2001: A Space Odyssey – Ending Explained

50 years after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is as mysterious, stunning and current as ever. We unpack the film’s enigmatic ending. Support ScreenPrism on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7792695

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Transcript provided by Youtube:

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50 Years after its release and 17
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after its imagined future,
00:29
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
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remains a masterwork that stunningly
00:34
doesn’t feel dated at all.
00:37
Meanwhile, its famously enigmatic ending
00:39
is as mysterious as ever.
00:41
What’s key about this ending is
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it’s not like other confusing movie endings
00:46
where we’re left to debate whether option A
00:48
or option B is the correct answer to
00:51
“what really happened?” —
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you know, like “is the character dreaming, or not,
00:55
right, or wrong, dead or alive,
00:58
really doing these things
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or just imagining it all.
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No, here Kubrick is experimenting with
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a new kind of ending altogether.
01:05
It’s not just ambiguous;
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it’s impressionistic.
01:09
2001’s ending is intended to evoke —
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images, sounds, memories, suggestions, associations,
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all of which which seek to produce a response in us,
01:19
mental and emotional.
01:21
Its primary purpose is to open up, not resolve;
01:25
to inspire questions instead of answering them.
01:28
In multiple interviews, Kubrick not only
01:31
avoided clarifying the ending,
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but also spoken about how it wasn’t meant
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to be clear in a conventional sense.
01:37
He told Eye Magazine,
01:38
“I think that the power of the ending
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is based on the subconscious emotional reaction
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of the audience, which has a delayed effect…
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to be specific about what it’s supposed to mean,
01:49
spoils people’s pleasure and denies them
01:51
their own emotional reactions.”
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He also said to Joseph Gelmis,
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“If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates
01:59
the subconscious of the viewer,
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if it stimulates, however inchoately,
02:03
his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses,
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then it has succeeded.”
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So basically if anyone walks away from 2001
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with a very simple answer for what just happened,
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that viewer may not be experiencing the ending
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as deeply as Kubrick wanted us to.
02:31
So all of that said, what do we see
02:33
literally happened at the end?
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From what we gather, advanced aliens have been
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contacting humankind through monoliths
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to help them develop advanced technology
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and a better understanding of the universe.
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The first monolith inspires prehistoric apes
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to invent the first tool —
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which is a weapon for killing.
02:50
And this is essentially the moment when the apes
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become humankind as we know it —
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so there’s the idea that our intelligence
02:57
may have been developed through
02:58
an outside mysterious force contacting us.
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Then far in the future, around the year 2001,
03:05
the US government finds a monolith buried under
03:07
the surface on the moon.
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This monolith is sending signals to Jupiter.
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So the US sends a mission to Jupiter,
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but the on board the spaceship, the computer Hal
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turns on the humans and kills most of the crew.
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“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”
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“I’m sorry, Dave.
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I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
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Dave Bowman manages to disconnect Hal.
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But by the time they reach Jupiter,
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He’s the only man alive.
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He passes through a stargate of sorts.
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And here’s Kubrick’s own literal explanation
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of what we see after this, quote:
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“He is taken into another dimension of time and space,
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into the presence of godlike entities
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who have transcended matter and who are now
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creatures of pure energy.
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They provide an environment for him,
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a human zoo, if you like.
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They study him.
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His life passes before him.
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He sees himself age in what seems just a matter of moments,
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he dies, and he’s reborn, transfigured,
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enhanced, a superbeing.”
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Finally, we see a starchild heading back toward earth
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and we get the sense that, perhaps,
04:12
humankind has entered a new era
04:14
of more intelligent existence.
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So now let’s dig into some of the many interpretations
04:20
that have been applied to this evocative final sequence.
04:23
2001 can be read as a film about God.
04:27
Kubrick told Eye Magazine that, quote,
04:29
“The god concept is at the heart of 2001,
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but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of god.
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I don’t believe in any of Earth’s monotheistic religions,
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but I do believe that one can construct
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an intriguing scientific definition of god.”
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According to Kubrick, these aliens in the film
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would seem to us like gods,
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because they are so advanced in their evolution
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that we couldn’t possibly understand them.
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Kubrick has described them as, quote,
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“beings of pure energy and spirit.
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He said their potentialities would be limitless
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and their intelligence ungraspable by humans.
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These beings would be gods to the billions
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of less advanced races in the universe,
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just as man would appear a god to an ant.
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They would be incomprehensible to us except as gods…”
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Kubrick’s “scientific” God-aliens who study us
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and educate us via the monolith are hardly
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the warm, fuzzy conception of God
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that many of us have been taught
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to simply love and obey.
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Kubrick’s God figure is impenetrable —
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we can’t really grasp anything of its nature,
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let alone its motives.
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As the aliens study Bowman, he becomes an old man,
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symbolically embodying the aging of all humankind.
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The elderly Bowman accidentally knocks over
05:45
a glass of wine.
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Some have interpreted that in this moment,
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the glass represents the human body, which will die,
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while the wine represents the human spirit,
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which can continue to live on outside of the body.
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This scene is immediately followed by
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a dying Bowman lying in bed.
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He reaches towards the fourth black monolith
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we see in the film.
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This shot mimics Michelangelo’s painting
06:08
“The Creation of Adam,” part of the Sistine Chapel,
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where Adam reaches out his hand toward God’s.
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The visual comparison makes Bowman the original human,
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and the monolith a representation of God.
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After Bowman’s human form dies,
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or the glass breaks,
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his spirit, the wine, is reborn
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as the enlightened Star Child.
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What’s happened to Bowman in these rooms near the end
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is a kind of enlightenment.
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Critics have noted that the French 18th century
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neoclassical decor recalls the Age of Enlightenment.
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So Kubrick’s version of god —
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these mysterious aliens pushing mankind to progress —
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seem to have as their goal, humankind’s enlightenment.
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This Star Child is even a god-like or Christ-like figure itself
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compared to the humans on earth —
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This child is presumably being sent to earth
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to impart some newfound wisdom to the people
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and carry them toward the next step
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in their evolution.
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And put in those terms, this might remind us
07:03
a little of Jesus Christ.
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Kubrick was strongly influenced by Nietzsche.
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He opens and closes this film with Richard Strauss’s
07:16
Thus Spake Zarathustra,
07:18
named after the Nietzsche work of the same name.
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This text centers of the concept
07:32
of the Übermensch, or superman.
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It argues that the child is the last stage
07:37
of evolution before the Übermensch.
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So it’s meaningful that Strauss’ music comes back in
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just as we see the starchild
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moving back toward Earth —
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as something more evolved than man,
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maybe a precursor to the superman.
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We see four Monoliths in the film,
07:55
and Rolling Stone’s Bob McClay points out
07:57
that every monolith represents a stage
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in our evolution.
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The first learning device turns the apes into humans;
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the second on the moon sends a signal
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to alert this alien intelligence
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that man has now sufficiently evolved
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to find the monolith there —
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so Earthbound humans have become space travelers,
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even creators of their own sophisticated machines.
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But before humankind can reach the next stage of evolution,
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Bowman has to unplug Hal.
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“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do.”
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So mankind aborts this experiment
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of becoming the creator.
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Man kills its monstrous offspring
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and instead progresses on
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to another stage of evolution,
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following this higher intelligence-slash-god.
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This is a very interesting plot point
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if we think about it in terms of today’s fears
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of AI becoming so intelligent, one day
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it’ll take over the world.
08:59
“I’m always happy when surrounded by smart people,
09:02
who also happens to be rich and powerful.
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I was told that people here at the Future Investment Initiative
09:07
are interested in future initiatives,
09:10
which means AI, which means me.
09:13
Back in 1968, Kubrick imagines that turning point
09:17
when computers are starting to become smarter than man.
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But the story says no —
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our destiny isn’t just to stagnate
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and let our machines dominate us.
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Our destiny is in a different direction,
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because we humans aren’t finished in our evolution.
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So the third monolith near Jupiter is a kind of portal,
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that ushers humanity into a stage
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of reflection and examination,
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communing closely with these mysterious greater beings.
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Then the fourth monolith appears near Bowman’s deathbed
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just before he’s reborn as the star child
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that surpasses our current consciousness.
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When the film came out,
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Kubrick told the The New York Times:
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“Somebody said man is the missing link
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between primitive apes and civilized human beings.
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We are semicivilized, capable of cooperation and affection,
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but needing some sort of transfiguration
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into a higher form of life.
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Man is really in a very unstable condition.”
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That’s such an interesting thought because we talk
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a lot about how we evolved into our current state,
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and we think about the future state
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of our lifestyle or planet.
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but we don’t always think much about how we ourselves
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might continue evolve in the future.
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The starchild’s identity and form is unknown,
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as mysterious to us as we are now,
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as the human identity was to the apes.
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Thus the end of this film with this image of the star child
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feels surprisingly, incredibly optimistic.
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The image symbolizes mankind’s potential
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to spiritually remake ourselves as something more.
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The final shot also affirms the theme of eternal recurrence
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in the film — another Nietzschean concept
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the idea that everything repeats over and over.
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In 2001, moments from the different stages
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of evolution mirror each other
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to show how little has changed in some ways over time.
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Then, at the end, sending the starchild back to earth
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after Bowman left earth for this long space odyssey
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represents the ultimate return.
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Scholars have also written about how closely the film
11:24
echoes the story of Homer’s epic The Odyssey.
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Of course, “Odyssey” is right there in the title.
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Leonard F. Wheat has noted Dave’s last name “Bowman”
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could allude to Odysseus’ skill as an archer.
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Many have also noticed that the single red eye of Hal
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brings to mind the Cyclops.
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The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus’
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voyage home to Ithaka.
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Bowman’s journey seems to be an adventure
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into the new and unknown —
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but because it ends in his rebirth
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as this higher form of consciousness
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going back to earth,
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perhaps Kubrick is implying this is a homecoming —
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that it’s a journey toward becoming more ourselves,
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what we were always meant to be.
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Up until the ending sequence of 2001,
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the story isn’t the most conventionally told narrative,
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but it is logical and causal,
12:17
straightforward enough to follow.
12:19
Then the film’s final sequence is confusing,
12:22
abstract and symbolic.
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This shift in the storytelling technique
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signals the entering of a dimension
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that is beyond Dave’s and our comprehension.
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That’s why the last line of dialogue in the film is
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“Its origin and purpose still a total mystery.”
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We can’t fathom the intelligence or purpose of these aliens,
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and thus in the final sequence we can only process
12:47
certain imagery and respond to it
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in our personal, intuitive way.
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Kubrick himself said, “2001 is a nonverbal experience;
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out of two hours and 19 minutes of film,
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there are only a little less than 40 minutes of dialogue.
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I tried to create a visual experience,
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one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing
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and directly penetrates the subconscious
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with an emotional and philosophic content.
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I intended the film to be
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an intensely subjective experience
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that reaches the viewer at an inner level
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of consciousness, just as music does.”
13:21
So from these words we can gather
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that it’s not so important to “get” the ending
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in the traditional way.
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In Kubrick’s view, any interpretation of the ending
13:31
is supplemental to the experience of it.
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So if 2001: A Space Odyssey has confused you
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but also emotionally or mentally affected you,
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then it’s done its job.
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Before we go, there’s also a lot to say about
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how the ending reflects on a major theme of the film —
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technology and its link to violence,
13:54
and how the monolith fits into all that —
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but we kind of need a whole other video
13:58
to do that theme justice.
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So stay tuned.
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