Stanley Kubrick's 1968 Space Odyssey, based on a 1951 story by Arthur C. Clarke, is considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. While investigating the possbibility of an interplanetary or perhaps interstellar signal from some other form of intelligence, a crew of astronauts endure the vicissitudes of an extended space flight which includes an overintelligent computer gone haywire. Only one, Bowman, appears to survive the ordeal, meeting a mysterious life force and confronting, as one possible interpretation, his own image as old man and interstellar "child" in sequence. The androgynous star child which appears at the very end of the film may be construed as a representation of the life force of all mankind. The human race is shown as a raw, even fetal form within the grand design of the universe.

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