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Solaris Station

L8wrtr

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Funny that you should mention Gattaca as that was a film that I definitely felt reminded of on a very atmospheric level with regards to the Soderburg version (ironically, my wife despises both movies). I need to purchase the Tarkovsky version and watch all three to get a good evaluation.

I agree with SD that I did not view the relationship in Soderburg's version as a romance, it was far more a projection of his character having to face something he truly did not want to face. The fact that he had an emotional reaction to something created out of his memory has the feel of romance, but that added to the confusion that he faced. I'm curious if anyone on this thread has read the original novel. My understanding is that even the Tarkovsky version has its own variances as well.

And lastly, I have received your new dlc. We typically update .info once a week. I'll try however to see if I can get this fixed sometime today if work allows the time.

Looking forward to seeing this.
 

spicediver

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L8wrtr said:
I'm curious if anyone on this thread has read the original novel. My understanding is that even the Tarkovsky version has its own variances as well..

Yep I've read Lem's book (the English translation anyway). It's pretty heavy going at times but I'd recommend it if you like the films. Philosopically it goes a lot deeper than either of the movies.
 

Brumous

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It's been years since I read the book and my memory of it is hazy. What I remember is a very dry and philosophical book that's all about the scientific investigation of Solaris and discussions about the nature of the unknowable, utterly alien Ocean. Whatever travails the scientists go through, they are only side effects of the investigation. The whole book takes place on the station and there are no Earth scenes.

Both Tarkovsky and Soderberg wisely understood that a successful movie needs to involve the audience emotionally, that there has to be some kind of conflict or desire that draws the viewer into the story. Those were never Lem's strengths. He was a Polish writer living behind the Iron Curtain; his specialties were irony, satire, and veiled criticism.

Lem disliked Tarkovsky's version
http://english.lem.pl/arround-lem/a...ovsky/176-lem-about-the-tarkovskys-adaptation

and dismissed Soderberg's version
http://english.lem.pl/arround-lem/adaptations/soderbergh/147-the-solaris-station

His comments are a little unfair I think, because he only saw 20 minutes of the Tarkovsky version and didn't see any of the Soderberg version.
 

Brumous

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L8wrtr said:
And lastly, I have received your new dlc. We typically update .info once a week. I'll try however to see if I can get this fixed sometime today if work allows the time.

L8wrtr - thanks for all you do.
 

spicediver

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REVIEW FOR APPROVAL

Plot: 10/10. The plot of the original film remains intact. From Amazon: "The story follows a cosmonaut (Donatas Banionis) on an eerie trip to a planet where haunting memories can take physical form. Its bare outline makes it sound like a routine space-flight picture, an elongated Twilight Zone episode; but the further into its mysteries we travel, the less familiar anything seems. By the time the final images cross the screen, Tarkovsky has gone way beyond SF conventions into a moving, unsettling vision of memory and home."

Image quality including editing: 9/10. Given the age of the source, it's a good looking print and the DVD re-encoding for this fanedit looks to be as good as it possibly can be. The faneditor might also like to encode a slow 2-pass h.264 for release as well (a MKV or MP4) which should look even better. The quality of the editing is very good, especially given that nearly 40 minutes have been removed. The original film also suffered from rough cutting/splicing and this is a problem that the editor also set out to fix - successfully I'm happy to report.

Audio quality: 7/10. The fanedit has decent sound given the age of the source. One point I would make is that this is not a film that relies on dynamics in the sound design, yet there is a large volume difference between quiet dialogue and louder moments. This is just how the audio source is, it's not the faneditor's doing. However the effect could be softened by compressing/limiting the waveform of a master .wav file before final encoding. Just a suggestion and hardly essential in my view.

Difference to the original: 10/10. A revelation for this viewer. Tarkovsky's cut is unnecessarily slow and padded and more then a few viewers have never made it to the end. When I first saw this movie in a small theaterette some years ago it was the first and only time in my life that I fell asleep for a short while in a cinema! Blame the beanbags and cushions perhaps. That said, by removing 40 minutes the faneditor has created a more powerful film and nothing major is missing from the story that I can recall. It's haunting quality seems magnified now. It's no closer to Stanislaw Lem's novel but that was not the faneditor's intention here.

Overall presentation: 8/10. The titles and credits are nicely done, especially the film's opening. The disc has a simple DVD menu plus trailer.

Entertainment: 10/10. A good film with a unique concept, Tarkovsky's Solaris is now made remarkably better with thoughtful fanediting by Brumous. Solaris Station is still talky and character driven but that's the kind of film Solaris is. It's not an action film and for that reason it will not be to some viewers' taste, but every sci-fi fan should see this film at least once. It's a film equally about ideas and human emotions, something that great sci-fi always achieves.

Well done to Brumous. Now, how about having a shot at Tarkovsky's "Stalker"? ;-)

Overall rating: 10/10. APPROVED!

approved.png

 

Brumous

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spicediver said:
Entertainment: 10/10. A good film with a unique concept, Tarkovsky's Solaris is now made remarkably better with thoughtful fanediting by Brumous.

Even more awesome than your previous review! My gratitude to you, Spicediver.

I did test out different encoding methods and formats, and I don't think there's any more image quality improvement to be had from the 2002 Criterion release. However, I've been reading reviews of the blu-ray version which will be released next week, and it looks to have slightly improved color depth and detail. Check out some comparison screenshots:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/solaris.htm

The blu-ray also has some digital restoration work which they say fixed the bad splices and camera "bumps." I fixed many of those manually in my fanedit, so I'll be interested to compare that with the blu-ray.

Good suggestion about Stalker--could be a good candidate for a fanedit. I have not seen it yet, but heard it's as good as Solaris although different.
 

L8wrtr

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Congratulations Brumous! It seemed only a matter of time before the thumbs up came your way. Looking forward to this.
 

spicediver

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Brumous said:
Good suggestion about Stalker--could be a good candidate for a fanedit. I have not seen it yet, but heard it's as good as Solaris although different.

I found Stalker just as interesting but as painfully long as Solaris.
 

Brumous

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The updated file with the repaired chapter selection menu is now posted. Let me know if you have any difficulties with downloading.

And the fanedit page is in the "Approved" section now - yahoo! http://fanedit.org/13755/ Give it a rating or a review if you feel like it.
 

LastSurvivor

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Congratulations on getting your first edit approved Brumous... nice feeling isn't it? ;)

Will be looking forward to viewing this after I've watched the original.
 

Gatos

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Well I just finished watching Solaris Station and I was very impressed. I watched the original in preparation for watching this fanedit and Brumous had warned me ahead of time that it can be quite boring (most notably the infamous tokyo driving sequence). My only other exposure to this material had been through seeing some of the soderbergh/clooney remake. I found the original Solaris enjoyable and not too boring (although watching it in 30 minute segments may have helped make it less boring).

As is my usual rule, I did not read the cutlist before watching Solaris Station. Brumous firstling is very well done. The audio and video editing was excellent nothing noticeable or jarring. Other than the considerable shortening of the tokyo sequence i honestly could not tell what had been excised from this edit. The pace and mood of the original are intact but Brumous' edit gives viewers a more accessible version of Solaris to watch. Rating 9/10. Excellent job. Great fanedit and forced me to watch a movie i probably wouldn't have watched otherwise!
 

Brumous

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Many thanks, Gatos! Glad you enjoyed it and I appreciate your comments, especially the one about not being able to tell what was cut. There are a couple of different philosophies of editing: some try to be invisible, and some are in your face shouting "look at me!" Both can be good and entertaining. I often enjoy the invisible technique, hence my screen name.
 

Pedro Gomez

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First of all, sorry for my english.

Brumous, i like your edit in technical point of view, but IMO you made couple of mistakes.

1. you shortened Kris's home movie. IMO it's bad move. This home movie is about Kris's relationship with his mother. Hari get between them. Kris's mother is jealous. Look at Kris's face in the bathroom. He is lying to Hari/Solaris about his leaving to other town. With full lenght of home movie viewer is almost certain that Kris's mother was one of main reason of Kris's leave and Hari's death. But not in your version.
2. And first of all. You cut scene of Hari seeing water falling from ceiling. It's very importent scene. Look at Hari's face, she is smiling. Why? Beacouse Hari isn't Hari, Hari is Solaris, or Solaris spy. Sense of this scene, and scene in library is: humans not exploring Solaris, humans are explored by Solaris, and they even don't know about it (Snaut speech after he and Kelvin left library). When Hari's saying in library: "Kris Kelvin..." and so on, it's not Hari speaking, it's Solaris speaking. Look at Kris's face after he returned to library. He start to realise who Hari really is.
This is only few things after one quick view. My main point is: your edit is technicaly superb, but you completely changed sense of this movie.

Once again, sorry for my english.
 

Brumous

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Thanks for your feedback, Pedro. I appreciate your point of view even though I disagree with it...that is one of the wonderful things about Solaris, that it is open to so many interpretations.

Maybe Kris's mother was jealous, maybe not. They don't interact at all in the home movie, and I do not think that shortening the movie changes any important information about that. To me, the important story point is that
Hari is starting to recover her own memories (at least, the ones that Kris subconsciously has given to her) and Kris starts to realize she is more than a cipher.
Is Hari an agent of Solaris? In my opinion that is the most fascinating and ambiguous theme in the movie and and one of the most interesting things to speculate about. However I don't think the water falling from the ceiling makes that question any more or less ambiguous.
I think Tarkovsky just threw it in to create more mystery about when Solaris-created reality takes over. Is that the changeover point? Is it later, when Kris reappears at the rural homestead? Are Snaut and Sartorious agents of Solaris all along? Does the whole movie take place in Solaris-created reality? By cutting Hari seeing the water fall, I wanted to make the changeover point less specific and more open to speculation.
Also, kudos to you for watching a fanedit with subtitles in a language that is not native to you.
 

Brumous

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Since Megaupload was shut off, I have taken the opportunity to re-encode Solaris Station and fix a few things. The biggest change was to make a properly compressed and encoded soundtrack. There were some comments that the soundtrack had too much dynamic range. When I checked out the encoding settings on Solaris Station version one, I found out that the soundtrack was totally uncompressed. That means that some DVD players would miss most of the subtle audio touches that do so much to set the mood of Solaris. It's a slow paced movie, so the subtle ambient soundtrack adds a lot of needed interest to the viewing experience.

I experimented with different manual compressions and finally decided there is no substitute for good audio encoding software. So the 2.0 version is Dolby encoded with Film Standard compression. I also fixed a few minor visual mistakes, like some light bleeding into the surrounding black frame in a few scenes, and a line of dialogue that was noticeably poorly dubbed in the original.

The new version .dlc has been submitted to the administrators and will show up on .info in due course.

I'd also like to give praise to the Solaris soundtrack by Eduard Artemyev. It is a pathbreaking ambient electronic composition, really innovative for 1972 film soundtrack. It is richly textured and appropriately spooky & other worldly. It was composed on the ANS synthesizer which was a bizarre and one of a kind photo-optical instrument that you programmed by drawing lines in a layer of black paste that was a coating on glass disks. Check out this article for more about the ANS synthesizer and the Solaris soundtrack.
 

spicediver

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Look foward to it. Can you repost here when the DLC is up?

I love analogue synth music and I agree with you about that soundtrack. German band Popol Vuh were making comparable sounds around this time too. :)

Cliff Martinz's soundtrack for Steven Soderburg's adaption is also superb - it sounds electronic even though there is minimal synthesisers in the mix.
 

reave

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I might grab this and make a nice DVD5 encode if anyone is interested.
 

havok1977

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reave said:
I might grab this and make a nice DVD5 encode if anyone is interested.
Me me me! Saves me the re encoding hassle :p
 
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