@5:

I'll give you a B-minus for effort; some of your arguments are compelling, but they don't hold together when one really examines the films in question.

First of all, the reason one sees such a visually stylistic similarity between 2001 and Star Wars is due in great measure to the relationship between Douglass Trumbull, one of the four Visual Effects Supervisors on the former film, and his protege, John Dykstra, who took on the same duties in the latter film, having previously assisted his mentor in creating visual effects for Silent Running in 1972. So, it's a very simple matter to make a direct connection between the two films in that regard, which has less to do with imitation (and truly, practically every S-F film in the post 2001 period has utilized that particular effect, which was itself used repeatedly by Kubrick in the film. Also, it should be noted that this effect was not particularly new, even in 1967; as such "insertion shots" can be traced as far back as 1927 to Lang's Metropolis, which used a somewhat similar technique, known as the Schufftan Process, to insert live actors into miniature backgrounds and modeled exteriors.

Furthermore, while evolution is certainly a central thematic element of 2001, your chain of logic falls apart at the end, in that, while HAL may have indeed exacted a "bloody battering" (albeit, one that is completely bloodless, and more chilling in its effect by being so), ultimately, it is the computer's "inferior", a human being who emerges victorious, in an equally brutal, bloodless fashion. In this sense, the "evolution from ape-like proto-human, to homo sapiens, to artificial intelligence, to Star Child has in fact been thrown off-track. Given your chain of progression, it should have been HAL that went through the Star Gate to receive the ultimate knowledge of the builders of the monolith, not his evolutionary "predecessor". But, Kubrick, despite his seeming misanthropy, clearly was not indicating a preference for machine intelligence being superior to human intelligence. After all, the "final" phase of evolution shown in the film, is not a mechanical one, but is, instead, unambiguously biological in nature.

And while I understand the reference to Bowman's pod "trailing a propellant like flagella of sperm" in the final moments of the "ultimate trip sequence", the shot is simply another in a long series utilizing the ink-in-oil technique from which many of these images were created, and its resemblance to an EVA pod at this point in the film is purely coincidental.

It's good that you've read the novelization in addition to viewing the film, as obviously there are some significant differences between the two. However, you somewhat misinterpret the book's finale, in which Clarke clearly refers to the Star Child detonating only the orbiting nuclear devices, and not "all of them" (by which one must conclude you mean both those in orbit AND earthbound). I refer you specifically to the penultimate paragraph of the novel:

"A thousand miles below he became aware that a slumbering cargo of death had awoken, and was stirring sluggishly in its orbit. The feeble energies it contained were no possible menace to him; but he preferred a cleaner sky. He put forth his will, and the circling weapons flowered in a silent detonation that brought a brief, false dawn to half the sleeping globe."

Finally, your suggestion that, because both 2001 and Star Wars deal with themes of supremacy and power, that somehow Lucas stole directly from the former, is, well, rather questionable. Such themes are predominant in practically ALL dramatic literature, going back to Gilgamesh. It's akin to positing that, because "The Merchant of Venice" and "Trailer Park Boys: The Movie" both have court room scenes, that the latter clearly borrowed from the former. It's sloppy logic and shows, at best, a very superficial understanding of the material.