I really don't think there is anything to it. They tried to go epic and got avalanche by the sheer scale of work that needed to be done.
Oh and about that 2001 comparison thing...
Quote from: wikipedia"The old race of man is about to be replaced by the "star child", which was conceived by the meeting of the spaceship and Jupiter. MacLeod also sees irony in man as a creator (of HAL) on the brink of being usurped by his own creation. Thus, by destroying HAL, man symbolically rejects his role as creator and steps back from the brink of his own destruction."
Thus the engineers reject their role as creators by choosing to destroy their own creation(man) to evade certain doom. Yea...