Comments
bcatrek t1_iybsnn4 wrote
The original movie makes more sense out of this imo
makeitmorenordicnoir t1_iyc39mc wrote
It’s based on a book by Stanislaw Lem….it’s a short take on the story much like what Contact did with the original source material….
warpus t1_iyc649i wrote
The novel is quite amazing and focuses on many different points than the movie does. The novel is more or less about the complexity of truly alien contact, but the movie made it into a sort of love story. It’s Lem too so it’s not at all a traditional alien encounter story. At all
“it’s Lem” so the novels points are not very direct. Lem wrote under communism in Poland and wrote a lot of his works as satire criticizing communism. He had to be really sneaky about it though and fortunately the commie overlords never caught on.
But as a result his style is at times odd and def unique with vaguely hidden satire, in a lot of his works he relies on wordplay (that have been somehow amazingly been translated to English while still retaining the original charm and message), some of his stuff sort of reads like Douglas Adams with a twist, a bunch of it reads like stories for children mixed with philosophy and wordplay, and he even wrote a book of reviews of books that don’t exist.
His work is sort of all over the place but there is a string connecting it all that’s hard to pin down.
Solaris is one of his books that’s a bit more .. like a traditional novel, with no wordplay and probably satire but it’s much harder to spot. I haven’t read all his works but I have read about 15 and Solaris has always been my fav.
The English translations (some via French somehow) are very well done, I’ve read both the polish and English for some of them and it’s incredible how the essence of the story is almost the same, even though I would have guessed that polish wordplay would be hard to translate without losing something.
Highly recommend this author! Not for everyone but there is a lot of variety. Solaris reads completely different from Memoirs from a Bathtub, and the Investigation is a murder mystery set in England that takes a curious approach to the genre, to give some examples.
My fav scene from one of his short stories was when an astronaut fighting with different versions of himself gets pissed off and throws a steak out the airlock. For the rest of the story there is an occasional eclipse as the steak orbits his spaceship, occasionally obscuring the nearby star.
JTDan t1_iyc82k0 wrote
"I'm the WEDNESDAY me!!"
Nobody gets Stanislaw Lem, including me, but I think he's phenomenal.
Citizen_Kong t1_iyd7vtu wrote
It's very sad that sci-fi fandom generally is so anglocentric, otherwise I'm pretty sure Lem would be as revered as Heinlein, Asimov and Dick.
JTDan t1_iydd3k0 wrote
Are you familiar with Phillip K. Dick's letter to the FBI (1974) accusing Lem of being a Communist committee that had infiltrated the Science Fiction Writers of America? Because he was too brilliant, too widely educated and wrote in too many different styles to really be a single person. Yup.
As for Heinlein -- I, too, read and loved Stranger in a Strange Land as a teenager. But even at that age I was weirded out by his habit of making sluts of all his leading ladies, and having them make babies with their fathers, or father figures (read: Heinlein stand-ins). This shit is just gross, my dude. And the older he got, the hornier his female characters became.
Asimov, Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, JG Ballard. Le Guin. There are dozens of writers whose place in the cannon is ahead of those two.
That's my opinion and you are welcome to yours.
Citizen_Kong t1_iyde5rp wrote
Yeah, I know that story. Classic paranoid Dick, lol. Lem was also generally very dismissive of English/American authors, with the sole exception of Dick, funny enough.
Also, yeah, Heinlein is very problematic, but his general influence on Sci-Fi as a genre is still phenomenal.
warpus t1_iydcz16 wrote
At one point he was one of the best sold sci fi authors in the world - in any language, at least judging by the liner notes on some of his older publications. I assumed that’s why his books were translated to English so early and so well. But I agree! These days his works are not as much looked at and read as they seemed to be in the past
Micosilver t1_iydlic7 wrote
Apropo of nothing, if anyone is interested in brilliant Sci Fi that's not anglocentric - check out Strugatsky brothers. Stalker is based on their book.
[deleted] t1_iycom12 wrote
[deleted]
przyssawka t1_iyd5d31 wrote
How insecure are you? Dude used your comment to share his love for Lem and insight on how to get into his books. You should be happy people unfamiliar with the author may see it and get into old-school polish Sci-Fi.
warpus t1_iydd9o2 wrote
Yeah I’m a big fan and got excited and shared my thoughts
[deleted] t1_iyculkg wrote
[removed]
Competitive-Cuddling t1_iyd8ak4 wrote
I had the same reaction. Walked out of the theatre with my girlfriend at the time, and we were both left in a dreamy state of cinematic bliss, and a shared romantic connection. Immediately bought the score by Daniel Lanois and had some fantastic drugged out slow love making sessions listening to it.
WriterDave t1_iybqnle wrote
The whole point of the original story was THE PLANET.
It's alive, or at the very least it's sentient. It wants to communicate.
So badly, in fact, it's poking around in our primitive minds, making replicas of our loved ones hoping we will communicate back.
I'll never understand how such a talented filmmaker could write and direct a version of this story and 100% completely miss the point.
This isn't a love story in space. It's not about a guy falling in love with a ghost.
Sodeburgh's movie left out Solaris.
How?!
It's right there in the title!
dzhastin t1_iybs0l1 wrote
Sodebergh probably fell asleep during the original and missed the point. It’s a classic movie, but man, does Tarkovsky take his time. The scene where they seemingly spend 90 uncut minutes driving through tunnels in Japan hypnotized me and put me to sleep. When I woke up the same driving scene was still going on!
I still prefer the Tarkovsky but the soundtrack in the Sodebergh version is phenomenal.
eventhegreyscant t1_iydng2b wrote
> but man, does Tarkovsky take his time
He literally called his entire philosophy "Sculpting in Time"
warpus t1_iyc6z4o wrote
The movie is technically based on the novel though and not the older movie adaptation, although to be fair that adaptation is a pretty good one, if missing some of the Lem like nuances.
I bet what happened was the studio said “Uh that won’t sell, focus the story on the wife instead”
Neckwrecker t1_iycxnew wrote
>Sodebergh probably fell asleep during the original and missed the point. It’s a classic movie, but man, does Tarkovsky take his time. The scene where they seemingly spend 90 uncut minutes driving through tunnels in Japan hypnotized me and put me to sleep. When I woke up the same driving scene was still going on! > >I still prefer the Tarkovsky but the soundtrack in the Sodebergh version is phenomenal.
I'm gonna be honest, I started nodding off during the original in the 3rd act. I did enjoy it though, I just had to rewatch some of it.
iDuddits_ t1_iyd4gyq wrote
2001 puts me to sleep too!
Abba_Fiskbullar t1_iydg91f wrote
Tarkovsky can be hard. I love Stalker, it's some kind of hypnotic cinematic bliss for me, but I just couldn't stay focused on Tarkovsky's Solaris and I've never finished it.
dzhastin t1_iydp4p7 wrote
Stalker is an all-time great. Solaris picks up and becomes a great movie once they get off the Earth, but they fart around for a long time first.
GetToSreppin t1_iybxnf2 wrote
But Soderberg didn't miss the point. He was just making a different point than the other versions of the story.
warpus t1_iyc7mnu wrote
He basically took Lem’s story, took out most of the elements that Lem was focusing on (alien contact) and shifted the focus on the wife and love angle, which in the novel is not a focus in any way.
Which is fine! He took an existing story and saw something else in it and made it into something different and new, keeping the setting the same. That happens all the time with the creative process, right? No problem there.
This is why the author didn’t like the movie though. From his pov the movie title implies that it’s the same story as the novel, but it’s very different. Whether you hold the same view or not, surely we can appreciate that position. He probably initially thought the movie was going to mirror the book and got disappointed when it became a love story instead and something much simpler. As an artist I can relate to that.
So yeah, Sodenberg made his own point and ran with it and that’s fine. Creative freedom and all that. As long as we acknowledge that the point of the novel was completely different and that the movie is not a faithful adaptation or anything close for that. It’s not meant to be a faithful adaptation though so it doesn’t fail in that regard. but some people trip up here due to the same title and setting, so they assume the book and the movie tell the same story. I think this is also another reason why the author was a bit miffed, being an eccentric creative type
WriterDave t1_iybzomu wrote
Not according to the author of the book:
> "...to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space... As Solaris' author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space."
— Stanislaw Lem, 2002
Point is, if Sodeburgh wanted to make "Love in Outer Space" he shouldn't have called it Solaris.
'Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead' is brilliant... and look -- they didn't call it 'Hamlet.'
GetToSreppin t1_iydenkq wrote
I'm not sure if you knew this or not but soderberg didn't write the book. His movie isn't the book and thusly has a different pov and message. This is the core idea of what adaptations can be.
hellsfoxes t1_iyctl24 wrote
This is true but I don’t deduct points because of it. Sodenbergh is clearly pushing deeper into the characters very subjective experience with grief and loss and the allure of a second chance. Bringing in the planets motivation would be purely expositional in this remake and not add to the characters journey. Not to everyone’s taste but it worked well for me in this version and we still have the original movie.
It’s a bit like Stephen King hating Kubrick’s Shining for ‘missing the point’ but I think it’s okay for different versions to stand apart.
goodness___gracious t1_iycvjsf wrote
The planet Is the character.
hellsfoxes t1_iydfup0 wrote
Right but a counter argument is still fine as long as we accept that a remake doesn’t have to stay true to the source and can be it’s own thing.
The Shining example:
Stephen King: “But the alcoholic father IS the character!”
Kubrick: “Nah the hotel.”
Mr_Charles___ t1_iydz7yk wrote
It's an especially weird complaint to make given that Tarkovsky's version also missed the point of the original by focusing on the humans instead of the planet. And was also criticized for it by Lem. Additional source.
But then again I have come to accept that redditors only care about faithfulness to the source material when it's source material they personally care about.
If they don't care about the source material, they're all "But adaptions don't have to be faithful". When they do care about the source material they go "how could they possibly miss the point! Why did they think they were so much smarter than the original writers?".
SaneesvaraSFW t1_iyf4lix wrote
The planet is a character.
SergeantChic t1_iyesif5 wrote
It's not even an ocean planet in Soderbergh's version. I usually like his movies, but this was not his best work.
SoulCruizer t1_iyekblg wrote
He didn’t miss the point though, he went in a different more interesting direction.
JGCities t1_iybonhv wrote
All I remember is how insanely attractive Natascha McElhone was in that film.
Bonus points for being one of Viola Davis's early roles.
BEE_REAL_ t1_iybzu2h wrote
Casting a woman in that role is such an embarrassing whiff on subtext in the original movie, and ironically, it's specifically feminist subtext
The way Davis plays that character is also just an awful choice and makes it seem like she's hysterical and irrational
1515fifteen t1_iycebez wrote
I saw Solaris in the theater when it was released. There were probably 60-80 other people in the theater for the showing. Over the course of the film, over half the audience walked out. Every few minutes, another group would get up and leave. It’s the only time I’ve ever witnessed something like that.
Wooba99 t1_iycijcl wrote
I had the exact same experience. I wanted to join them but my friend wouldn't leave since he was too cheap. When the next group left I said something about being jealous and we just laughed the rest of the night. Without question my least favourite movie.
Bburke89 t1_iydctos wrote
I had to sit through it with my parents…
Bullingdon1973 OP t1_iybjg57 wrote
I’m still not sure if I like it, but I enjoyed reading this.
KevMike t1_iybsq4r wrote
I read Solaris during a time I binged on hard sci-fi, so naturally, because of Andrei Tarkovsky, my next book was Roadside Picnic. I had the biggest sense of existential dread for a month. I was a total lump just staring out the window thinking about life and shit.
Anyways, both books I would best describe as Eastern European Cosmic horror. Just so imaginative in what alien life would be if we encountered it in real life. Indifferent and unable to really communicate with us, and what we do witness leaves us traumatized and feeling even more alone than when we started.
dropfry t1_iybqvb3 wrote
Great movie. Haunting even. Also one of the only movies that has ICP in it.
coverslide t1_iybspdz wrote
TheOvenLord t1_iyd70ma wrote
I thought you were joking but you're serious. What a weird movie to throw an ICP track into.
thinthehoople t1_iydl2oc wrote
Whoop WHOOP!
dratsablive t1_iycqi5s wrote
The Original Russian Solaris is on TCM from time to time.
DovahSheep1 t1_iydka3t wrote
Haven’t seen the remake but the original is a great film
Arma104 t1_iyegn4m wrote
It's less of a remake and more of a new adaptation. I highly recommend it, it's one of my favorite movies.
_stevejobs t1_iyc7gyb wrote
I have always loved this film and the soundtrack is just incredible.
garrisontweed t1_iyc3req wrote
I loved this Movie.Had the DVD which had a fantastic commentary with Soderbergh and James Cameron.I’d love to hear that one again ,as I see the Movie is on STAR.
der_forger t1_iyc4uv5 wrote
Man, I still vividly remember the first time I watched this film. I must’ve been like 12 or something, staying at one of my relatives places and found this on their massive shelf of movies and decided to watch it one day.
My idiot child brain saw Clooney on the cover and thought he was going to an abandoned space station to fight aliens or some shit like that.
I waited the entire film for the aliens to come and the action to start, needless to say that did not happen.
Weirdly enough though, I did not hate the film at all. I was way too young to understand it or even comprehend what was going on, but I was thoroughly entranced by the journey. The visuals, the acting, and the score especially. Everything resonated deep below the surface for me.
This film stayed in my head for years after that first contact.
zosteria t1_iye5gxl wrote
It’s weird how little Tarkovsky is mentioned in these comments. It’s sort of like Citizen Kane gets remade as a Christmas movie starring martin Lawrence and everyone is talking about the sets not being great
BeDecentFFS t1_iybksed wrote
Like it or not, there’s no shame in nodding off at some point or other, although it’s slightly less nod-inducing than the Russian original.
[deleted] t1_iybsgj2 wrote
[deleted]
BeDecentFFS t1_iybuh1x wrote
That’s not shitting on him, dude. Settle down. Lots of people nod off to it because of the long droning scenes. Especially stoned/drunk film students…
CraniumCensor t1_iycesmm wrote
lembrate? more like lembrat lmaooo
Larry_Version_3 t1_iybz0mu wrote
I made the mistake of watching this when I was extremely tired after a long day of work. Not sure if I like the movie but on paper I should love it
hellsfoxes t1_iycsnex wrote
Fantastic movie. Lives in the shadow of the original so between cinephiles who think it’s not as good and mainstream audiences who don’t fancy slow art house space dramas, it gets no traction. But it’s amazing.
ToddBradley t1_iyd2aoc wrote
Thanks. I can’t wait to read the essay. This is one of my favorite science fiction films. I love the pacing and the music. And the great mystery of it all is a nice way to bring the story of Adam into the modern day.
FrenchMaisNon t1_iyddjwo wrote
It's a very good movie, superior SciFi and the score is majestic. Slow, claustrophobic, disturbing... what an alien encounter from another dimension could look like.
Other-Marketing-6167 t1_iydn43h wrote
Love this movie - hot take is that I think it’s far superior to Tarkovsky’s original.
korraismyherov2 t1_iycu9ax wrote
I wish this would have a physical release. So damn good.
Sl1210mk2 t1_iyeatrh wrote
It did. I have it on DVD from years back and the Tarkovsky version on Blu-Ray.
korraismyherov2 t1_iyeb57y wrote
To eBay I go then
davej999 t1_iyddf1k wrote
Jeez i remember watching this when i was 12, with my brother and my mum's friends kids
two german lads that couldnt speak a word of english...it was an odd experience
Sl1210mk2 t1_iye31km wrote
I like both versions but for different reasons. The Soderberg version has better pacing and connects on an emotional level.
Tarkovsky produced a cold clinical sci-fi masterpiece. Some judicious editing to up the pace a little would have been better though.
EdJamic8 t1_iyfeks1 wrote
It was a remake
goodness___gracious t1_iycvdw9 wrote
This is such a garbage piece of shit film. Tarkovsky’s Solaris is a fucking masterpiece. The love story is a side note, not the main focus of the god damn film. This movie missed the point entirely. I use my copy as a coaster for drinks while I’m watching the REAL FILM.
Muppetude t1_iybp9gn wrote
I really loved this movie. The vibe, atmosphere and slow pacing really resonated with me for some reason. And the actors really sold their roles.
The only thing I didn’t understand was the thought process behind the company’s decision to send George Clooney’s character to their space station.
“We’ve lost contact with Solaris”
“Let’s send an armed security team to assess”
“Oh no we’ve lost contact with them too. Now what?”
“Uh, we send, uh … a … psychiatrist? … by himself.”
“Brilliant!”