A Russian film based on the novel Prisoners of Power by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. After reading the English translation one thing is clear the film follows the book closely but not exactly.
Overall I think this is one of the best films I've seen in my life. The cinematography is beautiful and the characters are very well written. Anyone interested in seeing it should love Sci-Fi because this film relies heavily on your ability to imagine a world where human beings are completely free and have begun a new age..
Maxim Kammerer is the main character during the story, we get to see him as a mostly inexperienced youth. In the book he's in his early 20's but here he appears older which probably means they just couldn't find someone to fill the part who was as good an actor as Vasiliy Stepanov. As time goes on the man evolves and gains better judgement in dealing with his situation.
Its very clear the film was adapted from the book because in the very beginning when he runs into the asteroid/meteors it begins diverging from the novel. Where-as the novel has him being shot down from the surface.
Maxim is not an amateur space explorer but in fact is part of something called the Independent Reconnaissance Unit or IRU. He can find no direction in his life for studying anything specific so joins up around age 20 and begins charting planets from the surface/orbit. In the book its made clear this is not his first mission as his parents want him to do something else and generally everyone already knows what he does.
Another divergence from the book is with the way he crashes, the film has meteors/asteroids that he runs into but we know that's unlikely because his ship would certainly have given warning since because even the most simple of radars can track a huge rock! The reason it's done this way is the backstory would've probably required around 30 mins to establish and they wanted to get right into the meat of the book instead. So how does he crash then? The IRU sent him to this planet to map it and check for life and while on approach he is shot down by weapons fire. Later on in the story this happens again to him in the plane which is when he realizes what happened to him originally.
The important part is the film does succeed in capturing ones interest even with all the changes, especially the end fight between Maxim and Strannik which never really happened in the book! It was EPIC in the film but the book has them driving off in the car together after Maxim has blown the main tower center up. Then he calmly tells Maxim he's from Earth too.
The book is great, the film is great. This is just like Black Lightening in that few know of it's existence outside Russia.
Overall I think this is one of the best films I've seen in my life. The cinematography is beautiful and the characters are very well written. Anyone interested in seeing it should love Sci-Fi because this film relies heavily on your ability to imagine a world where human beings are completely free and have begun a new age..
Maxim Kammerer is the main character during the story, we get to see him as a mostly inexperienced youth. In the book he's in his early 20's but here he appears older which probably means they just couldn't find someone to fill the part who was as good an actor as Vasiliy Stepanov. As time goes on the man evolves and gains better judgement in dealing with his situation.
Its very clear the film was adapted from the book because in the very beginning when he runs into the asteroid/meteors it begins diverging from the novel. Where-as the novel has him being shot down from the surface.
Maxim is not an amateur space explorer but in fact is part of something called the Independent Reconnaissance Unit or IRU. He can find no direction in his life for studying anything specific so joins up around age 20 and begins charting planets from the surface/orbit. In the book its made clear this is not his first mission as his parents want him to do something else and generally everyone already knows what he does.
Another divergence from the book is with the way he crashes, the film has meteors/asteroids that he runs into but we know that's unlikely because his ship would certainly have given warning since because even the most simple of radars can track a huge rock! The reason it's done this way is the backstory would've probably required around 30 mins to establish and they wanted to get right into the meat of the book instead. So how does he crash then? The IRU sent him to this planet to map it and check for life and while on approach he is shot down by weapons fire. Later on in the story this happens again to him in the plane which is when he realizes what happened to him originally.
The important part is the film does succeed in capturing ones interest even with all the changes, especially the end fight between Maxim and Strannik which never really happened in the book! It was EPIC in the film but the book has them driving off in the car together after Maxim has blown the main tower center up. Then he calmly tells Maxim he's from Earth too.
The book is great, the film is great. This is just like Black Lightening in that few know of it's existence outside Russia.