2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science-fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel". Clarke concurrently wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, published soon after the film was released. The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer Hal after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. It deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life.

2001: A Space Odyssey is particularly remembered for using pieces of Johann Strauss II's best-known waltz, The Blue Danube, during the extended space-station docking and Lunar landing sequences. This is the result of the association that Kubrick made between the spinning motion of the satellites and the dancers of waltzes.

It also makes use of the opening from the Richard Strauss tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra performed by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan. The use of Strauss's Zarathustra may be a reference to the theme of mankind's eventual replacement by supermen (Übermensch) in Nietzsche's work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Gayane's Adagio from Aram Khachaturian's Gayane ballet suite is heard during the sections that introduce Bowman and Poole aboard the Discovery, conveying a somewhat lonely and mournful quality.

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