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'Solaris' Screen Adaptation Forthcoming
Jooly Rodney writes "No, not the operating system, the sci-fi novel by Stanislaw Lem, long considered to be a classic of the genre. Apple's movie trailer site features a teaser trailer, and IMDb has George Clooney and Natascha McElhone as the leads Kelvin and Rheya."
..never be as good as the original "solaris"
They're running the trailer before showings of Minority Report (at least, they were yesterday at the matinee I went to). Only names mentioned in the trailer were James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh, and George Clooney.
Needless to say, those three names along with some beautiful deep-space type footage definitely piqued my interest.
Andrei Tarkovsky's Russian adaptation of Solaris (1972) was the first, of course, and is widely regarded as a sci-fi classic. Let's hope this isn't another unnecessary Hollywood remake.
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
I believe there already was a movie called Solaris and this is just a remake. The imdb confirms the existence of a 1972 Russian space epic by the great Tarkovsky.
I saw the trailer last night waiting for "Minority Report" to start. To call this a trailer is a bit of an overstatement, it's just a slow pull-out shot starting from some oddly mixing waves(?) on the surface of a star/planet going all the way out until a rotating spacecraft (reminiscent of the space station in 2001) comes into frame. Then it informs you that George Clooney stars. That's it. Not very informative at all.
This may seem like a dumb question in retrospect, but the CGI was not the best I had ever seen, which leads me to this query: is this an animated film of some sort? I haven't seen any information on any of the usual sites I read about this movie.
I was looking forward to a movie based on an operating system...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
If ever there were a book that would be completely lost in the translation (to screen), this is the one.
I've seen Solaris a couple of times in the past. The original is in Russian. Not knocking it, but it is one of the most difficult movies I've ever seen. It is inspiring you to get drawn in, but it is very perplexing. On the face of it the story is simple, but it is multi-layered.
It is also perhaps the most non-Hollywood movie ever made, so you might as well assume right now that Cameron, Steven, and George are not capable of remaking as complex.
should be interesting to compare to tarkovsky's version. hollywood is probably going to ruin this one too...
QED
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Ok, so flame me.
But I can't really say that I liked Solyaris all
that much.. Not Tarkovski's best at all.
Seems to me he was trying to hard to make a new 2001.
But the grace of 2001 is missing in Solyaris; There's a lot of pseudophilosophical babble in the
dialouge that I doubt anyone can follow, and some
of the visuals are so wierd they're comical.
The story and underlying questions are interesting though:
maybe a dumbed-down hollywood version is just what this film needs?
Horrible travisty to remake such a great picture that so few have the opportunity to see. They should restore the original and release *it* to theaters. That being said, at least Clooney is a decent actor, unlike Mark Wahlberg who got tapped to fill the shoes of Carey Grant in the remake of Charade. I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend that folks go out and get the DVD of the original Norwegian version of Insomnia, instead of seeing the remake. Damn remakes.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
There's a fan site re both "Solaris" movies:
http://www.k26.com/solaris/
HSX ticker SOLAR
Mmmmmmm
...will it be released for the x86?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Now, I realize that the IMDB is not official, nor is the wording of the summary official, but I think the wording perfectly captures the level of detail that Hollywood is going to achieve with this remake. Odd planet! Mystery! Death! Romance! Killer CGI! Blah. It's like a chocolate bar left in the sun--it's chocolate, so it could have been good once, but now its just an oozing mess that should be dumped in the garbage.
Yes, I am being overly pessimistic, but since when has Hollywood let me down? The last decent hard science-fiction movie was Gattacca, and not everyone agrees on that. (Please note I make a distinction between science-fiction and sci-fi.) And George Clooney? Mr. I-Can't-Act-My-Way-Out-Of-A-Paper-Bag? Sorry, folks, nothing to see here.
:Peter
I saw Minority Report yestereday and they showed the teaser trailer for Solaris before that movie. Imagine two sysadmins of Sun machines sitting there seeing that and freaking out ("AAHH, we can't escape!"). Fortunately, I read the book and saw the russian made movie and quickly relayed what it was to my friend.
Btw, Minority Report is the most fun "tech" movie I've seen in a long time. It's worth seeing just for all the future gadgetry ideas.
I have very little faith that a large American studio can do any justice whatsoever to such a low-key, non action, non "Hollywood ending" vehicle.
That said, here is the IMDB entry. Which lists it as in production with Steve Soderbegh as director. He is responsible for Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Limey, Erin Brokovich, Traffic, and Oceans Eleven. So, it is possible he might do something worthwhile with the material. Depends on what the studio lets him get away with.
"Being Irish, he possessed an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through brief episodes of joy." -W. B.
There are two kinds of Solaris...
There is the huge, bloated, planet-sized globular mass which drives insane anyone who comes in contact with it...
And there's the kind from the movie.
A simple reading of the plot will reveal
something like Twilight Zone and a Star
Trek episode.
So pretty easy to make something without
the grip of the original prose.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Just having watched the trailer, and having read the description of the original Russian film from imdb.com, I can only conclude that the new Solaris is a remake of:
Ren & Stimpy: Space Madness
My bet is that George Clooney plays Stimpy.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
i am very sad to hear that this excelent book will be made into a hollywood film. it will undoubtely feature a cheesy plot ,overdone special effects and no no strory to speak of.
enertainment without thought !
is at the Apple trailer site. What the trailer shows looks interesting. The environment seems somewhat reminise of the original Batman. Looking forward to it.
-- DuckWing
Man, I've been waiting for screen to get adapted to Solaris for years.
I got used to it during my shell-term AT&T Unix(tm) days. It made true multilple-session work possible. I was absolutely astounded as my PPP session was running under Windows 3.1.
It was amazing to have this true multitasking capability back in 1992 -- and you didn't have to use a mouse!
I watched the Russian adaption of Solaris a number of years ago, though I haven't read the novel. To be honest, I do not remember a lot of details from the movie. But here are some highlights and impressions:
It was a wonderfully puzzling movie. The only US movie I can actually think of that puzzled me as much after seeing it for the first time was 2001. To me, the differences between the movies come down to 2001 attempting philosophy in a purely *visual* medium, whereas I had the impression that Solaris would have been better as a book, being a very verbal exploration of ideas (a symptom of being a film adaption of a novel).
Can someone who has read the novel and watched the Russian film adaption comment on how the novel and the film compare?
All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Johann Sebastian Bach
The planetary surface looks pretty much the same as in the original Solaris movie (made in USSR, comrades). I wonder why?
filmed in UK
If I can actually consider this one better than the original movie or at least an adequate rendering of the book, I'm giving out a free beer to anyone asking me for one on release day.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
The book has scenes of unearthly beauty which did not appear in the original Russian movie. For instance: the vast, wonderful, possibly sentient structures that grew on Solaris. These (a major plot element in the book) did not appear in the 1972 movie--a real disappointment.
Hope the new movie does better.
Maybe Stalker is up for remake as well?
I just wish that a Region 1 DVD of Stalker would be released. Or, fantasy of fantasies, a good print for the repetory theater circuit (what's left of it, anyway.)
You do realize that this movie was made in USSR and has nothing to do with Hollywood, don't you?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
First Insomnia, now Solaris? What's next, Jerry Bruckheimer remaking October?
Tarkovsky's original "Solaris" had one of the most beautiful paces I've ever seen in a film. It was slow and it allowed you to take in everything in the film. It created an incredible tension in the film and was largely responsible for the perfect mood that was established.
My question is, will a typical North American audience (who generally seem to enjoy fast-paced, thoughless films) be able to sit through a film with a pace that slow? I think Soderbergh will be forced to step up the pace and potentially damage the story. Don't get me wrong, I respect Soderbergh as a director, I think he's great. But, I hope he has some kind of creative vision that he'll stick with.
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
... we're not hitchhiking anymore... we're riding!
until I found out that the title is misleading.
Titatic meets "Booker" from Roseanne? No thanks.
Not the five worst movies, but maybe in the five worst book adaptations, along with "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", the miniseries of Sayers's "Gaudy Night", the original 1930s "Anna Karenina" with the happy ending, can't think of another but Anna Karenina ought to count for at least two.
Throw a few cute magical anime hero girls in there and I think Solaris would be a real hit!
It is actually my license plate BECAUSE of the book and an intended double pun! Good lord, people on the streets have being asking me if my name is Solaris :) One guy asked me if I was Sun's owner :) My answer to those is: -"Solaris" is Greek for "sunny" and I drive a convertible. Get it?
Sometimes I am left to wonder who the hell surrounds me here in Canada.
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Wow. look at the moderation on this story.
("I'm so very SORRY!"
Whap!)
-b
It's not just driving, it's driving through endless maze of gray concrete multilevel freeway interchanges and ramps filmed in Germany. This kind of stuff was seen by his audience of 1972's USSR as something alien. It expresses an anti-utopian view of future technology.
I'm in the minority that I liked Event Horizon. Still with Hollywood now making an adaptation of Red Dragon when Manhunter was a perfectly good film, you have to wonder what the memory span of film producers are.
How do you pronounce [rh] in English, anyway? Is it any different from [r] or is the extra "h" just there to look exotic?
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
I see this as an opportunity for people who haven't heard about the original novel/movie to watch it and judge for themselves afterward. It will also bring the first adaptation into the media spot, then remastered and re-released for DVDs. I am not being too pessimistic here by assuming that people who like old fart Hollywood style jokes wouldn't have bothered seeing the original play anyway, which is why I refrain complaining about Hollywood stomping and destroying every possible piece of achievement from the past. Thanks to George "worse director ever" Lucas and others (Spielberg who is the little fav guy of Wired lately), Kurosawa's movies are now available in Criterion DVDs. Hollywood is a terrific marketing machine. The idea is keeping your brain at a resonnable distance from its grinders. Like avoiding fast food, because ads fly in your face every day, it requires extra strenght, I agree, but the reward is up to the challenge.
PPA, the girl next door (who has proudly been watching Solaris on 4 different continents and has never eat a big mac.)
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Tokyo actually.
We'll finally bring all those teletype using solaris savages into the 21st century.
;)
Released by a company called Ruscico
You can purchase it here.
I believe those are Region 5 encoded - I've encountered them elsewhere. I'd be delighted to learn I was wrong.
Ruscico has two versions available. Region 5 - PAL I believe - and Region 1 NTSC.
..."FreeBSD" and "Linux" to come out:
"There are just some places man was never meant to go..."
FreeBSD: a background of flames with the Berkeley Daemon flying past. Random traditionally demonic figures fading in and out of the flames, all with the face of Bill Gates.
Linux: a bunch of penguins nudging each other at the edge of an ice cliff. As we fly past, we see sharks in the water, all with Bill Gates' face on them.
So I thought - I'm gonna go over to Netflix and queue up Tarkovsky's Solaris. Haven't seen it since like high-school. Guess what. No DVD. Got me thinking. What kind of 'businessman' in their right mind would release such a thing on DVD anyway - only to be seen by like 3 or 4 people. Unfortunately, I don't have a VCR, so I can't watch it that way. Like you'd be able to even rent Solaris on VHS at Blockbuster. Same problem there - 1 rental a year won't pay for the shelf space. So, this great work of art goes on the ash heap of history. I think that if we let the recording industry assert their rights so much, we had better obligate them to keep such obscurities available at all times as well - in all new formats that come into existence. For 70 years after the copyright holder is dead.
Just by looking who are in this movie, it's obvious it will not come close to the "original" that is a classic. Hollywood, does it again: "Let's take a good story of a good non-hollywood movie and let's turn it to something mediocre.
Minority Report looks like it might be good. Same with Spider-man. Solaris will probably be good, too. But fuck 'em. Me and my money are staying home until the MPAA changes its tune.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
So this means that, what, Solaris is gonna run GNOME by default?
(in the not being any good sense - who knows what business it will do)
The book's main protagonist is racked with guilt at leaving his girlfriend, knowing that if he did she'd try to kill herself. This is not only his emotional motivation, but informs his interaction with the planet, and is pretty impossible to remove without gutting the book.
George Clooney (or any major star) will NEVER be responsible for their girlfriend commiting suicide (on film anyway).
Therefore, there *will* be helicopter chases through decaying symmetriads, he *will* get it on with neutron girl, and there *will* be some kind of bad guy, no doubt a religious nutter trying to destroy the planet with a giant X-ray emitter.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
I can't wait to see HP-UX: The Movie.
Solaris is indeed a pretty drawn out movie, much like Tarkovsky's other films. However, if you approach it on its own terms, I think it's quite enjoyable and emotionally involving, and the cinematography is simply superb. I don't know whether it's a 'masterpiece' or not, but it's certainly not as bad as some of the people here suggested. Here are some specific points I'd like to address:
>randomly switching between black & white and color (in Russia, they used what stock was available)
First off, Tarkovsky often alternates between colour and BW stock to indicate mood changes. This has absolutely nothing to with using "what stock was avaliable".
>The best were the endless views of a Soviet piece of shit car driving on highway overpasses with dubbed "jet-engine" sounds. The first half of >the movie was nothing but the car driving.
As someone already pointed out, this scene was actually shot in Tokyo, so they're technically piece-of-shit Japanese cars.
>You could also blame it on english translation too. I am sure the was a significant loss of content there because monologs, dialogs play a >huge role in the movie.
Yes, you're quite right, the translation is perfectly horrible. I'm amazed nobody has thought of re-releasing the movie with a more...shall we say, accurate one (or maybe somebody has, I wouldn't know). On second thought, why should they bother -- the market for this kind of thing in the US is evidently rather limited.
>I've seen it a couple of times and frankly it >makes 2001 look like a shallow no-brainer of a >movie.
I wouldn't go that far.
To summarise, Solaris (the original, natch) is basically an art-house sci-fi film. If you like art-house fare, chances are you'll like it. On the other hand, if you're a sci-fi fan with no particular interest in foreign film it may strain your patience. Personally, I think it's worth seeing at least once.
Somewhat off topic, I apologize in advance... Following various Lem links just now, I read some description of one of his stories, His Master's Voice, which were not what I expected. I thought His Master's Voice was a story about genetically intelligent dogs who serve as research assistants for human scientists. In the story I am thinking of, one particularly bright dog spends most of the time piecing together some vital information for his under-appreciative master. If anybody remembers this story I would love to know the title and author.
It gives Clooney another chance to belt out A Man of Constant Sorrow.
Oh, please, no. Stalker is my favorite Tarkovsky film, and while it might be better suited for "Hollywood" treatment if it stuck closer to the novel "Roadside Picnic," it couldn't hope to compare to the beauty and wonderment of the original, which deviated greatly from the book. I just wish I could find this on DVD.
The movie had it's own beauty. The movie
*was* different; but that doesn't mean it
was worse. It's actually incredible to
realize that it was a Soviet movie. The movie
is less science fiction than an existential
agnst type flick. Solaris is not the infathomable
intelligent being of the book; but is God as
ultimatly unknowable enigma. The director
took license to put his own vision in the work.
I think he did an wonderful job. Compare Kubrick
with 2001 and the book. Different but no less
compeling.
From Sci-Fi Wire:
"WB To Adapt Bear SF Novels
Warner Brothers will develop Greg Bear's SF novel The Forge of God as a feature film, to be adapted by writer Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), Variety reported. The film is the envisioned as the first of three, which would include films based on Bear's sequel novel Anvil of Stars and a third book that the author has yet to write, the trade paper reported.
Ralph Vicinanza and Vince Gerardis will produce. Bear's first novel deals with hostile aliens who come to Earth lured by signal probes sent over the years."
The Forge of God should be easy to make a movie out of, maybe even a good one, but I don't think that their can be any way to make a movie out of Anvil of Stars.
Their are many things that are going to be impossible to put on film. The alien race the humans rescue consist of individuals who are amalgamations of samller worm like creatures who communicate with a combination of odour and sound, and are psychologically incapable of not using double pronouns like "I we" (I would love to see a good CGI of one of these. It would be a nic antidote to Jar Jar).
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
Everone knows about that it was originally a novel by Stanislaw Lem. What they may not know is that it was originally written in Polish.
The Russian version of the film was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. What you may not know is that he also co-wrote the screenplay, along with Friedrich Gorenstein. Tarkovsky only ever directed two films he didn't also at least partially write (at the beginning of his directorial career).
Gorenstein died in March of this year. There has been some suggestion that the reason the film is being remade in English now, as opposed to earlier, is that film rights were tied up until his death.
The synthesizer composer Isao Tomita was so impressed by the Russian version of this film that he composed music based on his impressions of the work. The track "The Sea Named Solaris" was used as the theme music for the Carl Sagan PBS Television series "Cosmos".
You have to wonder if the symbolism of the novel figured into the name of the OS... or if it's totally coincidental.
-- Terry
Your post got me to thinking. I think we can all agree that 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the best scifi films ever, but how many people think that there can ever be a film made like it again, ever, at least in Hollywood.
Sadly, 90% of the movie watching public expect the things you say, helicopter chases, plenty of sex, lots of violence, a solidly bad guy and a solidly good guy. Without lots of sex, violence, action or comedy films just won't sell in the market - 2001 had none of that but it's regarded as one of the best (scifi) films.
I think we are destined to never see another 2001, it just can't happen, not until that 90% of the population becomes educated.
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It wasn't particularly light hearted either. I have read the book and seen the movie, and the movie catches the mood of the book perfectly.
I agree that it will have to be dumped down a lot to reach to Hollywood idea of a sci-fi audience, i.e. the people who think _The Matrix_ was a "deep" movie.
Prepare to be delighted: Ruscico's NTSC Stalker and Solaris DVDs are Region 0, thus playble worldwide.
There are also PAL Region 2 versions from Artificial Eye in the UK.
Ted
I am yet another bored American.. cannot believe I stayed focused long enough to make it this far down this list! :) Yawn... now who is MTV's #1 single today? click click click...
The 1972 Russian version of "Solaris" was unbearably tedious and plodding. Lem's novel, while not as spritely as some of his others (like my fave, Chain of Chance), was a helluva lot livlier. The novel is a literal fountain of special effects, and I'm willing to give the Hollywood hacks listed a break if they can capture just some of that magic.
The word "solaris" isn't Greek it is Latin. The Greek word for the sun is "elios". Quite different from the Latin "sol" isn't it?.
When I hear "Solaris", I think Gatchaman.
--
I went to a 70mm screening of 2001 with a couple of people only 5 years younger than me(late 20s) a while back. They really didn't get it. It was quite depressing.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.