What is the importance of the motion picture, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as noted in the book, Thou Art That?

The only outer-space-related movie that Joseph Campbell finds thought provoking, 2001 opens with a pack of apes fighting over scraps of food, while a loner approaches a large object with awe and becomes the progenitor of the human race. The mysterious stone reappears on the moon as human colonization begins, and then free-floating in space. By contrast, Campbell finds movies look for an extraterrestrial savior old-fashioned, using established mythologies.