FAQ for
Solaris (2002) More at IMDbPro »

Yes. She was in complete physical form, could be physically touched, and seen by all, not just Chris.

The "psychological effect" of the planet Solaris is what keeps her alive on the ship. However, as she continues to regenerate (she's killed a number of times while on the ship), she begins to realize that she is not actually real and could not exist in life back on earth.

It's not completely explained, however it could create something of a paradox ripple effect since there would be two metaphysical worlds: one with the real Rheya being dead, and one co-existing with the Solaris version of her alive.

Another reason is that it could cause mass hysteria or panic back on Earth as people would either condemn her presence, or want to travel to Solaris to bring back a loved one themselves.

Or possibly she would disappear, as she is part of Solaris.

Depending on how you take the ending, maybe DID Chris went back to Earth in the first place, but Rheya, after becoming self-aware of her own existence, manifested Chris back to Solaris, where they both will die soon.

Chris was sent to the ship to analyze why the crew stopped responding to calls from Earth. Solaris did not trick your mind, but actually made everything real while you were in its grasp. Knowing Rehya was dead, Chris did not believe at first that the Solaris "Rehya" was real, and immediately disposed of her through the escape pod. However, as Solaris continued to recreate her, physically putting her in his presence, he began to believe she existed. Therefore, even a very well trained mind could not tell the difference between what was real and what wasn't.

The actual human scientist named Snow had been dead for an unspecified length of time when Kelvin arrived on the station. The character named "Snow" that Kelvin, Rheya and Gordon interact with throughout the film is in fact one of the Solarist Visitors.

Around the time the scientists began to notice the Solaris phenomena, Snow was visisted by a Solarist copy--either of himself or of a [twin] brother, as the Visitor later tells Kelvin. Startled, Snow went to attack the Visitor with a knife, only to drop the weapon in the struggle. Acting in self-defense, the Snow-Visitor grabbed the blade and used it to kill Snow, later hiding the scientist's corpse above the ceiling tiles of the morgue (dried blood can be noticed above Kelvin's head when he inspects the bodies shortly after arriving).

The Snow-Visistor then proceeded to act as the real Snow so as not to elicit suspicon or accusation from Gordon. However, there must have been some discrepancy between the actual Snow's behaviour and the Snow-Visitor's impression, as Gordon announces her suspicions have been confirmed when she and Kelvin discover the body.

As to the identity of Snow's visitor, one may never know. While it's possible that Solaris created a copy of Snow himself, this doesn't seem to fit with the other Visitors, whom had established a pattern of impersonating other people in the person's life (Gibarian's son, Rheya, etc.) Likewise, it is not certain that the Visitor truly is of Snow's brother, as at the time the Snow-Visitor mentioned this he was still hiding his own identity.

Solaris is the third adaptation of Polish author Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name, the first two having been a Russian TV movie and a Russian feature film, the latter of which was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Like the other two adaptations, Solaris maintains the basic premise, plot and character types of the novel but diverges from the source in many respects, in particular its themes and how the characters are presented. This comparison will examine only this film and the original novel, and not the two previous adaptations.

Both the novel and film focus on a psychologist named Chris Kelvin (Kris Kelvin in the novel), who lost his wife Rheya to suicide a few years before the story begins. Both the novel and film depict Rheya killing herself after Kelvin leaves her, though the film elaborates by depicting Rheya as bipolar and having an abortion in fear she would pass her illness onto her child. Kelvin leaves in a rage after finding this out. Kelvin is summoned to a space station orbiting the distant planet Solaris in a message from Gibarian, who in the novel is Kelvin's old instructor but in the film is shown to be a colleague and friend. Upon arriving at the station, Kelvin discovers that Gibarian has killed himself in the intermittent period.

The Solarist scientists have been visited by entities created by the planet below, these "Visitors" being constructed from each scientists' memory and replicating a person they have known in their life. Gibarian's Visitor in the novel is an unidentified, Amazonian black woman, wherein the film it's a replica of his young son. The two surviving scientists have Visitors of their own, though both the scientists and their Visitors differ between the novel and film. While both versions of Snow are receptive towards Kelvin, the novel depicts him as an older, possibly alcoholic scientist, and the film portrays him as young and eccentric. Snow's Visitor in the novel is never described, but in the film "Snow" is revealed to be a Solarist Visitor himself, presumably taking the form of the real Snow or his brother, who kills the scientist in self-defence and assumes his identity an unknown interval of time before Kelvin's arrival. The novel's other scientist is Sartorius, a reclusive and analytical individual whose Visitor takes the form of a child or dwarf. In the film, the other scientist is Gordon, a similarly reclusive female scientist who holds a fearful and antagonist relationship with the Visitors and whose own Visitor is never revealed.

The planet Solaris differs vastly between the film and its source material. While the film portrays it as a gaseous-electrical planet with hints of sentience, the novel delves deeply into the planet's construction and history, describing it as oceanic and capable of making massive, highly symmetrical structures beyond human understanding and seeming to be actively conscious.

Finally, the novel and movie explore different themes. With the book, Lem attempts to craft a truly alien culture, with the planet Solaris seeming to be a massive, sentient organism in its own right with thought processes and modes of communication and expression that perpetually boggle human researchers; as such, the novel focuses on the impossibility of contact with a truly alien culture. The film uses the Visitors to explore relationships, namely Kelvin's attempt to understand his wife's suicide and even attempt to make changes, though he is unsuccessful in this regard, as this "Rheya" is a copy of his memories of his deceased wife and not actually her. While the novel ends with Kelvin unsure of how to pursue his future, the film has him opt not to return to Earth and instead let the planet consume him while on the station. Kelvin ends up in a sort of afterlife modeled on his apartment, where he is finally reunited with Rheya.