Stalker and Roadside Picnic - Film vs Book - Andrei Tarkovsky's Timeless Masterpiece 

That last monologue has always given me goosebumps. One of the best books ever written.

If you believe that Arthur was created by the Vulture's wish for "perfect children", then you can interpret him to be a human created by the zone, not merely mutated like "monkey" but a person of alien design, and as such, his final wish that Red regurgitates to the golden sphere (giving away his own wish to fulfil Arthur's, in a way) is like the zone asking itself what it thinks humanity wants, or what it wants for humanity in accordance with whatever "perfect" means.

Burbridge and Red are not friends, merely acquaintances

What a great review of the novel and the movie - both true masterpieces. Thank you!

My guy spend 3 days on this (or more) to get 8k views, gotta love that algorithm. Good stuff mane…

Using The Tree of Life footage is such an inspired choice. Interestingly enough, I’d say The Thin Red Line is another great movie that shows the impact of what we consider rational and pragmatic on nature and how alien it is to nature itself.

This is a beautiful video I watched the movie first and left feeling confused and bewildered, but I have this draw to Russian sci-fi/human condition studies. I ended up getting into more stories in the same realm like annihilation or even the stalker games and finally just read roadside picnic the ending won’t stop ringing in my head it’s so profound it’s like an idea I’ve had for years finally brought to words. I don’t know how to explain it but this video was a great way to digest it some more. Your content is much appreciated, even if it’s a small audience now keep doing what you’re doing your voice is profound, thoughtful and you obviously have a lot of talent for this do not give up you will find your platform here you have easily earned a subscribe from me in one video!

Watching this essay and analysis in two parts - 12:43 - great points so far, and the look and feel of your channel is also great. Tarkovsky's reworking, with the Strugatskys, adds an extra layer of genius. I feel like the artist archetype character that STALKER added has no direct analog in the novel, but maybe I just haven't thought of it yet. I wonder if one day Tarkovsky's failed first attempt at the film will ever resurface, was the only copy really destroyed in a random house fire? A lot of the behind the scenes on the movie feels like life imitating art, random and brutal, like the way the shooting locations for the zone may have poisoned the cast and crew, leading tragically to many of them dying (relatively) soon after. Imposible to know for sure, just like the phenomon at the heart of the story.

I love the Tarkovsky film but Roadside Picinic deserves a more true adaptation. Tarkovsky does a very subtle approach to the concept but I would love to see artifacts and anomalies full depicted.

Great video it deserves more likes and views :)

This video has too much effort put into it relative to the sub count, this man needs some attention. This is true analytical talent and is not to be ignored by a platform so widely considered to seek out talent.

Nice reviews of both film and novel. Both are excellent in their own ways. Love to see a comparision between the book and movie versions of the Strugatsky's Hard to be a God.

I just finished the audiobook...and idk if it was the narration but I didn't like parts. When I listen to reviews like this it helps me understand what went on.

Thanks for the video, just watch the movie for the first time

I have to agree and thank you for saying the book can be underwhelming at first. I thought I was the only one. It's starting to come alive now on my 3rd read trough. Seen the film many times and played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Maybe book first would have been better? Great video.

Loved the video! This is such a great analysis. I'm curious why you chose to use Tree of Life for a lot of the shots. Any particular reason.

Hi. Would it be possible to get your text on this RU-vid movie ? I mean, written, so I could think slowly about what was said.

Great video man! I watched the movie immediately after finishing the book and I must say I think it was a mistake as I didn’t care much for the movie compared to the book , like you said they can be at times so far apart , even with red seemingly being neutered for the movie . I will give it a few months and rewatch the movie again.

What is the film shown at 1:50?

2024 seems like these days basic human science is also like this picnic metaphor for a growing subset of humans 😂

Damn, it's unfair that the video has low views

Is the script you're reading during at least the first half of this video from the book or what

This was the first Tarkovsky Film I've ever seen and I understand many people almost fetishize Tarkovsky's long takes. I really enjoyed Stalker but I'm not a fan of how Tarkovsky let's scenes drone on forever but overall this movie is brilliant. With a runtime of 2hr 42min it's almost comical how long he let's a scene sit on 2 guys walking across a field. If Tarkovsky let an editor trim about an hour of this film off of when nothing is happening I would raise it's score from a 7 to an 8. It's still great but could have been an all time great film with a little editing. I also appreciate that making this film may have cost Tarkovsky and others involved in creating it their lives. John Waynes the Conqueror was filmed downwind from Nuclear Testing grounds and may have also killed many involved in that films production at least in "The Stalker" case the sacrifice was for a masterpiece to be crafted. In John Waynes "The Conqueror" was an embarrassment to Hollywood". How do you cast John Wane as Genghis Khan a Mongol? That's even worse than when Hollywood casted John Wayne as a Roman Soldier. RIP To those fallen from "Stalker" and "The Conqueror".

I don't think the movie is about emotion versus analysis, but more faith versus technology. Tarkovsky has stated repeatedly that what he considered the main crisis of the the 20th century was that the speed of technological advancement was not paired with a spiritual advancement and hence resulted in a crisis of faith. The magical ending of the movie with the daughter sitting at the table with a glass that starts ringing through vibrations that could be caused by a train approaching from which we hear revolutionary music and as it passes we see the girl looking at the glass and then moving by itself. Is it science that caused it or a spiritual force? It is not answered, we have to find our own answer. The materialist scientiest scoffs at faith and merely sees it as a dangerous uncontrollable product of the mind that escapes rational thought and therefor has no value. Indeed the room as the epitomy of faith made manifest is the ultimate threat to this worldview and therefore needs to be destroyed. The writer refuses to go in as, referencing the story of Porcupine, no one can truly know their deepest desires and therefore there is no point in going into the room, so in the end no one goes in as the scientist realizes that the room presents no threat as it never realizes what the people going in think they want. It is the ultimate denouement and when they return from the zone, Stalker is desperate, all hope lost of anyone actually persuing their happiness through the room in the zone, but the last scene with the daughter at least, indeed not shot in colour for nothing (the only scenes in colour are shot in the zone, so apparently the zone is at work here) leaves the possibility of hope, a spark.

Well thank you for verifying that the movie and the book are utterly dissimilar. My question would be why does Tarkovsky have to butcher material ? He did the same thing to Solaris. If you hadn't read the book you wouldn't even know it was the same material. Where did the dog come from? What's up with the daughter having telekinetic powers at the end? As far as I'm concerned you just reviewed two works of art that only have two words in similarity.

Good work

I loved the book and the STALKER games, but I could not get into this movie. I'm all for a slow, philosophical story, but at no point in the movie did I feel the danger or significance of the zone. In movies its show not tell, and all this film showed me was some fields and decrepit buildings. It didn't even show the monkeys condition.

Imagine Americans getting excited seeing a Russian film adaptation made out of books that literally absolutely stole American sci Fi ideas and stories.

I found the movie to be lazy when compared with the book. The book does a lot with a surprisingly low page count. It has great prose, incredible character voices, and evocative world building, allowing you to imagine this otherwordly setting in both detail and superficially. There is no waste in the book. Everything has purpose, everything is in the book because it needs to be there. The movie is defined by its wasteful presentation. The old saying of "show don't tell" is expanded here to "show nothing, tell nothing". Without framing and attention to either the human condition or the fleeting nature of human life, the movie loses any grasp of form or purpose. It meanders dreamily through landscapes that are ultimately made out of nothing, ponders questions that are not without answers, but without poignant answers, and the starkness of presentation becomes a starkness against the masterpiece it's loosely based on. The book has more profoundness in its title than the movie has in any part of its nearly 3 hours runtime.

Want to watch the originak stalker? Watch the day the earth stood still. Read the book the sphere. The monkeys paw and bedazzled. All made well before the 70's. All american.

These are both horrible books and movies and the video game stalker sadly enough made both these incoherent ramblings, interesting. The stalker movie was so stupid and slow moving it was a waste of time watching it. Play the video game and get the entire story of both books essentially. But wayyyyyyyyyy better. I give them credit for essentially stealing old American 1940's and 50's and especially 60's sci Fi movie ideas. Must have been cool for Russians to finally get a taste of sci Fi at the year of basically the 1980's.. but for Americans we already had this with the curse of the mummy and all those horror sci Fi movies. We've already seen all this and heard it all before. This was literally basically mixing old American 50's sci Fi with Russian gulags. Literally absolutely stolen from American archives.

I was hoping for an actual comparison not some bs philosophy