Moon-Watcher

“Of all the creatures who had yet walked on Earth, the man-apes were the first to look steadfastly at the Moon. And though he could not remember it, when he was very young Moon-Watcher would sometimes reach out and try to touch that ghostly face rising above the hills. He had never succeeded, and now he was old enough to understand why. For first, of course, he must find a high enough tree to climb. Sometimes he watched the valley, and sometimes he watched the Moon, but always he listened.” —Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (Read PDF)

Moon-Watcher, or Moonwatcher, is an alpha

man-ape

featured in the introduction of Kubrick and Stanley’s 2001 project.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Moon-Watcher and his tribe are inhabitants of

Pleistocene

Africa, 3 MYA. He becomes the new alpha at about the age of twenty-five, after his father Old One dies. Moon-Watcher and his tribe become the first ones to encounter a “New Rock”, a fifteen foot tall monolith that appears to impart intelligence upon them. It then dawns on Moon-Watcher: the capability to improvise an object into a weapon.

Subsequently, after Moon-Watcher realizes that a large bone could serve as a way to catch a meal, it then dawns on him that he might be able to take back a waterhole from a rival tribe that pushed him out earlier. Thus, Moon-Watcher and members of his tribe are equipped with bone weapons to take back the waterhole. The success of the occupation results in the death of the rival leader One-Ear.

Appearance

Moon-Watcher stands nearly five feet high, the highest stance above all the others, and is even known to be the only one capable enough to stand upright. He is badly undernourished and weighs in at over a hundred pounds. He is hairy, with a muscular build halfway between ape and man, but his head is much nearer to man than ape. The forehead is low with ridges over the eye sockets, with dark, deep-set eyes.

In the film, Moon-Watcher was played by actor Daniel Richter.

Non-canon

Fans attribute Moon-Watcher and his tribe to

Australopithecus afarensis

the first known upright walking ape.