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Solaris: Another View 205

Posted by timothy from the what's-to-spoil dept.
nellardo writes "Solaris is Steven Soderbergh's newest film and ostensibly a major departure for him -- it's a science-fiction film, a remake of the earlier Tarkovsky film of the even earlier Stansilaw Lem novel. Soderbergh is known for his many introspective, character-oriented art house films. His more recent work has been moving towards more marketable Elmore-Leonard-style "thrillers" (including Out of Sight, which is in fact based on a Leonard book, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven). So a "science fiction film" seems like an inventive departure. Sadly, it isn't - it's more of Soderbergh's usual schtick." Read on for more of nellardo's review.

Fundamentally, it's about a man (George Clooney) mourning about his suicide wife (Natascha McElhone, best known from the incomparably better Ronin). The science fiction is there only to provide a mirror for Clooney's moping about his lost love. It could have been done with drugs, dreams, insanity, spirits, reincarnation, or any number of other conceits (and in other movies, it has been done, with all of those), but Solaris does it with a huge sentient planet capable of reading minds and reforming matter at subatomic levels. What does this stupendous cosmic power do? Create replicas of whoever the people on the nearby space station dream about. Like Clooney's dead wife.

This is a bit like using a Jedi Knight and her light saber to get at a can of soup.

The Jedi Knight and the light saber will definitely get the can, and get it open in a jiffy. But the contents are a mess. And one never seems to have a light saber around when one needs one. Much less a light saber attached to a willing Jedi Knight -- "Follow our mandate from the Jedi Council, we must! Mmmm!"

Like the light saber and the soup can, Solaris the sentient planet mostly just gets in the way of the real substance of the film. Solaris the planet looks pretty on the screen, but so does iTunes when you turn on the visualizations -- they've got about the same level of emotional content. We need clumsy faux-jargon exposition: "Are you or are you not made of sub-atomic particles?" (of course -- everything is made of subatomic particles, usually organized in the form of atoms, duh) -- to even know that Solaris the planet has anything to do with what is going on.

Comparisons with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey are as inevitable as they are inaccurate. Both films are set in space. And both films have a slow pace, driven largely by beautifully shot scenes of some space-scape. But that's the extent of the similarity. If this is Soderbergh's tribute to Kubrick, it falls short. Thematically, they have little to do with each other. Kubrick's long space shots establish tone and realism for a film shot before the Apollo moon walks. They are always placed to make a point relevant to the plot, whether it is the mind-numbing isolation of a long space journey or a parallel between the first bone weapons of proto-humans and the incomparably more sophisticated weapons of mass destruction of the near future. Soderbergh's long space shots show off some very pretty particle system effects and convince us, over and over again, that, despite all indications to the contrary, this film is taking place in a Strange Place.

What interesting shots Soderbergh does come up with tend to be film-studenty tricks like a dream-like tracking shot that suggests that there might be more than one replica of a particular character. Of course, by the point we start seeing these kinds of shots, we've already seen multiple replicas of the same character come and go. And he never goes anywhere with it. Even the supposedly trick ending is as obvious as the end of The Sixth Sense ("I see dead people" -- well, duh, we can see what the end is right there). Soderbergh brings this loaded gun on stage and never really fires it. The science fiction conceit of this super-powerful planet never goes anywhere.

Which just brings us back to the fact that this isn't really a science fiction movie. It's a character study. Unfortunately, I don't think Clooney's a good enough actor to really pull that off. He's got tremendous charisma and screen presence. But he doesn't do emotional depth well, and when he does, it either comes across as lust (the problem with his role in Out of Sight) or as bad melodrama (which is his problem here). The other actors are decent -- Jeremy Davies is good in a truly neurotic and twitchy role, but saying Jeremy Davies is good at playing neurotic is like saying that Jack Nicholson is good at playing crazy macho -- they can sleep through the role and still do it. McElhone is suitably cryptic, but again, it's something she does well. Viola Davis strikes me as perhaps the best of the lot, but I'm unfamiliar with her work, so she may be similarly snoozing through the role.

Soderbergh started his film career with a bit of sexual obsession, in the highly-regarded sex, lies, and videotape (yes, the title is all in lowercase -- never seen a satisfactory explanation for that little bit of conceit either). In the end, Solaris comes across much the same. Clooney sees McElhone on a train, they play a little eye footsie, and end up going to the same party at the home of a mutual friend. Breathy lines and bare butts soon ensue. Eventually, McElhone kills herself over a misunderstanding (Clooney walks out in a snit and she thinks he's not coming back). This is barely sexual obsession, and more like a pretentious drama student trying to redo the tragedies of Shakespeare. It just isn't compelling, and Clooney getting emotional distraught over it was silly (the New York audience I was with broke out into laughter -- maybe that's just New York cynicism, but I don't think so).

So in the end, what are we left with? Some pretty pictures of a purple planet. George Clooney's angst-ridden mug. A "trick" ending that is broadcast throughout the movie. And a conceit somewhat larger than a fully grown blue whale, lying in the middle of the movie doing nothing.

I wanted to like it, really I did. Soderbergh has done better, and we sure can use better directors on science fiction films than we usually get. Alas, this ain't it.

Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features and reviews. Thanks to nellardo for this one!
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Solaris: Another View More

Solaris: Another View

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  • Is this really Solaris? (Score:3, Funny)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:06PM (#4832980) Homepage Journal
    Is this really a proper Solaris? I thought that the next Solaris was supposed to have GNOME in it, and I still don't see that silly little "foot" menu anywhere in the film! Are they going back on their promises?

    • I thought that the next Solaris was supposed to have GNOME in it

      I guess Ximian couldn't cough up enough money for product placement of Ximian Desktop software [ximian.com].

      Or are real-world desktop environments such as the GNOME desktop unsuitable for placement in movies such as Soderbergh's Solaris? Movie operating systems seem to have big, dramatic alert boxes with bold text, bold colors, flashing icons, and sound. The GNOME desktop doesn't seem to do this.

    • I wanted to go see this movie so I jumped in the car and drove to the theater only to find that I had left my pre-purchased tickets at /export/home.

  • Link does not work. (Score:2, Informative)

    by digit ( 3825 )
    The link to Stansilaw Lem novel goes to http://slashdot.org/index.pl
    Were is the real link?

  • Not to split hairs or anything... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:12PM (#4833011)
    Fundamentally, it's about a man (George Clooney) mourning about his suicide wife (Natascha McElhone, best known from the incomparably better Ronin).

    You know that feeling you get, when you start to read a review of something, and then you encounter a statement that is so nonsensical that you read it 3 times, looking for the irony/joke/sarcasm? And it isn't there?

    Yeah. Ronin. Oooookay. Move along kids, nothing to see here.

    • You know that feeling you get, when you start to read a review of something, and then you encounter a statement that is so nonsensical that you read it 3 times, looking for the irony/joke/sarcasm? And it isn't there?

      The funny thing is, I thought you were referring to the 'suicide wife' bit. Like maybe you were leading to some form of hidden card-playing humor: "dueces and suicide wives are wild!". Other than that, maybe even a reference to the 'suicide blonde' concept.

      Then I see that you're talking about the mention of Ronin... which means nothing to me since I haven't bothered watching it. meh.

    • NOT splitting hairs (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SkulkCU ( 137480 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @03:48PM (#4833841) Homepage Journal

      nonsensical

      Not only that, it's just plain WRONG.

      Fundamentally, it's about a man mourning about his suicide wife

      No; it's not. The film is about IDENTITY. How we perceive ourselves and others. The vehicle is their relationship.

      Anybody who missed that shouldn't be writing a review. Then again, I'm not surprised; most of the people in the theater were too distracted by what they thought the movie was about (ooh! Clooney!).

      Don't get me wrong, this movie isn't great, but the concept is interesting. It requires a bit of thought OUTSIDE what's on the celluloid. People, I've discovered, are wholly incapable of that.

      Sorry for the rant, I am.
      • Anybody who missed that shouldn't be writing a review. Then again, I'm not surprised; most of the people in the theater were too distracted by what they thought the movie was about (ooh! Clooney!). Don't get me wrong, this movie isn't great, but the concept is interesting. It requires a bit of thought OUTSIDE what's on the celluloid. People, I've discovered, are wholly incapable of that.

        And if you really want to be drawn into that question, the only way to do it is to read the book.

        This movie is notable in that it fails to pull people into that state of mind in the way Lem's novel did; that's why people can come out of this movie shaking their heads and wondering why anyone would want tell this story.

        Don't shoot the messenger-- he's just telling it like it is.


        • This movie is notable in that it fails to pull people into that state of mind

          I have not read the book. I agree that the film did not do this as well as it could have (or the story/concept deserves), but there were 3 or 4 scenes where they actively discuss this theme rather pointedly. It's clearly supposed to be the driving theme.

          I plan on reading the book between Christmas and New Years, if I happen to find it at the bookstore.
          • I have not read the book. I agree that the film did not do this as well as it could have (or the story/concept deserves), but there were 3 or 4 scenes where they actively discuss this theme rather pointedly. It's clearly supposed to be the driving theme.

            The film presents it as an interesting concept that might give you something to contemplate. But it's not presented strongly, and you're left to meditate on that yourself after the movie's over-- there's very little time or room to put yourself into the movie while it's going on. I think this is one of the reasons that Tarkovsky chose to make his movie so slow and long-- he hoped that it would draw people in and give them a chance to steep in Lem's emotional world. I don't think it worked properly though, and this movie didn't either.

            See, the book forces you into contemplation as you read it. It's similar to the way that an author like Tolkein uses hundreds of words to paint a physical environment in great detail until you can almost touch it. In Solaris, Lem put a similar effort into creating emotional environments. That's why there's so little in the way of story, and yet the novel is still so rich. The novel also leaves you enough room to identify with the character (or at least, I did.) I couldn't get there with Mr. Clooney; he wasn't human enough.

            Unfortunately, because Solaris the novel offered relatively little else beyond the emotional and metaphysical, the movie suffered as an independent work. I'm glad you got so much out of it, though; this is definitely a credit to you.

      • Anybody who missed that shouldn't be writing a review. Then again, I'm not surprised; most of the people in the theater were too distracted by what they thought the movie was about (ooh! Clooney!).

        Ah, the "if you didn't like it, you're clearly too stupid to appreciate it." defense. Do you like my expensive, tres chic clothing? It can only been seen by intelligent people [deoxy.org].

        Sometimes a movie you don't understand is just bad, not deep. Failure to transmit your message to the audience may indicate that the film's creators are stupid, not the audience.

    • Yep. This is a horrible review. Beware a science fiction review that can't help but bring up star wars by the third paragraph. I saw the film, and though it wasn't great, it was good, and much more enjoyable and thought provoking than most movies that come out of hollywood. While the reviewer claimed he wanted to enjoy the film, the derisive and sometimes flat-out-wrong things he says about Soderbergh makes me wonder.

      Can we add reviewers to our killfile?

      • There was nothing thought provoking in Solaris. It was pathetic.

        It's a tale about a very bad psychologist who failed tragically, publically, and through his own cruelty, who is trusted greatly by people spending billions of dollars, and friends who had to be aware of what he did to his wife.

        The film is so riddled with internal inconsistancies, that any mental masturbation Soderbergh wishes to engage in becomes contrived and idiotic.

        The Sixth Sense told the same tale better. And more recently The Salton Sea did too.

        And then the brutal cliches. Soderbergh is a merciless ass.

        If you have to see something Clooney and Soderbergh had a hand in, see Far From Heaven. So good they may just have put up their money.

        Solaris is a bad scifi exposition made for idiots who want to think of themselves as smart. Ed Wood couldn't have done it worse.

  • Why is everyone pushing this film? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Blymie ( 231220 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:13PM (#4833018)
    I don't think LOTR had as many posts about it. What is the big deal with this film?

    As any time I see something over advertised and the salesman yelling "Please, please, just take a look, oh PLEASE take a look, I BEG YOU", I run the other way, and FAST.

    Subliminal advertising? OSDN invested in the film? Someone knows someone, and is trying to "help" spread the word? Whatever the case, it is too much hype for me.

    It's turned me off. Sort of like when you see the same commercial 10 times in an hour TV show. It is usually the last time I buy that product (if I ever did).

    • Re:Why is everyone pushing this film? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't think LOTR had as many posts about it. What is the big deal with this film?

      I think the big deal is that alot of people were anticipating this film. The earlier Tarkovsky version was a (flawed) masterpiece, and the book is a classic. That, and it's rare to get real SF in the theatres -- we were already treated to Minority Report this year, so naturally alot of people were hoping for some more excellent SF to come out.

      When a remake of a classic SF movie comes out, naturally alot of people are going to be excited.
    • This is the dumbest thing I read since....well since I read the rview that started this thread. You do realize NEITHER of the reviews posted here on Slashdot were exactly positive right? So how you drew line between two iffy/bad reviews and endorsement or backing of the film is beyond me.
    • Subliminal advertising? OSDN invested in the film? Someone knows someone, and is trying to "help" spread the word? Whatever the case, it is too much hype for me.

      Huh? Did I miss something, or haven't all the reviews for the film posted on here been NEGATIVE? Not a great way to advertise your film, having people post negative reviews of it...
    • Maybe because as Tolkien was probably the most gifed 'fantasy' writer, so Lem is arguably the greatest artist science-fiction has ever had. (PKD's probably the only other contender, but PKD also produced more dreck than Lem has.)

      But judging from the reviews I've seen of the movie, it does no justice to the book. Not that it's easy; Solaris is not a very cinematic novel; it is all about memory and knowledge and science and emotion. Really not a good candidate for Hollywood treatment; they should have picked "The Invincible" instead, which has a comparable philosophical payload and the added bonus of cool gear and kick-ass alien-battling (they win, we lose), including an interesting vision of a totally automated nuclear war machine. It also has a classic, direct storyline, on the premise of "Let's land on this planet and see who offed our guys.", which gets answered in a very innovative, unexpected way like you've never seen in an S-F movie yet.

      Solaris? I say skip the flick and read the book.

    • I don't think LOTR had as many posts about it. What is the big deal with this film?

      Well, perhaps, the deal is that unlike LOTR this film requires some digesting (post-processing :)) in order to appreciate it. It's not a regular popcorn-style movie (Ronin anynone ?), and people expecting it to be are getting pissed off because of that.

  • No mention... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    of the loud laughter everytime there was a Solaris preview in a theater close to a Computer Science department?
  • Should it possibly point: Here [wsu.edu] or possibly Here? [cyberiad.info]

  • A few things... (also, the book Solaris) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MarvinMouse ( 323641 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:17PM (#4833029) Homepage Journal
    He does take shots that pay homage to the 2001 movie. Albeit, like you say, he doesn't do a quality job of them. Like the shots where he in his suit, and they have a close up of his helmet. The lighting and pretty much everything in that scene matches up with another scene in 2001.

    Other than that though, I was quite disappointed with this movie. Esp. considering I was waiting for it to come out. The book Solaris is far better than the movie. I just found the movie was trying to hit on far too many points to successfully get any one particular one well.

    There is a discussion of the existance and substance of God throughout the movie (with Solaris being a "God-like" entity)

    There is a question of nihilism that slides through, but really isn't hit upon well.

    There are "Star Trek"-like scenes, where all of a sudden a buch of techno-babble is spouted that solves everything and advances the plot.

    But overall, he seems to be trying to discuss the existance of love, and what love is... Personally, I feel he failed miserably, or his definition of love is quite shallow.

    The book Solaris, written by Lem, a French author (Thus, you'd need to be able to read French or find a translation to read it.) is a good book, and I recommend that it is worth reading.

    The movie on the other hand... Well... like the review says... :-)

    • Re:A few things... (also, the book Solaris) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:25PM (#4833068) Homepage
      I saw the film last week, and then I picked up the Criterion edition of the Tarkovsky version, which I hadn't seen in a while. Solaris is not Tarkovsky's best by any means - he was disappointed by it, and Lem didn't like it at all - but it is still far and away a better film than the Soderbergh version.

      My biggest disappointments with the Soderbergh version are the lackluster script, and an overall failure in cinematography. Tarkovsky fills in his sparse scripts with a mastery of the camera that is truly breathtaking - he practically paints the screen with the camera, and it's that visual poetry that makes his films effective, with relatively little dialogue or exposition. Soderbergh just tried to hold a camera still at certain points to create a feeling of profundity, misunderstanding completely both Kubrick's and Tarkovsky's technique. I was almost embarassed for him.

      The new version wasn't a total failure. The acting was effective, the dialogue acceptable. It's still better than 90% of the so-called science fiction cinema out there. But compared to the master it was really hoping to compete with, it fell short.

      • The Tarkovsky version is available in Blockbuster too (at least I've seen it in two different stores - in foreign film section). A very good (albeit a tad wierd as the subject dictates) Tarkovsky movie is "Andrei Rublev" - the life story of the 15th C Russian icon painter.

      • http://us.imdb.com/Name?Tarkovsky,+Andrei

        Mini biography
        The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei M. Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky... (show more)

        Talk about recursion :-)

    • Lem wasn't French... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Marton ( 24416 )
      he was Polish.
    • he really was Polish. Apparently the English version of Solaris was translated from a French translation of the original Polish novel.

      http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/solaris.html
    • One small correction: Lem is totally and absolutely not French. He's Polish. (He's first name is Stanislaw btw, with a cute little line through the L. Doesn't sound like French to me.) He wrote a number of really excellent books, including the nowadays hauntingly relevant Eden, thoughtful Solaris and a collection of apparent fairy tales, Cyberiad.
    • The book Solaris, written by Lem, a French author...

      Lem is Polish author, see here: http://www.cyberiad.info/english/main.htm [cyberiad.info]

    • Stanislaw Lem is Polish, not French.

      The English version of Solaris was translated from French. Does anyone know if French is the original language of the novel, or is the English version a twice-removed translation? I know that Lem writes in Polish and German.

  • not a scifi flick (Score:4, Insightful)

    by frenetic3 ( 166950 ) <houstonNO@SPAMalum.mit.edu> on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:17PM (#4833031) Homepage Journal
    sigh. looking at it from a sci fi perspective you're going to be disappointed. the sci fi element is just a vehicle for the philosophical questions the movie raises (and then doesn't really answer, leaving me pretty confused at the end as to the point.)

    the film was an interesting "journey", but not one with a very defined destination. i don't think it needs to get rocked as badly as it has in these slashdot reviews

    -fren
    • I disagree. It was a sci-fi flick, because one the themes of the film was about the limits of human knowledge and understanding - and how different people react (Gordon, for example) to the failure to overcome them.
      • Just because a film deals with the limits of human knowledge and understanding and how people react to/deal with/fail to deal with it does not make it a sci-fi flick.

        for example you could have the central conflict of this story (the Husbands attempt to reconcile his memories of his deceased wife and the limits of what he knew about her) played out in a fantasy setting (a wizard's spell), or maybe a haunted hotel, where the ghosts play the role of the planet. Or you could just play it straight with the husband talking to the wife's best friend, or her really close sister, or something, and still get the theme of the limits of human knowledge as is relevant to this story (the limits of human knowledge qua other humans).

        Similarly, Star Wars is not a Sci-Fi flick. The space travel, blasters, and such is just a vehicle (or should be, at any rate) for an archetypal good v. evil story.

        Sci-Fi stories, films, etc. deal with the implications of technologies that do not exist, but could exist. By your definition, almost any film, no matter what its subject, would fall under the heading of sci-fi. And just dealing with science does not make something sci-fi either. Obviously, the limits of human understanding probed in Aronfsky's Pi deal with science, but it is not science fiction, and i think most everyone here would agree.
        • That is a very limited definition of science fiction. By that standard, James Bond is science fiction (since so much of it is about what he can do with whizbang technology).

          A better definition of science fiction, which I take from Samuel Delaney, is that it is a literature in which the episteme - the nature of knowing and the known (which, after all, is what "science" means - technology being, essentially, the material result of certain kinds of knowledge in the context of human needs and desires) - is the primary character. Pi is definitely science fiction by this standard, as is Blade Runner and its ilk.

          Solaris is about this, and it's no accident that it's at another planet, and not at a haunted house - it's no accident that they seek scientific explanations for the phenomena, and even find some (leading to the destruction of the visitors, remember). It's no accident that Gordon says she "wants to figure it out" and she "wants the humans to win" - she has phrased the experience in classical SF terms.

      • I'm kind of suprised that not many people here are comparing the new solaris with the original tarkovsky version - it seems like more people read the book but haven't seen the original movie.

        To all complaints about this not being a genuine-sci-fi flick, go see the original. It is almost completely philosophical - presented in incredibly slow panaramic shots of un sci-fi scenes - the slow drive through the tunnel in the back of a taxi, the gentle, mysterious flow of weeds underwater, kris' manifested wife looking at an old russian painting on the wall of the space station. For that last scene, take note: the fascination is of an alien manifestation on a space station orbiting a distant star, and the fascination is on the PAINTING. In other words, it's the story of human life that is interesting. The only sci-fi element the original movie employed was the mystery of the planet solaris - but he showed us that everyday elements (like the before-mentioned underwater weed scene) is also completely mysterious. He treats both objects in the same way - an unflinching and unengaged slow shot of movement, with little or no non-diagetic sound. The result is one of mystery and curiosity. there is no mention of a typical science-fiction plot of explaning or exploring (or even really caring about) the alien planet. It's a vehicle for thought. And his story goes all the way to a different planet to show that such mystery is in fact very ordinary, and wrothy of inspection.

        That's Tarkovsky's vision. This is not science fiction.
    • Well, the point to some degree is that there are no answers. In fact one of the lines (coming from the book, I believe) is: "there are no answers, there are only choices".

      Unfortunately Soderbergh replaced the beautiful final scene of Tarkovsky's "Solaris" with some quasi religious drivel - "am i alive? does not matter - everything is forgiven". Oh, my.

      Overall, it was a good effort, but not on par with the original film.

    • And what's wrong with a journey and an undefined destination?

      I dunno, why does evey sci-fi or any film have to be this or that? It's like we can't look at something for what it is; we have to compare it to 2001 and Star Wars and what not. This makes me think that some people, who can't digest anything new, always need something else to compare it to in order for it to make 'sense'. Kinda nice that there is no big triumphant music and predictable ending. That all the effects don't overshadow a....., unusual story. I liked the fact that there were no opening credits and such. It's not the same 'ol same 'ol.

      In a society where a few dictate foreign policy, we're bombarded left and right with what someone else says are the best products, and where a lot of people feel like they're just punching a clock, it's nice to have something once and a while not decided and ultimately in the end, left to us to interpret and to have it mean what it means to us as individuals. I found it somewhat Eastern and refreshing in the way it kinda just presented things and left me feeling like I can think about what it meant to me. Instead of 'yay, Yoda looks like a frog on crack with a laser sword'.

      And btw, if fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate, why did Yoda get all pissed when he fought Dooku? Much contradiction i sense in these films..
    • You misunderstand. The answers are not meant to be given.
      Films, books, art or discourse in general, that pose questions of a philosophical nature have one purpose.
      To educate. How to go about it? Making you think. Giving you food for thought.
      If the questions were given, this would just be another Hollywood blockbuster flick, that chews the food for you and then feeds it to you.

  • Movie site (Score:2, Informative)

    by Cabrao ( 612192 )
    solaristhemovie.com [solaristhemovie.com]

  • Bet: Moive makes more money than Sun this year! (Score:4, Funny)

    by AxelTorvalds ( 544851 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:18PM (#4833039)
    Any takers?
  • I also had watched the Russian version the night before, so maybe that had an effect.

    Whether or not it is a 'Sci Fi' movie or a character study set in outer space I think is irrelevant. It was a sharp contemplative movie that was filmed beautifully and dealt with a man's guilt over the sucide of his wife.

    And, by the way, no one said the planet was 'sentient' --it may have been, they were never able to communicate with it. But if it was, it probably had little understanding of the humans. Its creation of the 'visitors' was probably its attempt at communication. But you never know (since they couldn't communicate).

    I think it was a smart movie based on an original story. Don't be afraid to see it.

    --t
    • And, by the way, no one said the planet was 'sentient'

      BTW, was it a planet, or was it the Sun? (or another star?) I have not seen this new version, and it has been many years since I saw the Russian version, so I don't remember. But the word 'solar' suggests Sun to me.

  • The review seems to have missed the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Starky ( 236203 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:40PM (#4833152)
    I could not disagree with the review more. It was a smart, thoughtful, considered movie which effectively portrayed complex issues in a way that Hollywood is typically unable (or unwilling) to do.


    The criticism of the premise could as well apply to Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and every other episode of Star Trek. In fact, the characters explicitly question why Solaris would be doing what it is doing, why if it has such capabilities it didn't just destroy the space station or choose some other way to engage the characters. They are eventually left with the conclusion that there may not be an answer that they can understand, though they continue to struggle for understanding. That process of trying to understand is exactly the human dilemma that the film as art is trying to explore.


    The role was a gutsy move for George Clooney and the subject matter itself was not the kind of thing someone would expect from a major director who is undoubtedly under pressure from the studios to provide the world with action-packed blockbusters. If you enjoy movies such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Being There" in which the subject matter and pacing is more about intellectual and artistic achievement than maximizing profits, you will enjoy this movie.


    I think the reviewer entirely missed the point and recommend this film to anyone who enjoys thoughtful, provocative films.

    • The role was a gutsy move for George Clooney

      I'm glad somebody else realized this, too. Did you notice the way Clooney performed the last scene of the film straight into the camera? Usually when you're shooting a scene with two actors, one of them stands or sits behind or beside the camera to give the other actor an eye-line, and a performance to act against. Then they move the camera and shoot the scene again from the reverse angle, this time with the first actor behind the camera. Both angles are shot slightly off-center, because the actors are making eye contact with each other, and not with the camera. It's a hell of a lot harder to act looking at a camera lens than at another person.

      But that last scene had Clooney acting right into the camera. It was an incredibly powerful scene. His performance was just outstanding.

      Few Slashdotters will realize this, though, and even fewer will appreciate it. But it's there, it's there.

      (Shameless plug here: if you liked Solaris at all-- or even if you didn't but are willing to listen to a slightly different take on it-- you might be interested in my recent journal entry [slashdot.org] about it.)

  • I haven't seen Solaris, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JordanH ( 75307 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:44PM (#4833166) Homepage Journal
    I find this review incomprehensible.
    • What does this stupendous cosmic power do? Create replicas of whoever the people on the nearby space station dream about. Like Clooney's dead wife.

      This is a bit like using a Jedi Knight and her light saber to get at a can of soup.

    The best Science Fiction, IMO, puts the familiar against a backdrop of the strange. How can we possibly understand the motivations of a planetary intelligence with this cosmic power? Maybe it's Solaris' idea of an experiment, or perhaps entertainment of some sort. I suppose our pets wonder why we use our cosmic powers to eat celery or watch TV. No, our pets are more sensible than amateur movie reviewers and don't bother to wonder at things they can't understand.

    What is happening here is strange in the extreme and is just a given. What's interesting is how the characters deal with it.

    • Which just brings us back to the fact that this isn't really a science fiction movie. It's a character study.

    Gee, maybe it's both a science fiction movie AND a character study? Are they necessarily mutually exclusive? What's the problem? Not the requisite lack of depth in the characters for a science fiction movie?

  • I don't think so. Traffic was a bit more of a socio-political picture where Leonard's work is more criminology rap. So I would agree: Out of Sight, Oceans 11 and one you forgot to mention, The Limey are all in that vein. Traffic though was less of a wacky picture and more about social content.

  • another disappointing review (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07, 2002 @01:59PM (#4833241)
    the reviewer seems to dislike solaris because it's not star wars or the matrix or someother piece of hollywood fluff. mind you, i haven't seen the soderbergh film -- i won't until it makes it to airplanes, and i'll hate it -- but if it's at all faithful to the book or the tarkovsky film, it can't help being a more serious sort of science fiction. i think that's what the reviewer is really complaining about.

    now, any seti grinder would tell you that one of the most intriguing aspects of space exploration is the possibility of encountering beings totally Other than ourselves. the book and the tarkovsky film ask whether we can really understand anyone or anything. it goes without saying that kelvin and the others have failed to understand and communicate with solaris. moreover, kelvin has failed to understand his wife in either incarnation. because he has failed in that most basic task, he loses his own moorings. in this sense, the psychological bits are absolutely central to the science fiction.

    perhaps this sort of philosophical science fiction has more in common with other genres than more familiar science fiction tends to have. even if that's true, that's not a bad thing. how many times can you watch star wars? (which is just a recycled western anyway?)

    nor does it mean that it's unlike other science fiction. look at 2001. in some way, all of the stories deal with human encounters with the non-human. there's a nietzschean thread running through 2001, but there's also a pessimism about the encounter with the Other. kubrick seems to be saying that when we do have that first encounter, we'll deal with it in the same way we deal with everything else: we'll send bureaucrats. in essense, kubrick is still operating in the satirical mode, and that is what makes 2001 most different from solaris.

    • I think it's still worth seeing on the big screen, despite it's flaws (it bugs me how many people will flock to see a film they know is bad - like the latest Star Wars disaster - yet get miserly for more ambitious, if flawed projects). I agree with you about the review - and about the state of science fiction in cinema. We need more Blade Runners, Gattacas, Pi's and even Solarises, and we aren't getting them because the studios have been taught that even a horribly written, improbable, badly-acted blockbuster with whizbang special effects will outperform thoughtful SF at the box office - and the geeks keep proving them right.

  • Sixth Sense Obvious Ending (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rura Penthe ( 154319 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:02PM (#4833254)
    Well thank god we have another pretentious reviewer bragging about how the ending of the Sixth Sense was so obvious. His analytical mind is clearly far superior! I bow before his massive intellect.

  • YANSR (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kungfuBreaks ( 537144 ) <kungfuBreaks.netscape@net> on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:03PM (#4833258)
    Look, it's a YANSR -- Yet Another Negative Solaris Review. How is this 'another view', exactly? The first Solaris-related story (a few months ago) concluded that 'it'll probably suck'. The recent review proclaimed that 'it sucks' (in so many words), and now this 'new perspective' reveals that -- whoa there -- it _really_ sucks.

    I mean, come on. Soderbergh guilty of being a film student (I guess I'll have to boycott Taxi Driver and Raging Bull from now on)? A 'trick' ending (I'd love to hear an explanation of what was so 'tricky' about it)? A cynical, jaded New York audience not giving George 'what a plebeian' Clooney the benifit of the doubt (SHOCK!! HORROR!!!)?

    Granted, the movie does have some very real faults (hint: it's not the 'conceit somewhat larger than a fully grown blue whale'. God, that's the worst fucking simile I've ever had the misfortune to chance upon). Sadly however, none of them are addressed in this 'new review'. On the other hand, it _is_ so terrifically 'biting', 'cutting' and 'cynical' in that wonderful New York way we all know and love -- I should think that alone places it a cut above the sort of review that attempts to honestly 'discuss' the 'content' of the 'movie at hand'.

    Perhaps 'Solaris bashing' should be added to the list of Slashdot topics. I can see it now:

    Step 1: Bash Solaris
    Step 2: Bash Solaris some more
    Step 3: Profit!!

    or maybe even

    IN SOVIET RUSSIA, Solaris bashes YOU!

    P.S.
    For a far more balanced (if not uncritical) perspective, you might try
    the Salon review [salon.com]

  • Not again... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Inazuma ( 22966 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:04PM (#4833261) Homepage
    God, why does all of slashdot seem to hate a really good movie? I mean, it's not like I come to /. for movie reviews, and I sure won't now, but really...

    Ok, so what's your point? That Solaris isn't "science-fictiony" enough? That the planet doesn't do anything cool? Um...ok. We could, I suppose, get into some kind of argument about this, but if you don't see why that's a really, really stupid point to make to begin with, I'm not gonna bother.

    There are, surprisingly, some good points made against the movie (though they're probably accidentally made). Such as: Clooney's a bad actor. You mention the scene wherein Clooney has a really, really corny set of lines, and might I add, it's the only one where he doesn't really seem believable. Most of the time, he does fine. Not great, but fine. Jeremy Davies, on the other hand, is just kind of annoying, laying it on with a forklift where really, a knife would be more appropriate.

    You compare the movie to 2001, and then basically argue that they're different, only because of the cinematography. Ok...2001 is about man's hubris finally catching up with him: he (pardon the gendered language) goes too far, and eventually, his creations bring about his demise. Not all of man's demise, but the point is made. Solaris is, on some level, also about the failure of man in the face of his presumed greatness: why is the station out by Solaris? To see if it can be used as an energy source. Just getting there, and building the station, are remarkable acts of engineering skill, but we can't handle what happens to us when we get there. Just like in 2001, we're smart enough to build it, but not smart enough to ask whether or not we should, and not smart enough to know what to do when something happens.

    Moving back to your review, you finally get that it's not really a science-fiction movie, but a character study. Good job. You do, however, make fun of the relationship between Clooney and McElhone. Well, ok. But whether or not it "works" is really more up to the viewer. If the viewer can't realize what's going on, though, namely that they are in love, and that the object of Clooney's love just killed herself because of him, well... You also cite the laughter of the audience as, implicitly, a reason not to see the movie. I have noticed that audiences laugh at this movie, and that there are a number of people who walk out of it. Both of these, to me, are indications that people go to Solaris expecting a "George Clooney movie", and thank God, that's not what they get. The American movie-going public being what it is, however, and giving millions upon millions of dollars to Harry Potter and other similarly bad studio productions while sneering derisively at the incomparably better foreign films that are lucky to find an art-house release, I'd say that if the audience thinks a movie's bad, odds are it's good, and if an American public thinks a movie is stupid, well, by God, if Rob Schneider can keep making movies, I want to see what they consider a "stupid" movie.

    • Re:Not again... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 )
      Well, this movie is pretty much going to get it from both sides. The space-opera fan-boys are going to hate it from the get-go: it's trying to be a pensive, philosophical art-piece, there's no special effects, the science-fiction diagesis that they want isn't coming to them, and all in all it's not the kind of movie they are looking for. Those of us on the other side of the equation are disappointed with the movie, though: as a pensive, philosophical art-piece, it's not successful. The camera work doesn't provide the visual poetry necessary to make a movie like this work. Clooney was fine here, I have no qualms with his performance. But the script was thin - the dialogue was fine, but the film failed to explore enough topics. The questions about the motivations for being at Solaris were touched upon but not explored or expanded - it's as if Soderbergh lost the nerve to go there.

      For the fan-boys, the film didn't provide enough answers. For the cinephiles, it didn't ask enough questions.

      And it's true that the Clooney + spaceships formula attracted a lot of people who normally wouldn't come to a philosophical art-piece, and that is possibly a good thing. It would have been more effective, however, to give them a better movie, even if it was even farther away from their expectations.

      • I'd agree with that. The movie was better than I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised, but I wasn't pleasantly astounded. The plot isn't tight at all: there're at least five or ten subplots that get picked up and dropped with no explanation, and the movie does seem to turn away from the harder questions (who is really behind this, why are they doing what they're doing, should we continue to attempt to exploit it at the point that it expresses displeasure with our doing so, etc). Basically, it's really about Clooney dealing with what happens to him when he gets there, which seems a little odd, considering that he was called to Solaris to help the crew figure out what to do. So yeah, it's definitely imperfect. But I'm willing to forgive a major studio picture for taking the risk to ask some of the harder questions in the first place, and not to just throw up a lot of fx and stupid dialogue.
      • ...it's trying to be a pensive, philosophical art-piece, there's no special effects...

        Well, it's good to know that there were no special effects in the movie, this means we have made a ton of technological advances over the last 10 days. My faith in NASA is almost restored.

        • Hah. Yeah.

          Well, let's just say there's no particular spectacular, indulgent special effects.

          At a certain point, I really hope the enthusiasm for special effects in general goes away, as it is becoming increasingly possible to simple do anything you can imagine. Instead of being impressed by the effect, one can be impressed by the vision itself. That's more or less what happened in Western art - as it became easier and easier to become completely realistic, culminating in photography, virtuousity in realistic portrayal stopped being very interesting in art.

  • Interestingly, a lot of the reviews I read of the novel Solaris (including the one on Slashdot) go into some depth about the character of Kelvin and his relationship with his wife. I thought this was not at all the central issue in the book; I found it to be much more about the (slightly more abstract) concept of the limit to which an individual can ever relate to another - be it one's wife or a sentient planet. The return of Kelvin's wife seemed to me a way to explicate that all we ever relate to is our own interior representation of the other - it's a peculiar trap of sentience that we can never escape.

    Anyway, given that take on the novel, I've been pessimistic about the film ever since I saw the trailers. When you're expecting deep statements about psychology and epistemology, and Voice-Over Man goes on about "blah blah love story blah blah deep in space ", disappointment seems inevitable. Perhaps if I adjust my expectations, I'll enjoy it.

    Or maybe I should just stay home and watch Tarkovsky's movie.

    OK,
    - B

  • Soderberg's recent work. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gumber ( 17306 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:07PM (#4833272) Homepage
    It might be a nit, but saying that Soderberg has lately been focusing more on Elmore Lenoard style thrillers as a departure from his earlier character driven work is just silly.

    As evidence for this assertion, three movies are listed.
    1. Out of Sight
    2. Traffic
    3. Oceans 11

    Never mind that most of these more caper-flicks than thrillers. They are also only about half of his output over the last 5 years, and, in the case of out of sight, have strong introspective character driven components.

    But please, don't forget Erin Brockovitch, The Limey & Full Frontal, all released since Out of Sight. Taken togeather, think it is hard to charactarize his recent output according to some simple trend.

    If anything, you might say that he seems to alternate between more commercial and more artistically focused efforts, but even this breaks down.

    Out of Sight might fit as a commercial film, but really only in retrospect. George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez weren't big stars when it was made, and its complex narrative structure would seem at odds with the success it enjoyed.

    Erin Brokovich looks like a play to make a commercial picture, what with it featuring an established star, but Soderberg's subsequent engangeent with Clooney and Roberts looks more motivated by friendship or artistic interests than simple commerce.

  • Many people seem to be concentrating on the idea that Solaris is an attempt at homage to Kubrick, and in some senses, I can understand how that could be seen. Take this movie on its' own, however, and it's a very interesting piece of cinematic work.

    What if it's not about the science fiction? What if it's not about man's failure to relate to fellow man or even the rest of the universe? What if it's not about greiving over a long-lost woman?

    What if it's about an unusual problem, and the possible solutions? The movie presents quite a number of different solutions to the same problem, through each of the characters on board the space station - even several times through the same character. I think that the film proposes that there are so many possibilities and outcomes - and each one of them is valid and successful in its' own right. I left the movie feeling very dissatisfied, but not because of the acting or the special effects. It was because there wasn't solid closure to the film like there is in so many other mainstream films. I definitely like a movie which doesn't leave me feeling the same way as every other movie when I walk out of the theater. I also completely saw the twist coming at the end of the movie (if you can call it that), and it didn't bother me one bit that I could predict it.

    It's like Lord of the Rings - everyone knows or can figure out the end of the story; how you get there is of tremendous importance. I think Solaris did a good job of taking me on that journey, and leaving me three hours after the credits thinking about it.
  • I recently saw Solaris, without much hope that it would be good....and I wasn't disappointed. In my opinion, the real main character of the book was the ocean, and Lem would go on for pages and pages about how it behaves, what it creates, and its history of interactions with humans. This movie had none of that whatsoever...in fact, I don't remember hearing the word "ocean" ever mentioned...Solaris was this cheesy looking purple and pink ball.

    Either the reviewer hasn't read the book, or he has accepted the fact that the movie has little intentions on sticking to its namesake. However, I do agree with him that using Solaris to try to tell the message it seems to be trying to send is overkill. It would have been better maybe to adapt the story of his wife coming back some other way, sort of like how apocalypse now gives a different setting for heart of darkness.
    • You are correct, but basically to make an accurate portrayal of the book would be extremely long and probably boring. This movie does the right thing - it focuses on one aspect of the book, and hints at the rest. If it did too much, it would surely lose focus.

  • Lightsaber - messy? Dammit! (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @02:52PM (#4833507)

    This is a bit like using a Jedi Knight and her light saber to get at a can of soup.

    The Jedi Knight and the light saber will definitely get the can, and get it open in a jiffy. But the contents are a mess.

    Dammit man, a lightsaber is an elegant and simple way to open a can - not as clumsy or as random as, say, a blaster!!

    Perhaps YOUR lightsaber skills are not up to snuff when opening a can of Campbells finest. But a REAL Jedi Knight can open a can, shave his face, or pick YOUR nose without you even noticing using his/her lightsaber!

    Disgrunted Jedi everywhere blow you a big rasperry, sir.

  • Squeezing every drop out of an analogy (Score:3, Funny)

    by ChuckleBug ( 5201 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @03:05PM (#4833578) Journal
    This is a bit like using a Jedi Knight and her light saber to get at a can of soup.

    The Jedi Knight and the light saber will definitely get the can, and get it open in a jiffy. But the contents are a mess. And one never seems to have a light saber around when one needs one. Much less a light saber attached to a willing Jedi Knight -- "Follow our mandate from the Jedi Council, we must! Mmmm!"

    "Scotty, we can't make it all the way on pompous hot air! I need more from the Jedi Soup Can!"

    "Cap'n - I can't get any more rhetoric out of this analogy! It's strained beyond its limit! She'll break up for sure!"

  • Kubrick (Score:4, Funny)

    by bcwalrus ( 514670 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @04:11PM (#4833937)
    Thematically, they have little to do with each other. Kubrick's long space shots establish tone and realism for a film shot before the Apollo moon walks.

    Are you confirming that it's Kubrick who made the moon walks clips?
  • Solaris is one of the most poignantly beautiful movies that I have seen in a long time. Yes, it is about a man mourning his dead wife. It is also about confronting the unknown, and towards the end, about embracing the unknown. The latter is a characteristic of sci fi films, and also, the aspect of this movie that our reviewer has failed to note. It is utterly irrelevant to this film what action movies the actors have previously starred in, or what thrillers the director previously brought forth. Anyone going to this film expecting chases, chills and flashy fight scenes should go see a James Bond movie. This is a love story in a sci fi setting, beautifully set, and conveying accurately the spirit of Stanislaw Lem's novel.
  • this is lame.

    the same way that everything that a human is "natural" because we are humans and part of nature, soderberg cannot depart from things that are soderberg.

    you just havent seen this before.

  • Art house? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CausticWindow ( 632215 ) on Saturday December 07, 2002 @04:58PM (#4834169)
    I haven't seen this new version of Solaris, so excuse me for being somewhat off-topic. Why is it that 'Americans' automaticly use 'art house', to describe somthing that isn't Hollywood gloss?

    • Re:Art house? (Score:2, Informative)

      by mbstone ( 457308 )
      Because most Americans have 28-screen cinemas and corporate video rental stores near their homes -- but the theater chains won't devote even 1 out of the 28 to anything that isn't Hollywood pap. The only way to see a movie that isn't written and directed by teenagers is to live near the art-house theaters of Manhattan or West Hollywood, or wait for it to (possibly) show up on cable. Whether or not a picture qualifies as True Art House is a question for purists and film school dropouts.
  • People didn't complain about the sci-fi ness of Gattaca. Sure the White House didn't get destroyed by a 20 mile wide alien spaceship, but it had a really fucking great story and excellent acting. *gasp* Yes, that can happen in sci-fi movies. Unfortunately it's rare.

  • Poor Review (Score:2, Insightful)

    by divisionbyzero ( 300681 )
    Basically, this review tells us that the author expected something different from what he got. Perhaps he had the wrong expectations? Of course, this might also be due to the way the move is being marketed... It also seems like he couldn't imagine Soderbergh as a sci-fi director and went into it trying to see how Soderbergh failed. I haven't seen it yet, but this review certainly won't dissuade me.
  • Just finished my marathon of the Tarkovsky version of Solaris, the current Clooney version and the book. I think the Tarkovsky version is more visually lyrical than the Cameron/Soderberg production. I think the newer film has a "cleaner" story line. I think both films leave all the money on the table when is comes to what Lem was interested in talking about. While both movies give lip service to the idea that we as humans may not be ready or even have the capacity for relating to non human intelligence, once the lines have been said, the theme is not explored very deeply. Ironically, by running to the love story, they both prove Lem's point. We can't begin to grasp what alien contact might really be like, but we DO know about love and failure and the desire for redemption. It is safer (more marketable) ground. Both films cave in at the end, although I think Tarkovsky gives us the more startling visual/conceptual ending of the two films. Neither has the courage to leave Kelvin on the station as Lem does,hoping for more "horrible miracles." Neither film takes much trouble to discuss that in that universe, people have been trying to make contact with Solaris for over 100 years. Neither film deals with Kelvin's speculation that consciousness as we know it may just be emerging for the Solaris entity and that humanity has been trying to contact a galactic infant. Or that the appearance of an infant may in fact be a vaster intelligence who is just starting to figure out how to talk to humans. My thumbnail review to friends about Solaris is that it is difficult to make an intellectual film in a era that is so hostile to intellectual ideas. Both Tarkovsky and to a greater extent Soderberg lose courage. Given the subject matter, as beautiful as both films are, they are both disappointing.
  • I think the movie was slow, but I only found myself looking at my watch in the last 10 minutes or so, and then I found myself disliking Soderbergh for putting in the obvious happy ending.. I mean, I like movies to have happy endings, but they could have cut it just as they were about to leave, perhaps with that backing out frame (don't want a spoiler here, but people who've seen it should kno what I mean).

    As some other have said, the review seemed to miss the point of the movie, its not about angst, it about the nature of personhood and inter-personhood perceptions, and what constitutes reality.

    I'd give it 3.5 out of 5. With a 3 being, I'd have been happy to pay to see it on video. 4 being worth going to the theatre for.

    Winton
  • Man o man, that was one of the dumbest reviews I've read in a long time (maybe ever). Is he 15 years old or something. Here are my takes on his takes, warning, there may be some spoilers (don't know since I haven't written them yet):

    This is a bit like using a Jedi Knight and her light saber to get at a can of soup

    What the hell is he talking about. How lame of an analogy can you have, Jedi's? Then he has an entire paragraph about this and it makes no sense at all.

    "Are you or are you not made of sub-atomic particles?" (of course -- everything is made of subatomic particles, usually organized in the form of atoms, duh)

    Unless of course they are entities that exist entirely in your head. And even if one was thinking hologram, and even holograms are made of subatomic particles, that misses the point entirely.

    Comparisons with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey are as inevitable as they are inaccurate. Both films are set in space. And both films have a slow pace, driven largely by beautifully shot scenes of some space-scape. But that's the extent of the similarity.

    What, the docking sequence was not similar enough for you, man, it looks like he replicated some frames verbatim not to mention the "addition" of the "no sounds in space" effect. Hell I expected the Blue Danube to start playing (and no, I had not heard previous to watching the film about any homages to Kubrick).

    The science fiction conceit of this super-powerful planet never goes anywhere.

    Why should it? The planet was a device, something that drove plot points. Just like the monoliths in 2001. You are never explicitly told what they are or what they're doing, and they don't really factor in the actual film, though they are obviously central to the film. He talks about 2001 like a artsy fartsy film student, and then totally misses these points.

    Which brings me to the next issue, his overuse of the word conceit. Talk about pot/kettle/black. But then again I have to remind myself that he did pull the Jedi thing early in the review.

    in the highly-regarded sex, lies, and videotape (yes, the title is all in lowercase -- never seen a satisfactory explanation for that little bit of conceit either)

    Maybe he just liked the way it looked, who cares? Once again with the coneit word. Is this guy an old roommate of Soderburghs that never made it big?

    A "trick" ending that is broadcast throughout the movie.

    Maybe the problem is that the author of the review thought it was supposed to be a "trick" ending. A "trick" ending is one in which nothing or little in the story leads one to expect the ending that occured. That was hardly the case here. One could imagine a few different endings, but the one that happened was definitely one of them. And it had nothing to do with telescoping, it was just natural story progression. A trick ending would have been "George Clooney goes back to earth and marries a 18yo white trash chick and develops a beer gut" or "a spaceship full of space marines show up with Sigourney Weaver to flesh out any "bugs"". In this case the ending brings up the question (though admittadly other movies have done the same) of "what is really real" and which reality _should_ we accept (yes, similar to "The Matrix"), which is completely consitant with the story.

    Sorry for the verbosity (though coming in as late as I am, I doubt that many will end up suffering through this), but this kind of drivel is very disappointing. Hell my submission about the interview with Sun's Scott McNealy gets punted (and he actually has some very interesting things to say about their Linux strategy, god forbid an "on topic" article) and crap like this makes it in. Oh well, "if ya don't like it start yer own damn site" I guess.
  • Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features and reviews. Thanks to nellardo for this one!

    I haven't seen this new movie, and was hesitant to watch it for fear it would not live up to the Tarkovsky version, which I loved. Unfortunately, I don't find this review helpful, for some of the same reasons discussed above.

    Perhaps when a new movie/book comes out Slashdot should invite reader reviews, then a subset of the /. audiance (eg those who have time to meta-moderate) would pre-screen these reviews, and we the general audiance could be presented with pre ranked set of reviews.

    ps. I do appreciate nellardo's writing this review, I just didn't find it helpful.

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