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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Solaris
(Fox Home
Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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July
29, 2003
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Length:
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99 mins.
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| Rated:
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PG-13
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1/16x9)
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Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1, English Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby
Surround, French Dolby Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English, Spanish, Closed-Captioned
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| Extras:
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Audio
Commentary with Director Steven Soderbergh and Producer James
Cameron, HBO "Making Of" Special, "Solaris:
Behind the Planet" Documentary, Trailers, Original
Screenplay
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Solaris is set in the near future and is
centered around a psychiatrist named Kelvin (George Clooney). I don't
think there are 10 words spoken in the first 10 minutes and Soderbergh
seems to be drawing an emotional picture of the main character through
images rather than words. The effect works though because the one word
you could use to describe Clooney's character is 'lonely'. After this
introduction Kelvin receives a message from a friend who is working on
a space station studying a planet called Solaris. The message is a
request for Kelvin to come to Solaris and attempt to 'save the day'.
So he goes, a bunch of weird shit happens and the movie ends, with
little or no answer to many questions.
This is one of those movies where the book seems like it would be
really good. It touches on some philosophical questions but never
expands on them (i.e. existence of god, nature of matter, etc.). The
space scenes were really good and the effects for the actual planet
Solaris were very cool and Kubrick-esque. I had a hard time being
interested though as little was explained such as Kelvin's past, the
nature of Solaris and the relationships of the other crew members.
During the commentary with Soderburg and Cameron they reveal that
Stanislaw Lem's book dealt with more science fiction oriented
questions and that Soderbergh wanted it to be more of a human love
story where the actual planet is a minor character (pay attention to
the scenes that show the planet throughout - it is quite interesting)
. He wanted it to be an emotional as opposed to an intellectual film.
I would say he succeeded. I found the movie very slow and it relied
heavily on images rather than script, which does not really carry my
interest (in the commentary Soderbergh even admits some fault in the
writing where certain themes should have been expanded on or
explained). Plus, the movie ends with no explanation as to why
anything just happened which always bugs the shit out of me.
In regards to the extras, there is a commentary with Soderbergh and
Cameron discussing the film which is much more interesting than the
film. They get into a lot of what the book was about which piqued my
interest in reading it and they give an explanation as to why they
veered somewhat from the book. There is an HBO special about the movie
and another documentary-type sequence regarding the film which seemed
to repeat themselves. (At one point there is a sequence from one that
is also in the other.) Unless you really liked the movie, these 2
extras are a bit boring (except for the part about the set design
which was interesting). There are trailers as well which I didn't
watch because I really don't like trailers, but if you are a person
who does then you can be comforted by the fact that they are on this
disc. Finally, there is the screenplay. I didn't go through the whole
thing. If you enjoy this sort of thing than you will find it
interesting. I have never seen this on a DVD before so it was a
novelty for me but after a few pages of it I was bored.
All in all I would say Solaris would be worth renting if you've
already seen the cool movies that have been released. It's worth the
$4 dollars to rent but not the $20+ dollars to buy.
| The
Movie: |
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6.5/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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8/10 |
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| Recommendation: |
Rent
This One |
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did you think?
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Betelguise - Contributor
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