site banner
PaperclipPerfector  15hr ago (text post)   653 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 24, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but I got to halfway through Tarkovsky's Stalker and turned it off. I managed to read Roadside Picnic and play Shadow of Chernobyl all the way through, but the movie was different. The book and game resembled books and games pretty well, but the movie was extremely slow, shot weirdly, with characters that didn't really have names, with dialogue that wasn't particularly interesting to me. It is funny to see so much praise of this movie, everywhere. I guess only a certain type of person seeks it out? On the other hand, Roadside Picnic is probably my favorite book.

I've been listening to the Metro 2033 audiobook in my car while driving. Pretty good. Not as good as Roadside Picnic, but pretty good. The narrator has a great voice and he can do the Russian accent well. There are a lot less trips to the surface, way less fighting, seemingly more supernatural stuff to the tunnels. I will say that the game character Uncle Bourbon is far superior to the book version, and I think the Dark One hallucinations add something to the game.

Tarkovsky is the cinematic equivalent of Joyce or Proust. I refuse to watch anything by him on principle.

My wife and I got halfway through Stalker, sped it up to 1.5x, and managed to make it to the end. I’m glad I watched it, if only to change my answer to “what was the last movie you watched?” Plodding Soviet atmospheric fantasy is more respectable than Marvel. She didn’t think it was worth it.

I would say it worked as an artistic experience, which is not the same thing as being a good movie. The plot was basically nonfunctional. When there was actual conflict, it had goofy choreography (the train) or laughable props (the bomb). Likewise for the characters, who oscillated between cryptic assholishness and physical comedy.

My favorite scene was the Stalker lying down in a puddle for 15 minutes. It actually got me questioning what was real and what the characters thought was real. I’m not joking; this was the scene which best conveyed what other commenters are saying about a dreamlike, threatening atmosphere.

I can’t imagine it would have been any better if we hadn’t both played STALKER. Again, incoherent plot. On the other hand, she’d read Picnic and I hadn’t. Maybe that’s the secret sauce.

The next movie we watched was Escape From New York, having recently played Metal Gear Solid. Ridiculous, but actually fun to watch.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I will have to remember the 1.5x speed trick.

While the world gained a legendary weird arthouse movie, it is quite sad that the book will never have had a proper movie adaptation. There was a LOT to like about it, one of the densest entertainment values in any book ever. Just 4 chapters and each one introduces multiple new angles on the premise. For how popular it was, it must have taken quite some restraint to keep it to that length and then not even write a sequel.

Movie or game adaptations almost always create a division in the fandom, and so do sequels. Thus, I kind of resent the movie for being so radically different, creating a bigger division than necessary. Should have been its own thing.

Escape from New York is great.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but I got to halfway through Tarkovsky's Stalker and turned it off.

You made the right choice. I sat through the whole thing and it didn't improve.

It's bad enough when people die as a result of making a good movie. No one should die as a result of making a boring movie that sucks.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but I got to halfway through Tarkovsky's Stalker and turned it off. I managed to read Roadside Picnic and play Shadow of Chernobyl all the way through, but the movie was different. The book and game resembled books and games pretty well, but the movie was extremely slow, shot weirdly, with characters that didn't really have names, with dialogue that wasn't particularly interesting to me.

I definitely get it, it's a weird niche movie that's extremely slow-paced and abstruse; I have a hard time justifying recommending it to anyone because of that. Your general perceptions of the movie probably correlates with how much patience you have for arthouse, and how much you enjoy the vibe (which is the aspect that carries the entire movie). For the most part, I wasn't expecting to like it either. I don't usually like exceptionally pretentious types of media and consider myself sort of ambivalent on arthouse (some are good, some aren't) and I'd heard Stalker was a particularly difficult one to get through. So imagine my surprise when I'd finished the whole thing and felt as if only an hour had passed, it was very dreamlike.

I suppose part of the reason why I had a different takeaway was because I conceptualised the movie in a bit of a different way than I do other films? It kind of felt a bit like a fable or myth to me, and I engaged with it as such. Your familiarity with the source material probably also has an impact since I never read Roadside Picnic and never built up any expectations.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats