O final é em grande parte simbólico, e a leitura do livro ajuda na sua interpretação. Aqui estão algumas opiniões diferentes. O baseado no livro é como este :
The black monolith you saw in the beginning of the film, and the one found buried on the moon, were placed there by a supremely advanced alien race as a way to nudge along the evolution of humanity. The first encounter with a monolith gave our ancient ancestors the knowledge of how to use tools.
Next, the one on the moon pointed us farther out into space, toward Jupiter (and may have given us the ability to create artificial intelligence i.e., HAL, which was another massive leap in technology).
Finally, Dave reaches the third monolith and is transformed into the next stage of human evolution, the Star Child seen in the final shot. The psychedelic light show before that represents the vast knowledge being given to him by the monolith, which our minds can't even comprehend (and also, possibly, him being transported across enormous oceans of time and space).
Outra source dá algo parecido:
After Dave points to the monolith he is transformed into the Starchild which is a glowing, fetus like being but also has the appearance of a man in the face. After this scene Dave is sent back to Earth by the monolith and the film ends as Dave, now the Starchild, looks on at our planet. The reason the Starchild was sent back to Earth is because the monolith has completed its duty of advancing human life to its evolutionary limits so it sent the Starchild back to continue its work. In the last 30 minutes of the film Dave is given all the knowledge of the universe and has been transformed into an immortal, all knowing being. Dave is now the film's version of God sent back to advance his race further than they ever could have by themselves.
Em outras palavras, a sala é um lugar onde Dave pode observar nosso planeta e brincar de Deus , a fim de avançar ainda mais a raça humana.
No entanto, o próprio Kubrick admite que
you're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film
então pode não haver uma resposta definitiva. Algumas teorias até dizem que a própria tela é monolítica, onde o público é atraído para.