however, clearly show us that the carniverous old man has had a transformative epiphany, that he has been reborn a new man, and has entered the monolith/cinema screen, and from the vantage point of the monolith (self-referencing itself as the screen we are looking at, just as in the very opening scene), we see first the moon going up, then the earth, then the star child viewing the earth, then the star child viewing us. And I might add that that child has a pose and a look on its face that are just ambiguous enough to be unclear, but could reasonably be seen as sinister.

From my new point of view, the film expresses unfathomable venality, as in to prostitute one's talents for mercenary considerations. But that is the meaning at the first or autobiographical level. And Kubrick confirms it through his moon landing hoax confession film, "The Shining" (see the online video "The Shining Codes 2.0"). I do believe there are also two other layers of meaning. One of these is that Kubrick most certainly crafted the film to also be a Masonic initiation ritual, which form it follows very closely, substituting, however, the modern scientific view of man's origins through the mechanism of evolution for the older creationist story used in traditional Freemasonry. The best analysis of this layer of meaning of the film was done by a guy named Jay Weidner, whose film "Beyond the Infinite: Kubrick's Odyssey II" is well worth the four-dollar rental fee at iTunes. The third layer or meaning is the exoteric message, the one intended for the masses, which is not extremely different in essence from the esoteric, masonic ritualistic message, but is more in line with a typical sci-fi story about future technology, aliens, what constitutes whether someone is a real living being and the nature of artificial intelligence, portraying future tech devices, and things like speculating on the way man will live in the future and the dehumanized context he will live in, as well as the government cover up of the discovery of the monolith on the moon. These are the popular themes that most people saw and understood and took away from the film, and which fill up the vast majority of commentary and interpretations of the film over the years.

There is, as well, the small but significant embellishment of the young photographer taking photos of Dr. Floyd on the moon: he has an uncanny physical resemblance to the young Kubrick, who himself started in professional photography. This photographer in the film is wearing a suit that very much resembles the skin of a leopard, similar to the leopard seen in the first part of the film. As well, similar to the flash of light we see in the leopard's eyes (due to the front projection screen light), we see a flash of light reflected off the photographer's cuff links which, because of their proximity due to him holding the camera with both hands, very much resembles the pair of leopard eyes. This relates well to the recurring themes of domination via violent tool usage and carnivory (with the photo camera here being linked to the later advancement of the cinema as the dominant tool par excellence, and Kubrick claiming first mastership of the new, more advanced tool). Something resembling flashing eyes also occurs in other scenes, such as in the landing scene of the ship that takes Dr. Floyd to the moon, as well as the small "eye ball" flight module that HAL uses to murder Frank.

Then there are other details like the fact that the lead ape is called Moonwatcher, and the lead astronaut's name is Bowman, the former invoking the moon, obviously, and the latter a reference to the god Apollo who was, among other things, the Greek god of archery. Both names refer to the faked moon landings that Kubrick was preparing simultaneously to the film 2001 and for which 2001 was serving as a research and development project for. However, I don't think Kubrick made 2001 solely as a preparatory exercise for the moon landings. It may actually be the other way around: he may have agreed to do the moon landing con job in exchange for an unlimited budget and absolutely unfettered artistic autonomy. Who could ever say how many untold millions of dollars officially allotted for the Apollo missions were siphoned off for Kubrick's productions, both 2001 and later films? Undoubtedly, Kubrick would have also demanded complete artistic autonomy for the rest of his life, which by the nature of his films it would appear he was granted. His films are towering marvels of artistic coherence. It's also tempting to suspect that Kubrick, as an occult adept, would have wanted to be the first artist/occult magician of the "new tool era" to recast the ancient esoteric mystery rites into cinematic form, as well as to be the first to splice into the ritual the new evolutionary biology in place of the old creationist accounts. He certainly left plenty of clues woven into the visual rite to loudly infer what he was up to, and how he himself, through creating this film and referencing himself within it, was personally participating in the age-old rite of passage. Besides newly adapting this rite for the screen, his most unique, individual contribution to this ancient initiation rite may actually be the principle depicted in the film in parallel occurrences in which those who bludgeon everyone else for control of resources set for themselves and everyone else the course of human evolution. In short, Kubrick's outlook here could be interpreted as a very sophisticated and artistically elaborate justification for the idea that "might makes right."

I am convinced that the personal meaning of the film 2001, for its creator - and there is more than one level of meaning to the film - is meant to convey the idea that the cinema, and by extension modern audio/visual tools, is Kubrick's weapon that he (and the class that he represented) has discovered useful in bludgeoning those who would oppose their capture of the modern-day watering hole, i.e. the entire planet earth. This is a very literal interpretation of the film, perhaps the most literal possible, and one which I've never seen anyone point out. I did watch one person's video in which they interpreted the monolith as the actual cinema screen upon which we are watching the film, but then not taking it further to create an exact and literal parallel of this cinema screen as the latest iteration, like the bone before it, of a weapon for domination.

The very opening scene with the celestial body alignment and the Thus Spake Zarathustra music is the first instance of the celestial alignment, and the only alignment that takes place not concurrently with an appearance of the monolith. But this scene is actually happening with the intention of invoking the film and the screen it's being projected upon as the monolith, with the title of the film appearing on the screen as well. So this scene does actually stay consistent with the other occurrences of celestial alignments that are invariably coupled with an appearance of the monolith: The opening scene is meant to signify the film and its projection screen as the overarching insight that the black monolith symbolizes throughout the film. Also, the Zarathustra music occurs here and in total three times, in every case accompanying an epiphany scene that leads to the dawning of a new evolutionary era.

The last scene in the bedroom invokes the pre-industrial forms of myth perpetuation and therefore mass control: painting, sculpture, architecture, all cultivated by aristocrats or social elites. Experiencing an epiphany while eating his meal and accidentally breaking the wine goblet, Bowman has eaten all the meat on his plate, but not the vegetables, exactly parallel with the pile of animal bones the first ape was crouching over during the primitive epiphany scene, following which the eating of animals is initiated. The old man is visited again by the monolith, which is actually the cinema screen and is self-referencing the very screen that we are watching (in fact the black monolith in the film is in 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the same ratio that it was originally released in for theaters back in 1968). The Zarathustra music plays, meaning an epiphany has occurred and a new era has been entered of a more advanced tool usage intended for domination, in parallel with each previous shift ahead to a more advanced tool. The old man puts out his finger in a gesture reminiscent of Michelangelo's The Creation, as though the new bone tool/monolith itself bestows new life to its discoverer. He is reborn and he (and we via a camera zoom) enters into the monolith. The next thing we see is the moon, moving upward, in the same manner as the bone did that the ape threw up into the air. The new tool for domination has been discovered: the cinema in general, and the faking of the moon landings specifically, via the medium of the cinema screen. As the moon moves upwards, we realize that the camera is panning down to planet earth. The moon goes out of the picture and the star child is seen viewing the earth. I believe a triadic relationship is being set up here between the moon, the earth, and the star child who represents Kubrick. In effect, we have moved into a new era of myth creation and mass control via the new tool of cinema. The cinema screen (monolith) will be used as a new tool of violent domination. This cinematic tool, as the monolith, has in fact been the teleologic force driving mankind through each phase in the film, as though Kubrick's epiphany of its potential power were the most recent apotheosis of domination tool development.

In summation, Kubrick is revealing that he will employ the cinema to film the moon landings, thus inventing a new means for mythology creation that will be used to dominate the earth (i.e. watering hole) and its inhabitants (this is the triadic relationship established right after entering the monolith/cinema screen from the bed of old man Bowman). And in case there's any doubt as to the entirely insidious intention of this scheme, the star child turns until at last he is looking directly into the camera, meaning that this traumatic treatment is intended for all those watching the film (at least, those who do not realize that the new tool will be used against them).

There are other details that fill in this interpretation, some of which I only discovered once I realized the literal parallelism between the various coordinated appearances of celestial alignments, the monolith, the Zarathustra music, and the epiphany or realization of a new violent tool for domination. Of course, we are left no room for variant interpretations on the first transition from a primitive weapon to a far more advanced weapon, with the space ship literally replacing the bone on the screen. And this is obvious, of course, but how many people actually look at that space ship and also realize how much it looks like a gun? And of course, so much of NASA and space exploration being a hoax, pretty much the entire space exploration program has been a cover for military development of missiles and developing space as a theater of war. But of course, Kubrick is not so blatantly obvious in handling the final transitioning from the previous form of weapon to the next form of weapon: He does, however, clearly show us that the carniverous old man has had a transformative epiphany, that he has been reborn a new man, and has entered the monolith/cinema screen, and from the vantage point of the monolith (self-referencing itself as the screen we are looking at, just as in the very opening scene), we see first the moon going up, then the earth, then the star child viewing the earth, then the star child viewing us. And I might add that child has a pose and a look on its face that are just ambiguous enough to be unclear, but could reasonably be seen as sinister.

From my new point of view, the film expresses unfathomable venality, as in to prostitute one's talents for mercenary considerations. But that is the meaning at the first or autobiographical level. And Kubrick proves it through his moon landing hoax confession film The Shining. I do believe there are also two other layers of meaning. One of these is that Kubrick most certainly crafted the film also to be Masonic initiation ritual, which form it follows very closely, substituting, however, the modern scientific view of man's origins through the mechanism of evolution for the older Bible creation story used in traditional Masonry. The best revealing of this layer of meaning of the film was done by a guy named Jay Weidner, whose film "Beyond the Infinite: Kubrick's Odyssey II" is well worth the four dollar rental fee at iTunes. The third layer is the exoteric message, the one intended for the masses, which is not extremely different in essence from the esoteric ritualistic message, but is more in line with a typical sci-fi story about future technology, aliens, what constitutes whether someone is a real living being and the nature of artificial intelligence, portraying future tech devices, and things like speculating on the way man will live in the future and the totally dehumanized context he will live in, as well as the government cover up of the discovery of the monolith on the moon. These are the popular themes that most people saw and understood and took away from the film, and which fill up the vast majority of commentary and interpretations of the film over the years.

There is, as well, the small but significant embellishment of the young photographer taking photos on the moon of Dr. Floyd: he has an uncanny resemblance to the young Kubrick, who himself started in professional photography, and is wearing a suit that very much resembles the skin of a leopard, similar to the leopard in the first part of the film. As well, similar to the flash of light we see in the leopard's eyes (due to the front projection screen light), we see a flash of light reflected off the photographer's cuff links which, because of their proximity due to him holding the camera with both hands, very much resembles the pair of leopard eyes. This relates to the recurring themes of domination via violent tool usage and carnivory (with the photo camera here being linked to the later advancement of the cinema as the dominant tool par excellence, and Kubrick claiming first mastership of such tool usage). Something resembling flashing eyes also occurs in other scenes, such as in the landing scene of the ship that takes Dr. Floyd to the moon, as well as the small "eye ball" flight module that HAL uses to murder Frank.

Then there are little things like the fact that the lead ape is called Moonwatcher, and the lead astronaut's name is Bowman, the former invoking the moon, obviously, and the latter a reference to the god Apollo who was, among other things, the Greek god of archery. Both names refer to the faked moon landings that Kubrick was preparing simultaneously to 2001 and for which 2001 was serving as a research and devlopment project for. However, I don't think Kubrick made 2001 solely as a preparatory exercise for the moon landings. It may actually be the other way around: he may have agreed to do the con job in exchange for an unlimited budget and absolutely unfettered artistic autonomy. Who could ever say how many untold millions of dollars officially allotted for the Apollo missions were siphoned off for Kubrick's productions? He may have just wanted to be the first artist/occult magician of the "new tool era" to recast the ancient esoteric mystery rites into cinematic form, and the first to splice into the ritual the new evolutionary biology in place of the old creationist accounts. But he left plenty of clues woven into the visual rite to infer what he was up to, and how he himself, through the creative process, was personally participating in the age-old rite of passage that is depicted on the screen. His most unique, individual contribution to this ancient initiation rite may actually be the principle depicted in the film in parallel occurrences in which those who bludgeon everyone else for control of resources set for themselves and everyone else the course of human evolution. In short, Kubrick's outlook here could be interpreted as a very sophisticated and artistically elaborate justification for the idea that "might makes right."

I am convinced that the personal meaning of the film 2001, for its creator - and there is more than one level of meaning to the film - is meant to convey the idea that the cinema, and by extension modern audio/visual tools, is Kubrick's weapon that he (and the class that he represented) has discovered useful in bludgeoning those who would oppose their capture of the modern-day watering hole, i.e. the entire planet earth. This is a very literal interpretation of the film, perhaps the most literal possible, and one which I've never seen anyone point out. I did watch one person's video in which they interpreted the monolith as the actual cinema screen upon which we are watching the film, but then not taking it further to create an exact and literal parallel of this cinema screen as the latest iteration, like the bone before it, of a weapon for domination. The very opening scene with the celestial body alignment and the Thus Spake Zarathustra music is the first instance of the celestial alignment, and the only alignment that takes place not concurrently with an appearance of the monolith. But this scene is actually happening with the intention of invoking the film and the screen it's being projected upon as the monolith, with the title of the film appearing on the screen as well. So this scene does actually stay consistent with the other occurrences of celestial alignments that are invariably coupled with an appearance of the monolith: The opening scene is meant to signify the film and its projection screen as the overarching insight that the black monolith symbolizes throughout the film. Also, the Zarathustra music occurs here and in total three times, in every case accompanying an epiphany scene that leads to the dawning of a new evolutionary era. The last scene in the bedroom invokes the pre-industrial forms of myth perpetuation and therefore mass control: painting, sculpture, architecture, all cultivated by aristocrats or social elites. Experiencing an epiphany while eating his meal and accidentally breaking the wine goblet, Bowman has eaten all the meat on his plate, but not the vegetables, exactly parallel with the pile of animal bones the first ape was crouching over during the primitive epiphany scene, following which the eating of animals is initiated. The old man is visited again by the monolith, which is actually the cinema screen and is self-referencing the very screen that we are watching (in fact the black monolith in the film is in 2.35:1 aspect ratio which is the same ratio that it was originally released in for theaters back in 1968). The Zarathustra music plays, meaning an epiphany has occurred and a new era has been entered of a more advanced tool usage intended for domination, in parallel with each previous shift ahead to a more advanced tool. The old man puts out his finger in a gesture reminiscent of Michelangelo's The Creation, as though the new bone tool/monolith itself bestows new life to its discoverer. He is reborn and he (and we via a camera zoom) enters into the monolith. The next thing we see is the moon, moving upward, in the same manner as the bone did that the ape threw up into the air. The new tool for domination has been discovered: the cinema in general, and the faking of the moon landings specifically, via the medium of the cinema screen. As the moon moves upwards, we realize that the camera is panning down to planet earth. The moon goes out of the picture and the star child is seen viewing the earth. I believe a triadic relationship is being set up here between the moon, the earth, and the star child who represents Kubrick. In effect, we have moved into a new era of myth creation and mass control via the new tool of cinema. The cinema screen (monolith) will be used as a new tool of violent domination. This cinematic tool, as the monolith, has in fact been the teleologic force driving mankind through each phase in the film, as though Kubrick's epiphany of its potential power were the most recent apotheosis of domination tool development. In summation, Kubrick is revealing that he will employ the cinema to film the moon landings, thus inventing a new means for mythology creation that will be used to dominate the earth (i.e. watering hole) and its inhabitants (this is the triadic relationship established right after entering the monolith/cinema screen from the bed of old man Bowman). And in case there's any doubt as to the entirely insidious intention of this scheme, the star child turns until at last he is looking directly into the camera, meaning that this traumatic treatment is intended for all those watching the film (at least, those who do not realize that the new tool will be used against them). There are other details that fill in this interpretation, some of which I only discovered once I realized the literal parallelism between the various coordinated appearances of celestial alignments, the monolith, the Zarathustra music, and the epiphany or realization of a new violent tool for domination. Of course, we are left no room for variant interpretations on the first transition from a primitive weapon to a far more advanced weapon, with the space ship literally replacing the bone on the screen. And this is obvious, of course, but how many people actually look at that space ship and also realize how much it looks like a gun? And of course, so much of NASA and space exploration being a hoax, pretty much the entire space exploration program has been a cover for military development of missiles and developing space as a theater of war. But of course, Kubrick is not so blatantly obvious in handling the final transitioning from the previous form of weapon to the next form of weapon: He does, however, clearly show us that the carniverous old man has had a transformative epiphany, that he has been reborn a new man, and has entered the monolith/cinema screen, and from the vantage point of the monolith (self-referencing itself as the screen we are looking at, just as in the very opening scene), we see first the moon going up, then the earth, then the star child viewing the earth, then the star child viewing us. And I might add that child has a pose and a look on its face that are just ambiguous enough to be unclear, but could reasonably be seen as sinister. From my new point of view, the film expresses unfathomable venality, as in to prostitute one's talents for mercenary considerations. But that is the meaning at the first or autobiographical level. And Kubrick proves it through his moon landing hoax confession film The Shining. I do believe there are also two other layers of meaning. One of these is that Kubrick most certainly crafted the film also to be Masonic initiation ritual, which form it follows very closely, substituting, however, the modern scientific view of man's origins through the mechanism of evolution for the older Bible creation story used in traditional Masonry. The best revealing of this layer of meaning of the film was done by a guy named Jay Weidner, whose film "Beyond the Infinite: Kubrick's Odyssey II" is well worth the four dollar rental fee at iTunes. The third layer is the exoteric message, the one intended for the masses, which is not extremely different in essence from the esoteric ritualistic message, but is more in line with a typical sci-fi story about future technology, aliens, what constitutes whether someone is a real living being and the nature of artificial intelligence, portraying future tech devices, and things like speculating on the way man will live in the future and the totally dehumanized context he will live in, as well as the government cover up of the discovery of the monolith on the moon. These are the popular themes that most people saw and understood and took away from the film, and which fill up the vast majority of commentary and interpretations of the film over the years. There is, as well, the small but significant embellishment of the young photographer taking photos on the moon of Dr. Floyd: he has an uncanny resemblance to the young Kubrick, who himself started in professional photography, and is wearing a suit that very much resembles the skin of a leopard, similar to the leopard in the first part of the film. As well, similar to the flash of light we see in the leopard's eyes (due to the front projection screen light), we see a flash of light reflected off the photographer's cuff links which, because of their proximity due to him holding the camera with both hands, very much resembles the pair of leopard eyes. This relates to the recurring themes of domination via violent tool usage and carnivory (with the photo camera here being linked to the later advancement of the cinema as the dominant tool par excellence, and Kubrick claiming first mastership of such tool usage). Something resembling flashing eyes also occurs in other scenes, such as in the landing scene of the ship that takes Dr. Floyd to the moon, as well as the small "eye ball" flight module that HAL uses to murder Frank. Then there are little things like the fact that the lead ape is called Moonwatcher, and the lead astronaut's name is Bowman, the former invoking the moon, obviously, and the latter a reference to the god Apollo who was, among other things, the Greek god of archery. Both names refer to the faked moon landings that Kubrick was preparing simultaneously to 2001 and for which 2001 was serving as a research and devlopment project for. However, I don't think Kubrick made 2001 solely as a preparatory exercise for the moon landings. It may actually be the other way around: he may have agreed to do the con job in exchange for an unlimited budget and absolutely unfettered artistic autonomy. Who could ever say how many untold millions of dollars officially allotted for the Apollo missions were siphoned off for Kubrick's productions? He may have just wanted to be the first artist/occult magician of the "new tool era" to recast the ancient esoteric mystery rites into cinematic form, and the first to splice into the ritual the new evolutionary biology in place of the old creationist accounts. But he left plenty of clues woven into the visual rite to infer what he was up to, and how he himself, through the creative process, was personally participating in the age-old rite of passage that is depicted on the screen. His most unique, individual contribution to this ancient initiation rite may actually be the principle depicted in the film in parallel occurrences in which those who bludgeon everyone else for control of resources set for themselves and everyone else the course of human evolution. In short, Kubrick's outlook here could be interpreted as a very sophisticated and artistically elaborate justification for the idea that "might makes right."