SOLARIS?

[Echo]

Hi guys.
Please tell me there is a scenery of a SOLARIS fiction planet (Lem`s book).
If is not present then somebody can will make it.
I am assured it`s will be soooooooo amazing add-on.

[Tom]

Wasn't it some kind of panthalassic world? Solaris is one of the few of Lem's books I haven't read yet, but if I remember correctly Andrei Tarkovsky's movie described the planet in that way.

[Planet X]

I'm not sure if this is related to what you guys are talking about, but I'm working on a Solaris addon of my own. It is sort of a parallel to our own solar system, with a few differences. Solaris is the parent star, and it's surrounded by 12 planets. There are 4 gas giants, 4 terrestrial planets, and 4 sub terrestrial (Pluto to Mercury-sized ) planets. The primary planet of interest is a semi-panthalassic world that's 1.26 times the size and twice the mass of Earth. This cold world is 80% covered by water and ice, with the remaining 20% consisting of a single super continental landmass. Later!

J P

[Tom]

Solaris (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Solaris is a science fiction novel by Stanis?‚aw Lem, published in Warsaw in 1961. English translations of the book are available as ISBN 0802755267 (1970) ISBN 0156837501 (1987), ISBN 0156027607 (2002), and ISBN 0571219721 (2003). It was adapted into to a film in 1972 and again in 2002 (see Solaris (movie)). There is also an opera of the same title by German composer Michael Obst.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel is about the ultimately futile attempt to communicate with an alien life-form on a distant planet. The planet, called Solaris, is covered with a so-called "ocean" that is really a single organism covering the entire surface. The ocean shows signs of a vast but strange intelligence, which can create physical phenomena in a way that science has difficulty explaining. The alien mind of Solaris is so inconceivably different from human consciousness that all attempts at communication are doomed (the "alienness" of aliens is one of Lem's favourite themes; he is scornful about portrayals of aliens as implausibly humanoid).

The novel begins with the arrival of the protagonist at a scientific research station hovering above the surface of Solaris. Research has been ongoing for years, but scientists have been unable to do more than observe the highly complex phenomena on the surface of the ocean, all the while classifying them into an elaborate nomenclature without understanding what they actually mean. When the protagonist and his colleagues become more aggressive in trying to force contact with Solaris, the experiment becomes psychologically traumatic for the researchers themselves. The ocean's response, such as it is, lays bare their own personalities, while revealing nothing of the ocean's. To the extent that the oceans's actions can be understood, the ocean begins experimenting with the researchers' minds by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories through the materialization of complex human constructs; The protagonist is confronted with memories of his deceased wife and his guilt over her suicide. What torments the other researchers is only hinted at (as they are careful to conceal it) but it appears to be much worse.

Solaris is considered by some to be Lem's greatest novel. Particularly noteworthy are extended passages describing, in cool academic language, phenomena that are totally beyond human comprehension.

Andrei Tarkovsky's film follows the novel quite closely, though it emphasizes human relationships over Lem's theories on exobiology. The ending of the film, however, displays a sentimentality completely contrary to the book. Steven Soderbergh also made a film of Solaris, which appears to be influenced by both the book and by Tarkovsky's film.

[quote]
Solaris (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Solaris (Russian title in Cyrillic lettering: ?????»?

[selden]

Tom,

Please do not post cut-and-pastings from other Web sites. A URL is more approrpriate, accompanied by your own comments.

[Planet X]

@Planet X
Your concept sounds really interesting.

Thanks much!

Being a sort of parallel solar system to our own, I also intend to have parallel counterparts to certain spacecraft, such as Pioneer and Voyager. In fact, I've already got Pioneer 11 reaching Uranus. I also intend to answer in this addon a couple of the most frequently asked "what if" questions. What if Voyager 1 was allowed to encounter Pluto? What if there would have been a Voyager 3 mission? Anyway, I'll keep ya posted. Later!

J P

[Malenfant]

Totally OT, but I thought the 2002 version of the film was much better than the original and infinitely more watchable.

The original was lousy, horrendously boring. The long car scene may have been there to 'weed out the idiots' but it's just too much for ANYONE to cope with to sit there and watch traffic go past for about 15 minutes - that's literally all it is. I got through it once and the film after that is OK, but when I tried watching it again later it was just unbearable.

Go for the new version, it's a lot better.

[selden]

Extremely long, slow plot development is one of the characteristics of just about all of Tarkovsky's films.

[eburacum45]

People had more time in those days. 2001:A Space Oddysey is paced similarly.

[Echo]

Andrey Tarkowsky is one of the best movie director which i had seen.
He`s film so long and action not simple.
Remember in Solaris planet was intellect ocean, it is was great thing.
Which movie do you prefe Solaris (US) or Solaris (USSR) ?
And guys what about Solaris add-on?

[Jeam Tag]

Extremely long, slow plot development is one of the characteristics of just about all of Tarkovsky's films.

Yes, Selden, but in this case this was an interesting variation of the novel. I don't think a Celestia addon for this planet would satisfy neither the novel fans (this is just an oceanic world, with one land emerged IIRC -i read this book 25 years ago, sorry- the pitch is that the mankind of this pecular planet IS the ocean) nor celestians.
Because of the poor interest of this feature (the planet mapping), that coud'nt show the real interest of the story. But I can be wrong.
Jeam, SF fan as you know
(And as usual, sorry for my poor English)

[selden]

But the spacecraft might be intersting.

[rthorvald]

Because of the poor interest of this feature (the planet mapping), that coud'nt show the real interest of the story.

I don??t think a Solaris AddOn would be very interesting... Maybe as an exercise in creating a good water texture, but not much else to see...

BTW, i do prefer Tarkovsky??s version, though the other one wasn??t a bad film. I think the original conveyed the grand, unexplainable "feeling" much better - Soderbergh??s version was a little too streamlined, so to speak; it reminded me of (the now) typical Phil Dick-derived film...

- rthorvald

[Jeam Tag]

Because of the poor interest of this feature (the planet mapping), that coud'nt show the real interest of the story.

I don??t think a Solaris AddOn would be very interesting... Maybe as an exercise in creating a good water texture, but not much else to see.
BTW, i do prefer Tarkovsky??s version, though the other one wasn??t a bad film. I think the original conveyed the grand, unexplainable "feeling" much better - Soderbergh??s version was a little too streamlined, so to speak...

I Absolutely agree.

it reminded me of (the now) typical Phil Dick-derived film...

Don't sure of what you mean: there was numberous PKD derived film! Better was 'Blade Runner' -even if the movie is not totally connect to the novel, 'Do androids dream of electric sheeps'/'Les andro??des r??vent-ils de moutons ?©lectriques', that was a great, really great movie.... and, maybe the little 'Screamers' ('Plan??te hurlante', adapt?© de la nouvelle 'seconde vari?©t?©') adapted from a short story (Second Variety), and numberous other inspired by.
But PKD, as great he was, never really wrote about pecular planets descriptions, and is not really an inspirator for fictionnal textures for Celestia.
But you must read his books, this is a great author.

[rthorvald]

it reminded me of (the now) typical Phil Dick-derived film...

Don't sure of what you mean: there was numberous PKD derived film!

I meant that Soderbergh made his film into something that resembled PKD??s themes too much - distorted / multiple realities - and that this was a too easy way out of resolving the psychological stress the researchers endured.

But PKD, as great he was, never really wrote about pecular planets descriptions, and is not really an inspirator for fictionnal textures for Celestia. But you must read his books, this is a great author

Yes, i have read many of them, and seen several film adaptions; they are becoming increasingly in vogue, and i particularily dread the upcoming A Scanner Darkly, which in Hollywood hands has the potential to trivialize him utterly (IMO one of his best books). Of course nothing he wrote can be adapted to Celestia, so this is becoming veeery off-topic

(BTW, Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies - the version with the Unicorn dream, at any rate).

-rthorvald

[Cham]

[quote="rthorvald"(BTW, Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies - the version with the Unicorn dream, at any rate).

-rthorvald[/quote]

Runar, do you know the interpretation of that unicorn dream ? Did you noticed the paper unicorn, at the end of the movie ? The old policeman is "saying" to Deccart he's a replicant too, and all replicants are doing the same unicorn dream !

Blade Runner is one of my favorite film too.

[Jeam Tag]

I meant that Soderbergh made his film into something that resembled PKD??s themes too much - distorted / multiple realities.

Ah, yes, you're absolutely right. End of the Off-topic