MovieChat Forums > Arrival (2016) Discussion > The original SOLARIS set a very high bar

The original SOLARIS set a very high bar

posted 8 years ago by thepooles-1
9 replies | jump to latest

A distant planet is studied by an orbiting manned station with tragic results when the sentient oceanic planet sends up simulacrums hoping to ease the psychological torments of the crew. Will THE ARRIVAL deal with such a heady subject? Doubtful.

[–] BornAndBred 8 years ago

No. It will not. Tarkovsky made "heavy" films. This will be nothing like that particular genre.

[–] thepooles-1 8 years ago

So ARRIVAL belongs to the space soap opera cartoon genre like Star Wars, right? . We could use some heavy SOLARIS type films today but continue to get cliche THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL remakes.

[–] snagletooth 8 years ago

Errr....Tarkovsky was the director of a movie version of "Solaris"

Stanislaw Lem wrote the original story.

The difficulty of communication and perhaps unbridgeable difference of worldview and thought/cognition between humans and "true" aliens, are shared between the stories.

[–] rabbitmoon 8 years ago

I kept thinking this whilst watching Arrival. Its like Villineuve desperately wants to make a Tarkovsky type film, but has to sell out to executives and a repressed running time.

Arrival could have been developed into something far more interesting and epic, and deserves a three hour run time much more than Interstellar (which I feel wastes a lot of its duration).

Its over too soon after its secrets are revealed, whilst it could have gone on to explore those ideas much, much further, and beyond the limited scope of the main character.

Even just having two characters involved in the single, core gimmick of the film would have led to far more interesting permutations of the story.

Its like the writers didn't have the balls to really run with it, and felt safer making a limited, simpler and purer story (a little like Nolan did with the paternal relationship in Interstellar, but at least he tried to take it further with the whole saving the world thing as well).

[–] tcob44 8 years ago

A distant planet is studied by an orbiting manned station with tragic results when the sentient oceanic planet sends up simulacrums hoping to ease the psychological torments of the crew. Will THE ARRIVAL deal with such a heady subject? Doubtful.

Solaris is my favorite sci-fi book ever, and the two films are really great, although neither do the book justice. That said, what do you mean the "sentient ocean planet sends up simulacrums hoping to ease the psychological torments of the crew"? The sentient ocean planet sends up simulacrums specifically to psychologically torment the crew, as they had just tried to harm the sentient ocean planet as a last ditch effort to make contact with it.

Anywho, I've enjoyed the collection of short fiction in which appears the story that 'Arrival' is based on, and it's pretty impressive stuff (what I've read so far), so if you like Lem, you'll probably like Ted Chiang, too. Unfortunately, based on the trailer, it appears Hollywood isn't making any effort to stay true to the book, but it still might be an excellent film.

[–] snagletooth 8 years ago

I myself have no idea if the vistors were meant as a gift or a torture, or if the ocean would even 'think' in those terms.

As an aside, in Solaris, what's your take on what happens when they feed the guys encephalgrams as modulated X-rays to the ocean and it sends up the 'birds' (or whatever they were, and then stops creating the visiters. What was going on there?

[–] tcob44 8 years ago

I myself have no idea if the vistors were meant as a gift or a torture, or if the ocean would even 'think' in those terms.

Although it remains open to interpretation within the book, however, in his other first contact novels (Fiasco, His Master's Voice, and Eden), Lem has a pretty pessimistic take on how first contact would go, so I think that lends more weight to the simulacra being a form of psychological torment. That said, you make an excellent point, namely: Would the sentient ocean planet even "think" in those terms?

As an aside, in Solaris, what's your take on what happens when they feed the guys encephalgrams as modulated X-rays to the ocean and it sends up the 'birds' (or whatever they were, and then stops creating the visiters. What was going on there?

I basically thought it was a legitimate first contact, whereas I thought the simulacra were "return fire", so to speak. And wasn't it just a single, giant, hovering mimoid? It's been a few years since I read it, but I do think it was just one...

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] rabbitmoon 8 years ago

Watching Arrival I kept thinking of Tarkovsky - and how MUCH better Arrival COULD have been, if in the hands of a director like Tarkovsky or Kieslowski. And explored and developed much, much more.

I really miss those kinds of intelligent, rewatchable films that are packed with depth.

Arrival really is just another "cute" shiny Hollywood film for the Netflix crowd, a Nolan-ish film (but without the complexity of Prestige or Inception, more like Interstellar) that looks intelligent and takes itself seriously but really doesn't carry that much depth or human truth. Its perfect for that generation of shiny high-def surround sound film-goers who want to feel like they're watching something intelligent, but wouldn't go anywhere near a Tarkovsky film.