(Asking Too Much) I Do Not Want To Become The Star Child

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I got into a conversation on Twitter about why 2001: A Space Odyssey is boring.  And by the end of the conversation I realized that the Star Child must be evil.

Here is how my thinking unfolded.

I argued that the movie is boring in large part because it does everything it can to alienate ourselves from the characters.  Whatever meaning you can derive from them are as set pieces rather than people.  I'm told Kubrick loved chess.

Allow me to digress from my original conversation to bolster this point.
In researching this I found a reviewer who highlighted the repeated theme of birthdays.

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We see a man wishing his daughter a happy birthday, Frank is wished a happy birthday, and HAL informs us of his origins as he is dying.  Thank you to Michael Oranda for bringing this to my attention (though to be clear he was not the person I was conversing with on Twitter).

But this also brings me back to my point.  Though the father wishing his daughter a happy birthday fits the movie thematically, aesthetically it is jarring to share something as personal as Heywood Floyd taking time out for his daughter and then soon learn that he is not long in the film.

The movie intentionally pushes the audience away from investing in personal knowledge of the characters; and the person with whom I was discussing this fact agrees that this was taking place, but disagreed that it detracted from the film.

But then allow me to go further.

The movie simultaneously depicts humanity on a constant trajectory of murder.

Upon encountering the first monolith one of primordial man is depicted discovering the first bone tool and this first tool manifests as a weapon while the famous music rises to a triumphant crescendo.
A short time ago one of this band suffered predation and now they are the predators.

And so soon we have our first murder, which becomes juxtaposed by the bone being thrown into the air with a space station in orbit that I am told is intended to be a nuclear missile platform.  Then with this leap in time we know what the movie thinks of the sum of humanity's history.

I want to make it clear at this juncture I am not about to discuss how much I agree or disagree with the juxtaposition of early man to today.  My only purpose is to discuss how the combined evidence reflects on the nature of the Star Child.

So to continue, one possible interpretation is that humanity's past is unfortunate in as much as the prospect of nuclear annihilation would be, but if we are ultimately empowered to reach up to the stars then it will all have been worthwhile.  I think that is a fair summation of the claim.

However, we are not yet finished with murder.
We shall have at least three more instances of it.

And all but the last of these deaths occur remotely.  The apes are at a remove to us by the past, nuclear weapons are launched at the press of a button, and HAL disconnects the life support to the cryo-pods and appears to ram a pod into Frank.

Now the thing about HAL is that while others may debate his sentients he remains human-created and therefore I'm confident in the assertion that both practically and thematically his murders are our murders.

Finally, there is when Dave must go and disconnect HAL.

You hear a lot of hissing once Dave has managed to get back
into the ship and I wondered if that was to be his helmet
or was it coming from the ship.

I found this PDF that claims to be the original script and after a cursory glance I can tell that it deviates from the final plot, but in this version it has HAL say,

"Something seems to have happened

to the life support system, Dave."

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So while I think it was already clear that Dave feared depressurization on HAL's part, this much is at least confirmation that the hissing sound is likely HAL actively attempting to kill Dave during the course of the scene.

Then we have HAL pleading for his life (hissing still occurring in the background, mind you) but for the sake of this machine we, the audience, are treated to a slow agonizing death.

And from the act of killing HAL a message appears.  Now the reason why the message appears I actually think deviates too far outside my discussion of the movie's commentary on the state of humanity's soul.  So I have linked this video if you are interested.  I would also direct your attention to "PassiveSmoking's" comment.

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I like to think my assertions have been fair and balanced up until now, but the final portion of the film is notoriously esoteric with numerous commentary put to it, already.  So I want to be clear, the final scene is my idea of Hell and I think the so-called Star Gate sequence is the descent therein.

Consider the prolonged attempt at hypnotism by way of the wailing voices and psychedelic colors.
My attempt on my first viewing at searching for meaning in the sequence and why it was so prolonged may have been futile.  But in my final analysis of the Star Child I think it is clear what the Star Gate sequence is.

The final destination is rife with utter isolation (add to the fact that Kubrick said in an interview that this was to be an alien zoo) and my frank distaste for the aesthetic is complete.  The final scene would be my own personal Hell.

And so after all that the Star Child is born.

I ask a simple question.  Based on the unbroken trajectory of being alienated from the horrors of violence and death why should anyone assume that the Star Child is an admirable being to aspire toward, as I think many do?  What redeeming quality of humanity has the movie offered?  Survival?

I think this scene offers no other clue to advancing humanity other than to disdain flesh.

If you have chosen to stay with me this far then remember my Twitter-pal.  And they invoked the ape's murder as grounds for being expelled from so-called Eden.  I hadn't originally meant to go to such symbolism, but that also inspired my labeling the final stage as Hell.  And in thinking about this symbolism while preparing for the review I suppose the first monolith is clearly the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I have a subjective suspicion that the movie would shorten it simply to the Tree of Knowledge.  Albeit a demonic tree in my view considering the unsettling voices that are associated with it.

Following this line of thinking the Star Child is then the serpent's promise that "you shall become like God."  This simultaneously asserts that God (whether you believe in him or not is not the point here) made a mistake by making humans flesh.

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I find it illogical to long for the Star Child.  I see this movie lingering on the unimportant and glancing at the crucial.  And the crucial pertains to human worth in where and how we find it.  Though 2001: A Space Odyssey may be highly lauded, there are many other movies that are more keenly aware of this fact.

On a superficial level the movie is even hypocritical to at length dwell in awe at the technology that might carry us into the future and then declare that we shall better ourselves by throwing it aside.  Only in the pale light of the flatly known characters can this kind of philosophy even hope to stand.

The Star Child is a starkly immoral being with no redeeming qualities other than it's apparent dominance.  I hold that the overall trajectory of the film reveals this to us.  Assuming for a moment that such an outcome were remotely possible, we should be concerned with the prospect that that is what we must become or perish.  For in witnessing the race to supremacy among beast, man and machine I haven't been provided with evidence to think that the Star Child is synonymous with peace.

Maybe there's a reason the last we see of Earth is the
newly formed transcendent being looking down upon it.