Great review, thank you! A lot of interesting points.
One thing though which I beleive exists in the book [and to lesser degree in the movie], and which is important to mention -- is the "impossibility theorem". It may be somewhat obscured by the pecularities of the Zone in this book, but several other Strugatsky's artworks have strong parallels to it, too -- so after them you can easily discover it in the Roadside Picnic, too. In fact, I believe it's a backbone of the whole thing.
See, the Aliens brought a bunch of miracles to the Earth. But did it make earthlings happy? Hardly. Anyone involved with the Zone is unhappy, even those who managed to make money on it. People only loose health, lives, and go crazy about all those miracles. Their powers don't change the human nature.
Red finds its' way to the Untimate Happiness machine. But the path to the machine is constructed such that nobody with a perfect moral standing can reach it. To reach the Machine, you've got to sacrifice a living human. You've got to deepen your soul in shit, pretty much the way you have to treat your body on the way to the machine. And then you are, empowered to bring the happiness to the whole World... but having no clean spot in the soul to wish anything good to anyone except yourself.
This is the Impossibility Tehorem found in many Strugatsky's books, especially the later ones like the Roadside Picnic. It states that neother the technological changes, nor the powers of selected individuals can make the humanity happier or better. With the current states of minds of most humans, all those "miracles" will only cause harms or go in vain. We need better humans... to make humans better! "You've got to make goodness out of evil, since there is nothing else to make it of" That's a horrible paradox we humans are facing. That's probably why Tarkovsky's movies lack action so much -- as they are the attempts to *think* though the way out of this dilemma.
Sorry for such a large writing... And don't take it too seriously. After all, that's just my personal opinion :)
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One thing though which I beleive exists in the book [and to lesser degree in the movie], and which is important to mention -- is the "impossibility theorem". It may be somewhat obscured by the pecularities of the Zone in this book, but several other Strugatsky's artworks have strong parallels to it, too -- so after them you can easily discover it in the Roadside Picnic, too. In fact, I believe it's a backbone of the whole thing.
See, the Aliens brought a bunch of miracles to the Earth. But did it make earthlings happy? Hardly. Anyone involved with the Zone is unhappy, even those who managed to make money on it. People only loose health, lives, and go crazy about all those miracles. Their powers don't change the human nature.
Red finds its' way to the Untimate Happiness machine. But the path to the machine is constructed such that nobody with a perfect moral standing can reach it. To reach the Machine, you've got to sacrifice a living human. You've got to deepen your soul in shit, pretty much the way you have to treat your body on the way to the machine. And then you are, empowered to bring the happiness to the whole World... but having no clean spot in the soul to wish anything good to anyone except yourself.
This is the Impossibility Tehorem found in many Strugatsky's books, especially the later ones like the Roadside Picnic. It states that neother the technological changes, nor the powers of selected individuals can make the humanity happier or better. With the current states of minds of most humans, all those "miracles" will only cause harms or go in vain. We need better humans... to make humans better! "You've got to make goodness out of evil, since there is nothing else to make it of" That's a horrible paradox we humans are facing. That's probably why Tarkovsky's movies lack action so much -- as they are the attempts to *think* though the way out of this dilemma.
Sorry for such a large writing... And don't take it too seriously. After all, that's just my personal opinion :)