Photo from forthcoming 'Ender's Game' film
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BlackBat242
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OK... I am suddenly relieved.
I followed the Entertainment Weekly link and read some things that give me hope it won't be utter trash (typically Hollywood, in other words).
1. Orson Scott Card is deeply involved (at least consulted in depth).
2. The director is a fan who wants to preserve the deeper complex meanings, unlike the "throw away the meaning and focus on the superficial" treatment of Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
I followed the Entertainment Weekly link and read some things that give me hope it won't be utter trash (typically Hollywood, in other words).
1. Orson Scott Card is deeply involved (at least consulted in depth).
2. The director is a fan who wants to preserve the deeper complex meanings, unlike the "throw away the meaning and focus on the superficial" treatment of Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
If you're unfamiliar with the nigh-legendary frustration that OSC has had trying to get a movie version made of Ender's Game, then you've missed one of the most remarkable insights into the Hollywood machine that you can get.
In particular, OSC has always insisted that in any movie version, Ender and his fellow students have to be played by actual children, and that under no circumstances were they to be played by 30something actors pretending to be high school students. Not even high school students. They kids have to be kids.
You can find numerous rants spanning the last 20 years OSC as producer after producer has blithely agreed to Card's terms and then sent him contracts which attempt to work around it in various ways in the small print.
My particular favorite of these was when Universal agreed both to his insistence on the age range of the actors and giving OSC significant creative control over the development of the script. They then sent him a contract which stipulated that the characters' ages would be limited to "no more than +/-5 years of adjustment" for creative reasons, that actors assigned to play each part would be within +/-10 years of the characters actual age, and that Card retained complete creative control of the primary script, but that they would retain the right to create secondary script produced under their control which they could substitute "on a case by case basis."
I'm telling you, some of the OSC rants you can find still online about these "contractual disagreements" are EPIC.
It really seems like it is promising. OSC has been very careful about contracts, has retained a tight grip on script and casting limits, and while Ender is considerably older than in the book, still a kid. (OSC commented on that on his blog, and a few months ago, I followed a link to it.)
It's very promising. It might not translate well, but it's promising.
It's very promising. It might not translate well, but it's promising.
Hi,
I guess that maybe I'm at a disadvantage, not being familiar with the book (or whatever) the movie is supposed to be based on, but to tell the truth, coming into this not knowing anything about the author or anything, the premise of the movie as described in the link provided above, doesn't sound promising at all to me.
I guess I'm just not a fan of movies and stories about "gifted children" being our only hope (or anything like that) because it all just sounds a bit too much to me like the premise of a low-budget bad Japanese Anime series, or something similar.
I guess that maybe I'm at a disadvantage, not being familiar with the book (or whatever) the movie is supposed to be based on, but to tell the truth, coming into this not knowing anything about the author or anything, the premise of the movie as described in the link provided above, doesn't sound promising at all to me.
I guess I'm just not a fan of movies and stories about "gifted children" being our only hope (or anything like that) because it all just sounds a bit too much to me like the premise of a low-budget bad Japanese Anime series, or something similar.
Ender's Game was a short story, later expanded into a novel. It's quite a good read, and the premise sells it short. It's really about the costs of war.
I can see where you'd get that from, but Ender's Game was written well before anime started influencing fiction trends in America. So, pull the Japanese Fan Service out of your assumptions and try plugging in some Cynical Cold War American in their place.
See how Uncle Sam introducing you "Private Ender, Our Only Hope Against The Red Threat of Communism" strikes you then?
(it is gorram difficult to talk about this without either spewing spoilers left and right or acting like a fanboy)
Hi,
Thanks for the additional info. That helps put things into perspective for me a bit better.
PS. While I do actually like Japanese Anime (at least I've liked several of the different shows that I have seen) I do tend to get put off a bit by the premise of many shows where all too much seems to rely on a "special child" or special group of youngsters put into situations that really seem a bit too mature for who they are supposed to be.
Thanks for the additional info. That helps put things into perspective for me a bit better.
PS. While I do actually like Japanese Anime (at least I've liked several of the different shows that I have seen) I do tend to get put off a bit by the premise of many shows where all too much seems to rely on a "special child" or special group of youngsters put into situations that really seem a bit too mature for who they are supposed to be.
Well, unlike the amine films and plots Ender doesn't physically fight the Formics. It is all a 'game', hence the title.
Today we have drone 'pilots' (my daughter has recently qualified for that job and will be entering the USAF as such) who probably experience combat in the same way that these kids do: through a simulation more than a reality. So fiction got there first, but then, it isn't a new concept. I never read the novel Ender's Game - just the short story that was the original source, but I liked the concept back when it first came out. Hopefully the film will be a single one-off instead of a series that does the story to death since the Enderverse is fairly large now. It always seems like the directors do a better job when they can't stretch the thing out across three or four films.
Today we have drone 'pilots' (my daughter has recently qualified for that job and will be entering the USAF as such) who probably experience combat in the same way that these kids do: through a simulation more than a reality. So fiction got there first, but then, it isn't a new concept. I never read the novel Ender's Game - just the short story that was the original source, but I liked the concept back when it first came out. Hopefully the film will be a single one-off instead of a series that does the story to death since the Enderverse is fairly large now. It always seems like the directors do a better job when they can't stretch the thing out across three or four films.
The Enderverse stories are each contained pretty tightly, except for Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind trillogy.
And that particular trilogy would work well as a 12-18 hour miniseries, far better than as a movie or three. That trilogy, however, is a very different set of conditions and story than the Ender's Game novel.
There is enough in the novel version of "Ender's Game" to support a pair of movies... but not for a "hollywood standard" trilogy.... but even then, a lot of the novel's detail isn't well suited for the screen, and OSC has mentioned that in the past. OSC is likely to insist on a single movie for the novel. And possibly a sequel for Ender in Exile.
And that particular trilogy would work well as a 12-18 hour miniseries, far better than as a movie or three. That trilogy, however, is a very different set of conditions and story than the Ender's Game novel.
There is enough in the novel version of "Ender's Game" to support a pair of movies... but not for a "hollywood standard" trilogy.... but even then, a lot of the novel's detail isn't well suited for the screen, and OSC has mentioned that in the past. OSC is likely to insist on a single movie for the novel. And possibly a sequel for Ender in Exile.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Explanation of difference in execution below:
Spoiler:
The movie condenses that into around a year of "real-time", so one child actor could be used per character.
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I'm an avid anime watcher, but I've been telling people that I don't think that I actually "like" anime now that it's being mass-marketed straight to American audiences. What I liked was the anime that came my way in the early 1990s, when it was all underground fan-subs of the best of the strangest.
Back then, friends of mine would hand me a VHS and say, "Watch this. It is cool." That was all the info I had about it. I didn't know what I was going to see, except that it wasn't limited by human physics or SFX budgets, and that a dozen people with my movie preferences, strung between me and Japan, had liked it enough to make copies for their friends.
That was what I liked.
Back then, friends of mine would hand me a VHS and say, "Watch this. It is cool." That was all the info I had about it. I didn't know what I was going to see, except that it wasn't limited by human physics or SFX budgets, and that a dozen people with my movie preferences, strung between me and Japan, had liked it enough to make copies for their friends.
That was what I liked.
Hi,
I here you there. I think one of the things that really attracted me to some of the Anime that I've seen is the freedom from physics and budget that it allows in story telling, especially with regards to recreating weightless environments and such.
My favorite anime (Cowboy Bebop) I only started watching because I caught part of an episode while flipping through the channels, and it quickly drew me in, with its look, style, story telling, and setting details.
Hi,
Thanks for the info. It does help put things into a better perspective for me.
Spoiler:
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Ender's Game is still one of my all time favourite books.
Every time I read it I can't put it down until I've finished it.
If you haven't read it do so immediately
Every time I read it I can't put it down until I've finished it.
If you haven't read it do so immediately
PFVA: Read the book. You just got (one of) his point.
With the mention of Cowboy Bebop, I must now regretfully (ha!) tangent into a discussion of what you would need to do to recreate that series in Trav!
Obviously, we would need jumpgates instead of jump drives, and then add the socio-economic implact of the Three Old Dudes Playing Cards (ie, the Gate Miners who form the start of each colony). But other than that, do we really need to do all that much to twist the CT universe to include Cowboy Bebop?
Also, after listening to Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper Series and Weber's Honorverse series, I really feel like it wouldn't be all that hard to mash all of them up with a bit of Firefly to develop a single universe setting which has a very Traveller feel to it.
The Solar Clipper series focuses entirely on what being a Merchant is like, while Weber focuses on military life. Firefly explores what being in the fringes of federation territory is like. Cowboy Bebop is the space between Firefly and the Honorverse -- bounty hunting inside the Core Worlds. If they hadn't been created by different authors, they could easily all be the same setting.
Except, you know, for the way they handle interplanetary travel.
With the mention of Cowboy Bebop, I must now regretfully (ha!) tangent into a discussion of what you would need to do to recreate that series in Trav!
Obviously, we would need jumpgates instead of jump drives, and then add the socio-economic implact of the Three Old Dudes Playing Cards (ie, the Gate Miners who form the start of each colony). But other than that, do we really need to do all that much to twist the CT universe to include Cowboy Bebop?
Also, after listening to Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper Series and Weber's Honorverse series, I really feel like it wouldn't be all that hard to mash all of them up with a bit of Firefly to develop a single universe setting which has a very Traveller feel to it.
The Solar Clipper series focuses entirely on what being a Merchant is like, while Weber focuses on military life. Firefly explores what being in the fringes of federation territory is like. Cowboy Bebop is the space between Firefly and the Honorverse -- bounty hunting inside the Core Worlds. If they hadn't been created by different authors, they could easily all be the same setting.
Except, you know, for the way they handle interplanetary travel.
I hope this isn't The Breakfast Club in space.
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