I think Kubrick was going more for an experience rather than a movie .

To me while watching it now it still is an almost flawless piece of film making also concerning the view of the pilots the pilots are located on top of the sphere of the moon lander so the view from their perspective is up into space not down since they sit in the same position as the astronauts sitting in a rocket or space shuttle at the time of launch so they cannot see the surface of the moon.Also the scenes need their length in order to tell the story it's not a movie of a lot of dialogue but a movie where the images tell the story also this elevates the movie from just simply telling a story through dialogue but let the viewer decide or have thoughts what is actually meant with the scenes leaving the movie open to various interpretations and even though 2010 tried to come up with explanations to some of the questions I don't always agree with them.For example HAL's behaviour is explained through contradictory programming where because HAL had to lie he suddenly went nuts while I always viewed HAL's behaviour a result of the influence of the monolith.

And I always think that the journey through the Stargate (it is not a wormhole) Infinity And Beyond is not just a only a voyage through space but also through time like the "aliens" who constructed the monoliths are showing Borman the birth of the universe the formation of matter the first stars forming and planetary systems the formation of galaxies etc so it is also teaching Bowman.So the monolith is like Swiss army knife it has various functions (at least in the novels) .And if we go back to the original short story that led to 2001 being written "The Sentinel" we can compare the monolith to a giant baby monitor to go off when a civilization reaches a certain level that it will be able to uncover the buried monolith on the Moon and has the technology to travel to Jupiter(Saturn) where it is sent to meet "Mamma and Pappa".And in the book the journey is not to Jupiter but Saturn where the "stargate"part is in the chapter The Eye Of (J)Iapetus where Bowman discovers a dark spot or spot on the moon's surface (TMA 2) and this may sound spooky but the Voyager flyby missions actually discovered that Iapetus has a bright and dark half.

I think the monolith can be both positive and negative it has the power to create and destroy it seems to promote intelligence when it finds a species that shows promise .and it seems to have the ability to show patience when a species is going through it's (violent) grow spurts.The Monolith in 2010 could have easily destroyed human civilization when the US and the USSR(now Russia) are on the brink of nuclear war but what does the monolith do it lights up a planet into a star in the hope that it will enlighten mankind to stop acting like foolish children and to grow up but also probably as a reminder that we are not alone,and that there is a very powerful species watching us which only has a certain limit for foolish behaviour.