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Машина желаний
Несколько лет назад нам выпала честь участвовать в создании фильма "Сталкер". Режиссер Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский первоначально взял за его основу четвертую главу нашей повести "Пикник на обочине". Однако в процессе работы (около трех лет) мы пришли к представлению о картине, ничего общего с повестью не имеющей. И в окончательном варианте нашего сценария остались от повести лишь слова термины "сталкер" и "Зона" да мистическое место, где исполняются желания. Фильм вышел на экраны и у нас, и за рубежом. О нем много и разнообразно говорят, но сходятся в одном: он чрезвычайно сложен и многозначен. Кроме того, никто не сомневается, что это работа высшего международно
71 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1981
2 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Arkady Strugatsky
513 books1,889 followersThe brothers Arkady Strugatsky [Russian: Аркадий Стругацкий] and Boris Strugatsky [Russian: Борис Стругацкий] were Soviet-Russian science fiction authors who collaborated through most of their careers.
Arkady Strugatsky was born 25 August 1925 in Batumi; the family later moved to Leningrad. In January 1942, Arkady and his father were evacuated from the Siege of Leningrad, but Arkady was the only survivor in his train car; his father died upon reaching Vologda. Arkady was drafted into the Soviet army in 1943. He trained first at the artillery school in Aktyubinsk and later at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1949 as an interpreter of English and Japanese. He worked as a teacher and interpreter for the military until 1955. In 1955, he began working as an editor and writer.
In 1958, he began collaborating with his brother Boris, a collaboration that lasted until Arkady's death on 12 October 1991. Arkady Strugatsky became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1964. In addition to his own writing, he translated Japanese language short stories and novels, as well as some English works with his brother.
Source: Wikipedia
Arkady Strugatsky was born 25 August 1925 in Batumi; the family later moved to Leningrad. In January 1942, Arkady and his father were evacuated from the Siege of Leningrad, but Arkady was the only survivor in his train car; his father died upon reaching Vologda. Arkady was drafted into the Soviet army in 1943. He trained first at the artillery school in Aktyubinsk and later at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1949 as an interpreter of English and Japanese. He worked as a teacher and interpreter for the military until 1955. In 1955, he began working as an editor and writer.
In 1958, he began collaborating with his brother Boris, a collaboration that lasted until Arkady's death on 12 October 1991. Arkady Strugatsky became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1964. In addition to his own writing, he translated Japanese language short stories and novels, as well as some English works with his brother.
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 20, 2021
The Desire Machine is an interesting footnote in the Roadside Picnic/Stalker evolution. The story goes that the Strugatsky Brothers wrote the initial script for Andrei Tarkovsky's film adaptation of Roadside Picnic, which eventually became Stalker. Production on the film was extremely difficult however, and Tarkovsky basically shot the film three times. The Desire Machine is supposedly the Strugatsky Brothers original script formatted into a a short story. I say "supposedly" because there appears to be two different versions of this story and finding details on any of them is very difficult, though its possible that the two versions correspond to the two scrapped versions of the films. The first version I read was translated into English as part of some kind of literature journal put out by the "Writers Union of the USSR" and translated by a Monica Whyte and seems to be the later version. There is also however, a Russian copy of the story online called "МАШИНА ЖЕЛАНИЙ" and after reading it through Google translate, it is indeed fairly different and has a fair bit more in common with its source material. I decided to read both and get my thoughts down here for any travelers entering this strange zone of Stalker esoterica.
The preface on the Whyte-translated Literary Journal version says that "the reader is now offered one of the early versions of the scenario, in which the future Stalker can barely be discerned, which had me expecting something wildly different than the final film, which itself was very different from Roadside Picnic. Instead, it's something very similar yet a few small changes do make for fairly different effect.
To start with, most of the scenes and dialogues from the film really are here. A couple things are combined in the final product, and one or two things are shuffled around, but really most of the film is in this script. The biggest differences as far as deleted scenes are a couple of encounters with a zone trap and a strange green sunrise with a black torn-up sun which would have no doubt been extremely difficult to depict with 1970's special effects, especially on a low budget, but it's a cool mental image. A couple small images and dialogues are taken verbatim from Roadside Picnic but ultimately it's closer to Tarkovsky's film. The real difference here is the Stalker himself. In the film, he's a deeply religious man who emphasizes that becoming soft is the only way to survive in a hard world and repeatedly prays to god that the people he's guiding will see the value of hope. Here he's much more abrasive and the film's central theme of faith is almost completely gone, though the discussions about the importance of hope are maintained and ultimately upheld in the same fashion as the film. I love the film, but the philosophical dialogues are very dense, yet spread out over it's almost 3 hour runtime really gives you space to breath. Cramming much of that same material into a 35 page short story is almost like getting hit with too much at once and is a bit hard to focus on and really take in, since it was written for a different format and works in the slower more spread out format. There are interesting insights to be gleaned from the Literary Journal version, but it doesn't read nearly as smoothly as Roadside Picnic nor did it command my unrelenting attention like the film Stalker did.
The Russian version, on the other hand, is indeed a somewhat different beast and can certainly deserve to be called "barely discernable" from the final product. The first two thirds are fairly similar, same intro of the Stalker waking up in his house, meeting the Professor and the Writer is fairly similar, as is the escape into the zone. Right off the bat though, you notice some things that are closer to Roadside Picnic. They mention the Stalker putting on what sounds like a Specsuit, mention the looting and the Spacells, and they name the Stalker's mentor as "Vulture" like in the book, rather than calling him "Porcupine" like in the movie. They do have the green torn up sun like in the Literary Journal version but the heat attack from that version (which originates from the book) is instead replaced with a bizarre translucent cylinder that floats around. This version in general has a lot more "zone encounters" and fewer philosophical debates and feels more toward an action movie while still having some interesting themes mentioned in dialogue. Where this version really diverges from both the other script and the film is once the characters get to the pipe. Instead of leading directly to the final location, the pipe just leads into another town where some truly bizarre Zone stuff like strange mirages happens. It's interesting to me that the movie really doesn't have any of this, which feels like both a technical/budgetary restraint, but also a creative choice, since the movie really sows doubt that some of this is going on and that ambiguity is very compelling. There's also a bit where they witness a research envoy from afar and I won't spoil what happens but it's wild. The phone scene happens much earlier and instead of the Professor mocking a work colleague, they somewhat imply he runs a brothel like his book counterpart Richard Noonan does. The biggest difference of all is the ending which I won't spoil but they do restore the locale to the same location it was in Roadside Picnic. Out of all the versions of this story it's easily the punchiest, darkest finale and it really speaks to the contents of this version of the characters. I've since finished the Shadow of Chernobyl PC game and I think one of the endings was definitely influenced by this script. Interestingly some of the things that did make it into the film foreshadow this ending in kind of a dark way and had to be recontextualized to fit the movie's themes.
Overall, the Literary Journal version is a 3 out of 5, but the Russian version, even run through the Meat Grinder of Google Translate, is fascinating. I was surprised that most of it was fairly clear and lucid, and the clean, hardboiled style of the Strugatskys came through even without the guiding hand of a proper translator, though it did turn to mush at various points. I am glad Tarkovsky's movie turned out the way it did in the end, it's an incredible film and truly a masterpiece, but I do think it would be neat to see another film done closer to the Strugatsky script. In the end, neither script has the same thematic depth as Tarkovsky's film and I really get the sense it was Tarkovsky himself who brought the deep exploration of hope and faith to the table and those are really what elevate the film to its masterpiece status. Still, these were an interesting look at what could have been and I always love seeing the early, nascent versions of classic stories before they truly become something iconic.
The preface on the Whyte-translated Literary Journal version says that "the reader is now offered one of the early versions of the scenario, in which the future Stalker can barely be discerned, which had me expecting something wildly different than the final film, which itself was very different from Roadside Picnic. Instead, it's something very similar yet a few small changes do make for fairly different effect.
To start with, most of the scenes and dialogues from the film really are here. A couple things are combined in the final product, and one or two things are shuffled around, but really most of the film is in this script. The biggest differences as far as deleted scenes are a couple of encounters with a zone trap and a strange green sunrise with a black torn-up sun which would have no doubt been extremely difficult to depict with 1970's special effects, especially on a low budget, but it's a cool mental image. A couple small images and dialogues are taken verbatim from Roadside Picnic but ultimately it's closer to Tarkovsky's film. The real difference here is the Stalker himself. In the film, he's a deeply religious man who emphasizes that becoming soft is the only way to survive in a hard world and repeatedly prays to god that the people he's guiding will see the value of hope. Here he's much more abrasive and the film's central theme of faith is almost completely gone, though the discussions about the importance of hope are maintained and ultimately upheld in the same fashion as the film. I love the film, but the philosophical dialogues are very dense, yet spread out over it's almost 3 hour runtime really gives you space to breath. Cramming much of that same material into a 35 page short story is almost like getting hit with too much at once and is a bit hard to focus on and really take in, since it was written for a different format and works in the slower more spread out format. There are interesting insights to be gleaned from the Literary Journal version, but it doesn't read nearly as smoothly as Roadside Picnic nor did it command my unrelenting attention like the film Stalker did.
The Russian version, on the other hand, is indeed a somewhat different beast and can certainly deserve to be called "barely discernable" from the final product. The first two thirds are fairly similar, same intro of the Stalker waking up in his house, meeting the Professor and the Writer is fairly similar, as is the escape into the zone. Right off the bat though, you notice some things that are closer to Roadside Picnic. They mention the Stalker putting on what sounds like a Specsuit, mention the looting and the Spacells, and they name the Stalker's mentor as "Vulture" like in the book, rather than calling him "Porcupine" like in the movie. They do have the green torn up sun like in the Literary Journal version but the heat attack from that version (which originates from the book) is instead replaced with a bizarre translucent cylinder that floats around. This version in general has a lot more "zone encounters" and fewer philosophical debates and feels more toward an action movie while still having some interesting themes mentioned in dialogue. Where this version really diverges from both the other script and the film is once the characters get to the pipe. Instead of leading directly to the final location, the pipe just leads into another town where some truly bizarre Zone stuff like strange mirages happens. It's interesting to me that the movie really doesn't have any of this, which feels like both a technical/budgetary restraint, but also a creative choice, since the movie really sows doubt that some of this is going on and that ambiguity is very compelling. There's also a bit where they witness a research envoy from afar and I won't spoil what happens but it's wild. The phone scene happens much earlier and instead of the Professor mocking a work colleague, they somewhat imply he runs a brothel like his book counterpart Richard Noonan does. The biggest difference of all is the ending which I won't spoil but they do restore the locale to the same location it was in Roadside Picnic. Out of all the versions of this story it's easily the punchiest, darkest finale and it really speaks to the contents of this version of the characters. I've since finished the Shadow of Chernobyl PC game and I think one of the endings was definitely influenced by this script. Interestingly some of the things that did make it into the film foreshadow this ending in kind of a dark way and had to be recontextualized to fit the movie's themes.
Overall, the Literary Journal version is a 3 out of 5, but the Russian version, even run through the Meat Grinder of Google Translate, is fascinating. I was surprised that most of it was fairly clear and lucid, and the clean, hardboiled style of the Strugatskys came through even without the guiding hand of a proper translator, though it did turn to mush at various points. I am glad Tarkovsky's movie turned out the way it did in the end, it's an incredible film and truly a masterpiece, but I do think it would be neat to see another film done closer to the Strugatsky script. In the end, neither script has the same thematic depth as Tarkovsky's film and I really get the sense it was Tarkovsky himself who brought the deep exploration of hope and faith to the table and those are really what elevate the film to its masterpiece status. Still, these were an interesting look at what could have been and I always love seeing the early, nascent versions of classic stories before they truly become something iconic.
July 16, 2021
The Desire Machine is an interesting footnote in the Roadside Picnic/Stalker evolution. The story goes that the Strugatsky Brothers wrote the initial script for Andrei Tarkovsky's film adaptation of Roadside Picnic, which eventually became Stalker. Production on the film was extremely difficult however, and Tarkovsky basically shot the film three times. The Desire Machine is supposedly the Strugatsky Brothers original script formatted into a a short story. I say "supposedly" because there appears to be two different versions of this story and finding details on any of them is very difficult, though its possible that the two versions correspond to the two scrapped versions of the films. The first version I read was translated into English as part of some kind of literature journal put out by the "Writers Union of the USSR" and translated by a Monica Whyte and seems to be the later version. There is also however, a Russian copy of the story online called "МАШИНА ЖЕЛАНИЙ" and after reading it through Google translate, it is indeed fairly different and has a fair bit more in common with its source material. I decided to read both and get my thoughts down here for any travelers entering this strange zone of Stalker esoterica.
The preface on the Whyte-translated Literary Journal version says that "the reader is now offered one of the early versions of the scenario, in which the future Stalker can barely be discerned, which had me expecting something wildly different than the final film, which itself was very different from Roadside Picnic. Instead, it's something very similar yet a few small changes do make for fairly different effect.
To start with, most of the scenes and dialogues from the film really are here. A couple things are combined in the final product, and one or two things are shuffled around, but really most of the film is in this script. The biggest differences as far as deleted scenes are a couple of encounters with a zone trap and a strange green sunrise with a black torn-up sun which would have no doubt been extremely difficult to depict with 1970's special effects, especially on a low budget, but it's a cool mental image. A couple small images and dialogues are taken verbatim from Roadside Picnic but ultimately it's closer to Tarkovsky's film. The real difference here is the Stalker himself. In the film, he's a deeply religious man who emphasizes that becoming soft is the only way to survive in a hard world and repeatedly prays to god that the people he's guiding will see the value of hope. Here he's much more abrasive and the film's central theme of faith is almost completely gone, though the discussions about the importance of hope are maintained and ultimately upheld in the same fashion as the film. I love the film, but the philosophical dialogues are very dense, yet spread out over it's almost 3 hour runtime really gives you space to breath. Cramming much of that same material into a 35 page short story is almost like getting hit with too much at once and is a bit hard to focus on and really take in, since it was written for a different format and works in the slower more spread out format. There are interesting insights to be gleaned from the Literary Journal version, but it doesn't read nearly as smoothly as Roadside Picnic nor did it command my unrelenting attention like the film Stalker did.
The Russian version, on the other hand, is indeed a somewhat different beast and can certainly deserve to be called "barely discernable" from the final product. The first two thirds are fairly similar, same intro of the Stalker waking up in his house, meeting the Professor and the Writer is fairly similar, as is the escape into the zone. Right off the bat though, you notice some things that are closer to Roadside Picnic. They mention the Stalker putting on what sounds like a Specsuit, mention the looting and the Spacells, and they name the Stalker's mentor as "Vulture" like in the book, rather than calling him "Porcupine" like in the movie. They do have the green torn up sun like in the Literary Journal version but the heat attack from that version (which originates from the book) is instead replaced with a bizarre translucent cylinder that floats around. This version in general has a lot more "zone encounters" and fewer philosophical debates and feels more toward an action movie while still having some interesting themes mentioned in dialogue. Where this version really diverges from both the other script and the film is once the characters get to the pipe. Instead of leading directly to the final location, the pipe just leads into another town where some truly bizarre Zone stuff like strange mirages happens. It's interesting to me that the movie really doesn't have any of this, which feels like both a technical/budgetary restraint, but also a creative choice, since the movie really sows doubt that some of this is going on and that ambiguity is very compelling. There's also a bit where they witness a research envoy from afar and I won't spoil what happens but it's wild. The phone scene happens much earlier and instead of the Professor mocking a work colleague, they somewhat imply he runs a brothel like his book counterpart Richard Noonan does. The biggest difference of all is the ending which I won't spoil but they do restore the locale to the same location it was in Roadside Picnic. Out of all the versions of this story it's easily the punchiest, darkest finale and it really speaks to the contents of this version of the characters. Interestingly some of the things that did make it into the film foreshadow this ending in kind of a dark way and had to be recontextualized to fit the movie's themes.
Overall, the Literary Journal version is a 3 out of 5, but the Russian version, even run through the Meat Grinder of Google Translate, is fascinating. I was surprised that most of it was fairly clear and lucid, and the clean, hardboiled style of the Strugatskys came through even without the guiding hand of a proper translator, though it did turn to mush at various points. I am glad Tarkovsky's movie turned out the way it did in the end, it's an incredible film and truly a masterpiece, but I do think it would be neat to see another film done closer to the Strugatsky script. In the end, neither script has the same thematic depth as Tarkovsky's film and I really get the sense it was Tarkovsky himself who brought the deep exploration of hope and faith to the table and those are really what elevate the film to its masterpiece status. Still, these were an interesting look at what could have been and I always love seeing the early, nascent versions of classic stories before they truly become something iconic.
The preface on the Whyte-translated Literary Journal version says that "the reader is now offered one of the early versions of the scenario, in which the future Stalker can barely be discerned, which had me expecting something wildly different than the final film, which itself was very different from Roadside Picnic. Instead, it's something very similar yet a few small changes do make for fairly different effect.
To start with, most of the scenes and dialogues from the film really are here. A couple things are combined in the final product, and one or two things are shuffled around, but really most of the film is in this script. The biggest differences as far as deleted scenes are a couple of encounters with a zone trap and a strange green sunrise with a black torn-up sun which would have no doubt been extremely difficult to depict with 1970's special effects, especially on a low budget, but it's a cool mental image. A couple small images and dialogues are taken verbatim from Roadside Picnic but ultimately it's closer to Tarkovsky's film. The real difference here is the Stalker himself. In the film, he's a deeply religious man who emphasizes that becoming soft is the only way to survive in a hard world and repeatedly prays to god that the people he's guiding will see the value of hope. Here he's much more abrasive and the film's central theme of faith is almost completely gone, though the discussions about the importance of hope are maintained and ultimately upheld in the same fashion as the film. I love the film, but the philosophical dialogues are very dense, yet spread out over it's almost 3 hour runtime really gives you space to breath. Cramming much of that same material into a 35 page short story is almost like getting hit with too much at once and is a bit hard to focus on and really take in, since it was written for a different format and works in the slower more spread out format. There are interesting insights to be gleaned from the Literary Journal version, but it doesn't read nearly as smoothly as Roadside Picnic nor did it command my unrelenting attention like the film Stalker did.
The Russian version, on the other hand, is indeed a somewhat different beast and can certainly deserve to be called "barely discernable" from the final product. The first two thirds are fairly similar, same intro of the Stalker waking up in his house, meeting the Professor and the Writer is fairly similar, as is the escape into the zone. Right off the bat though, you notice some things that are closer to Roadside Picnic. They mention the Stalker putting on what sounds like a Specsuit, mention the looting and the Spacells, and they name the Stalker's mentor as "Vulture" like in the book, rather than calling him "Porcupine" like in the movie. They do have the green torn up sun like in the Literary Journal version but the heat attack from that version (which originates from the book) is instead replaced with a bizarre translucent cylinder that floats around. This version in general has a lot more "zone encounters" and fewer philosophical debates and feels more toward an action movie while still having some interesting themes mentioned in dialogue. Where this version really diverges from both the other script and the film is once the characters get to the pipe. Instead of leading directly to the final location, the pipe just leads into another town where some truly bizarre Zone stuff like strange mirages happens. It's interesting to me that the movie really doesn't have any of this, which feels like both a technical/budgetary restraint, but also a creative choice, since the movie really sows doubt that some of this is going on and that ambiguity is very compelling. There's also a bit where they witness a research envoy from afar and I won't spoil what happens but it's wild. The phone scene happens much earlier and instead of the Professor mocking a work colleague, they somewhat imply he runs a brothel like his book counterpart Richard Noonan does. The biggest difference of all is the ending which I won't spoil but they do restore the locale to the same location it was in Roadside Picnic. Out of all the versions of this story it's easily the punchiest, darkest finale and it really speaks to the contents of this version of the characters. Interestingly some of the things that did make it into the film foreshadow this ending in kind of a dark way and had to be recontextualized to fit the movie's themes.
Overall, the Literary Journal version is a 3 out of 5, but the Russian version, even run through the Meat Grinder of Google Translate, is fascinating. I was surprised that most of it was fairly clear and lucid, and the clean, hardboiled style of the Strugatskys came through even without the guiding hand of a proper translator, though it did turn to mush at various points. I am glad Tarkovsky's movie turned out the way it did in the end, it's an incredible film and truly a masterpiece, but I do think it would be neat to see another film done closer to the Strugatsky script. In the end, neither script has the same thematic depth as Tarkovsky's film and I really get the sense it was Tarkovsky himself who brought the deep exploration of hope and faith to the table and those are really what elevate the film to its masterpiece status. Still, these were an interesting look at what could have been and I always love seeing the early, nascent versions of classic stories before they truly become something iconic.
March 11, 2018
Первоначальный сценарий к "Сталкеру", который Тарковский несколько изменил.
"Пикник на обочине" всё же сильнее, на мой взгляд.
"Пикник на обочине" всё же сильнее, на мой взгляд.
January 25, 2020
Relato de ciencia ficción de 53 páginas, utilizado como guión preliminar alternativo para la película de Andréi Tarkovski "Stalker". En un entorno distópico, el autor desarrolla una trama donde lo realmente importante es el desarrollo psicológico de los personajes, que tienen que tomar una decisión de la que dependerá sus vidas. Breve, pero muy interesante para los amantes de la ciencia ficción. Muy recomendado.
March 4, 2023
Otro vistazo al mundo de los stalkers en una ciudad desconocida de un país desconocido.
April 6, 2016
альтернативная версия "пикника на обочине". Концовка другая и определенная (не открытая). Сталкер выбрал деньги... Очень интересно
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August 23, 2018Este aparentemente esta basado en la pelicula stalker. Es muy corto y u a aventura mas en la Zona.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews