Solaris: A New Dawn for Sci-Fi?

[trailergod]

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56393,00.html


The online community of sci-fi fans can't quite agree on what they think of Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, an upcoming remake of an obscure but treasured Russian film.

Some have high hopes.
"(Soderbergh is) on the cusp of making the most provocative science-fiction film since 2001: A Space Odyssey," wrote a columnist at Ain't It Cool News.

But many purists dread the new Solaris, which stars George Clooney and will be released Nov. 27. They worry that Soderbergh will trample on two sacred sci-fi texts: the 1961 novel by Stanislaw Lem and the 1971 film by Andrei Tarkovsky.

More optimistic fans of the genre imagine Soderbergh -- one of Hollywood's more serious-minded, adventurous and idiosyncratic directors -- injecting new life into a sci-fi scene they feel is on the slide.

In Solaris, a psychologist named Kelvin is sent to the space station Prometheus to investigate the strange behavior of the resident scientists. Once there, he discovers that the nearby planet Solaris exerts a powerful influence on the crew.

Soderbergh has been quiet about his film, which is produced by Hollywood titan James Cameron (The Terminator, Titanic). Nonetheless, those who flock to the Solaris fan site scrutinize every step of the movie's production.

The site's bulletin board includes dozens of posts about everything from the casting decisions to the music. More than 50 posts alone ponder the meaning of the film's trailer ("the usual Hollywood paranoid trash," reads one comment).

And the site's visitors gleefully seized on the minor controversy that resulted when the film got an R rating because of a sex scene featuring Clooney's naked rump.

Though a good portion of chatter at the site bashes Soderbergh ("I hope everyone involved in this remake dies a slow, miserable death from a combination of every painful disease known to man," one Tarkovsky fan wrote), there is optimism about the film, too.

"It's almost hard to believe a thought-provoking film like this got past the Hollywood executives," wrote webmaster Krzys Kotwicki after reading a bootleg copy of the script. "It's so refreshing to read a sci-fi script which isn't aimed at 12-year-olds!"

Among the less hopeful sci-fi buffs is James O'Ehley, whose runs the Sci-Fi Movie Page.

"Remaking Solaris is something akin to heresy," said O'Ehley. "(Soderbergh) is simply no Andrei Tarkovsky. It is a bit like comparing a truly great composer like Beethoven to a writer of popular waltzes like Johann Strauss."

O'Ehley sees the new Solaris as representative of the "incredible dumbing down since Star Wars," and worries that contemporary sci-fi movies exist more to sell action figures than to explore ideas. He called 2000 the "annus horribilis" of sci-fi moviemaking.

Of course, fan site musings aren't always steeped in historical context. According to Geoff King, lecturer at Brunel University in London and author, with Tanya Krzywinska, of Science Fiction Cinema, today's science-fiction films are probably no better or worse than at any other time.

"I think this 'golden age' of intelligent science-fiction filmmaking is a kind of imaginary lost object," King said. "Intelligent science-fiction films like (the original) Solaris come around only very occasionally."

And King, who believes that many sci-fi fans would find Tarkovsky's slow-paced Solaris "hard going," has high hopes for the remake.

"Soderbergh has shown he can take more edgy, arty, slightly experimental formal approaches into mainstream genres," King said. "He could (be) the guy who makes Solaris formally and intellectually interesting without it being totally noncommercial."

King also dismisses those who feel the new version of the film is an insult to the original. "Whatever Soderbergh does -- good, bad, ugly or wonderful -- doesn't change (the original) Solaris' existence. If anything, it will draw more attention to it."

[impetigo]

we need more sci-fi movies like solaris. of course i haven't seen it yet, but i can tell that it's the sort of scifi flick that doesn't get made often. can't wait!!

[chilko]

yes, and now David Fincher will direct Rendezvous with Rama based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke...