Kevin's Watch

I've seen both and I have to say that the new one with Clooney is very boring, where Tarkovsky's is beautiful and full of insights regarding the human mind.

You could say that Tarkovsky's film (from 1972) come the the conclusion that there is no place like home. You can travel to the stars and conquer the Universe if you like but your loved ones, your family and even your own backyard still means the most to you. This is what the planet Solaris gives back to you, it feels what humankind needs...A very "anti-SF" message and at the time of it's release it was compared to Kubrick's 2001 as a kind of answer to that one...

The new one with Clooney definitely misses something as I see it

then i will see if i can find Tarkovsky's film .. and give it another shot ..

i liked the "anti-sci-fi" observation .. sounds interesting ..

danlo wrote:This was a brave attempt in filming an excellent story by Stanilav Lem, imho, one of the greastest Sci-fi authors ever. The main prob is this movie should have been made much earlier. The trouble is that alot of previous Sci-fi movies both in space, on earth and underwater have liberally borrowed or superceded the plot device.

*The planet itself was 1 of the best actors, but there could have been some better editing in general.

I am to understand they didnt show the planet's ability to morph massive continents and bizarre organisms.

That would have been a good touch!

edit

Finally watched this movie last night.

It was refreshing to see so much male nudity instead of female.

I thought it was intellectually interesting, though my husband fell asleep rather quickly.

I had problems with the sound. Between the music being louder then the dialog in some scenes, my husband's snoring, and the nonstop thunderstorms passing through, I had to keep turning up the volume. I finally figured out I could just turn on the subtitles, and then all was well.

edit

A review of the old version of Solaris:

www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/solaris.html

I rather enjoyed Solaris. As Matrixman says, it was thought-provoking and deliberate. I find it impossible to say that I would not have made the same choices the Clooney character made, given the circumstances.

It was really good, but it felt like an hour long story stretched out into a feature film: *** out of ****