To me, the only sequence that's actually puzzling is the Room At The End.  Why does each Bowman see (or hear) the next-older Bowman?  (There's the other question of what the heck he DOES in that room, but that's not essential to the movie.)  I'm pretty sure Kubrick did that in order to BE confusing or puzzling, knowing that would make the movie that much more memorable.  I feel that he intended the movie to be so visually impressive, so surprising and haunting, that it would sort of enter the world's consciousness ultimately as a myth.  In years to come, when we really do reach the orbit of Jupiter, one guy will nudge another and ask if he's seen any black monoliths lately--without necessarily even having seen Kubrick's movie.  (And I have some validation for that guess, but I'm not going to go into that again here.) 
    Most people aren't aware (or don't remember) that just before the movie was released, LIFE magazine published an issue focussing on the movie, with very large photos printed in the right aspect ratio; I'm not sure if the shots included the Room At The End, but there was a shot of the Star Child.  The captions pretty much laid out the movie's plot.
    This does seem to be one of the most influential movies in film history, and commercials, TV shows and movies continue to reference the movie (sometimes directly) to this day, as in the new TRON movie.  Also, Kubrick's editing rhythms, fondness for long takes, staging of actors and that sort of thing continue to influence moviemakers.
  

Last Edited By: Bill Warren Jan 21 11 9:55 PM. Edited 2 times.