2001: A Space Odyssey

What does this 1968 film portray with regard to the possible interplay between intelligent guidance and evolutionary processes in the origins of humanity? What resonances does its story have with religious traditions on this subject? How does it reflect pop-cultural trends on that same question? How does it illustrate, in the 'person' of the HAL-9000 computer, the potentials and pitfalls of artificial intelligence? What does it tell us about the possible trajectory of human to post-human or post-biological development? How does the film reflect Cold War relations between the United States and Soviet Russia in the 1960s?