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Review: Solaris
Lem's novel is a really good work of sci-fi, not light reading but worth the effort to comprehend. The new Solaris movie is only 90-odd minutes long, and at that it's too long.
Comparisons will be made to 2001 and Apocalypse Now, two other slow-moving, philosophical movies. The problem is that both of those movies actually had interesting things to say, and managed to keep the viewer's attention despite being slow-paced. Solaris is simply slow. Long sections of the movie have no dialog and no background sounds whatsoever. When there is background music, it lacks the classical majesty of 2001 and is actually a bit annoying. These flaws might be forgivable if we were truly interested in the plot, but we aren't: it's a trivial love story, told many times before. (Most of the interesting parts of Lem's book have been sliced away to leave only the love tale, and the sci-fi twist is not enough to save it, IMHO.) I found myself nodding off during parts of the movie.
A couple of the reviews I read didn't quite grasp what was going on, especially the end. I found it quite clear and straightforward: the movie gives you plenty of clues so there shouldn't be any doubt left in your mind when the credits roll. Admittedly I approached the film with substantial knowledge about the book, but... it should have been clear to anyone.
Overall: it's pretty. The effects are well-done, at least you aren't short-changed there. As far as sci-fi movies go, it isn't bad - there have been so many worse sci-fi movies that I'll take whatever I can get. And at least they had the decency to make it short; if this movie were 2.5 hours long instead of 1.5, it would be intolerable. I'd recommend it to sci-fi fans. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for non-fans, however; if you want a love story, go see Ghost or something.
I'd like to know what that bizarre techno-like music was that the station admin guy was listening to in the beginning of the movie. Anybody know?
This is such a hopelessly short review that I have no idea what the commenter actually thought of the film. I've really been anticipating this one, too...the 1972 solaris is one of the greatest films I think I've seen. Well, can't troll too much here...at least Katz didn't write this review. ;)
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
Well... looks like another story dup:
It's been a real Sunny day! *ducks*
crabby much?
sheesh.
Die Another Day has an invisible car?! I heard it was crap, but with this information, I'll definately be seeing it!
If the poster is a /.'er and the trailers make Solaris look like a chick flick, how did he end up at the movie?
(sorry I couldn't resist)
Its sad they ruined this by turning into a love story. The movie cast away Lem's real intents. The book (as are most of Lem's) is about the lack of communication, the mystery of the mind and loss. I dont think hollywood audiences have the attention span to see all that Lem encompasses, which might make them think a bit too much, but surely they can stomach a little more than this! I would highly recommend the book.
Worst Sci-Fi ever? Battlestar Galactica, 1980
That was HORRIBLE!!! (and yes I know it was not a movie, but it was such a let down...and the wires...and Wolfman Jack...and the acting...and)
DAD...have not seen it yet, I am waiting for it to download off of Kazaa, though I now wondering if my bandwidth is worth even trying to look at that piece of crap.
Our ever present hope is that some will do a movie well with both good effect and keep true to the writer's intent, but ever so often, Sci-Fi is reduced to a light show voices rather then social and moral commentaries they are supposed to be.
Tis a shame.
"Bastard operators don't just win...they win and demoralize...that is REAL winning."
We all know that your Blink 182 CD is older than your copy of Bollocks.
;)
^^ god that's witty.
But I'm still going to see it.
Why, you ask? Because I'm a SF fan, in the worst sense of the word- I go to SF conventions, although I haven't stooped to a Star Trek con.
I had an opportunity to see the teaser trailers for Solaris a few months ago, and pretty much decided I'd see it then. I was afraid that it would be the way the reviewers have painted it, but I had hopes otherwise.
Also, Azathoth help me, I'm a George Clooney fan- since I haven't seen The Perfect Storm, I still am.
Interesting with all the cool stuff Bond uses, Solaris isn't anywhere to be found.
Maybe it's McNealy who got humped by, er, jumped over the shark.
People at least are going to paying to watch Bond. Meanwhile, all they ever say about Sun is don't look at it.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I was really interested in Solaris when I saw the original teaser but then I recently saw a trailer for it and read some discriptions of the movie and it seemed like a sci-fi romance to me.
But what is the correct way to pronounce Solaris (as in Sun's OS)? I always said the 'a' like 'hair'...but on the previews for this they said it like 'car.' Just me wondering if I've been pronouncing Solaris wrong all this time. :)
We wave the flag of freedom as we conquer and invade.
was the snow mobile guy (Bond hijacks him) that came out of nowhere.
You should try a real Mojito some where (the drink he gets). They ROCK if you can get a good one.
another review from Micheal thatis not only completely contradictory to the status quo but also completely off-base. I think HE is the one who didn't grasp what was going on there. The movie isn't for everyone, but if you care to be engaged by a movie in several ways (either by passively just following it, or actually trying to figure it out as you go, and see the underlying meanings and goings-on) it's certainly worth the extended 1.5 hour toture you will certainly bear with this horrid piece of trash that oh I guess isn't so bad after all and beats watching Mission to Mars.... Dude, did it suck, and was it not worth the money, or was it ok, and you should go see it? Saying "ooooh it was so boring and I nearly passed out several times, and the plot was pointless and shallow" then going "yeah but its better than most sci-fi films and you should probably maybe not oughta kinda watch it" doesn't exactly give a good reccomendation one way or the other. AHHHHH I'm just pissed tomorrow is Monday.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
On the other hand, most of us loved Wonder Woman's invisible plane. This goes to show that, contrarily to the series' directors' ideas, the more Bond becomes a cartoonish super-hero parody of himself, the less we like him.
We're getting movies made that are pre-edited for tv showings, now. I miss the Bond from the actual stories (remember books?), which at least pretended to have Bond barely scrape through, and which showed far more grey in the world.
Get off my launchpad!
All his gadgets have been pretty far out. But the invisible AM is actualy based off of current tech that can make a tank invisible to the naked eye at something like a 1 mile distance.
If you had any taste, you would be bitching about Madonna's singing(if you can call it that).
ps. I didnt see you complaining about sharks with frikin' laser beams attached to their heads.
I guess it must be hard to compete against one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Andrei Tarkovsky has made incredible movies that leave undeletable impressions on your mind. Here is the imdb links to Tarkovsky's Solyaris
I saw DAD as well this weekend, and my capsule review is simple: it sucked, the Bond franchise has definitely jumped the shark (two words: invisible car).
Wow! Your Dad is James Bond?
Are you Austin Powers?
Can you introduce me to one of your female friends?
"Well, let's see... Doctor arrives at space station orbiting planet. Strange things have happened there. People have died. Doctor finds that his once dead wife is now very much alive on this space station. Where have I heard this before? Ah yes, it was really good the first time I saw it, when it was called Event Horizon"
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
This is what "jump the shark means
So was he (Clooney) a visitor or not? Was he afraid that he might be? Had his dead wiife dreamed him up as her vision of heaven? If he was real was he opting for a comfortable deception rather than reality?
Who was the child to be? Was the child symbolic of hope and trust or was ithe child symbolic of Solaris welcoming him. The child had only the most brief appearance previously and then comes in at the ending for some reason which I can only assume is pivotal to the plot. It made no sense to me however.
I was in a fog of uncertainty at the end. Nothing was resolved and it left an unsatisfying feeling.
> Bond franchise has definitely jumped the shark
What is with people using the clichéd catch phrase jump the shark? If you want to write an authoritative review, why begin it with some ridiculous reference to Happy Days that makes you sound like a pop-culture zombie. That quote will definitely encourage me to respect your media-induced opinion...
Be original.
Those of you waiting for the /. review of Solaris need wait no longer; it's here. I can sum it up simply: it sucked. Long-time readers will, no doubt, be hopeful for a well-though-out reasoned criticism of the movie, as it is being poorly received nearly across the boards, and so the question of "why?" is no doubt hanging on the lips of /. readers, perhaps hoping for some insight from a fellow sci-fi fan.
Unfortunately, your worst fears are realized: the review in question presents a simple viewpoint: "it's slow and boring, the Bond movie sucks too because it has an invisible car in it, and other reviewers also didn't like the film, but they're still a bunch of dummies." With fast-paced critical analysis like that, who needs well-reasoned arguments?Clearly, the reviewer had something icky in his coffee this morning, or worse, skipped the coffee altogether. On the whole, the Solaris review is uninformative and grumpy, although it does at least warn the reader away from what is supposedly a pretty awful film.
No breasts. No real info. Much whining. Joe Bob says, "Ignore it and hope it goes away." One star.
Lemme put my Solaris 8 x86 Review up.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
yeah. the car, it's invisible
If you pay oodles for product placement, wouldn't it be nice if people could actually see the product?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Too many typical Bond puns. I.E. Villian: [holding sword] "I'll get to the point"
Gadgets you know Bond should allready have. Sure back in the day it was cool to see what new toy Bond was going to get, but we allready have seen it all. There were few suprises in that department.
The only cool gadget: The Invisible Car. Nice concept, cameras on each side project incoming image on the opposite pannel.
The Plot: Evil guy makes big gadget to take earth hostage...Bond shoots some guys & has lots of sex...Bond allmost dies...Bond saves world
Still some sweet explosions/gunfights.
Bond movies have allways been great, but there's just no more anticipation of whats going to happen or what Bond is going to do. Its just too predictable.
I once shot a man who posted too many, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these"
We really need a +1:Collossal Dork moderation point :) or should it be -1????
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
James Bond films don't need reviewing. Everyone knows exactly what they're going to get
There is no pretension, unlike other films mentioned here, just good old-fashioned fun.
It's funny how there are more comments about Bond than Solaris.
I remember seeing a show on TLC or Discovery with the army using an "invisible" vehicle. It has some sort of cameras on one side and displays those images onto the other, making it blend it very good with its surroundings.
---
Always standing, I am a tree awaiting the lightning. -Samael, Crown
Sorry, but shouldn't this be Sun instead of News?
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
DUPE!
Solaris is one of those movies that tries to make a deeper-meaning point, much like American Beauty did.
American Beauty made profound statements during its 122 minutes, whereas Solaris could have had a similar impact if it were 4 minutes long.
"Mother, should I run for President? Mother, should I trust the government?"
God I'm sick of that phrase. I want to beat anyone who says it to death with a blunt instrument.
:)
Anyway I disagree about the Bond film. I suppose michael loved World is Not Enough and Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist though. (Which one was really more believable?) I thought that despite how over the top it went Bond was overall a very entertaining action film. It was pure Bond and that's all I ask. Of course, I did have some grievances with the instances of slow motion, but I can't have everything I guess.
In Solaris, Kelvin's days are spent in a futile effort to understand a planet with strange characteristics and irrational features that combine logic and chaos into an alien mixture that defies human understanding.
I have largely the same feelings whenever I port software to a Sun system.
Somehow, after reading this "review" here, I still have no idea what Solaris is about. From the theater poster, I can gather that there's a love story, and now I know it's at least somewhat "sci-fi" (the title seems to suggest that, but who knows), but beyond that, I'm clueless.
We have the technology today! Flexible LCDs are a reality. The tech used in the movie is entirely reasonable and practical: cameras shoot a picture from one side of the car and project the image on the other side.
When Q (Cleese) walked around it on that first shot, you saw his legs get huge and flash by as he walked in front of one of the cameras. That was the touch that made it beleivable.
You'd be better off making fun of some of the other stupid things in the movie, such as the entire driving-around-in-the-melting-ice-palace sequence.
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
This talk of Bond reminds me of one thing I didn't like about the latest movie. It seemed to me like Halle Berry's character was intentionally placed in the movie to more or less create a spin off movie or spin off series. I hope I am wrong, but just the mere illusion of that intent lowered my high thought of the James Bond Franchise.
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
but it's all about what existance is, and some people say it's weirder than 'The Sixth Sense' and is kind of like 'Vanilla Sky' (which I haven't seen.
Folks, Solaris in all forms is trash. The book is shite, the 1971 movie is shite, and this movie is shite. Go back to complaining how the removal of Tom Bombadil from LOTR ruined the movie.
i think you are refering to nanocoatings (which IS james bond-like), but there is a huge difference between being invisible and camoflauged... I say physics will be tremendosly challenged to make steel (or any ferrous metal) transparent. Nanocoatings will camo tanks, not make them invisible.
the Bond franchise has definitely jumped the shark (two words: invisible car).
Right. Because the James Bond movies and his stunts have always been believable and possible. How could they go and screw it up ?? BASTARDS !!
Who is this Karma guy and why is he bad ??
Well it has a lot to do with the fact that even though this was a Solaris review, the writer (or editor) felt the need to mention DAD. Why, I don't know, but it's the first sign of a shitty review when the reviewer immediately is mentioning other films.
That's John Cleese, you culturally stunted twit.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
He's been a robot.
He's been a carrot.
And on November 27th,
Rob Schneider is: George Clooney
Watch him try to stay sane as a killer space station tries to ruin his chances of getting the girl of his dreams.
Staring the voice of Oscar-winner Dame Judy Dench as the space station.
Rated R for partial rabbit nudity and poop jokes.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Uh.
This is the first time I have ever seen this phrase used anywhere. Who else uses this phrase?
It should have been the other one. She was so much HOTTER. I booed when i was in the cinema. People around me got annoyed? I wonder why? sheesh - people have no taste sorry for the spoiler :P
Addmittedly, I haven't seen the film yet, but it looks suspiciously like another Soderbergh-Clooney "wouldn't-it-be-cool-to-remake" vanity project like Ocean's Eleven. Soderbergh's been coasting on the goodwill from Erin Brokovich and Traffic long enough. Unless he wants to turn into Brian DePalma, he'd better start cranking out hits again, IMHO.
The phrase itself made the leap with The Simpsons in the couch scene a few weeks back.
these people.
It's very fast paced for a 3 hour movie. Unfortunately it's only 90 minutes long :)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
What is with people inventing adjectives like clichéd when there is a perfectly good real adjective like trite. Are clichéd things tritisms?
I agree the love story was distracting, but the movie was still good. I have no idea how the reviewer thought there were such long quiet pauses when 2001 had at least four times more lack of sound. I've seen both movies (and even 2010) within the past 3 days. Hey, HBO free preview weekend.
Even with the distracting love story, the end really resolves well and doesn't play too hard on the leads' relationship. I guess it should have been used more as a device.
Overall, it was a good "theme" movie (as opposed to 99.5% of movies, which fall into the "plot/action" category) along the lines of Magnolia or American Beauty. I walked away with a few interesting questions and mixed feelings.
-Vic If you can't figure out my email, then don't.
Bond movies are known for their fancy opening scenes. I wasn't particularly impressed with this opening scene. It wasn't awful. But it wasn't memorable either.
At the start of the movie, Bond is detained in a camp in North Korea. Since he is detained for a while, he looks skanky. WTF!!! Bond is not supposed to look skanky, Bond is supposed to be slutty.
Speaking of slutty, Bond is not slutty enough in this movie. He only sleeps with two women in the whole movie. That is well below standard. I could even pull that off.
The "invisible" Aston Martin was definitly a cool special effect. The entire theatre "wowed" in unison when it made it's first appearance. The Ford Thunderbird was pretty kick ass too.
In general, Die Another Day was a decent Bond movie, but not one of the best. And Pierce Brosnan is definitely getting too old to be Bond.
What is the point of a new Solaris movie? You wouldn't want to make one if you didn't think you can improve on the old movie. Sadly, I don't see anything worth improving in the 1972 Solaris movie... You can't even improve on the graphics - where would you inserd any computer animation?
...is the movie tolerable to someone who likes sci-fi but absolutely LOVES the breathtaking Natascha McElhone, and could sit through a sub-par movie as long as she were playing a major character in it?
o Find hot girl
o Throw in some 'dazzling' special effects
o Bad guy is total evil
o Plot is to blow up the world
o Plot is setup for a computer game to be made
o Bond visits the lab
o A new record is set marketing products in the movie - generates some revenue
o Actors frantically appear on all the late night shows and morning shows
o Marketed to death
o Aim is to make a killing in the opening week
You mean, it's not about the Sun Operating System?
This space left intentionally blank.
I saw the Tarkovsky film a few years ago, I'm afraid to see the remake because I don't want to obliterate my feelings about this great film with an overblown James ("Terminator" "Titanic") Cameron production. And Solaris is one of my favorite Lem novels, I even used to run a BBS with the name Solaris, long before Sun or anyone else latched on to that name.
I'll never forget going to see Solaris. I took my girlfriend and I had previously lectured her that this was a really long film, and that was part of the "Aesthetics of Boredom" that was part of both the book and the movie. So we went to the movie, and I'll never forget what happened. In the row in front of me, at about the 1 hour point, some guy started hassling his friends that the film was boring. Well of COURSE it was boring, they were just getting that established as a plot element. He griped and griped and then he finally got up and left. What a relief. We watched the whole film in peace, and my girlfriend and I went to a nearby diner to grab a bite to eat. And who the hell should sit down at the table next to us, that damn whiny guy and his friends. I got to hear him gripe about how boring the film was for ANOTHER half hour. My girlfriend and I cracked up with laughter.
I'm wondering did they cut out the first 30 very slow paced minutes from the original Solyaris. I'd especially like to know if the car ride from Solyaris where you see a car driving through tunnels for 10 minutes without anything happening.
But knowing the attention span of the regular hollywood movie viewer it was probably cut to 10 seconds.
After Vanilla Sky, The Ring (and surely many more i've forgotten) yet another hollywood remake. They surely run out of ideas don't they?
keep it simple.
Oh, wait. Supernova had some action, and some creepy parts.
Solaris didn't even manage to get to '2001' levels.
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
warrant searches you!!!
Vhaaat a kuuntree!
I must have been the only person in the audience that liked the movie, and so what? I think this movie is one of the the greatest. It is slow on purpose: it wants to make you think about what is happening on the screen: A man has lost his wife and after being sent to space, thinks she is being returned to him in the form of a real person, not just in dreams. He is forced to choose between parting ways *again* with his wife or staying in space on the ship but possibly going mad as the situation is not as simple as it may seem: this 'new' creature might have really been sent out there to destroy him. It's a movie about death, identity, guilt, longing for a lost one. I think it's quite remarkable and I'm glad Steven Soderberg & James Cameron had the courage to take a chance by making a movie that goes so much against the usual Hollywood mold.
So what it's slow? The cinematography combined with the music create truly eerie moments. It is nice to be able this kind of stuff at the Cineplex and not just at the small art theater once in a while!
So there it is folks: if you like Blade Runner, Gattaca, music like Brian Eno's or simply want to take a chance, go see this movie! I think you'll like it.
there's no place like ~
> Something tells me thought that there will be less splattered body matter in Solaris, and less people pulling their eyes out of their sockets.
Clearly Solaris is the loser of those two, then. I mean really, _less_ splattered body matter?! _Less_ people pulling their eyes out of their sockets?! WTF?!
Unforgivable.
On a more serious vein (couldn't resist), I know everybody hates Event Horizon, but I rather liked it. I'll say this for it - it has by far the most effective use of sound for a horror movie that I've ever experienced. Great special effects, and more realistic depiction of technology than the vast, _vast_ majority of sci-fi films. The acting was fine, and the idea for the story was interesting. The execution was certainly off, but c'mon, there are FAR worse movies out there, even if you narrow it down to that year, than Event Horizon. Maybe people complain so bitterly about it because they had higher hopes? I dunno, but people saying this is the worst movie they've ever seen makes me wonder if they've seen more than a dozen movies. Gimme a break.
When there is background music, it lacks the classical majesty of 2001 and is actually a bit annoying.
Classical majesty? Wow, we think differently. Because of this movie, 2001, I can't stand to listen to that Blue Danube waltz anymore. Playing the same thing, over and over again, and then playing a different section of the same piece, over and over again. I felt like I couldn't breath when watching it.
Anyway, Solaris was a bad movie. The story was really, really, cool, but the movie was not good. Not at all. The sequences where we stared at Natasha McElhone were too long and too frequent-- it seemed they were more space fillers (in a short movie?) than an attempt at displaying George Clooney's memories of her. The guy playing the spaced-out California surfer dude was funny, but that was the high point of the movie for me. I haven't read the book, but I KNOW it gives a really interesting story that the movie Solaris doesn't know how to explain. You can say the movie was good if you're afraid that some "intellectual" can better explain its virtues, but the truth is, it sucked. Don't be afraid to say it. It sucked.
No, that wasn't what Bond was always about. Back when Sean Connery was Bond (remember him?) it was a SPY movie. Not an overdone action flick. Bond works terrible as an action movie, as the last two movies have evidenced. I hope, but doubt, that DAD will be any better than Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is not Enough.
A more enlightening review can be found here.
The filthy critic hasn't let me down yet... see review for DAD
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
That was a BOOK review. This was a Movie review. Moving Pictures and Sound, ya know.
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
But The Ur-Quan Masters is so fucking addictive... :)
0 001 11 1
I saw this lastnight, and it was seriously the most painful movie I've ever had to watch. I don't know what books or older movies it was based off of, but the fact of the matter is it had George Clooney and that's it. It was slow, short on dialog, confusing, and a lot of the plot was disconnected and left open-ended.
no comment
In a recent UK documentary on the making of Die Another Day the producer of the film explained that the Invisible Vanquish was an extrusion of the idea of adaptive camoflage systems that both America and Britain are developing.
The Car in the bond film is a bit of fantasy loosely based on reality.
Adaptive Camoflage is designed to be fitted to the Reactive Armour plates on modern tanks using liquid crystal or simmilar technology. The system can be used in the case of a prepared position where the tank commander walks say 100 feet downrange prior to the tank being positioned, takes a digital photo of the position and then moves the tank into place.
The picture is then used to 'paint' the plates on the vehicle to resemble the area the vehicle was moved into so an enemy unit approaching from a distance will find it hard to visually aquire the tank.
This system can also be used to 'best-guess' the colours required when stopping in the battlefield (albeit without jumping out for the snapshot). For example; a tank could stop half in front of a building and hedge and be 'painted' in the colours of the building & hedge.
This only works against an enemy unit approaching from one direction and even then would only work from several hundred meters away (unless the enemy approached in a straight line directly toward the tank).
This system will likely be implemented and refined over time but a vehicle which could appear 'invisible' under close inspection is rather far-fetched and something very much based in Science-Fiction
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I had not heard "Die Another Day" called DAD before. I was confused at first.
Round these parts we have a wacky furniture store with entertainment gimmicks, such as the Motion Odyssey Movie (MOM) and an IMAX theater.
So potentially you could see DAD on MOM.
Ew.
This review won't change Sci-Fi fans minds, most of us will see anything sci-fi related (unless it starts rap stars or dicaprio).
Just look at us, we watched Star Trek Voyager for years even though it was terrible.
Nuts! It was a great movie!
There was a lot in the book that couldn't be put into the movie without making it rival LOTR in length. So they decided to focus in on just one aspect of it: Rhea. So what? Try to imagine every theme, idea and philosophical rumination of the book translated into cinema. It would have been horribly dense, dry and exhausting, rivaling all three parts of LOTR in length. But by focusing in on just one part, and a major part at that, they managed to create a workable film. I wished they would have removed the back story, but overall it was a great film.
And at least they put some pacing (and an ending) in it. The book had a beginning then an extended discussion on philosophy punctuated only by changes in the topics being discussed. Reading Solaris is almost like reading a graduate dissertation on the themes of Solaris...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I must respectfully disagree with Michael on this one.
James Bond films have always reflected the times in which they were made, for better (1960's) or worse (1970s-80s).
Right now, an invisible car is just what you'd expect from a Bond picture, IMHO.
If we needed a reason to dislike DAD, look no further than the TERRIBLE visual effects.
Dear /.
Battlefield was NOT the worst Sci-Fi movie ever.
With Love,
L. Ron Hubbard
Because the marketing for this movie was split. They had two parallel campaigns running - one that played up the Sci-Fi aspect, another that played up the romantic love story aspect. They were hoping to appeal to two different core audiences.
Ultimately it failed likely because it alienated both audiences.
I saw Solaris opening night on Friday. I quite enjoyed it, but probably because I enjoyed the cinematography, design and overall feel of the movie. Character development is fairly good, despite the sparse dialog and join-the-dots plot. Even so, I was suprised by the very gentle and understated warmth of the movie - allowing the subtle emotions of the characters to be observed in the relative calm of rest of the movie. It's also worth noting that most (if not all) of the action events and violence takes place off-screen, which was a nice change and felt very mature compared to the current Hollywood "lots of things explode" mentality of movie making.
Overall, this movie seemed like someone's art project that somehow received a couple of million to turn into a full blown theatrical release. If you treat it as such, you'll probably enjoy it. I'd give it a B+ rating.
There are several long and gratutitis scenes of George Cloony's Ass.
- James Bond films don't need reviewing. Everyone knows exactly what they're going to get
... explosions, nasty baddies, Bond being cool, gadgets and girls.
What you say ?40 years of cinematic history down the toilet in favor of bright flashes and loud bangs. Since XXX is a Bond wannabe, that makes Die Another Day a second generation knock-off. What's missing from this movie? Any real sense that we're watching 007 rather than a generic spy in a tuxedo.
For Die Another Day, some elements of the Bond formula are intact: the cool gadgets (including an invisible car, a glass-shattering ring, and an ice speeder), the attractive women (although, at least in the case of Jinx, she's more of a partner/rival than a mere love interest), the globe-trotting (from North Korea to Hong Kong to Havana to London to Iceland), and the martinis (shaken, not stirred). The villain, Graves, and his henchman, Zao, are unmemorable, and their inevitable comeuppances are hardly the kind of moments to get audiences cheering.
The opening theme is dreadful. It's a Madonna pop tune, not a Bond song, and its lack of musical consistency strikes a dissonant chord. (And, as "payment" for providing such an awful piece of music, Madonna gets to "act" in a cameo, which, unfortunately, allows her to speak a few lines of dialogue.) David Arnold's score, which makes liberal use of the "James Bond Theme," seems okay, although most of it is drowned out by the explosions.
Director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, The Edge) may be to blame. Even though this anniversary movie supposedly contains something from each of the previous 19 outings (many of which appear as props in Q's lab), one gets the sense that Tamahori either doesn't understand Bond or has miscalculated the nature of his appeal. It's not enough to throw all of the Bond elements together and hope that they somehow work. A little more precision and craftsmanship are necessary (and a better script wouldn't have hurt things). Let's hope this represents an aberrance, not a trend.
If there's one thing to recognize, it's that a single bad outing will not succeed where Blofeld and dozens of other maniacs have failed. Whether played by Pierce Brosnan or someone else, James Bond will return. Let's just hope that when he does, he's the 007 we have come to love and admire, not the impostor that inhabits Die Another Day.
© 2002 James Berardinelli
Bad Things:
Overall: 5/10 Watch it when you are in the mood for a SLOW thinker flick.
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
Really simple: my opinion is always the exact opposite of theirs. Once again my point is proven.
Derek Greene
A couple of the reviews I read didn't quite grasp what was going on, especially the end. I found it quite clear and straightforward: the movie gives you plenty of clues so there shouldn't be any doubt left in your mind when the credits roll. Admittedly I approached the film with substantial knowledge about the book, but... it should have been clear to anyone.
Are you calling those revewers idiots, or what? Obviously they wern't able to tell what what was going on. Unless they were robots, it couldn't possibly 'be clear to anyone'. Moron.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I actually enjoyed the new Bond. Dont get me wrong, Ive seen all the 007 movies and it wasnt the best, however it most certianly wasnt the worst. Bond got Jynx (Hallie Berry) into the sack after about 5 words i thought that alone was pretty impressive. As for the invisible car if you listened to Q telling Bond about how it worked, although unlikly, i sound possible (if you could get cameras that small. Overall I was quite entertained,the fight scenes were among the best and the acting was superb.
Codes, News, Jokes and more - www.codedemons.com
Asking a bunch of slashdot posters to review Solaris is like asking a bunch of English Lit majors what graphics card to put in your latest PC.
It's a brilliant movie. I find it funny that so many people here think that it needed more action. Go see Die Another Day!
Ken
Which drug on and on and on... I couldn't watch it... Maybe they took that element from the original.
I haven't seen the movie but no doubt hollywood has completely missed the point and tried to turn it into a bland action/love fest.
In simple terms Solaris is a planet that is also a mind. The experiences of the characters in the movie are a result of the planet 'studying' the people, or of the characters internal thoughts and feelings impressing themselves on the external environment. It is a story reflecting on ourselves, which naturally is going to bore the fuck out of boring people.
Stanislaw Lem is an excellent writer and I suggest people read the book. I believe that Lem also disliked the original Russian movie made in 1972.
First off, I think Lem's book 'Solaris' was pretty good, not great. But Tarkovsky's 1972 adaptation of the book into a movie was indeed great - one of those rare occasions when the movie was better than the book.
After reading various reviews of this new Hollywood 'Solaris' the only reason I'd consider seeing it is to see how badly they messed it up.
Check out Tarkovsky's Solyaris as a good intro into the great Russian director's movies. Granted, to the American moviegoer Tarkovsky's films will seem a bit slow at first and require a bit of patience because there will be long periods of time where nothing is blowing up. But if you can hang in there you'll find them to be quite profound. Nothing in American cinema can quite compare - Kubrick comes closest. In addition to Solyaris definately check out Tarkovsky's 'Stalker'.
I liked it a lot. I think it's totally worth watching, for fans of complex movies from all genres. It has a number of shortcomings, and you might not decide that it's a great movie, but it's worth seeing just to watch where they fail.
There are a number of aspects that are absolutely fantastic. The exposition is very very well done. Stanislaw Lem fans, Soderberg fans, and hell, even Clooney fans will be happy with the exposition, even though it's the slowest part of the movie. That's my biggest confusion w/ this review - the slow parts were the best parts of the movie. I almost wished they just skipped the plot. Clooney 'n' the scientists' acting were so excellent that I wish they just played with character all movie long.
The whole movie deviates from the novel in big ways. In the beginning, Lem fans will accept those changes, because they were good decisions. The end, unfortunately, is full of bad decisions.
The end of the movie was very disappointing for me. I'm not the kind of person that feels a movie needs some Usual Suspects style reversal in order to be interesting or witty. If it's well orchestrated, and the movie is lightweight in the first place, then it can be nice. Here, it felt cheap. I wanted a hard answer. They didn't deliver. Still, scenes like Clooney sitting in the library leaving a message to coordinate a meeting... that made it all worth while.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
"They ruined it by making it a love story". "They dropped a lot of the Sci-Fi bits". Oh boo hoo. It's a movie! And it's a remake of an excellent movie.
Sci Fi is only the genre, the setting not the actual story. The story is about people, NOT a mysterious planet, NOT space, NOT ALIENS. It's about people and how we can feel emotions related to things that are not real, are similar to our experiences etc. If your dead cat came back you'd still love it. Solaris is about humans and our emotions. Stop bitching you lost your 10 bucks to it. What the hell did you expect? The commercials were sappy enough.
I can understand to have a duplicate here and there, or to have a story posted a few days after it was first posted, nobody is perfect, but posting a dupe with only two stories in between the original and the dupe, what are the editors thinking???
;)
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Solaris... it brings the dead back to life!
.... Solaris
Processes just live on forever in Solaris
No zombies here
Solaris... you'll wonder if it's an illusion
I watched this movie, I read the book a few times, I saw the Russian version a couple of times as well. My sig. says it all.
:)
I think this movie was misrepresented by the ads, it was presented as a space science fiction thriller. Sci-fi fans expected to see another Star Wars or another Alien movie, the women were bought off by G.C.'s naked rear-end. I was there hoping to see a different point of view that should have been different in a Hollywood way, in a way that commercializes any idea and delivers it for the masses to consume in large volumes, however I was surprised how poorly they did what they were supposed to do - make this movie into something that would awaken interest of the above mentioned consumers. They took a mindless road of rephrasing what the Russian movie has delivered. This was not the road this Hollywood movie should have taken. The Russian movie was doomed to success, this new movie is simply doomed. The new movie took a simple approach - they adopted the Russian movie (not the book, now I know that for sure) and took out all the parts that actually had to do with science at all.
There was no good explanation on nature of Solaris, there was no attempt on the part of the crew to try and communicate with the ocean by sending Kelvin's encephalograms to it through X-Rays. The movie could have been better if only it had at least some of that. At least Kelvin should have taken his wife's blood and compared it to his own blood under an electronic microscope to see that her blood cells did not consist of atoms. In the new movie Kelvin's wife did not even attempt to brake the door when Kelvin left, she did not rock the rocket before she was launched into the orbit, and Kelvin's face was not burned by the launching rocket.
Oh, sure, there were some Hollywood tricks of the trade in place - like poor attempts to confuse the viewers who were trying to understand who is a clone and who is real, but it did not help much. Snaut (in the book he was an old man with gray hair who killed his clone) was too obvious and looked ridiculous in his attempts to misrepresent reality of the situation (watch the movie, I am not going to spoil it for you.)]
The Russian movie ended with some closure, this new adoptation ended with a usual Hollywood trick that did not help making this movie any more attractive to the general public. It is true, many of the people in the theater left before the end of the movie and most of the rest were confused and left out of the plot, many of them did not understand what was going on! That is not the way to treat a great book like Solaris! I am not saying that the producer should have gone completely by the book but this is Hollywood, and he should have made it more watchable to the lowest common denominator, the people who do not have patience and lack imagination (thank you Hollywood and the Fox channel) to complete the untold story.
Now I hope that there will be another release of Solaris by Wachowski brothers, that should show a different point of view
I still say - go and watch it, but also read the book and watch the original. If nothing else, this should give you a perspective on different approaches and styles that exist, maybe you can come up with your own representation of the story, test your own imagination.
Cheers
You can't handle the truth.
Lem's story was first, though. Event Horizon, The Sphere, and this movie are only cheap Hollywood imitations.
The next movie in SOLARIS sequel will be: CmdrTaco installing Sun Solaris to run /.
The first 2 hours of the movie we'll see Rob looking at the installation progress bar and second 2 hours we'll experience the thrill of the configuration manager.
You can't handle the truth.
Solaris was a great book, but it depends
on Lem's prose to a great extent.
The actual plot could easily be one from
StarTrek, or TwilightZone.
So what part of me filtering "movies" does slashdot not understand? I don't respect your opinions, ever, I never will, I don't want it on my fucking front page!
but on the previews for this they said it like 'car.'
The "Forsaken" video game, for PC, N64, and PSX, pronounces heat-seeking missile as "Soh-LAR-is" as in car, like on the TV commercial for the movie.
I pronounce the Sun operating systems' name as "Sun Oh Ess".
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hey, I thought Die Another Day was a very respectable addition to the Bond franchise. I enjoyed it and may go see it again. Pierce does a great job as Bond, not as good as Sean The Ultimate, but much better than the rest of the pack of wanna-bes. The plot, the locales, the bad guys, the set pieces, the girls - all great. A little weak on the gizmos, too much reliance on just the invisible car to cover the gizmo angle, but hey, that was cool too. The sword fight and the fight on the jet as it's falling apart were especially good. Maybe I was enjoying the popcorn too much and not thinking it through as the movie unfolded, but I was actually surprised by the resolution of the traitor angle as well as the true ID of the main bad guy, so I gotta say there was a pretty good surprise factor in it for me, too. Nice to see Bond behind the power curve and on his own for a while, too - that was actually the one angle of Bond that Timothy did well in one of his films. They're trying to set Halley up with her own franchise as Jinx and considering how commercial and crass such a thing COULD have been, they did a pretty good job of that too. Overall, I give DAD an 8 out of 10. If ytou haven't seen it, you should.
PS - The theme song and the nude credits on the opening were kinds sub-par this time around, I thought...Oh well.
- short answer answer.
..... but wait, I am not going to tell you. Read the book.
Long answer - Kelvin is sent to a station (not a space station, but rather a station that float above the planet named Solaris by using antigravity... Now, he enters the station where there supposed to be 3 people. Finds one of them who talks all crazy and tells Kelvin to wait a little to understand what is going on. Apparently one of the 3 people is dead (suicide). Kelvin waits, reads notes etc. goes to sleep, wakes up and sees his long dead wife (10 years ago commited suicide because of Kelvin leaving her...) He is scared, tries to escape her, she goes through a steel plate not to be left behind, and, oh, btw., her wounds heal very quickly. He jettisons her into an orbit in a small rocket (which she almost dismantles before it leaves the station.) Now, he thinks he's crazy and with some complicated scientific calculations proves to himself that he is not. It is all about Solaris - a planet covered with some bio-mass ocean that can be anything and is very powerfull (for example it stabilizes its own planet's orbit in a binary star system.) The ocean apparently is studying people or maybe just toing with them, in any case we do not know what it is doing, if it means to do it or if it just happens to do it without even realizing anything.
Kelvin's dead wife comes back the next morning (binary star system btw.) So he tries to approach this logically but remembers his love to her and doesn't know what to think to do whatever. Another scientist on the station finds out how to destabilize the field that holds neutrinoes that the clones are made of, and by doing so how to destroy the clones. Anyway, at the end
You can't handle the truth.
Sun Microsystems should sue the producers of "Solaris" for trademark infringement. :)
Repeal the DMCA!
Close up of hand of God reaching out to Adam from Michelangelo's Sistene Chapel.
black and white picture of The Creation of Adam from the Web Museums page on Michelangelo.
color photo of The Creation of Adam.
Look at the eye contact remember George Clooney's glance in that scene.
Notice the unborn behind God. Isn't that a nice bit of paradox?
My first reaction was to dismiss the hand of God reference as pretentious, but it does add a lot of depth to the movie, and it was finely executed by Clooney and Soderberg.
I just came home from watching Solaris, and here's what I have to say about it.
To me, it seemed like the kind of movie that humanity will appreiciate more a long time from now, when we're much more mature as a race. This movie is deep, it stimulates us to think about what we really are as humans. Most of the people I know aren't used to anything beyond the depth of "Die Another Day." Maybe that's why the reviewer mentioned that movie as a contrast. There's some deep intellectual stuff going on in this movie, and all the quiet times are there for the viewer to reflect and think.
If you're not used to thinking, then this movie definately will suck for you. I thought it was well worth the price. Go, make up your own mind, and if it sucks for you, ask for your money back. They'll usually give it.
(my $0.03 CDN)
Another reason for me to go see it myself. The price of a movie ticket isn't so much, after all. Usually if I want anything back after seeing a movie, it's my time, but you can't get that back.
From everything I've seen, it isn't *that* bad.
I thought, why is Sun advertising like that?
I mean seriously, who expects an OS to be on a movie poster....
I just got back from seeing Solaris and I really liked it. I thought the ending was a bit crap, but it only lasted a minute or so, so what. I have read the book and own the original on DVD so I went in expecting this movie to be better than most of the trash that plaques movie screens these days. I got what I wanted. I would even go see it again. It's about time we can watch a movie that doesn't have corporate sponsored ads plastered in every shot, stupid cock rock music in every scene to go along with really bad punch lines, and special effects that drug the audience because the movie plain sucks. Do yourself and directors that might make more movies like this a favor, go see the movie.
For someone who claims to know a lot about the history of Solaris, I had to chuckle upon the notion that this movie was being considered a sci-fi movie! *This* version of Solaris is the complete opposite to science fiction. This is a love story! You don't need to see Ghost for crying out loud, it's right here in front of you. Frankly, recommending a movie like this to sci-fi fans is completly wrong thing to do, they'll hate it.
This movie is an alternate take on how a love story is protrayed by Hollywood and well worth a look from that viewpoint. Solaris plays the role of working with what we already know about other people and building characters based on that information. It's completely apparent in the character of Clooney's wife and how he see's her. Without spoiling this film for those who haven't seen it, just go in knowing it's a love story and really has nothing to do with sci-fi. It being set in space is obviously a backdrop for what's really going on.
Just sit back and enjoy Soderbergh's great work.
But after a while, the same old formula starts to break down and the same plot with the characters switched around starts to lose its entertainment value. Hollywood chooses to spend money on SFX and pretty actresses, which will continue to entertain the masses long after the plot has vanished.
My solution? Bring Sean Connery back as an aged James Bond, just for the hell of it. And oh yeah, stop milking franchises for money. I don't run the entertainment industry, thank goodness I don't.
I completely agree with the original review, and I probably would have said about the same, but I'd like to add several questions I had about the movie that might have ended up on the cutting room floor or only in the book or... something.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW
Let's see... What was the deal with the door knob? it was some sex metaphor since it was between her legs with the key-hole facing toward Chris (Clooney), but that's just a guess. What was the physicist-girl's creation that kept knocking around in her room? Why did Chris' wife always have this creepy-ish plastic grin through the first half of the movie? What the hell happened to the security detail that was sent in before Chris got there? The guy that was there said the security detail got there and killed one guy, but... where did the security detail go after that?? They didn't go back! And what about the guy they said just disappeared? that he simply wasn't on the ship anymore? what happened to him? how did he get off the ship? Why did his friend commit suicide instead of leaving the ship? he seemed happy in the memories...
OK, ENDING SPOILERS
The thing that really irritated me about Die Another Day was the villain with diamonds stuck in his face... I mean, come on. The scabs would just fall out on their own.
The whole time I saw the movie I was sitting there wondering to myself, "WHY ARE THE FREAKING DIAMONDS STUCK IN YOUR FACE? HERE'S A DAMN TOOTHPICK, PRY THEM OUT!"
Talk about trying to make a "memorable" villain and failing horribly.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
... Ok, that got your attention :)
Seirously though, the invisibility cloak in the movie is based off of the REAL life research being done into this area by the US army. See here for the slashdot piece on it from a few months ago. While the capabilities of the cloak in the movie are of course exaggerated (hello, it is a BOND film), the explanation they give for how it works in the movie is basiclly line for line what the real life model does.
The "So-LAHR-iss" pronunciation dominates the movie, but several times characters say it "So-LAIR-iss"; whether that's a case of directorial sloppiness by Soderbergh or some kind of too-clever-by-half hidden message, I leave to people with even more time to waste than I have...
We can reduce ideas to bits and people to genes, but "can" does not imply "should".
it really sucked....oh god did it suck. What was I thinking? food or george clooney's butt..?
I guess I can see what you're saying, but I've just expected more from Bond films since Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies, both of which are the best Bonds films in recent memeory. Perhaps due to the arrival of Pierce Brosnan?
My Journal - 1,337 fans and countin
Sphere was based off of a Michael Chrighton book, and was HORRIBLY adapted ot the big screen. It was a very good book when I first read it, and years later when I heard about the screen adaptation I was thrilled... until I saw it. It isn't even true to the book at all. Huge plot elements are left out, I feel sorry for anyone who saw it without first reading the book. And in fact, I wish I had never seen it, since it now tarnishes my whole memory of the proper story.
I dont think hollywood audiences have the attention span to see all that Lem encompasses, which might make them think a bit too much, but surely they can stomach a little more than this!
You're wrong.
During the screening I went to, dozens of people walked out. More than one person said "That Sucked" right at the end. I didn't hear anyone say anything good about it.
I thought it was good, but it wasn't nearly as complete as I had hoped (as, I think you're saying).
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
Simply, the worst movie is "Mission to Mars". Five, just five minutes into the movie and I was zoning out. Half way through the movie and I said out loud in the theatre, "This movie Sucks!". And I am a courteous type, never inclined to do that before. Leaving the theatre, I passed by the manager and said, "I want my money back!".
What was the deal with the door knob?
It establishes Chris and Rhea's relationship. The first thing he noticed about her wasn't that she was a pretty girl, but that she was carrying, of all things, a doorknob. This demonstrates that their relationship will be unconventional.
What was the physicist-girl's creation that kept knocking around in her room?
That's not important to the story, so it was deliberately left to your imagination. Note, also, her line, "I never get used to these... resurrections." She's definitely got some serious issues.
Why did Chris' wife always have this creepy-ish plastic grin through the first half of the movie?
Because she's flirting with Chris. Women-- and men, for that matter-- who are attracted to you often smile for no apparent reason. It's possible that you might not be aware of this if you've never seen it in real life.
What the hell happened to the security detail that was sent in before Chris got there?
They disappeared.
The guy that was there said the security detail got there and killed one guy, but... where did the security detail go after that??
They disappeared. Any more time spent wondering about this will be classified under "missing the point."
And what about the guy they said just disappeared? that he simply wasn't on the ship anymore? what happened to him?
He also disappeared. This is what I meant by "missing the point."
I write in my journal
Sounds cool. I'll wait a while and rent it. That way if I really have to do some heavy thinking I can hit Pause. I always do my best thinking in the bathroom anyway....
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
Yes, Seth, you did.
Event Horison was a fun movie, which tried to touch on the themes Solaris covers; fear, loss, lack of communication, regret, and perception versus reality. The science is hokey but Solaris was no better and Event Horizon moved at a good pace, had plenty of great lines and excellent effects. How could you forget other lines like, "You don't need eyes to see where we are going."? Awsome. To make things really good, it had gotten dark, and the sky was full of heat lightning when we came out. God has the best shows.
Please do rent Event Horizon and record the lines you like and post them.
In any case, I expect great things from Sodenberg. His insight is penetrating and he's not afraid to amuse his audience with it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
To say that the movie was based on the book is saying too much. Poor acting, poor plot. This felt like a very bad summary of the book. By far the worst movie i've seen this whole year. Do not waste your money, see "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" or something actually worth spending your money on.
Both Lem's novel and Tarkovsky's film our personal favorites of mine. I wasn't looking forward to a remake. I went to go see to compromise with my wife . It has enough science fiction to entertain me. And it had a love story for the misses. I didnt tell her a thing about the plot, but just the quality of the filmmaking kept her anticipating. She kept expecting a shock, like it were a horror movie. BUt her reactions to the film were much more than just physical. *spoiler* When Kelvin sends the first construct away in the ship/,she started crying. She had never cried at the movies before. Instead of a physical fright, she had a very emotional response, which really seemed to fir into the picture intself. *spoiler/ And at the end as the ship descends and he "doesnt have to think like that anymore." she gave me a nice little squeeze, like she understood the relief and torment. So anyway. Get away from the computer. Shower. Take a bathe. Freshen up. FInd a girl or boy. And impress them with your sensitivity. And enjoy the nifty space station interiors and CGI.
My opinion is that the Cyberiad, done in a light-hearted, animated way, would have been a better choice, if you wanted to make a film from Lem's work.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The US military are looking at the precise technology that Q's
invisible car is supposed to use.
I don't think it would ever be as effective as the invisible car in Bond -
but as more of a cameleon-like camoflage that takes on the general
colouration of the background, it might work. Heck, it works for
cameleons.
www.sjbaker.org
My brother and I went to see Solaris on Thanksgiving and I was expecting an Event Horizon rip-off but instead got what I can only describe as an attempt to define "God".
There are really two scenes in this movie, everything else is filler:
1. A flashback where Kelvin and his wife are having dinner with some friends and they talk about God and how it's a man-made concept. How we attrbiute human characterics to something that isn't, blah, blah.
2. At the end, when Kelvin is "absorbed" into "Solaris" -- which, by the way, isn't a planet at all. He "thinks" he's back on Earth, living his life. Ahhh, but he isn't. He's in "heaven".
Why do I say this? Because at the very end he cuts himself, as he does at the beginning and discovers that he's instantly healed -- e.g. he isn't "real" anymore. He kinda freaks out and then his dead wife walks in and says:
"We've been forgiven. Everything we've ever done is forgiven." (Or something to that affect.)
Sorry, this movie is a Christian's wet-dream and had nothing to do with sci-fi, space, planets, science, or anything.
It just had to do with some specious notion of what and where "God" is and that "everything is all right".
Don't waste your money, time, or energy. This movie is total shite.
Oh, yeah. We both liked the stupid sci-fi bit they threw in to placate the non-religious crowd. The "manifestations" can be eliminated using an anti-Higgs boson emitter. Cute. Not.
To call Solaris disappointing would be an understatement. The truth is, the movie is awful. Lem's novel had a science fiction emphasis that revolved around a living "sentient ocean" on the planet Solaris. The focus was on how man would react to a nonanthropomorphic being whose nature and behavior man was unable to comprehend. A romantic (slightly) subplot served the main plot by illustrating a facet of the ocean's behavior-the planet's own reaction to humans that it, in turn, was unable to comprehend.
Tarkovsky's 1972 film version of Solaris downplayed (but kept) the science fiction, put more emphasis on the love story, and created a second subplot involving estrangement of the hero (Kris Kelvin) from his father. The new subplot required a prologue (considerable material not in the novel) that was the foundation for a plot twist at the end. Lem was appalled by the liberties Tarkovsky had taken with the novel. Lem said Tarkovsky "didn't make Solaris at all, he made Crime and Punishment." The crime is Kelvin's failure to recognize and thwart his wife's suicidal impulses; the punishment is agonizing pangs of conscience. Lem was also turned off by the film's visually clever but substantively corrupt ending, which he called "just totally awful." This ending, besides reintroducing Kelvin's father, transforms an uncomprehending ocean into one that is comprehending, sympathetic, and supposedly helpful.
Soderberg's 2001 film virtually eliminates the science fiction, keeping only the sci-fi setting. What we get is a dreary, dialogue-laden love story with a silly, sappy ending. In effect if not literally, this ending transforms Solaris into a metaphorical ghost story, complete with a metaphorical heaven.
A more detailed comparison of Lem's novel, Tarkovsky's 1972 film, and Soderberg's 2002 remake will make my points clearer. Spoiler's follow, so if you haven't seen the films you might want to cut out now.
LEM'S NOVEL
The centerpiece of Lem's novel is the planet's living, sentient ocean. This ocean not only has (a) sensory powers, it has (b) an incredibly high level of mathematical intelligence (it can control its own orbit within a binary star system that should create orbital instability, and it can perform the calculations necessary for this control), (c) the power to manipulate matter into physical forms, (d) the power to read (but not truly comprehend) human minds, (d) the aforementioned the power to alter its orbit in ways that defy natural gravitational and centrifugal forces (a power analogous to mobility), and (e) apparently consciousness.
Earth sends scientists to Solaris to study the planet; they live in a space station that orbits the planet. While they sleep the ocean reads their minds, or at least the dark areas thereof. From what it finds (apparently without comprehending), the ocean creates for each scientist a "visitor" - a living replica of a person from the scientist's past who is a source of shame or sorrow. In Kelvin's case, the visitor is his dead wife, whose suicide was facilitated by Kelvin's behavior. In the case of Gibarian case (a second scientist whose visitor drove him to suicide), the visitor is an obese, bare-breasted Negress who lies with his frozen corpse and seems to imply a sexual fetish, hence a source of profound embarrassment. The idea behind these visitors probably comes from the 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, which featured "monsters from the id."
The surviving scientists eventually find a way to get rid of the visitors. (The scientists build a "neutrino disruptor" that destabilizes the material structure of the visitors.) But by then the visitors have served their two purposes - illustrating the nature and power of the ocean and giving the plot what little life it has. The scientists then decide to return to earth. But Kelvin takes a "flitter" craft on a last-minute exploratory flight over the planet. What he finds changes his mind about leaving: he decides to stay despite the absence of any real hope of ever comprehending the ocean.
Lem's novel has a lot in common with Arthur Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. Both novels are long on description of scientific finds and short on plot. In Clarke's novel, the long descriptive passages deal technology, the technology behind a coasting space ship that enters the solar system and loops around the sun before restarting its engines and heading back to where it came from. In Lem's novel the descriptive passages deal with Solaris' ocean and with theories of what that ocean is. The ocean is the analog of the spaceship Rama's technology. After a while, the descriptive passages in both novels become boring. Both need more plot.
TARKOVSKY'S 1972 FILM
Tarkovsky obviously recognized the plot limitations of Lem's novel and set out to spice things up a bit. He did this by shoving the science fiction into the background and focusing on the relationship (described partly in flashbacks) between Kelvin and his dead but reconstituted wife. In doing so, Tarkovsky introduces a whole lot more pathos than you find in the novel. In Lem's words, "what we get in the film is only how this abominable Kelvin has driven poor Harey [his wife] to suicide and then he has pangs of conscience which are amplified by her appearance."
These pangs of conscience are not at all entertaining, and neither are they science fiction. They are simply an abortive (in my case, at least) attempt to play on our heartstrings with a lot of emotional drivel. Tarkovsky probably realized that he could get only so far plotwise with the husband-and-wife subplot, so he created that second subplot.
The new subplot begins in the prologue, back on earth. Kris has a falling out with his elderly father. The conflict so poorly handled by Tarkovsky that I didn't realize anything serious had occurred until I read in a review that Kris and his father had become estranged. All we see in the prologue is that Kris is skeptical about a certain detail of an account by Berton, an astronaut, of Berton's experiences on Solaris. Berton is an old friend of Kris's father, so when Berton is offended the father is also offended. But this conflict didn't strike me as anything more than a run-of-the-mill disagreement. The prologue also hints that the father is terminally ill. The father says to Kelvin, "Are you jealous that he [Berton], not you, will bury me?"
Skip to the ending: SPOILER COMING UP. We see Kris preparing to leave Solaris and return to earth with the other two surviving scientists. Then we see Kris, apparently back on earth, outside his father's rural cottage. It is raining. Kris looks in through the window and sees water from a leaky roof - a roof that was not leaky during rain in the prologue - dripping into the room. (What sort of symbolism is this? Is the cottage weeping?) The father comes out. Kris falls on his knees and grasps his father. He has been given the chance to make amends with his father, a chance that he was denied with his wife. The camera then pulls slowly away from the scene, climbing higher and higher into the sky. And at last we see that the cabin, the farm, and the father are on an island on Solaris. They are creations of the sentient ocean.
Any sentimental satisfaction or esthetic appreciation evoked by this final scene disappears when you reflect on it. The father is no more real than Kris's reconstituted wife was. Kris is a prisoner, incarcerated on an island. He will be devoid of human contact, apart from contact with his artificial father, for the rest of his life. No travel, no trips to town, no friends, no entertainment, no books, no scientific work. Tarkovsky may think this ending is uplifting, but I found it depressing. And still a poor substitute for genuine plot.
SODERBERG'S 2002 FILM
Like Tarkovsky, Soderberg seems to have recognized that turning Lem's novel into a film would require more plot than Lem provided. And he wants to be original. Well, not really original, but different from Tarkovsky. MORE SPOILERS COMING UP. So Soderberg almost totally abandons the science fiction and turns the story into a three-way cross between a soap opera, a Hollywood tear-jerker, and a ghost story embellished with an analogical heaven.
The ending again finds Kris remaining on Solaris. But this isn't the real Kris. We never learn what happened to the real Kris. What we do learn is that this Kris is another of the ocean's replicants, a visitor with nobody to visit. Soderberg prepares us for this revelation by introducing a second plot twist. Just before the end we learn that Snow, one of the other two living scientists on the space station, is really a replicant. He killed the real Snow before Kris arrived. We thus know that the ocean creates replicants not only of shame-inducing persons from the scientists' pasts (those monsters from the id) but replicants of the scientists themselves.
We next see Kris with his wife. The two replicants are going to live happily ever after on Solaris in a physical replica of their apartment back on earth. Kris and his wife, as mere simulacrums, are the equivalent of ghosts. The star-crossed lovers are being given a second chance - as ghosts. They have been reunited in a metaphorical heaven. They will enjoy a happily-ever-after life beyond the grave.
I'm sorry, Mr. Soderberg, but ghost stories and images of heaven are no substitute for science fiction. A romantic subplot is not objectionable. What is unreasonable is the attempt to palm off as science fiction an idiotic love story that is totally out of touch with Lem's novel. And beyond this fault is the gaping hole in the plot: what became of the real Kris? If he went back to earth and is still alive, then that second chance is an illusion. The real Kris is not experiencing it. Indeed, the real Kris is not experiencing the second chance no matter what became of him. And if the real Kris was murdered by the murderous replicant of Snow, that's even less of a happy ending. You can't have it both ways, Mr. Soderberg; you have to think things through.
Freedom: "I won't!"
The movie looked good - but it had far to little plot.
You could have compressed it down to 20 minutes and lost nothing of
the story.
How the heck this was ever a two-and-three-quarter hour movie beats
me.
So - yes, it was good Sci-Fi, yes it made you think and yes it
was nicely acted and visually interesting - but Y-A-W-N.
www.sjbaker.org
die another day was one of the best bond films so far--very ironic and fun---plus frost is hot.
Oh, two points: Solaris *is* worth a few more words.
Comparisons will be made to 2001 and Apocalypse Now, two other slow-moving, philosophical movies.
Such comparisons might be made by a dimwit, but not by anyone who paid attention.
[I]t's [Solaris is] a trivial love story, told many times before.
First, Solaris is not a trivial love story. Second, are there any love stories which cannot be dismissed with those words?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, humble or otherwise, but I would hardly call a philosophical problem as profound as Lem investigated in this story to be a "twist." This is not an O.H. Henry or Ray Bradbury short story (and I am not denigrating either of those authors).
Overall: Solaris was a deeply satisfying movie with marvellous performances. Clooney I used to hate when he was a soap-opera pretty boy, but now that he is slighly long in tooth he chooses his films well. Three Kings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and now Solaris - he is now an actor of some merit.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
Personally, I loved Event Horizon.
:-)
It is in my opinion the best "terror" movie ever made. Not "horror", not "sci-fi".
It was the first movie in a very long time that kept me totally captivated. In the middle of the movie I noticed that I was so engrossed in it that I was sitting upright literally close to the edge of my seat. I took a deep breath and told myself "this is just a movie, relax".
The amazing thing in Even Horizon is how you are made to dread the half-second that you KNOW will be coming that is so gory that you'll be disgusted. The only problem is that you don't know when that will happen. The movie never overwhelms you with gore up to the point of insensibility.
I've recommended that movie to many, and everyone who saw it told me that it was disgusting, hellish, terrorizing, but that it was unbelievably executed.
Which IMHO is the point of the movie.
"To me, it seemed like the kind of movie that humanity will appreiciate more a long time from now, when we're much more mature as a race."
They wouldn't give you your money back would they?
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I've read the book (first), the Russian version, and then this one. I've read just about everything you can read of Lem's that has made it into English. I'd say the current movie is, on the whole, a good movie. It does indeed have something to say, but unfortunately leaves out a lot about the planet. It thankfully cuts out a lot of crap that the Russian version had in, but the Russian version had better direction and a better editing. The best to read is the book, but even that is flawed, coming as a translation to an abridgement of the French version of the novel.
I think the movie accurately reflects Lem's theme, in fact his constant theme running through most of his works, which is about the unknowablness of certain things. In Solaris, it is both other's (Kris' wife, who only exists as a memory of his perception), and the planet itself. As all three versions had in it the statement that we search for contact, but all we really want is a mirror.
I've always thought that this is a more mature way to look at contact, as opposed to stuff like "Close Encounters" or "Contact".
How can this be a fair review if the reviewer slept through parts of the movie? This warrants front page of slashdot?
Soderbergh didn't 'turn' Solaris into a love story, he merely emphasised the love story over other narrative elements, which is a perfectly reasonable thing for an adaptation to do IMO. In Lem's book, the love story is more of a backdrop, and the main theme is indeed the contact (or lack thereof) between humanity and the ocean (Solaris).
"
But the mistake in highlighting the love story is that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Or, if it does, it's lackluster and uncomfortable. In the book, the dialogue between the characters is awkward...they don't really speak and behave in an immediately believable way. This happens in some other books where the characters are there not so much to exist and live as people, but to explore an abstract theme (see DeLillo's White Noise, although I know that there are people who will disagree with me here).
Maybe part of it is lost in the translation.
.sig it up, fuckers!
My own little rant about Event Horizon and about the lack of safety features in the sci-fi workplace in general.
Okay, the Event Horizon. When they first board one of the characters takes pains to point out the handy boxes of explosives that are there for 'separating the ship in case of an emergency'. Blowing up the ship isn't something that happens IN CASE of emergency, blowing up the ship is an emergency unto itself! Why would such a dangerous feature even make it into the designs of the ship? Couldn't they use a safer mechanism? And if not, did they have to just have them out like, 'Oh, please watch where you step, you wouldn't want to TRIP OVER AND ACTIVE THIS BOMB'. That's right, let's keep the explosives someplace a little safer.
Okay, so we've boarded the ship. Let's check out the engine room. Oh, hey, what's this? ALL THE WALLS ARE COVERED WITH DEADLY SPIKES. Well I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I guess it's not my place to criticize, but couldn't they figure out a way to make the ship go putt-putt without placing a deadly hazard in the way of the folks who make the ship run? This seems like a terrible workplace violation. And then there's some weird pool of something in the engine room, totally open to the environs, which to me says only one thing: The crew must have utmost faith in the artificial gravity system. Of course, if explosives to the fore of the ship happened to blow, that might spill the coolant all over the place.
And since I'm on this rant, WTF is wrong with the designers of the Death Star? I mean, couldn't those tractor beam power switches have been installed in a safer location? Why must one endanger ones life by walking out onto a narrow, railess platform and scootch around to the exposed, most dangerous side in order to throw a switch?
Good grief people, it's supposed to be the future. Shouldn't movie set designers use a little common sense and realize that hey, maybe littering bottomless Sith-traps all over the Star Wars universe seems a little odd? A little unbelievable?
*sigh*
Or maybe all this means is that there's some dark, nihilistic future where building things safely is more expensive than human life. That there is an endless sea of Stormtroopers and that it's more beneficial to lose a few over the edge once in a while than it is to actually do things safely.
I don't know. That's my rant. I'll stop now
"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," - Bill Gates, about Google
I have heard NASA recordings of deep space
Souncs interesting. Got a link for the rest of us?
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!
Those who say "they've turned it into a love story" are hardly true, and have only seen the piss-poor previews. Those who says that Solaris is a bad sci-fi movie -- they may be correct. It has no explosions, it has no aliens.
Solaris is a taut and trim movie that will make you think, if you care to do so. Consider this: as Rheia is a construct of Kelvin -- the ideas that you have of heaven and earth are merely constructs. Consider it.
thelocust[dot]org
Hints at spoilers, but it doesn't metter because you shouldn't watch this movie :)
First good things.
1) The portrayal of future, everything that's concerned with little details like the PDAs that people on the train use and costumes that upper-class people wear on the night out -- everything like that is superb. Creates an atmosphere quite nicely.
2) The beam generator (what's its name?) they built on the station to destroy the visitors uses some cables with BNC connectors. I think this is a great detail. They've built it out of *real* spare parts and it shows.
3) The image of the Rheya is well done for the most part. Both Rheya's actually. Natascha McElhone did a really good job and she is fit for the role.
4) Snow is great. Kudos to Jeremy Davies.
5) In case you are wondering why the hell did they move the station from the surface of the planet to the orbit -- there is an explanation to that.
Which brings us to the second part. What sucked.
1) Changes where made to the plot. Horrible changes.
1.1) See 5 above. Of course it must be on the orbit: the mass of Solaris started growing exponentially, you see. Of course it did, honey.
1.2) Was it a happy ending? Was it an attempt to make a happy end which doesn't seem so happy? It's an ending which really screwed it up. Sorry.
1.3) Anyone remembers that scene from Simpsons, when they leave Australia and a coala is flying back with them, evil grin on his face? I kind of hoped that we won't see an ending like that again.
2) Clooney doesn't work in this role. And no, I didn't like his naked butt.
3) Not a single shot of the ocean surface. Yes, Solaris is a planet covered with Ocean. It is beautiful too. But that's in book, not in the movie. The movie only shows you a plasma lamp, er, star, er... planet? from the orbit.
4) Yes, the book makes you think about God. Sometimes quite explicitly. Throwing in one conversation cut before it actually makes sense and one scene referencing Michelangelo's painting does not make sense and feels taken out of context.
I guess here is what I'm trying to say: this movie would work beautifully if it was more friendly to the book. Hero's memories of his life with Rheya on Earth a well done and are very enjoyable for someone who read the book. Unfortunately people who have read the book will be alienated by weird changes to the story which don't really make much sense.
I don't know how this film works for people who have not read the book.
I passed the Turing test.
Solaris was so dam boring I walked out after 45 minutes and reget I stayed that long. Bond is a known quanity and it was entertaining. Bond kept my interest, well Jinx kept my interest along with the cool gadget and such.
So Bond I got my moneys worth. Solaris was a waste of money.
You have got to be kidding me, you're complaining about the invisible car? Bond has always had some unrealistic inventions. The jet pack thing? The really really magnetic watch? The compressed air capsules? There are many many more examples. That is a trait of classic bond movies, Q is supposed to be a miracle worker, and the invisible car just pushes that point. My problem with the new bond movie was that there was too much action. There was very little character development, something you did get in other bond movies. The last few bond movies seem to just want to give you instant gratification. Boom, boom, boom, that's the latest formula, and Bond does very little detective work these days.
Anyway, this was off topic, so I'm an anonymous coward.
As I watched this movie it made me wonder if anyone involved with the movie had actually read the book. I mean, is it naive of me to assume that Hollywood-drones should read the books they base movies on? (I got the feeling Jackson really made an effort to do LOTR justice, but maybe he is an exception to the rule.) It seems as though Soderberg had only read the back cover, assumed it was a romance, and went from there. If he did read the book, then he truly needs to work on his reading comprehension skills .
Okay, I guess there are a lot of themes in the book that can be interpreted and focused on for the purposes of making a watchable movie, but to not even describe the history or any detail about the planet Solaris *at all* really irks me. I mean they hardly even mention the planet. Hello? The movie is called SOLARIS, after the fricken planet! Someone who hadn't read the book is going to come out of there wondering what that weird glowing planet in the background had to do with the movie. WTF?! No wonder all the critics are calling it a confusing mess of a story. They assume that Lem is somekind of incomprehensible philosophical weirdo, when really Soderberg is the one who left the book's plot out. Jeez!
The Bond franchise has in no way "jumped the shark" (a phrase that itself is allready played....to death). I just saw Die Another Day this afternoon, and while I'm not the biggest Bond fan in the world, I do like the movies as well as the books. And rather than Bond becoming too cartoonish, producers have strived over the past half-dozen films to make him a little more believable, more like the character that Ian Fleming created.
Timothy Dalton's Bond went a long way toward doing this, and Pierce Brosnan's Bond is contiuing that trend. If you've ever read the novels, Bond was not a superman, and was captured and injured quite often. There's a passage (in Casino Royale, I think) where a captured Bond is being tortured by having his genitals punched repeatedly. Quite like what really happens to prisoners in captivity, if you've ever read accounts of POWs.
(Spoiler Below)
In DAD, Bond is captured by the North Koreans and brutally tortured for 14 months. He is released via a prisoner exchange only when US/British governemts decide there's an overriding need to do so. Again, quite like the real world. I LIKED that. It reminded me a lot of what Ian Fleming would've written. (End Spoiler)
I think the franchise has only gotten better with these last half-dozen films. The character has become more what Fleming intended it to be, rather than the Roger Moore era coctail hound, fighting "jaws" in space. As for invisible cars, at least they provided a plausible explanation for the technology. And what used to be considered fanciful in the old Bond movies (miniture lasers, super-small cameras, etc) have come to pass today.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
i know this will get modded down to -100
if i had a penny for every person that watches a confusing unentertaining movie that afterwards comments on the sheer brilliance i will be a billionare by now.
i have not read the book, and i bet it's good reading, haven't seen the 1972 original, it might be good, but this one, this one just sucks. slow, uninteresting and confusing, maybe on the paper it sounds like a good idea, but the execution just falls short (even with the acting being ok).
i treated 2 people to this movie and this one really made me regret treating to the movies for the first time in my life. luckyly it only lasted 90 minutes.
now, i understand you are entitled to your opinion, mine about this thread? it's amazing how movies like this give wannabe critics a chance to look "intelectual" to the bunch of people that was truly and honestly not entertained. just admint it... you were yawning at the theater too.
Not classic bond, you say? That's why I liked it.
I'm sure M just lets a super-assasin who's supposed to be a traitor go wandering around the world under his OWN NAME, ordering her agents around and making deals with foreign inteligence agencies without even saying anything. What was the plan there?
And there's just something wrong about Bond fucking things up so many times in one movie.
Were invented for occasions such as idiotic superfluous remakes like this. Bankrupt the Hollywood beancounters responsible before they roll cameras again.
you had me at #!
Relatively speaking, the theme song can't be that dreadful.
You must have forgotten that there have been Bond songs by the likes of A-Ha, Garbage, and ahem, Sheena Easton.
It's not as if we've had a taste of any song in Shirley Bassey's class for quite a while.
In any case, I'd rather have a Madonna song in a Bond movie than have to watch Timothy Dalton play Bond.
You are talking Andrei Tarkovsky here. One of the greatest cinematographers.
Such a passing mention of that film and that director shows that you should keep your film reviews to yourself.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Anythoing that bores the mythical average viewer is in general adressing important or interesting issues that require a longer development and a cinemagoer willing to be engaged in the cinematic experience.
I'am ordering my tickets now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I don't care how many movies they make about competing operating systems, we're still better.
Sweet, now I don't have to study from Transcenders and Books, I'll just wait for the movie!!!!!
it is telling that you (and many others) Y-A-W-N at good Sci-Fi that makes you think in a visually interesting setting and that was nicely acted.
In enhances the standing of the movie and, well, pearls for the pigs comes to mind.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
1. The ya in the Russian is, if I am not mistaken, not pronounced that way after an l. So it's Solaris, not Solyaris. Perhaps a native speaker could clarify this?
2. A mediocre Tarkovsky film is still 300X better than a superb Hollywood film.
3. However problematic you might think Tarkovsky's Solaris is, the film is still startling. The camera work alone is worth the 169 minutes. And the relationship with the pseudo-Haris (= Rheya) is brilliantly handled. His use of B&W in the film is well managed. etc. ad naus.
Then, in 1972 (especially for a Russian viewer), this probably could express dehumanization and solitude of the technological world. It's kind of ironic that seeing a car driving through an endless urbanistic maze makes an average modern viewer think "hey, nothing worth mentioning is going there".
Tarkovsky probably made the scene along the freeways so long to express how long and boring the flight from earth to Solaris was (iirc, Lem makes a big deal of that in the book, without describing anything that happens on the trip, and in the Tarkovsky movie, the only spaceflight shown is from orbit to the station [remember, the station is NOT in orbit, but is hovering a few miles over the Ocean]). Rather like Kubrick made the first few scenes aboard Discovery in 2001 boring and banal (the chess game).
Bond = McDonald's
Solaris = pricey ethnic restaurant you've never tried
Yeah, it's easy to see which one works for you.
"These flaws might be forgivable if we were truly interested in the plot, but we aren't: it's a trivial love story, told many times before."
As I said, speak for yourself. I was fascinated. I think this is one of the best sci fi movies I have ever seen. It was very cerebral and relied a lot on the audience doing some thinking about what was going on. I don't think that's a problem, I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing. I can understand how, if you just wanted to have some trite, stupid, half-assed philosophy fed to you, you might be a little disappointed with it. But if that's the kind of movie you went to see, why the heck did you go see Solaris? Seriously, every review I've read of this movie is either positively glowing or basically bios down to "not enough boobs and explosions". Every one I read of the latter type convinces me of nothing but the author's simplemindedness.
Amen. I was absolutely amazed. The funny thing is that if you check out user reviews at IMDB it's always all or nothing. Likewise the votes seem pretty bimodal. There are a lot between 8 and 10 and a big clump at the bottom. Worth noting that over 56% of the people who saw it rated it an 8 or better, though. Shows you what the friggin' critics know about good movies.
In Russian it's definitely "Solyaris", not "Solaris". At least, Russians pronounce it this way.
Come on pal...at least give it a better try than that. A couple of measly paragraphs, half of which are dedicated to other people's reviews?
Similar to Apocalypse Now? How many movies have you seen if that's the closest comparative illustration you can come up with? Although I don't expect that he'd seen the Tarkovsky version (if you think 90 minutes is long...), it would've helped...in fact, anything would have helped, and it's a bit of a shame that no one else was able to submit their review before this one.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I really enjoyed the film. Felt it left more things mysterious than the previous movie and the book. Loved the special effects. I want that for a screen saver-- music included.
The preview writers had real heartburn over this one. I saw several previews that gave one the impression that it was a horror film. I saw one preview that completely played on the love story aspect. Apparently this movie didn't fit any of hollywoods molds, which in my opinion is a wonderful thing in and of itself.
In front of me sat a row of middle age women who came to see a love story together. I heard mutterings of "How long is this damn movie" with revered silence for the love scenes. Then at then end they all looked at each other in shock and the loud one spoke up and said, "Clooney's Ass Ain't Worth Six Bucks!"
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
This hypothesis, of course, is barring the fact that LEDs emit light in the dark (producing a glow), and also any such surface on a car would visibly reflect sunlight revealing the outline of the car in daylight.
Honestly, it would be more likely to create a broadcasting mental suggestion device to convince anyone in visible range that there really is no car there.
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
You can bet your ass if they called it Windows, Bill Gates lawyers would be on them like stink on shit claiming that people would mistake it for the OS. I haven't seen the movie Solaris yet but the tv commercial did get my attention since I am a Solaris user.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Perhaps anybody who's ever studied Russian can clarify this. You're wrong. The 'y' is not strictly pronounced as the 'y' in English, but it indicates a palatization, or 'softening,' of the preceding sound, which sounds a lot like a 'y' after the letter. Anyway, a Russian who speaks English would typically choose to spell it 'Solyaris' rather than 'Solaris.'
There was a bond marathon playing here. I watched some of it. I can't help thinking about the same points that were repeatedly made in the austin powers movies.
1) Why doesn't the bad guy just shoot bond? Instead the bad guy bad forces bond - at gunpoint - into some silly trap.
2) If the bad guy just wants money, why doesn't he do so by legitimate means? It would be 100X easier and more profitable.
But remember. Back when Sean Connery was Bond it -WAS- an overdone action flick.
Have you seen action flicks from the 60s?
The reason most people say "Bond jumped the shark" or "its not as good as the old bonds" was because they were in the 80s when they saw the 60s bonds. If you saw them in the 60s you'd realize that its the same thing, just being adjusted to the times.
I'm a long time bond fan and thought this was probably the best brosnan bond (the last one, "The World is not enough" was terrible!).
And for another person's comment about the theme song, yes, madonnas song was good, but wasn't a bond song. It was the only thing I really didn't like about the flick.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
people from the southern region of the US are the only people justified in pronouncing it solAIRis.. unless you are one of them you are pronouncing it wrong.
I'm Russian and can conform that you should use 'ya' in this case. Solaris would probably be pronounced as Soleeris by a Russian speaker.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I'm Russian and can conform that you should use 'ya' in this case. Solaris would probably be pronounced as Soleeris by a Russian speaker.
So you're saying it should be transliterated as Solyaris?
I saw this movie as a fan of almost all of Steven Soderbergh's prior work. Solaris had great camera work which is a tribute to Soderbergh, but it had little else. It was a very slow moving picture, which surprised me when I read that is was only 90 minutes in the 'review' here.
mbbac
Who cares about a movie of a close source proprietary UNIX clone when I can get the same thing for $0.00, with free DVD extras? Even for BS movies like the BSD movie get more value than $olari$. Besides, I can download free Java compiler anyway, so what's the point of feeding these MPAA morons?
What you say might be true, but it seemed about halfway through the movie that there wasn't going to be any real point to it except "Pointless scary stuff happens." and when you reach the end, that's what it ends up being.
Ultimately, the movie boils down to "Pointless scary stuff happens.", and to me, was like watching someone else play Doom. The sets, while very cool-looking, seemed contrived to provide an environment for "pointless scary stuff happening" than showing a real functioning space ship. And while the cast was good (Sam Neill did good "creepy", you end up with a feeling of futility because you soon realize that they only thing you're going to get for the rest of the movie is "[ointless scary stuff happening".
Still, it was better than Spawn.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The opening title sequence is brillant. I'm not a fan of Madonna by any streach, but the song's not half bad. No matter who sings it, the Bond song is pop.
Bond title sequences are usually pretty imaginative, but are a five minute diversion from the story. For once, the story was incorporated into the titel sequence. Sure, there was a lot of beautiful women in their birthday suits, but there was Bond being interrogated by the Chinese. It was a part of 007's life that the movie rarely indulges in. It also gave Bond motivation for tracking down his nemisis, and becoming a pawn to Her Majesty's Service.
It's not enough to throw all of the Bond elements together and hope that they somehow work. A little more precision and craftsmanship are necessary (and a better script wouldn't have hurt things). Let's hope this represents an aberrance, not a trend.DAD has to be one of the better told, and thought out Bond films in a decade. The plot ran smoothly, nothing was too silly. Every time I've come out of the last three films, I've been left with the impression they were daft. The badies in DAD are believable, as are the crimes they commit. Treating 007 as a pawn, and double crossed by a beautiful infiltrator, were interesting plot twists.
Whether played by Pierce Brosnan or someone else, James Bond will return. Let's just hope that when he does, he's the 007 we have come to love and admire, not the impostor that inhabits Die Another Day.We'll be hoping for different things, I fear. I truely hope the next Bond film continues in the same creative direction as DAD.
Just because it's pricey and ethnic, doesn't mean it's good.
And there's nothing wrong with a Big Mac.
-no broken link
I think in the film the station is in orbit, while in the book it is hovering.
Oh come on, I found Event Horizon to be a decent scifi/horror movie, and was pleasntly surprised by the shared themes from Solaris. It wasn't really that bad.
Kids these days. I take it you've never had the misfortune of being subjected to Jake Speed. Two of the three of us wanted to walk out, but the third was in a sadistic mood that day. "What, you mean those lions are real?!!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I think this was the first time that the Bond girl dancers / credits were actually moving the plot ahead instead of just reinterperting the theme of the movie. They relate his time being interrogated in prison.
And as far as themes/plot devices from previous movies -- the scorpions may relate back to "Diamonds are Forever" where Mr. Hyde & Mr. Wendt kill the dentist with a scorpion. (I was hoping the sexy Korean interrogater/dominatrix would play a part in the actual movie. Alas, that was just a tease.)
It's about 90 minutes too long. I'd recommend doing anything else with your time. I still fervently wish some kind stranger had given me this advice yesterday. But unfortunately for me, it is too late. Now all there is left for me to do is wait for the day Rod Hilton finishes his abridged script version.
Solaris is a movie, principally about one of the world's worst psychologists who lost his wife to suicide. Not only is he a psychologist, he is a space psychologist; who, incidentally, makes house calls to other stars. Visitors interrupt his cutting of vegetables. I mention the cutting of the vegetables only because they feel the need to abuse venerable cut the finger run it under water cliche. They don't even dust it off. There's also the almost amusing quirk that, after his wife's suicide, he cuts his left index finger every time he attempts to prepare zucchini.
Anyway...he lives in the far future where doorbells scan irises for identification purposes only, but don't tell you who's at your door, and thus provide a reason to ask, "Who is it?" This is a far future of superluminal travel and communication, and an information infrastructure consisting of two guys hand delivering videos for no reason. The video consists of a dire and pointlessly cryptic request for help, from an old friend.
So it's off to space he goes. Mercifully they spare us a hypersleep sequence. In any case, the set design is particularly abhorrent. The scene is only in there at all to be vaguely reminiscent of 2001. (Not my favorite movie either but vastly superior to this one). We also get to see Solaris. It's bluish purple, and I'm sorry that's as close to a compliment as I can get. Er..Good effort? Now our intrepid space psychologist who makes house calls is wandering around the space station and finds bloody hand prints smeared all over everything. People have been killed! (Including the old friend) In space! Contrary to ones intuition perhaps, the space ship is open and roomy, everyone has a little cabin with a little star trek door, and a plastic space bed with space blanket. Why, this space ship has everything, including a large morgue. And let me tell you a morgue that can hold maybe 40 corpses on a spaceship carrying 4 people, tre luxurious! To say nothing about a ship orbiting in what would appear to be the corona of a star. (I can't believe James Cameron produced this. I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around that one. The same guy that had the fanatical attention to detail, where the locks on the Colonial Marine lockers in Aliens worked, produced this movie.)
Anyway...space psychologist wanders around until he hears gay music, and runs into a quirky space character that won't tell him anything, because it's too complicated an idea to relate with your primitive earth language known as English. Of course this is not too dissimilar from Time Cop, where the answer to, "What's going on?" is in fact very simple though fantastic, but that would shorten the movie by up to half an hour. He then has a conversation with an equally quirky character, we'll call her Token, who doesn't trust anyone despite the fact that space ships are fragile and she lives on one.
Anyway, he dreams of his dead wife, of how much he loved her, and finds himself with her in his space room. A normal person might still infer that he's dreaming and roll with it. Well a normal person isn't the worlds worst space psychologist. So he instead realizes he's awake, has a brief conversation and kills her.
So he wanders around, apparently everyone saw him kill his fake dead wife. Perhaps not a good first impression for a space psychologist to make, but the only people who are left are quirky so its all good.
So he dreams again. She comes back, born anew and unaware. This time they sit. She eventually intuits that she's not who she thinks she is, and further more the space psychologist remembered her wrong. Through some of the great many flash backs we learn exactly how bad the worlds worst space psychologist is. His plan is to bring her back Sam Beckett style and set right what once went wrong. The first quirky guy, Token, our space psychologist and his construct have a conversation. Trekknobabble ensues: Token, a physicist, asks the first quirky guy, tech support, if the apparitions are made of matter. Presented with a yes or no question, he flips a coin. Yes, they are made of matter. Token then muses on how they can generate anti-higgs bosons weakly in the 90 GHz range or strongly in the 160 GHz range and disintegrate them forever. Because she hates them like a super-villain hates puppies, and Christmas. Token then goes on to prove this by telling Rheya, the now undead wife, that the space psychologist can't like her all that much, after all he killed the first version within minutes! Rheya then runs away. Space psychologist briefly looks up says, "Wait...aww screw it" and has a snack.
He finds Rheya she drank blue goop, which we then find out was supposed to be liquid oxygen. He carries her back to his space room, and her wounds heal and she is reborn. They then have a heart to heart. Rheya decides she's not the real Rheya, she's remembered wrong. And to prove how different she is, she's going to use a science fiction plot device to kill herself with anti-higgs bosons, not pills! Totally different. Our space psychologist has found his resolve, no more murder or suicide! His resolve appears to be red pills. An indeterminate amount of time passes quickly, he's now crippled by fatigue and red pills. Rheya is taking care of him, in his space bed; he is sweating. She wanders off to commit suicide. Third time's a charm. She also leaves him a short video note.
The space psychologist has lost. So they decide to go home. But OH NO! They find the dead body of the first quirky guy! He's been an apparition all along!! No one is surprised or interested. This empty shell of a movie long ago imploded under the weight of it's own pretentiousness. The quirky guy then remarks its all ok. Because the fuel cells were depleted by the activation of the scifi plot device, and that said plot device cause jupite^H^H^H^H^H^HSolaris' mass to increase exponentially this ship isn't going anywhere. Better take the Athena. So they do.
The space psychologist is alone on Earth again. He's choppin' broccoli, and cuts his finger again. When he runs it under the water it heals before his eyes. Just like when Rheya drank the blue goop! He is dead people! Bruce Willis chokes on some popcorn, dies, finds himself in the movie and kicks Clooney's R-rated ass. Then he makes out with Rheya and totally air guitars.
We are left to ponder what the half way decent version of this movie might have been like. The credits start and Belinda Carlisle sings softly in the background.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
"It was too long, but had decent FX."
That's pretty much all he said.
If you're not reading it in the original language, you're missing 85% of the nuance in the story. And you're nothing than a stupid sniviling American wannabe intellectual.
I saw it, I liked it a lot. It wasn't slow, the pauses in dialog were there to let you take everything in, to add effect. It was done on purpose, not due to bad scriptwriting. I tihnk all of you missed the message of the movie. Yes, the movie has a message, a very good one too. I'm nor religious but this is what I got out of the movie. Solaris is like heavan or an afterlife of some sort. It let you be with the one person you like more than anyone else no matter what. All past mistakes were forgiven. In the movie, they found Solaris...like finding heavan. The people on the station couldn't handle it...handle letting go of the past and just being with a lost love one, because they were still alive. The movie is trying to tell you not to look back on your past mistakes and not to wish for dead loved ones back and such, beacause you wouldn't be able to handle it, not in your mortal life. That is why they committed suicide...they wanted to go to heavan and be with their loved ones. They couldn't handle it while they were still alive... nobody would be able to. Once they are dead, then nothing matters and they can go on happy forever...like at the end when his wife is telling him basically that nothing mattered anymore, and they could just be happy together. That's what the movie is driving at. Sure there is the love story but really I think it was a minor part of the movie, to add effect to the message. You couldn't handle just forgetting all of the pastand just being happy...it's not possible until you are dead. I hope others can see this in the movie because that's what I really think it's about. That's why I liked the movie. It tells you you just have to go on, not to waste time wishing to undo the past, that all will eventually be forgiven.
Invisible car? Ok all the items used in all the bond films are based on things that are already being used or are in development. I.E. your invisible car. The US military has been working or this technique by using tiny fiber optic cameras and projecting the image on the other side. Just like Q explained it in the movie. The only part in the movie that wasn't that great was the scene when bond uses the parachute to wind surf in front of the tidal wave.
I have not yet read the original Lem story, but I have no doubt it is far superior to this awful movie. In any case, a movie is not a book and can't be judged by the same criteria. Therefore faithfulness to the original story is irrelevant. This movie sucked on its own terms.
.1 out of 10 on the ST scale.
First, the characters were boring and totally unengaging. There was no chemistry between the two leads to make us believe they really loved each other. The plastic smile, was not as someone else implied, flirting, but more likely embarassement at being stuck in such a lousy movie. The plot was nonexistent. The screenplay childish. The worst sin is that the movie is totally humorless and took itself too seriously.
As for the "deep" philosophy, give me a break. The philosophical issues, were dealt with at high-school late night heart-to-heart level, not with any intellectual seriousness. The "message" hits you over the head and is repeated often and loudly, just in case you are too stupid to figure it out yourself the first time. There are many far superior movies to this one, that deal with the same issues of guilt, loss, death, god, love etc.
Semi-spoiler warning - a key plot prop is about to be discussed (although I'm really not giving away anything since this movie has no plot beyond what you read in the reviews):
Plus, anyone who actually bothers to read the Dylan Thomas poem Death Shall Have No Dominion, will see the whole plot laid out in the first paragraph. But the director takes Thomas literally. The ending is like Dylan Thomas meets "Touched by an Angel."
Speaking of the ending, why did we have to have the flashback to the ending before the actual ending? Does the Director think we are too stupid to figure out why the good Doctor makes the choice he does?
I resent that we had to see Clooney's ass instead of McElhone's. What a wasted opportunity! Jeremy Davies could have saved the movie by killing all the other characters.
Bad, bad, bad.
Like Bond I'm a man of the world and enjoy a burger at Mickey D's as well as a fine ethinc meal. Being open minded I have more to base my opinion on. Now you can go back to being tragically hip.
Please, please. The worst sci-fi movie of all time MUST be Millennium. Read the reviews at IMDB. I watched this with a friend who's also into sci-fi. At first we were laughing. Then the people around us were laughing. You know it's bad when the only reason to stay is to say "I saw it" so you NEVER watch it again.
Every good review I've seen seems to add up to:
"I don't worry about things like internal consistancy, or the reasonableness of a sequence of events because the movie pays lip service to deep philosophical questions. This gets me thinking about interesting things, so I forget that I'm watching an impossibly banal and unimaginative story telling effort."
For which I have zero empathy. This movies' message: Forgiveness is salvation. Regret is a trap. Cliches are the new drama! Boredom is the new excitement! And the grownups in my audiance started laughing when they busted out, are the visitors made out of matter? Why I think there's a 50 percent chance of that! Good, this afternoon I'll rig up an anti-Higgs boson beam that we can modulate at either 90 GHz or 160 GHz and forever turn them into degenerate matter which can then be sold to mystery traders for plans to up grade parts on our ship!!! God, how I wish I was kidding about that last part.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I finally was able to stay awake through the '72 film! It's important to note that the '72 film was specifically a response to Kubrick's 2001 - the filmmakers felt it was cold and inhuman. I think that's important in understanding why the film looks and feels as it does. They filled three hours, but in a different way than Kubrick. It was odd that in michael's review he comments on the long periods without dialog in Solaris 02, when there are much longer periods without dialog in Solaris 72 and it's extraordinarily slow-paced. (Thus, it's sleep inducing nature) Solaris 02 is a bit too short, perhaps, which is surprising given the 'Titanic' producer.
There are obvious visual references in Solaris 02 to 2001. More interesting, to me, are the visual references to Blade Runner (rainy streets and crowds with umbrellas, among others). It is in comparison to Blade Runner where I see the two Solaris films lacking. In both Blade Runner and Solaris there are semi-humans through which we can ask questions about what it is to be human. Both the Replicants and the Guests are simultaneously creations of human minds and forms of simulations of humanity. I may have missed something in Solris 72, but it seemed that Solaris 02 dealt with the 'Guest's' semi-humanity more directly. The re-creation of the dead wife is aware of her limited nature and asks questions about what it is to be human. But somehow neither Solaris seemed to get deeply enough into these questions. In Solaris 02, Snow seems to address some of this near the end of the film, but again, it doesn't seem to be adequate.
I'm still unclear on what was intended with the ending of Solaris 02. Perhaps that is part of why it's getting negative reactions.
It's worth pointing out that what you see out the windows of the train near the end of the film is the Chicago "L" passing the Merchandise Mart station. (Chicagoans keep Hollywood running, BTW)
Well, the point is that one is a gamble that might pay off, but could just as well be a huge disappointment. The other is slightly bland, but at least you know beforehand what it's going to be like.
Stanislaw Lem's view of Tarkovsky's movie is also negative - he thinks that Tarkovsky totally changed the way Lem wanted to represent Space. Lem's vision was to show space as something full of wonders, and very much worth exploring, while Tarkovsky was showing it as scary and a place where humans don't belong.
:-).
In general, Lem doesn't think there is a way to make good movie adaptations of his books. He is not going to even read about the Holywood version, let alone see it (but he is happy with the $1M he got for the rights
The above was in an interview with Lem in the LOT Polish Airlines' in-flight magazine.