I didn't actually rewatch 2001 this time around, so I wasn't gonna discuss it in particular. But I did see Interstellar this weekend (and in retrospect, we could have made that a possible nomination for the movie club space week), and it definitely evoked some 2001 at various points. Like, a lot of points really. I won't go into it for people who haven't seen it. If it weren't so well done I'd disparage it for being too much like 2001 at times (Love, for example, riffed off 2001 in a bad way). But it just goes to show how damn influential 2001 has been on movies in the genre. Even Moon doesn't escape comparisons with 2001 thanks to the presence of an intelligent computer with unclear motives.
Contact owes a shitload to it as well. Thing of it is, 2001 is pretty much Kubrick's version of Childhood's End, which is essentially a sci-fi retelling of the Resurrection. It's all myth, really; science fiction is so often about meeting our creators or meeting those vastly more powerful than us and it's either good, bad or somewhere in between.
My favorite thing about sci fi is that it's not always about the characters, it's about the questions that are being asked about the characters.It's all myth, really; science fiction is so often about meeting our creators or meeting those vastly more powerful than us and it's either good, bad or somewhere in between.