Yeah, keep in mind Soderburgh had a budget; Tarkovsky did his on a shoestring budget, and some of the wtfs (like the driving sequence) result from budgetary iss

Yeah, keep in mind Soderburgh had a budget; Tarkovsky did his on a shoestring budget, and some of the wtfs (like the driving sequence) result from budgetary issues. Soderburgh certainly improved a lot on the cinematography, no argument. For people with a lot vested in their critical opinions I'm sure criticism of solaris is a no-go; for a lot of others, though, it's one of those films where you can see how it could be so much better if remade with less budgetary constraints (we don't need a cgi planet, really, but just a second-draft to get it right)...and Soderburgh being Soderburgh he got his chance. One thing that's worth remembering is just how narrow Tarkovsky cut the book: the book goes on at great length, but Tarkovsky cut everything down to the core human drama: - you're sent to investigate the mental health of people out on this space station investigating this incomprehensible object, b/c they've basically stopped communicating - you get there and instead of anything you expect to find, you find your long-dead wife - that's a pretty incomprehensible thing, no? It's something Lem included as a pretty smart move, but you could -- literally -- write a whole novel or make a whole film just trying to work through the psychological reactions that'd produce By restricting that attention it humanizes the encounter with the incomprehensible: - you get to 'cheat'; a cgi orange planet is obviously a cgi orange planet, and thus not really 'mysterious'; using interpersonal relationships for your mystery lets you tap into very primal emotional hooks - but at the end it's still left deliberately opaque enough to remain an encounter with the incomprehensible If you have read more by Lem you'll see his pet peeve is comprehensible mysteries -- just about every story he's written can be interpreted in some way as a kind of parable of how even 'explorers' are mostly uninterested in or incapable of encountering or appreciating anything they didn't already know or understand. Fiasco fits the bill, as does 'Return from the Stars' (though it's harder to pick out, there). Lem was pretty prolific.