What was the deal with the monolith?

What was the deal with the monolith?

macguffin

Interstellar stone that encouraged evolution.

A device used by a higher life form to stimulate the primitive brains of early man

This.

HAL was the next step in evolution, but the human apes thwarted his ascendancy. That's why the astronaut couldn't handle the last monolith, his mind wasn't capable.

it represents the screen through which we watch the evolution of man

when what's his name realizes that, he reaches out and touches the screen and evolves beyond man and becomes a giant moon sized fetus. kubrick symbolically fuses cinematic experience with the evolution of man thus cryptically revealing his involvement with the faking of the mars rover. one small step for man one giant leap for fetus representation in media.

Just an alien prank.
>watch me transform into a big black rectangle and freak out these monkeys lol

Plot devise

HAL was part of the challenge to access the monolith if he factored in at all.

He is part of the construct used to reach it (the spaceship) which stems from the original tool (the bone).

Kube kino

It's actually best said in the book. But like someone said it's a force that encouraged evolution.

BIG

BLACK

It's a 3D projection of a 5-(or more)-dimensional entity into our 3D universe.

It's a gate to the black lodge.

Metaphorical milestone

nietsche wrote about how man has to go from camel(doing as you're told to) to lion(thinking for yourself) to Child(creating art,being altruistic etc) in also sprach zarathustra.
when the monkeys interact with the monolith,they effectivly go from camel to lion,aka not starving to death but creating tools to take care of themselves.
When dave interacts with the monolith he goes from lion to Child,the next step in human evolution.

Close, but it's not an entity, just a extremely advance device to vastly increase the intelligence of anything who touches it. You never actually get to see the Aliens themselves in either 2001 or 2010.

But in a dick move Aurther C Clark changed the aliens from the good guys spreading knowledge and kick-starting civilisations to being bad guys wanting to destroy humanity in the 3001 book

Read the book nigger.

It might just represent man overcoming barriers and pushing frontiers. HAL probably was in this path himself, trying to overcome his creators, but he lost the fight, and man learned that he was too dependent on his tools, and evolved to leave even them behind.
or if you want the brainlet explanation it was an alien ufo that made man more smarter

BIG

BLACK