I couldn't agree more. It was released on DVD on Monday by Eureka and has superb AV quality.

You mean dual format

2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY on Blu, rather than gush on how good this looks and sounds I thought I'd give you my take on it's meaning(I'll be brief) to me it tells the story of mankind's evolution and it's obsession with violence(the waterhole at the start is no different to the 'find' on the moon) Haywood Floyd is just the same monkey but more diplomatic and now the Russians are the other tribe(tho not clear, the bone/spacecraft is a nuclear missile platform aimed at are own humankind) and the mistrust and secrecy around the monolith is no different to the waterhole many tens of thousands of years ago. Hal represents machines doing what they do today, increasingly running virtually every moment we live the further evolved we become(members here can watch all the films they want via the internet, without any human interaction at all... But not without a computer they can't) "send me another zombie movie...Hal". And the infant/baby at the end is us, still after many millenniums and all our technology we're still embryonic insignificant beings until we put the weapons and greed behind us and grow up and become at one with the universe. Feel free to completely disagree.

interesting theory, mine was a bit different...

the film is a series of evolutionary bus stops, the first during the monkey thing, shows how when they discover the obelisk and touch them, they evolve, they make tools, and they form groups or tribes. We fast forward to 2001 and it's time for our next step in evolving which is the obelisk appears again, this forces the crew of the ship to go to jupiter, futher manned exploration of the solar system. HAL is what happens when technology becomes self aware and dave's ability to shut down HAL is human's being able to controll selfaware technology, this shows that Dave has evolved again. Then we have the giant space obelisk, it chose dave to show him the future of mankind by transporting him through time and space which is where we come to the room at the end. Dave watches his life fade in a matter of minutes, and then we have Dave the star child, evidence that he has evolved beyond humanoid and into a higher evolved species...

The purpose of each monolith is to envolve the species.The first one caused ape to become man and the last, man to new entity, a cosmic child but all these doesn't matter because the movie is open to everything.Anyone can make their own assumptions.The real purpose of the film is not to find what happened but to think about our existence and the future of everything.Your take is great though;)

Yes, I forgot about that bit as I've only been provided with the DVD for review. It should look even better in HD.

Right, that's it. I want to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again!

Arthur C Clarke's book does give you slightly more to work with, but as a whole i feel most people who actually "watch" 2001, instead of smoking herbal cigarettes and just letting it wash over you, do get the meaning of the film....one of the few films il be instantly buying when i get a player!!

I seem to remember Arthur C Clarke saying something like 'If you understood exactly what was happening in the film, then we failed', inferring the film is deliberately ambiguous so each viewer can take away something different from the viewing experience, whether you watch it as a visual spectacle, watch it and drop acid during the spaceflight sequence (as I believe people did!) or tackle it on a more intellectual level.

I won't put my theories on the meaning but while you guys are on the subject of 2001...What's it like on BluRay? I've yet to see the BluRay version. Kubrick is one of my all time favourite film makers so I will eventually be picking it up but just wondering what you guys thought of the Blu?