I don't know about you, but I'm somewhat fascinated by these opinions! I mean, if Inception and Interstellar are "juvenile", what possible vocabulary do they have left for all the superhero films we now have in the cinema?!
In all seriousness, of course Inception and Interstellar are very different films to 2001 (just as 2001 is very different to Kubrick's other films, really), and made I think for a very different audience. There actually aren't all that many films that can easily be compared to 2001 - Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker are probably as close as you're going to get, and both of those are, relatively, only a little more recent. Malick's The Tree of Life isn't quite a sci-fi film, but always feels to me like a very good companion to 2001.
Perhaps the reason you won't really see much like 2001 ever again is that modern audiences, on the whole, just can't really cope with it - the pacing is regarded as risible and the ambiguity is too much intellectual effort.
Check out the third season of Twin Peaks from Showtime. It's more or less an 18 hour movie, with slow, seemingly-deliberate (or not!) pacing. A truly fascinating work for this age.
I love Tree of Life, but I’ve tried and failed to get into 2001 several times. The thing I love in Tree of Life is the humanism: I can see people sorting through their feelings through their memories in real time, and the characters feel absolutely real. 2001 is more interested in “philosophy” than people, and to be honest if I want that I’d rather just read a nonfiction book.
I once saw Tree of Life, totally on a whim, no knowledge at all, bought a ticket when passing the cinema during an evening walk.
I left the movie in the middle. I thought it so bad, but fascinatingly bad. Well at home I found out it was directed by same director as The Thin Red Line, one of my favorite movies. Since then I have been puzzled, I really should give Tree of Life another chance.
Definitely give The Tree of Life another go, and watch Malick's older films too - they are wonderful. Avoid all of his most recent films unless you're feeling very, very meditative (I slept extremely peacefully through the last third of Knight of Cups, I will say).
Give it a shot, at least! A lot of people feel about it the same way I feel about 2001, though, so it may just not be your thing. I think if you can be immersed in the visuals and empathize with the characters then you're good; otherwise, it probably won't do anything for you.
In all seriousness, of course Inception and Interstellar are very different films to 2001 (just as 2001 is very different to Kubrick's other films, really), and made I think for a very different audience. There actually aren't all that many films that can easily be compared to 2001 - Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker are probably as close as you're going to get, and both of those are, relatively, only a little more recent. Malick's The Tree of Life isn't quite a sci-fi film, but always feels to me like a very good companion to 2001.
Perhaps the reason you won't really see much like 2001 ever again is that modern audiences, on the whole, just can't really cope with it - the pacing is regarded as risible and the ambiguity is too much intellectual effort.