@Invidia said:

But then we also have NO IDEA what happens to us after we die and for all we know maybe our SOULS are also sent to a place like SOLARIS?

Exactly. This is where the story gets ambiguous especially with the AMERICAN ending. I have to watch the Russian one again because it has been a while since I saw it.

Copies from memories, but maybe they're still real... not the same as the original people, but real nonetheless..

At the end he realises that he is not the original, but its ok, because he does not have to be that way anymore... (American version)

@Invidia said:

@movie_nazi said:

@Invidia said:

But then we also have NO IDEA what happens to us after we die and for all we know maybe our SOULS are also sent to a place like SOLARIS?

Exactly. This is where the story gets ambiguous especially with the AMERICAN ending. I have to watch the Russian one again because it has been a while since I saw it.

People also say CLOONEY himself was a COPY because when he cuts his hand with the KNIFE in what he thinks is his kitchen it doesn't bleed.

So when he stays on the SPACE STATION that falls into the PLANET, apparently the PLANET also creates a copy of his home back on EARTH and places a copy of CLOONEY in it with the copy of his wife.

Because the wife also says that there's no problems there like the one's that they had before.

And if they were really back on EARTH again, then there'd also be plenty of problems for them, especially with the other human female crew member afraid that everyone on EARTH would also start dreaming about their dead loved ones.

I think it is pretty clear that at the end they are copies. When it doesn't bleed pretty much seals the deal. What I don't understand is I thought Solaris was making copies consciously as a way to "please" the visited. But if this were true then why the heck would he make copies of Clooney at the end? All the REAL people were dead.

I'm not sure solaris creates copies to please us... rather that it is a manifistation of our conciousness in that envirnoment...

In Solaris, maybe these memories, manifested are as real as our conciousness is to us here on earth...

Woah! I think i just blew my own mind! Haha... seriously though... I really should watch it again... Such a beautiful film... haunting...

@Renovatio said:

I'm not sure solaris creates copies to please us... rather that it is a manifistation of our conciousness in that envirnoment...

In Solaris, maybe these memories, manifested are as real as our conciousness is to us here on earth...

Woah! I think i just blew my own mind! Haha... seriously though... I really should watch it again... Such a beautiful film... haunting...

It really is an under appreciated film. I kinda wish the American version got a little more philosophical like the original Russian version did but the awesome score makes up for that.

@Invidia said:

The book version is even more PHILOSOPHICAL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)

Solaris is a 1961 philosophical science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. The book centers upon the themes of the nature of human memory, experience and the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species.

In probing and examining the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris from a hovering research station the human scientists are, in turn, being apparently studied by the sentient planet itself, which probes for and examines the thoughts of the human beings who are analyzing it. Solaris has the ability to cast their secret, guilty concerns into a material form, for each scientist to personally confront.

Solaris is one of Lem’s philosophic explorations of man’s anthropomorphic limitations.

http://english.lem.pl/arround-lem/adaptations/soderbergh/147-the-solaris-station?showall=&start=1

Summing up, as "Solaris"' author I shall allow myself to repeat that** I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists*, in a mighty manner perhaps,* but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images**. This is why the book was entitled "Solaris" and not Love in Outer Space.

~Stanislaw Lem, December 8th, 2002

Brilliant book and once again the Ruskies show that they can teach us a thing or two about philosophy. Now, if only we can find a director that can do Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment any justice (pun intended ).

@Invidia said:

Have you ever read his DREAM of a RIDICULOUS MAN?

http://www.apocatastasis.net/GoldenRule/The-Dream/The-Dream-of-The-Ridiculous-Man-Dostoyevski-Text-Version.html

Chapter One  -  The Truth

Well, they call me a madman now, but I don't mind, you see, I love them, especially when they're laughing at me. I'd like to share the joke with them, I would; I'd laugh at myself too. If only they didn't make me feel so sad. What is it that makes me sad?  Well, you see, they don't know the truth, and I do.

I used to get upset about appearing ridiculous. In fact, I didn't just appear ridiculous.... I was, and I always have been. Actually, I think I've known it since the moment I was born. I went to school, then to university, but, the more I learnt...the more I realized how ridiculous I was.... and the more I studied, the more obvious it became to me. So, the entire outcome of my education amounted to proving that I was absurd.

Meanwhile life was teaching me the same thing. Year by year I became more aware of it in every possible way, but I kept it to myself, the fact that I knew. Yet, as I reached manhood, I began to face things more calmly. I think it was because it was dawning on me more clearly everyday that it didn't matter, that I didn't matter, that nothing mattered.

It was then that I stopped worrying about my fellow human-beings. In fact, I stopped noticing them altogether. I walked down the street bumping into people. It wasn't that I was lost in thought; I'd long since given up thought. There was nothing worth thinking about, and nothing that I could do that could make any difference.

It's a story about a man who shoots himself, dies, and then ends up on another EARTH like PLANET where they haven't been CORRUPTED by SIN.

Can you guess what happens when he gets there?

The same MIRROR PHILOSOPHY that we find in SOLARIS comes into play again:

http://www.academia.edu/215997/Love_Loss_and_Identity_in_Solaris

Returning to his room, Kelvin listens to a recorded message from Gibarian in which he mocks the space program, saying, “We are proud of  ourselves, but when you think about it, our enthusiasm is a sham. We don’t want other worlds—we want mirrors.”9

 Footnote 9

the theme of mirroring is pervasive throughout Solaris . Gibarian’s remarks here are themselves mirrored by the comments of the dinner party guests in one of the Flashback scenes. (though they are discussing God, the ideas in circulation apply equally well to Solaris.) In addition, the suspicion of distortion through projection that comes up in the context of God/Solaris is close- ly connected to the worry expressed by Gordon, Kelvin, and a Rheya visitor that perhaps Kel-  vin’s memories of Rheya are nothing more than a mirroring and projection of his own needs and wants. (In one heated exchange Gordon says to Kelvin, “She’s a mirror that reflects part of   your mind. You provide the formula.”) The structure of the film also offers many points at which segments “mirror” each other (e.g., the Earth and “Earth” scenes, the first line of dialogue from Rheya and its later repetition, the suicide doubling [Flashback and on ship], the doubling of sex on Earth with sex on the ship, etc.).

Whoa! That sounds very intriguing. I will have to get me a copy.

@Invidia said:

The DREAM of a RIDICULOUS MAN is already available ONLINE.

If you mean get a copy of the SOLARIS BOOK, it's also interesting why Rheya decides to die rather than remain on the Space station.

Which is because she remembers things the way HE does, and not because she had HER memory of the way things happened.

It would be like if what you remembered were the way someone else remembered something that happened to you, but then you also didn't remember having been there or having done the things yourself that are in your memory.

>: Chris, I’ve got to talk to you.

?: What’s wrong?

>: I don’t understand what’s happening. And if I do understand  what’s happening, I don’t think I can handle it.

>: What do you mean?

>: I mean . . . I mean . . . I’m not the person I remember. Or, at least, I’m not sure I am. I mean I do remember things, but I don’t remember being there. I don’t remember experiencing those things.

---

 So it's like having the memories of someone else inside of your head about the way things happened to you instead of having your own memories.

Which would also be a pretty FREAKY way to live and exist.

I've actually already contemplated this issue before about how people remember things differently. I've always been a philosophical thinker and find great interests in the seeking of the definition of consciousness and it's meaning. One could indeed talk for hours on the subject.

Now back to Solaris, this is where I feel the American version DROPS THE BALL. It doesn't get into the philosophical questions of what it is to remember particular experiences and merely scratches the surface of what the book and original movie intended to explore. I believe they cut it down for brevity sake but in the end, actually damaged what is the main THEME and QUESTIONS of the original story. Soderbergh is a talented director without question (check out The Limey) and I won't hold those godawful Ocean's 74 billion, or whatever number they are on, against him, but I think he hobbled what could have been a BRILLIANT film if it was indeed his choice to supplant the main philosophical themes from the story. The original Tarkovsky film ran for nearly 3 hours while his only ran for an hour and a half. What's that tell you?

Yeah, it could've used an additional 20-30 minutes...