So I am a huge fan of 2001.

Here is the poster my wife gave me from a 1971 release of the film. Which hangs in my office and watches over me.

To me, 2001, more than almost any other movie, represents the absolute pinnacle in pre-digital movie making. More than just special effects, but accurate representations of scientific phenomenon, philosophical queries and humanity.

2001 has many theories about separate meanings of the imagery and plot. Some involve things as obvious as "Mankinds survival or exploration" and others a bit more subtle "Kubrick made the movie to fake the moon landings".

What I get from the movie the most though, is at a fundamental level, the question of adaptation.

If I were to put it into a question form "Why are humans (apes) the only animal we know of that has adapted to their environment through the use of tools?"

2001 uses human tools throughout the film not only to display the great ingenuity by humankind, but also a great arrogance. The entire movie speaks to me as a series of questions. "Why are we here? What brought us? Where are we going? Should we go? Can we go back?" If you watch the movie you see the connections of each tool that is used in every act, from the bones the apes smashed, to HAL, to the eventual Infinite. These tools both serve us and cause us pain. They are both positive and negative aspects and they have done nothing short of give us longer life spans, ease of living, and caused great destruction to our own.

The photography in the film is absolutely stunning as per usual Kubrick. I wont even go into it because if you don't think the movie is a beautiful moving painting you aren't going to like it in the first place. It's stunning how he put so much into the frame that we still talk about the movie.

The music and sound of the movie plays a huge roll in making the viewer either comfortable or very distraught, depending on the scene. The "locusts" sound when the monolith appears gives it a great amount of fearful, yet intriguing mystery. How the hell does that work? How can a sound so simple as "bzzzzzz" make you feel so uncomfortable?

Everyone has theories about this movie, and everyone gets to have a theory because Kubrick was so famously and purposefully opaque about the meaning behind his works. I love hearing all of them, even if I can't buy them.

This movie, to me, marks a significant shift in scifi. It makes you take science fiction seriously.

I want to know if this was your first Kubrick film, would you watch another?