Aliens igniting a planet into a star? It’s not exactly subtle, as far as demonstrations of power go. Knowing us, we would have put aside our differences and worked together to fight the aliens. I doubt humanity would ever really get the intended message.
Oh, since you mentioned it earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_(film)#Differences_from_the_novel
Yeah. What do they want? What are they after? We must go to Europa! Stoopid humans.
The wonders of the interweb will never cease to amaze.
They’re keeping all the space diamonds for themselves! 