TIMELINE

[The Ferret]

Stalkers,

I'm trying to figure out how the historical background to 'STALKER' moved its steps - from the 'Incident' which gave birth to the Zone straight to the events portrayed by the movie.

As matter of evidence:

1- The Serpent seems to me about 33 years old. He also spent some time in the jail, presumibly 5 years.

2- The Incident happened about 20 years prior the events of the movie (according to Professor).

3- By his admission (which is highly debatable, however) the Serpent was just a "little boy" when the tanks moved from the local station, in order to face what they think it was a military attack from some foreign country.

4- Serpent's wife has been told by her own mother about the Stalkers, and my guess is that the Stalkers popped-up some years after the Incident.

As convenience, I set 'STALKER' in a "fictional" 1999 A.C. - being that a possible future from a 1979 perspective (taking in account that the definitive screenplay was written in 1978).

1966 A.C. - The man lately to be known as 'Serpent' is born.
1979 A.C. - the 'Incident'. Apparently, a meteor falls and crashes on a small town. Tanks move from the local station of a near province. They are instantaniously incenerated by the energetic field surrounding the former village, lately known as 'Zone'.
1980 A.C. - The area has been declared "forbidden" by government. A team of scientists tries to investigate on the mysterious rejuvenation of either Flora and Fauna and other strange phenomena concerning the Zone.
The team soon quits, the mystery remains unsolved.
1981 A.C. - Rumours circulate and abund about the Zone and its never-testified powers.
1982 A.C. - Some brave men venture in the Zone. Only a few percentage of them survives: those who receive/present the 'Calling' (psychological integrity and resilient state of mind, combined with wit and spiritual richness).
1983 A.C. - Thus, few survivors begin to "stalk". The 'Porcupine' - at that time still known as 'Teacher' - is among them.
1986 A.C. - The Serpent starts to stalk.
1991 A.C.- The Porcupine kills himself.
1993 A.C. - The Serpent is arrested and imprisoned.
1999 A.C.- 'STALKER'

Any suggestions?


The Ferret

[Pauk]

To begin with:
Stalker is no enemy of mine, so I will not call him names and will refer to him - Stalker.
1. For me Stalker is no more than 32 (Kaidanovsky being 33 at that time). In the beginning of "Picnic" Redrick is 23, in the end - 31.
3. "Little boy", comparing again to "Picnic", where one of his memories from childhood is coming back with treasures from the Zone, would be about 10 years.
4. His wife does not have to be younger. Her mother told her to remember what children stalkers get, etc., and the wife knew herself who a stalker is. It's just mother's advice to daughter, not based on specifically timed experience. Alisa Freindlikh is 12 years older than Kaidanovsky.

Moreover:
the date of imprisonment has to be recent: Little Monkey has not had time to get used to her father;
Stalker is evidently arrested not as a novice stalker (next time it would be 10 years sentence because of repeated crime, not due to the length of activity);
the Porcupine kills himself before the imprisonment: this story must have been in use in Stalker's business for some time;


So, the time-line:
1968: Stalker is born
196?: Stalker's wife is born
1979: The Zone is shaped (in "Picnic": he becomes stalker)
1980-1987: he becomes stalker and starts visiting the Zone
1991: Little Monkey is born (according to the "Picnic"; could also be f. ex. 1988)
1993(4)-1998(9): Stalker is in jail
1999: the trip takes place

Would be interesting to get some suggestions regarding the age of the Little Monkey.

[The Ferret]

malishas said:

1. For me Stalker is no more than 32 (Kaidanovsky being 33 at that time). In the beginning of "Picnic" Redrick is 23, in the end - 31.
3. "Little boy", comparing again to "Picnic", where one of his memories from childhood is coming back with treasures from the Zone, would be about 10 years.


Moreover:
the date of imprisonment has to be more recent: Little Monkey has not had time to get used to her father;
Stalker is evidently arrested not as a novice stalker (next time it would be 10 years sentence because of repeated crime, not due to the length of activity);
the Porcupine kills himself before the imprisonment: this story must have been in use in Stalker's business for some time.

Some of your suggestions are really really good. Some are way too close to 'ROADSIDE PICNIC', which is out of the game in my view. Tarkovsky created his rendition of the original vision, a totally different parallel universe, to the point I don't consider this as being a "movie adaptation" anymore.

[Pauk]

The brothers wrote the script, modifying the novel. Thus there can be the logical system, that is somewhat present in both creations. I dare say this, because I read the early variants of the script, and noticed several things, of various scale, that managed to survive all the alterations and appear in the film. That does not mean that I insist on using the exact dates from the "Picnic", they could simply be the guidelines for the logical picture. (Here we speak about very clean facts such as dates, whereas the greatest part of the Director's influence lies completely on the other side of the structure - the spiritual.)

[LetoAtreides]

Maybe you should try and come up with some ideas about a Stalker prequel, that would work I think. A sequel would be harder to think out.

[The Ferret]

letoatreides said:

Maybe you should try and come up with some ideas about a Stalker prequel, that would work I think. A sequel would be harder to think out.

Good idea, Badger.

[LetoAtreides]

Accidentally, badger is one of my favorite animals.

[The Ferret]

malishas said:

The brothers wrote the script, modifying the novel. Thus there can be the logical system, that is somewhat present in both creations. I dare say this, because I read the early variants of the script, and noticed several things, of various scale, that managed to survive all the alterations and appear in the film. That does not mean that I insist on using the exact dates from the "Picnic", they could simply be the guidelines for the logical picture. (Here we speak about very clean facts such as dates, whereas the greatest part of the Director's influence lies completely on the other side of the structure - the spiritual.)

In my humble opinion, scripts are almost as *CANON* as fan fiction stories ------------> and I'm not crazy.
I mean, the MOVIE itself is the only undeniable *DOCUMENT*, an opus truly free from the author's personal interpretations. In few words, it acquires a life of its own.

[Pauk]

Yes, because the film and the written story have the different dimensions to fold out in. But you cannot deny one thing.
Let's say we see a nine year old, black boy in green shorts sitting on a plastic chair, see the cozy light falling upon him, hear a piece of folk music and remember the program on TV that we saw a couple of hours ago, etc. All this, in the most common sense, condensed, would be written down as: "A boy is sitting on a chair". And that would be true. All the additional information, in various quantities, exists both when we experience the previous scene and when we read that particular sentence. So is the perception apparatus of the man built.
In other words, everything is understood subjectively. That is, the intentions of the author - in the world of art - or the intentions of a common man - in everyday situations - has nothing to do with what the receiver of the message understands as intentions of the sender.
So, we can never judge the grade of fulfillment of author's intentions. In other words, neither can we judge how free a certain work/utterance is.
That's the irony of the conventionality.