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Well, the ending is pretty well spelled out and explained in the original "2001" novel and the endless books that have sprung from it, for what that's worth. Basically, the canonical view is that Bowman underwent a transition from human to "the next step in our evolution", whatever that means, and was returned to Earth by the aliens who originally created us.
I assume that you're suggesting that perhaps Kubrick had a different point in mind -- one that he may not have shared with Arthur C. Clarke, his collaborator. To begin with, Clarke ends the book with the Star Child detonating the orbiting nuclear weapons. Kubrick omitted this, supposedly because it would have been too similar to the ending of "Dr. Strangelove", his film immediately before "2001." Maybe he had another end in mind.
One can look at this film from the religious angle. Although Kubrick was a secularized Jew, he was very intelligent and widely read -- he would have been very cognizant of the religious overtones to the movie’s ending. The Star Child could be interpreted as God's return to Earth -- after all, the aliens that created the human race by teaching us to become carnivores would now take a different tack -- direct manipulation of human form (by creating the Star Child, a species capable of self- sufficiency in space itself.)
Or, one can look at this classically -- the movie's subtitle IS "A Space Odyssey" after all. In this case, Odysseus returns to Ithaca and boy, is he ever pissed off! He kills every human on Earth, just as Odysseus kills Penelope's suitors.
What did you have in mind?
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