Today, 86 year-old Buzz Aldrin had to be evacuated from the South Pole for medical reasons. I'd say Buzz stared down 2016 and it was 2016 that flinched.
I always thought Stu died from a beating he and John took after John mouthed off to some "Teddy boys". Stu took some kicks to the head and was never the same.
What the monoliths are and do in 2001 is pretty self-explanatory from the first scene, not a question or mystery at all. Beating people over the head with further explanation would be boring and make the monoliths less mysterious and impressive, because you've defined strict constraints on their behavior and intent, rather than leaving those as open questions, where we don't know if maybe they'll become malicious later.
The sequel, 2010, made a similar but much larger mistake. (spoiler) It explained away HAL's murder spree as just a programming mistake, when it made more sense that approaching the giant monolith was making him self-aware, like the apes in the opening. If HAL's behavior wasn't affected by it, then it's a side-plot that didn't get properly set-up, and isn't really relevant to the story, oddly enough. I actually like 2010, as an independent movie, more action, adventure, and less mystery. But as a sequel, it really takes the air out of one of the greatest movies of all time, robbing it of the existential philosophical questions of what it means to be alive, conscious, intelligent, etc., and how we differ from the animals, and the advanced machines we've created to assist us. I don't believe it was coincidence that we start with apes killing to survive, then the rest of the film is HAL killing humans, then humans killing HAL to survive. Perhaps Artur C Clarke didn't intend it, but surely Kubrick did. It's far from the first movie that improved upon and eclipsed the source material, taking it in another direction. Though, obviously the reverse is vastly more common.
I'm not sure if you read the article I linked to Tiago but the point was that most of the scripts featured were the scripts used to shoot the film, only the filmmakers decided to drop that one crucial bit of information right before filming so audiences would debate these scenes. For instance, the Groundhog Day script is pretty much the same as the one used to shoot only the entire magic curse scene was omitted on purpose to create a question for debate. Danny Rubin (writer of the film) didn't want to show the curse scene and originally wanted the movie to start in the middle of the loop, but Harold Ramis (director of film) insisted the scene be included in the script and the movie start before the time loop. So while it's true that early scripts generally don't count the scripts referred to in the article are very close to, if not the same as, the script used in shooting.
Hanging from the clock at 0:27 is Harold Floyd, "Safety Last" (1923). The wind scene in 0:37 reminds me of the twister in Wizard of Oz. The falling house side/survive in the window at 0:45 is Buster Keaton from "Steamboat Bill Jr." (1928).
The sequel, 2010, made a similar but much larger mistake. (spoiler) It explained away HAL's murder spree as just a programming mistake, when it made more sense that approaching the giant monolith was making him self-aware, like the apes in the opening. If HAL's behavior wasn't affected by it, then it's a side-plot that didn't get properly set-up, and isn't really relevant to the story, oddly enough. I actually like 2010, as an independent movie, more action, adventure, and less mystery. But as a sequel, it really takes the air out of one of the greatest movies of all time, robbing it of the existential philosophical questions of what it means to be alive, conscious, intelligent, etc., and how we differ from the animals, and the advanced machines we've created to assist us. I don't believe it was coincidence that we start with apes killing to survive, then the rest of the film is HAL killing humans, then humans killing HAL to survive. Perhaps Artur C Clarke didn't intend it, but surely Kubrick did. It's far from the first movie that improved upon and eclipsed the source material, taking it in another direction. Though, obviously the reverse is vastly more common.