Ender's Game movie

[South Burning]

Thoughts anyone on the upcoming Ender's Game movie? When I saw the poster at the theater last weekend I got excited about it, but when I saw the previews moments later my enthusiasm was dashed. It appears the movie will be more of an exercise in special effects than a true telling of this great science fiction classic.

[AceWhatever]

Ok, I want everyone to think long and hard about the events of the book, summarize them into a paragraph then try to figure out how to make a compelling sci-fi movie about it without compromising anything for the sake of political correctness.

[Soma Taozi]

Honestly, my distaste for Orson Scott Card as a human being made me not want to see the film before I saw the trailers...now that I have? Well...I still don't want to see it, but at least it should be well acted.

[Amion]

I was highly disturbed on the wiki entry about how Ender believes showing superiority will prevent future conflicts by attempting to wound another kid. Worse when I learned it's basically a staple of the Marine Corps. Why am I surprised?

Last I checked when observing children, around me as a kid and now, showing superiority usually ends in violent retaliation. I remember a good many cases of friend who'd beet up on his younger siblings when they didn't obey, only to have them ruthlessly fight back despite their "inferiority".

Soma, is there an official hatedom for Orson? I'd like to join, but I think I'm already on the boat.

Now granted, I haven't read the book, but this seems like something I don't think I want to. I don't profess to be an expert, but I never would of something so fragile and fluid as strategy and battlefield tactics. But one staple is that sacrificing troops tends to fall more along the lines of lack of imagination. I guess that's why I'm such a Hannibal fan. he maintained a weaker army against overwhelming forces for years with rampant success because of his limitless tricks and trust he had with his troops. But this isn't about Hannibal. Before I dive into the book, anyone else have any thoughts they'd like to add? This seems pretty straight forward as to what the book has in it to offer, so I really hesitate wasting my time now that I've got the basics.

[ShadowCell]

discussing the reasons people hate Orson Scott Card takes us way into the no politics rule, but suffice it to say that the words "birther" and "homophobe" are strongly involved, particularly the latter.

on the other hand, if you reread Ender's Game in light of all that, particularly how much he hates gay people, the book takes on an entirely new meaning.

[Amion]

Gotcha, Shadow. In any case, it may well be worth looking over. I doubt I'll watch the movie though...

[shadowxps]

I read an article online analyzing the homosexual character in Orson Scott Card's novels and how they all either die horribly or fall in line by having children and accepting that being gay is just something they can get over. ShadowCell is totally right and you really do look at the books differently after that. Sadly in my opinion for the worse. I usually try to separate work from author but even so this movie looks exactly like you guys are saying it does. Kinda that bland CGI Oscar bate that sucks the life out of me. I personally am gonna wait for reviews(which I don't expect to be all that great).

[Amion]

What honestly put me off when seeing the trailer a while back was the acting, but then, child actors aren't the best...maybe it was the simple fact that I couldn't quite grasp the movie trailer's plotline versus the book.

[shadowxps]

I feel much the same. In the same trailer I was just watching the Oscar nomination/win shout outs going by and I was just thinking "seriously you gotta advertise the actors like this"? Maybe it's just a pet peeve of mine but that stuff really annoys me.

[LightningCount]

The fact that there are seemingly not a lot of good movies on the back end of this year, and that very few big sci-fi movies get made, makes me feel like I might want to see this when I otherwise might pass. But I'm on the fence.

[Soma Taozi]

I have a solution, when this movie comes out and you are feeling that Sci-Fi itch, go and watch Gravity instead (it will probably be on DVD or at a cheap theater by that point) because that movie was fantastic.

[shadowxps]

On the flip side seems like there are a bunch of good non scifi movies. I still gotta see Don Jon, Rush, Gravity, and Prisoners among others. And there's more on the way so shiz. There's also robocop in the works which I am very much on the fence about cause I though it looked kinda dumb but then the trailer is making me rethink my initial knee jerk.

[sweet-d]

I was highly disturbed on the wiki entry about how Ender believes showing superiority will prevent future conflicts by attempting to wound another kid. Worse when I learned it's basically a staple of the Marine Corps. Why am I surprised?

Well I never got the idea that it was superiority I always assumed it meant that someone starts a fight with you beat the sh*t out of them even if they are defenseless and they wont mess with you again. I also assumed it mean that he wanted to embarrass and humiliate the kid in front of his friends. Now I haven't read the book in a long time so I could be wrong. I also only remember one thing that could be considered homophobic in the book. The book isn't great it's just okay and it's a little over rated too. But the movie does look like it will just be a bunch of special effects though because the book is about the journey not the battle. The battle is literally just a chapter maybe more most of the time is spent with the CO's playing mind games and exploiting Ender.

[Dark Duel]

I know absolutely nothing about Orson Scott Card as an individual, and I had never actually read the book. But the movie looked vaguely interesting and there are some really good actors in it, so I picked up a paperback copy pretty cheap so I could read the book before I saw the movie, for once.
I'm not very far into it just yet, and maybe it's just me, but I have a problem with kicking the crap out of a guy when he's already down and unable to fight back - no matter how much of an a-hole that guy might be.
*shrugs* I'll still read it, but I may not bother with the movie. Or at least wait until I can pick up the DVD rental for a buck instead of going to see it in theaters.

[soulfire916]

I liked it, I never read the book but I hear if you go in thinking its something different from it your going to be disappointed. Lets just say if you never read the book, it will blow you away.

I feel personally its a good competitor for my other personal favorite movie of 2013 'Elysium'.

[Antares]

Got to watch the movie, finally. Knowing all that I did about Card's opinions.

That being said, the movie was slightly above average. In a classic movie-mode with fast forward over bits that you could tell were better fleshed out in the book (or so I would expect; I haven't read them). I kinda realize that Ender was this sort of super-kid, but all he had around him were dicks he could legitimately beat up and fawning fans. The visuals weren't all that impressive (I mean, yeah they were, but nothing I wouldn't have expected from a movie of this caliber) but sufficiently entertaining.

I didn't know about the twist in the end, although I made an educated guess that was about two-thirds right. The end itself improved on the movie, and made me rank it slightly higher than I would've otherwise.

I was struck in the end of how much like an anime the movie was. You got your brilliant child-protagonist who has to fight for acceptance to become a natural leader, you got your secondary characters with sufficient variety and a love-interest, and there's a final battle against massive odds (this actually could be debated), while all the grownups basically do squat. Given the collective Japanese war-trauma, even the ending would've fit the bill.

[LightningCount]

I agree a lot with what Antares said above. I saw it toward the end of its theatrical run. It's a solid movie that's less mainstream Hollywood than most movies, so it's sort of a breath of fresh air. It took some guts to get this picture made. I get the feeling the source material was very influential on science fiction and anime over the years. I think what surprised me the most was how much of a dark and maudlin tone the film had throughout. It's an interesting movie, but also rather disturbing.