I was very let down when I watched it some years ago--I was like, 'where's the climax?' But I've watched a few more arty ambiguous movies lately ('Under the Skin', 'The Neon Demon', 'Mother!') and recently liked 'Annihilation' despite its slow pacing and ambiguity, so I've been thinking maybe I'll like '2001' better this time if I check it out again...

Something I've noticed about '2001' in the meanwhile is that its aesthetics seem very future-proof. It doesn't seem dated or plastic-y like other stuff from that era.

An interesting article about the setting and social environment: 'HAL, Mother, and Father: Watching the sixties and seventies through 2001 and Alien.' https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/09/hal-mother-an...