When I first saw the movie, I did not understand it. I later read the book and that helped quite a bit. Not sure what they cut from the movie, but it was almost impossible to comprehend the movie version I saw without reading the book.
I think the book was written after the movie.
Arthur C. Clarke wrote the book after the movie was finished. The original story that the movie was based on, “The Sentinel,” ended with the discovery of the monolith on the Moon. Everything after that was hatched up by Kubrick and Clarke in the course of making the movie.
I never realy got the ending, I usually also fall asleep or doze a bit around that point of the film. Just gets too weird. My guess is that the room is created as some kind of common ground point for the aliens to talk to the astronaut.
Still, very weird ending.
I was 14 on my first date when we went to see it. I still remember the theater, Mayfair Movie Theater in NE Philadelphia. Had the old style organ pipes in the lobby. What was the meaning of the steel obelisk?
Boring movie...except the scene where HAL is singing Daisy. Only good thing in this worthless waste of time.