can some one explain 2001 a space odessy please?

Answer 1

I highly doubt it.

Answer 2

Beautiful sci-fi pic of the odysee that space has become. The Monolithe that is found in space contains the element of God-like features meaning it can be located and seen though cannot and must not be touched directly.
The film operates around this phenonema that space travel chasing after aforementioned monolith. HAL is the onboard computer as they enter space travelling towards Jupiter the largest of the planets in our solar system. Though the computer has been hacked and the virus begins to take control of the ship. The astronaut that survives the ordeal is set upon as he is outside the complex and cannot get back indoors. Sounds pretty weird and crazy - but when you've been locked out of a house and home your mind takes on many other forms of thought processes. Most of these are pictured as time travel. The monolith depicts some occurance in humans life and the signifies the birth of something much much bigger than anything else. Its a very creative movie!

Answer 3

Intelligent and powerful aliens visit Earth millions of years ago, and manipulate the primitive ape creatures they find there in such a way as to increase their intelligence. Exactly how the manipulation is done is not stated, but symbolized by the black slab. The slab can be though of as a mysterious alien machine.

Fast foreword to 2001, the manipulations worked and people invented space craft to go to the Moon. The aliens left an alarm on the Moon, the buried slab, (they have done similar things to creatures on countless planets) so that if their experiment worked and the apes got smart enough to find the slab on the Moon, the aliens would be alerted. They also put another slab at Jupiter which is a teleportation device which takes Dave Bowman to a distant galaxy where the aliens are waiting for him. They complete the "enhancement" process to make him one of them, symbolized by the baby. We don't know what the aliens really look like, or maybe they have advanced beyond the need for physical bodies, existing as pure energy or whatever. Now Dave exists that way too.

Answer 4

The monolith is a god-like intelligence. It uses David Bowman to tell Earth people that there will be a new home to inhabit.
To me, the monolith appeared at different times waiting till man was intelligent enough for space travel and mature enough for peace.
Read the book and watch the movie a few times. Then follow with 2010:Odessy 2.
At the end of the day, you must make of it what you will.
ENJOY!!!!

Answer 5

The gist of 2001 a space odyssey, in my view, can be found in one of Arthur C. Clarke's favorite quotes: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

In the beginning of the movie, humans are portrayed as ape-men, an evolutionary step behind modern man. An alien intelligence places a monolith on Earth. That monolith represents the next leap - we can't understand it because it is indistinguishable from magic - it is like those ape-men looking at an iPhone.

The monolith is the means by which the alien civilization imparts the next advancement upon humans -- the ability to invent and the desire to move forward. The ape-man figures out the bone can be used as a weapon, and uses it. He throws it in the air as a symbol of man's ability to fly.

The scene changes from a bone spinning in the air, to a space station spinning in space. Get it? Humans took the same ability to figure out the use of a bone tool and to throw it towards the heavens, to build all that spaceship equipment and travel up there.

Then the aliens have another monolith on the moon, that represents the next leap, and sends them to Jupiter. On the way, Hal goes mad (or does he?) and eventually there is one human left. This human encounters the aliens who built the monoliths, and is transformed into a different level of being. At the end I think he stops a nuclear war with his mind.

What the future holds is not in the 2001 book.

Answer 6

Reading the book helps.

An alien civilisation seeks out life around the Universe, and plants monoliths to try to teach those life forms intelligence.

One monolith implants ideas into the apes on Earth, who then develop into an intelligent species (man)

When man has advanced enough - into space travel, he discovers the monolith on the far side of the moon - to test mans intelligence, the monolith sends a signal into space that will direct man to another monolith orbiting Jupiter.

man proves to be intelligent enough to follow the signal, and on reaching the giant monolith orbiting Jupiter, details of mans development into an intelligent species are sent to the alien race that planted the first monolith on Earth!

I didn't think the film did the book justice, and all that stuff about HAL is just not necessary. I saw the film before i read the book, and it was a total mystery to me too at the time.

Answer 7

They're all good accounts, no need to add more there. But also read: "The Sentinel" and "Encounter at Dawn". The origins of 2001 lie in these two Arthur C. Clarke short stories.
Okay I'll add one more thing.
The question is this: What could we replace the "monolith" with to explain mankind's intellectual development ?

Answer 8

It is so much easier to understand when you have the book to read, and there is a lot more to the story and all the sequels. Without giving away the story, the monoliths are from another civilized race, whose "fingers are in a whole lot of pies". 2010, 2061, and 3001, the end of Arthur Clarke's series, are all must reading in the ABC"s of science fiction (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke) and a worthy ending to 2001 at the climax of the stories.

Answer 9

Simple. It's an odessy set in space around the year 2001.

No need to thank me.

Answer 10

I've read the book but I still can not explain it, the end part is especially confusing.

The only part I can explain is the beginning in which apes are taught how to use basic tools by a black obelisk (presumably sent by a higher power) which helps the evolution of mankind.

Answer 11

Too complex to explain a few short sentences. Rent the movie, read the book.