Beside, having HAL defeat Bowman would be too on the nose with it's dystopia. Music cues like Also Sprach Zarathustra (based on Nietzsche's writing) make a lot more sense if mankind is the hero of the story. I don't think the story could have just switched gears and become HAL 9000s story without fundamentally altering all that came before. Ulysses was also an archer, so the name Dave BOWMAN seems to indicate that it's mankind's journey and David Bowman is the hero of the story.
2001 SPACE ODYSSEY STARCHILD MOVIE
So, if the movie is meant to parallel that story we have to ask who the "hero" is and what is the journey they are taking. The story of The Odyssey, as you know, concerns the warrior Ulysses trying to return home safely after the Trojan War. The title "A Space Odyssey" is an important clue, I think, because it is identifying the protagonist. I think this would require a change in the film's title and a change of name for Keir Dullea's Dr. "I might even argue that it would have been more interesting to see HAL kill Dr Bowman and take the ship to Monolith on his own terms."
So 2001 is both optimistic, though not exactly utopian, but at the same time a bit dystopian as well. The movie also seems to be suggesting that humanity has become somewhat complacent and stuck in a rut, which is perhaps the explanation for why Poole and Bowman are depicted in such a cold, robotic fashion. Only after Bowman does this is mankind ready for the next step, as he ventures out towards the monolith in his pod. Bowman must murder HAL to reassert man's dominance over machine. An even more advanced tool, the AI computer HAL-9000, becomes so dangerous that it turns against humanity and becomes our enemy. So, it isn't as dystopian as some science fiction stories, but there is a dark side.
Still, for a film in 1968 to make a prediction that a nuclear war would NOT occur and we would all still be here was an optimistic prediction in itself. So we have advanced from the bone weapon (the first technology) to nuclear weapons (the latest technology), but despite our technology, we sill have violent natures which are reflected in the use we make of our tools. We know this because we jump from the bone weapon to an orbiting Soviet nuclear weapons platform (or so said the script, although it isn't really clear in the movie). Although the Cold War is downplayed in 2001 much more so than 2010, it is still going on, albeit at less intensity than the in the year film was released. Well, I think this does happen in the movie in a way.
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