OFF: Solaris

[M Holmes]

Paul Mather writes:

> On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 12:53:04PM +0000, M Holmes wrote:
>
> => It'll certainly be interesting to see what they do with the remake of
> => Tarkovsky's "Solaris". That's a very cerebral film. A remake could
> => produce one of the best SF movies made, or it could degenerate into
> => Event Horizon II.
>
> This remake was shilled out the wazoo some time before Xmas.  Most of
> the press I saw, though, seemed to be fixated on George Clooney's bare
> butt. :-\

Hmmmm, I certainly won't be buying a ticket based purely on that selling
point. Maybe it'll bring more of the distaff element to SF though so
perhaps this moon has a silver lining.

> I did see a review, and it seemed to me that the remake was an homage
> to Tarkovsky's original (though bizarrely, Tarkovsky was mentioned so
> briefly you'd think he wasn't).  I think an homage is a shame, in that
> it's a bit redundant and a wasted opportunity.

Well, perhaps. Special effects have now grown up enough to give the
hallucinatory sequences some bite. I that lies the danger of course.

> I love Tarkovsky's
> original (in fact, I re-watched it when I heard Hollywood was
> re-making it), but even it does not cover all of Lem's book (which I
> also love), so there was room for more exploration of the novel in a
> possible remake.

Even just the concept of an intelligent planet trying to communicate,
and that being indistinguishable from an attack when the means and
message is truly alien, opens up some very interesting possibilities
should they not want to remain confined to the original.

Personally I'm very intrigued by the idea of an encounter with the truly
alien. Of course, like the previously mentioned idea of rationality
versuis a gun spree as dramatic narrative, it's very much harder to
write drama based on this than it is to do a rockets'n'rayguns story
based on Sinbad In Space, such as Star Wars. Even Kubrick's "2002"
dodged that bullet by using visual art and metaphor, and therein
sacrificed drama for cinematography in what I still regard as the best
SF movie ever made.

Maybe I'll say more on this later. I have an idea of how this could be
done, but I require a specific idea rooted in biology which I haven't
hit on yet. Are there any biologists in the house?

> But, it seems that the remake of Solaris is not as bad as I'd imagined
> when I first heard it was being remade.  (I had visions of wave upon
> wave of the visitors attacking the station occupants a la _Aliens_,
> _Resident Evil_, _Night of the Living Dead_ et al.;)

As I said, Event Horizon II is a distinct possibility where
hallucinatory aliens are concerned.

> What I'd *really*
> like to see is a remake of _Stalker_ (Tarkovsky's film based on the
> Strugatsky brother's _Roadside Picnic_) that actually follows the
> story... :-)

Yes, that'd have great possibilities. For concerns of maintaining the
correct mood to the film though, I'd rather see it done by Australian
cinema than Hollywood. Somehow since "Walkabout", "The Last Wave",
"Picnic At Hanging Rock" and whatever that movie was with the undeground
hospital treating radiation victims, I've been very impressed by the
moodiness of such movies. It's a great antodote to Hollywood fare.

FoFP