Despite its very science fiction-centered title, the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is set in a prehistoric veldt some millions of years before the central story begins. A group of hominins drives another hominin tribe away from their water source. Displaced and searching for a new place to settle, this prehistoric group stumbles upon a strange alien monolith. The towering, geometrically precise structure looks much as it’s described in Arthur C. Clarke’s source material. And, much like in Clarke’s series, the appearance of the monolith aids these human forerunners in an unexpected way.