2001: A Space Odyssey (film) as a pessimistic account of human nature and humanity's future. The most extreme of these interpretations state that the fetus floating above the Earth will destroy it." Many of the cataclysmic interpretations of the film appeared inspired by Kubrick's direction of the Cold War film "Dr. Strangelove" just before "2001", which resulted in dark speculation about the use of nuclear weapons orbiting the Earth in "2001". These interpretations were challenged by Clarke, who said: "Many readers have interpreted the last paragraph of the book to mean that he (the fetus) destroyed Earth, perhaps for the purpose of creating a new
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. "Sight & Sound" magazine ranked "2001: A Space Odyssey" sixth in the top ten films of all time in its 2002 and 2012 critics' polls editions; it also tied for second place in the magazine's 2012 directors' poll. In 2010, it was named the greatest film of all time by "The Moving Arts Film Journal". In an African desert millions of years ago, a tribe of hominids is driven away from its water hole by a rival tribe. They