made central to evolutionary theory could never, they affirmed, create an intelligent being such as a man. Evolution could not, on its own, prompted by blind and chance forces, create anything so splendid. It was precisely at this point of radical doubt that Kubrick and Clarke began their famous story of a journey beyond the stars. Their reason for engaging evolution is, curiously, the same as the creation scientists: there is no drama in evolution, however persuasive a theory it might be. Without outside intervention, there is no tale to tell; in other words, there is only the Nothingness that has always remained a possibility in man’s encounter with the Universe. Unlike the preposterous pulp-fiction worlds of Mars and Venus created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, for example, where an energetic evolutionary force has created an elaborate hierarchy of intelligent beasts and beings, Clarke and Kubrick looked to outside intervention to spur the slow, steady state of terrestrial change. If the …show more content…
Even if the narrative of the film is the long story of the creation and resurrection of mankind, it is nonetheless true that this is not strictly a religious or scientific account. That is what Kubrick meant when he described the theme as an oxymoron— a “scientific definition of God.” It is why the film encompasses more time than perhaps any other film made, for no less a period could contain such expansive narrative ideas from evolution itself or prophetic religion. Yet this religious-science emphasis does not begin to exhaust the meanings of the film. Indeed, 2001 is layered with allusions to several of the principal secular and pagan mythologies of Western civilization. As Kubrick noted, it would not reach millions of viewers unless it explored “the universal myths and archetypes of both our shared cultural experience and our collective