>>6109805>>6112487>>6107605>Fallout vs STALKERI had this feeling that the trend in videogames would be a move towards more "transmedia" storytelling, ie shamelessly milking and oversaturating the intellectual property across multiple media formats lol eg see Last Of Us tv series, Fallout, the Borderlands film (I have played the games but have not seen any of these lol) basically the exact sentiments that Christopher Tolkien had been denigrating here
>>6112062In that context it is interesting to see how Fallout and Stalker are sort of opposites, STALKER takes its title (and some environmental / mise-en-scene aesthetics, as well as the philosophy / ideological underpinnings eg the Wish Granter) loosely from the Tarkovsky film, whilst Fallout is the reverse, making a film from an established videogame franchise etc.
The difference being that the people who made STALKER actually lived through post Soviet collapse lol, whilst the Fallout devs merely imagined one
When I watched Tarkovsky Stalker (1979) I immediately detected allusions to the Soviet Union the demarcation Zone of the Cold War, crossing over to the enemy side and defecting etc. The perilous anomalies and dangers of the Zone are metaphors for the pitfalls of "becoming Western" it is that old Dostoyevsky traditional Slavic culture vs Western culture thing from Crime And Punishment etc.
There is a scene in Tarkovsky Stalker where they have just entered the hinterland, it looks like a calm serene grassy clearing, very peaceful, and paradoxically their end destination is right in front of them (ie, Just Become Western, embrace America lol whatever) but the Stalker guide mysteriously warns the others they cannot just directly walk into the end destination, it is too dangerous lol. There is a motif at the beginning of the Stalker film, it is Beethoven Ode To Joy (European anthem, adopted by Council Of Europe 1972?) this music plays as the Stalker is restlessly turning in his sleep disturbed by train tracks rolling across the demarcation Zone, another symbol of "crossing over to the Western / European side" etc. Tarkovsky personally also left the Soviet Union (he struggled with some censorship / political sensitivities) but he possibly also regretted it and ironically his films made freely and commercially in the West did not resonate as much as those conducted under the close political scrutiny of the Soviet Union
>make film set in decaying Soviet power plant (?)>wade around a lot in fetid water, ooh pretty pretty cinematography ooh>contract cancer alongside your actorsdo not play Stalker in real life
