I'm watching the movie right now which I DVR recorded weeks ago of of TCM.
the whole first 18-20 minutes was of primitive apes going bonkers over a shiny object where they were smashing bones etc.
so there an explanation for that?
The apes are beginning their transformation into modern humans. At the end of the movie, Dave has taken the next step in evolution. They kind of bookend the movie, those two sequences.
shareThis scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypEaGQb6dJk
The monolith communicates with the apes telepathically. It teaches them to use tools to defend themselves and hunt beasties.
There are over 100 items in Imdb Trivia. One of them explains the significance of Sun and crescent Moon.
MAD magazine explains all
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8324/8146256265_c22bb15193_k.jpg
You make it sound like "the point" of the rest of the movie set in space is self evident and doesn't beg any questions.
But to answer your question. Yes, there is an explanation.
The point is that the early hominids were starving, being preyed upon, and on the verge of going extinct. The monolith is a machine, an advanced AI made by a much older, more evolved alien species who nurture intelligent life where they find it -- life with high potential to evolve into something greater. Another monolith (or maybe the same one, who knows?) was buried on the moon, waiting to send a signal to its makers that humans were beginning to achieve their potential, once humans discovered it and dug it up from where it had been buried all those ages.
The monolith recognized the potential of these early hominids, and did something -- messed with their DNA perhaps, it's not clear -- to tweak their intelligence, and make them just that little bit brighter and more intuitive, more able to grasp the potential in tools and weapons they could make and use to compensate for their lack of fangs and claws. It gave them a good firm push down the path toward ultimate dominance on the planet.
Racism. Kubrick was clearly putting forth a visual metaphor for what he believed the future would look like, if The Civil Rights Movement prevailed, and the descendants of African slaves in The US were allowed into the halls of government and The C-Suites of corporate America
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