The opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey is set in a desolate arid region millions of years ago, where a group of hominids is first seen munching on bushes and meager green plants amid a herd of tapirs. After being driven away from their water hole by a rival tribe, the defeated apes huddle together in a dark cave. As night falls, their eyes wide open make us, the spectators, aware of the countless unknown dangers they are afraid of: it is a matter of life and death, a Darwinian struggle for survival in which the fittest rule and the weak die. Overpowered by the fearsome antagonists and deprived of the most essential element to the lives on the desert, Kubrick’s hero apes seem to be doomed to perish.