In the following essay, Miller surveys the major themes of 2001.

In the following essay, Pielke surveys the defining characters of science fiction films by comparing the popular movies Star Wars and 2001.

In the following essay, Shelton maintains that Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001—2010: Odyssey Two—is integral to understanding Kubrick's film as well as Peter Hyams's film 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

In the following essay, DeBellis asserts that John Updike's references to 2001 in Rabbit Redux underlines the major thematic concerns in the novel.

In the following essay, Strick traces the origins and development of Kubrick's 2001.

Essentially, the space-odyssey described in 2001 represents, I believe, Man's eternal quest for spiritual meaning and self-renewal. Man, as such, seems to have come to the end of a long journey begun with his inception as a species on earth. Having maximized his control over nature, he has reached a deadend in the evolutionary process, and in a circuitous manner, he has returned to his primordial conditions. Man may continue to invent, create, discover—yet he is no longer capable of fulfilling...

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey took five years and $10 million to make, and it's easy to see where the time and the money have gone. It's less easy to understand how, for five years, Kubrick managed to concentrate on his ingenuity and ignore his talent. In the first 30 seconds, this film gets off on the wrong foot and, although there are plenty of clever effects and some amusing spots, it never recovers. Because this is a major effort by an important director, it is a major dis...

As a film about progress—physical, social, and technological—Stanley Kubrick's huge and provocative 2001: A Space Odyssey remains essentially linear until its extraordinary ending. In the final transfiguration, director Kubrick and co-author Arthur Clarke … suggest that evolutionary progress may in fact be cyclical, perhaps in the shape of a helix formation. Man progresses to a certain point in evolution, then begins again from scratch on a higher level. Much of 2001's con...