Talk:The Wish Machine

Masina what?

What language is the parenthetical title in this article? It seems to me that there's no reason to have the title in any language other than english and russian. If the one in the article is neither of those, I think it should be removed. Staecker 12:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's transcribed Russian. If you can get it in the cyrillic alphabetit would be better. // Liftarn

I inserted the Russian title- it's not anything like that other one. Staecker 17:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Title Discussion

Are you really sure that's the actual titel of the novel (not the movie)? I have two sites saying Masina zelanij. // Liftarn

Actually I'm not really sure- but according to my russian dictionaries neither masina or zelanij are words (in any approximate transliteration I can come up with). But I'm not a real Russian speaker- maybe I'll call in a few who know the Strugatskys better than I do. For now I'll take out the Russian I put in, since I'm not really sure about it. Staecker 14:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the novel is called Машина желаний (lit. "A machine that fulfills wishes", transcribed: "Mashina zhelaniy") but since it has never been translated to English, I think Stalker would be a more appropriate title for the article. That is, if you intend on keeping it. I'd say we simply merge it with Roadside Picnic. --Koveras 17:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot- thought you might know. Also explains why I couldn't find it in my dictionary. I'll put that title in. As for the merge, since this is a different book than "Roadside", it seems to deserve its own article (ideally). Although I'll admit it's pretty low on content at this point. Here's a question: do we have any reason to call it Stalker at all? If that's not the Russian title or a translation of the Russian title, maybe we'd better call it "Mashina zhelaniy", or some official translation thereof (if one exists). Staecker 19:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK there is no official translation of the title and "Stalker" was an alternative title for the story given by Strugatsky themselves. Well, maybe it was Tarkovsky's idea in the first place, but Strugatsky did publish their story under both titles (depending on the edition). As for content, I'm not sure I've read it, either... --Koveras 20:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Masina zelanij is probably how it's transcribed to Swedish (and Norwegian). It's slightly different from how it's transcribed to English. The reason the article is called "Stalker" is because that's the title given of the Swedish translation. // Liftarn

OK, so I think there's some case for calling it "Stalker", by default, if nothing else. Koveras- would "Wish machine" be an accurate translation of the title? Or does something in желаний actually indicate fulfillment? (Of course I know the story is about fulfillment, but "Wish Machine" has a much better sound (IMHO) as a book title. Staecker 14:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Russian publication ?

Any indication when this was published in Russian ? -- Beardo (talk) 04:06, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Merge this article into the Stalker film page

Why is this even a separate article? There's not much information here anyway, so I think it's better if we just put all information here as a section on Stalker 1979 film page. I-bal-masque (talk) 10:02, 3 October 2021 (UTC)