Again: It’s what’s called a rhetorical query

I can’t help but wonder what enemies of the evolution – is it even a theory anymore? – school of thought think when they go and see movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” ?

I remember the year 1968 well. I had joined the army and returned to the Tidewater Virginia area, where I had graduated from high school three years before. I was stationed at Fort Eustis for a couple of reasons: It gave me the chance to go to boat school (and thus avoid being a ground-pounder ).

Second, I was only about 20 miles from where my on-and-off (mostly off, as it turns out) girlfriend Terry lived with her family.

I remember when “2001: A Space Odyssey” came out. We were understandably excited about seeing it. Problem is, her parents attended a fairly conservative Southern Baptist church, and the members of that congregation didn’t take too kindly to any kind of liberality – especially the Hollywood kind.

(To be honest, I also attended the church – what won’t we do for love? – and once got into trouble for asking in a Sunday night service whether it was a sin to kill, even in war time. At that point I was just months away from going to Vietnam , and I wanted answers. No good ones, I should add, were offered.)

So one evening we were sitting in her parents’ living room, talking about the movie while an older woman (she must have been at least 30!) listened. And I remember her asking, “Now, why (she pronounced it something like “whah”) would anyone (inny-wun) want to go and see a movie like (lahk) that?”

I’m not sure what Terry was feeling. I, however, was stunned. I wanted to ask her (but in those day I was too polite), “Why wouldn’t somebody want to go and see a movie like that?”

And then follow up with this: “Haven’t we evolved past the point of even asking such questions?”

I didn’t, though. Even then I understood that the questions themselves provided the answers.

Below : Keir Dullea stars as the astronaut who encounters the secrets of the universe in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey.” You can order it here.