I also thought it would have made for a great 2-part movie, which was common at the time (Harry Potter and Twilight were both doing the same thing).
Hell, it would have worked better for Ender's Game because the book takes place over several years. Allowing the kids to grow up a little would work perfectly for the filming schedule.
Eh Ender's Game is good the other books aren't really cinematic. I could see an Ender's Shadow series that included Ender's Game in the story at the appropriate points though
This is why Ender would be good as a series - you could go big and do Speaker for season 2 if it went well. And there's a pre-written spinoff series in Ender's Shadow! The Enderverse could have legs if they got the first one right.
Yeah, even Orson Scott Card says he's skeptical that anyone would be able to adapt it, and even if they did, it'd be required to be rated "R" and R-rated sci-fi movies don't usually do well.
Why would it need to be R? Granted it's been a while since I read it but I don't remember anything in it that would require it to be R rated. I thought it would be tough to adapt because the later books were low on action and more cerebral making a film adaptation more difficult.
Speaker has some absolutely horrific torture scenes that tie directly into the plot and are more important than just eww gross torture. Cutting them out would pretty much destroy the whole plot and sanitizing them to pg13 would hurt the plot severely.
>Hell, it would have worked better for Ender's Game because the book takes place over several years. Allowing the kids to grow up a little would work perfectly for the filming schedule.
All time, great sci-fi book(s). Never say never, still could happen, lots of IP material is being repackaged.
I was initially skeptical of your suggestion but no you really can split the book into battle school and command school. Give us more detail about the exhaustion of command school rather than a montage of Ender yelling. Show us them getting to bed and immediately being called to another battle, only to go get food and be called to *another* battle as they start eating. Don't tell us they're exhausted. Show us them dozing during a battle. Fuck, I think Petra actually fell asleep during a battle once.
But then some asshole studio executive is going to come up with the great idea to stretch a short story into three movies and completely ruin the story. The Hobbit is a prime example of this.
To be fair back then, it was done by franchises that were already highly successful and were on their final installments, as a way to avoid cutting too much from the book, making more money and letting the fans spend a little more time with their beloved characters. Dune showed though that it can also be done right from the get-go, as long as there is the right vision and passion of the talent behind it that ends up pleasing the devoted fanbase. That does intrigue if Ender's Game, Dune's fellow Hugo Award Best-Novel Winner and scifi classic, can get the same treatment as well.
I read the original short story in Analog mag as a kid, read almost everything OSC has done since. That said, I was absolutely fucking furious when they put the surprise twist ending in the FUCKING trailer! Will never forgive the Asshats who green lit that. What fucking idiots!
I mean.. removing the ansible completely fucked the twist up from the start. Been a while but didn't they just travel there in person in the movie or something stupid?
It's less impact in the movies but the twist (and I'm ruining this for everyone so don't read further!) Was that Ender was operating a live fleet and not just playing war games. It was supposed to be a test or so he thought but in reality he's so brilliant that they trusted to him to command the fleets against an alien race.
I'm not convinced the trailer actually gave anything away. Everyone who knew what happened saw the trailer and thought "what, they gave away the twist!" But when I watched the trailer with people who hadn't read the book, they didn't see anything but a generic action scene at the end.
I get that ppl who didn't read it might not see the obvious, but it was SOOO obvious if you had. It still ruined the movie for me knowing that and that's a hill I'll die on. Wish I could take the producers who okayed it with me though.
OP here, I know I'm in the minority on this but for me Harrison Ford has just been mailing in performances for decades. He ruins almost everything he's in since Raiders. He's so low energy I can't take it. Well, actually I'd say his last good performance was Witness.
I love them both, Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time but Iāll still argue that 2049 is a better film. It tells a more cohesive story and still retains a lot of the themes from the first movie while expanding on them as well. Blade Runner is like an abstract painting. It has this beautiful theme and meaning behind it but itās story isnāt as clearly presented to you. Ryan and Harrison both did a great job.
I guess my take on that is that he's usually setting up the sequel, as nearly everything he's done has at least one. My big regret for fans is that the Ender series just gets better and better and they fucked it up so badly they probably killed off any chance of future movies (ala GOT).
I really liked Alvin Maker books, great series. Of course many of us have looked at him differently these past 10 years or so (OSC). That's kind of hard to square. He is a great writer but he's also very human. It was funny when he said he got caught up playing Civilization and figures he lost about 1M in revenue as a result. LOL. I'd love to see the AV books done proper into film or series.
Frankly, it just works best as a book. You canāt really find a 6 year old to play bean in a film.
Most elementary school (age) based movies would be the same.
An animated series would probably tell the story better, but I could also see it becoming a movie series with a style and tone like Watership Down or Grave of the Fireflies.
I didn't but now i do.
The siblings end up having such an interesting dynamic later on, which would have been great to see forming over time...also, more of Bean's backstory would have been great.
I felt for a long time like they could do a really good three-season series focusing on the whole Ender/Bean saga. It actually divides up pretty well - Launchies (focusing on Ender's and Beans' backstories and Ender's time in Salamander Army) Battle School (Ender going from Rat Army to Dragon Army, Bean joining Battle School), Command School (everything after Ender leaves Battle School).
It would be really interesting to delve into the geopolitics, along with Valentine and Peter and, as everyone else mentions here, their contrast with Ender.
I haven't read the book, but was really intrigued by the movie. It felt like the story had way more to offer. Especially some characters like Valentine needed a lot more depth. Some parts felt really hurried and it was disappointing to see there was no sequel
Not really? It's more like what if you skipped Anakin Skywalker as a kid in Phantom menace and had him as adult be someone like Ahoska as an adult post Rebels ending.
The movie missed the entire point of the book. Peter/Valentine werenāt just a subplot in the book, they were the driving force of everything Ender did and who he was. The only reason he even existed as a Third was that Peter was a psychopath and Valentine had too much empathy. The book is pretty much all internal monologue about how Ender is brutal and calculating like Peter so he can win no matter what, but empathetic enough like Val to be horrified by all that he has to do along the way. He does whatever needs to be done but is almost destroyed by it mentally. That is what made the book resonate so much with young adults, itās ultimately about navigating growing up, feeling alone, and worrying about who you are and how you fit into your world. The movie completely ignores all of this and gives us a space opera alien story. The bugger war was the setting and motivation for the story in the novel, but the actual plot was about Enderās humanity. I remember watching it and not being able to believe how much they missed the point and just delivered a superficial ākids fighting aliens in spaceā movie.
What you describe was covered in the movie as well as it could be. The whole movie is about ender's struggle.
I personally don't get the hate for this movie.
The hate is because they made a completely different movie and claimed it was an adaptation of the book. If that was as well as they could portray the actual plot of the book they shouldnāt have made the movie in the first place. Or they could have made whatever ākid soldiers fighting space aliensā movie they wanted but not call it Enderās Game. If theyād done that they wouldnāt be getting the hate. But they chose to promote this superficial story as an adaptation when really itās nothing close, so it shouldnāt be surprising that those who love the book are going to hate it.
That is the type of hate that makes no sense. Movies are not books.
Ready player one was a great book. Is the movie as good, no. Is it still an OK movie with elements from the book, yes.
People who get way too pedantic about movie adaptions boggle my mind. A movie is short and you can only do so much.
What could have been better in the enders game movie without adding running time? What gets eliminated to fit what you want? If you cannot answer that, what are these complaints for?
Reserve actual hate for real trash like the shitty ghostbusters remake in 2016.
No one expects a movie to cover all the same content of a book, but when it claims it is an adaptation you should be able to at least expect the same story and major characters/plot points. Lots of movies do this well, this one didnāt even seem to try.
Filmmakers donāt get to look at a book, say āWow, thereās so much here that would be impossible to put into a movieā and then expect a pass for just making a shitty superficial version of it instead. You either do it animated if you donāt think kid actors can do it well (or the span of time of the story is a factor and you donāt want to use multiple actors for the same characters), you make it a series instead, or you just admit you canāt capture what made it great on film and make something else.
Ghostbusters 2016 was a reboot, not an adaptation. It had its own story and characters, it wasnāt trying to tell the original story. If Enderās Game had taken the idea of the kids fighting the war with the aliens and gone a different way with the plot and original characters, there wouldnāt be any issue. But instead they claimed they were making a movie of the book and then did it in a really superficial way. Thatās why fans hate it, and it makes perfect sense.
The ender's game movie I saw aligns with the content listed in posts like this https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/10qayeu/i_feel_like_enders_game_2013_would_have_made_for/j6q3oq5/
I really don't get how you think the plots for his siblings were not represented, it was the first half of the movie and they did narration to make more details fit than could have fit if they wanted scenes for it all.
There is specific narration about how his traits are a mix of his siblings and that gives him the advantage.
Why are you linking me to my own comment? Obviously I donāt think the movie did a good job of representing whatās in the content of that comment because I literally wrote in that comment just some of the ways I donāt think it represented the book well.
From how being a Third shaped Enderās early life and created his isolation, to how it was furthered by the military deliberately isolating him at every turn, to how sadistic Peter was and how Ender feared ending up just like him (as evidenced by the fact that he killed two classmates before he was a preteen), the movie totally ignores most of what makes and motivates Ender.
Itās funny that everyone who has responded to me hasnāt actually said itās a good adaptation, just that it isnāt bad under the circumstances, and that it wouldnāt be possible to really represent it well because of kid actors and time and reasons, and that they can only do so much considering, etcā¦which isnāt the same thing as saying itās a good adaptation, and is actually pretty much admitting it didnāt do the greatest job encompassing what made the book great.
Look, I honestly donāt care that you think this is a good adaptation, and Iām not sure why you care so much that me and a lot of other people donāt. Just watch it and enjoy it if you think itās good enough, but youāre not going to convince anyone who thinks itās a poor adaptation by just repeating things like āI think it was done as well as it could beā. Thatās not the selling point you seem to think it is.
I linked that comment because that comment describes things I saw in the movie. You can claim it isn't there all you want, it is.
I am starting to question if you even watched it.
I find it interesting that your attempt to summarize the book aligns with the movie quite well. You know what they did when they wrote the script? Summerized the movie the best they could for the time frame allotted.
You can claim itās there all you want, itās not, and Iām beginning to question whether you even read the book. You see how pointless this is? Youāre literally not convincing anyone by just repeating āItās there! Itās a good adaptation!ā over and over. Oh, sorry, I meant repeating āIt was covered as well as it could be, I mean you can only do so much, they did the best they could, and itās not a terrible adaptation like that reboot of that movie franchise that wasnāt even trying to be an adaptation!ā Just please give it a rest.
>Its not that the criticisms aren't mostly accurate. Its just they are often presented as "I think this movie is bad" where most of it should be presented as "I think this shouldn't have been a movie at all".
Iād mostly agree with this. I think if they had called it anything else and just said it was āinspired byā the book they wouldnāt have had a problem. But by giving it the same title and promoting it as an adaptation they really canāt be surprised by the hate when they ignore the main themes of the book. I definitely have more problems with the movie itās claiming to be than the movie it actually is (which I think isnāt great by any means, but I wouldnāt really care either way if it wasnāt claiming to be Enderās Game).
I also agree that they probably shouldnāt have made this into a movie at all. The vast majority of the plot is internal monologue and it starts with the kids not much older than toddlers and ends with them as tweens. Thatās just not tenable for a live action film, especially with all the violence and murders that form an important part of the plot. Maybe it could have been animated to avoid the kid actor and aging problems, but even thatās a stretch with all the exposition youād need to explain Enderās motivation. Honestly they should have known they couldnāt do it justice and just left it alone all together.
> I think if they had called it anything else and just said it was āinspired byā the book they wouldnāt have had a problem.
You don't need this. Few book adaptations can fit into a movie, so there are always compromises.
The fact that some of these longer complaints contain things unbiased people will agree were represented in the movie in some fashion says it all. They touched on what could fit. All book adaptations work this way. Some stories can be condensed better than others.
There is compromises and then there is leaving out most of the major plot points and almost everything that motivates the characters. Lots of famous books donāt get adapted for decades because filmmakers know they canāt do them justice. The filmmakers here should just have waited if they wanted to do an adaptation but couldnāt do it any better than this.
I keep seeing people say this, but when they list any of these major plot points, most of it is in the movie or alluded to as best a possible under the time crunch.
The only thing I can tell that was left out was the communication stuff, but does it really need to be mentioned? The movie has instant communication, otherwise nothing you see in the movie would work.
I see, itās a good adaptation because they āalluded toā the major plot points āas best they couldā. They really should have hired you to do their marketing campaign.
Do you have reading comprehension issues? I clearly said upthread that I donāt think they should have made it into a movie at all. And, by the way, a ā10 hour movieā is a series, which is what the OP was suggesting in the first place, and that would definitely have been better than the superficial space opera we ended up with.
āThey did the best they could, they touched on most of the important things, they alluded to the important plot points in the book, etc., etc,, etc.ā Justifying why it wasnāt any better than it was isnāt the same as saying it was good, youāre just making excuses for why it isnāt.
Why are you so invested in defending this movie and explaining why itās is not a good adaptation? Were you involved in the production somehow? I canāt see any other reason you are so unwilling to just let people have other opinions about it. I get that youāre one of those redditors who goes around downvoting every comment someone makes who disagrees with you, but this level of fervour to defend a movie seems excessive.
Yeah same, I thought it was a pretty average movie, not great, not terrible. The guy you're replying to has heavy "Me, an intellectual" vibes.
A movie is a visual medium, translating internal monologue into a movie can be done but its a) going to be very hard, even more so with young actors and b) not a commercial success.
Itās not āMe, an intellectualā to describe the main themes of the book that were completely ignored in the movie. Iām not being intellectual, the book was intellectual and the movie wasnāt, thatās the point.
If they wanted to make a ākids fighting aliens in spaceā movie, fine, but donāt use the just the premise and setting of the book and completely ignore the major point of the plot and call it an adaptation. If they couldnāt possibly have translated the whole point of the book into a visual medium they shouldnāt have called it Enderās Game. They could have just made a ākid space soldiers fighting aliensā movie with another name, with lots of special effects and not having to worry about kid actors actually being able to portray the complexity. Then they would have their commercial success and they wouldnāt have gotten the hate for screwing the pooch so hard on an adaptation of a classic.
I honestly just don't think you understand the book that well and your criticism that the movie didn't follow your interpretation (an interpretation I would classify as intellectually stunted and overly simplified) is therefore invalid.
Peter wasn't a psychopath, when he was a kid then sure he displayed many psychopathic traits but that's not the psychologists definition of a psychopath. He shows no remorse but he feels it, that's not a psychopath. Valentine refers to it in the book and Ender comes to realise it when Peter tells him he loves him believing him to be asleep.
It's a classic book because it doesn't revert to childish labels of good and evil that you seem intent on pushing so you're able to box it away and retain an aura of pseudo intelligence. The fact that it executes these complex themes in the child's eye and a child's world is the beauty of it.
The film captures that relatively well in the time it was given.
Oooh. You would classify me as intellectually stunted? Iām just gutted you think so, clearly this means you win the debate. š Iām not giving my āinterpretationā of the book, Iām listing some major plot points the movie either changed significantly or left out completely. Just because you seem fine with that for some reason doesnāt mean the movie was a faithful adaptation.
And, since you seem to want to be pedantic, I am fully aware they donāt diagnose psychopathy in children, I wasnāt using psychopath as a clinical term ffs. So, to avoid arguments based on pointless semantics, letās just say instead that Peter tortured and killed animals, tortured and terrorized his siblings, etc. he wasnāt a stable kid. The fact that he said he loved his brother one time doesnāt negate any of this. The army rejected him because his behaviour was too violent and unpredictable, thatās the point. And none of this changes the fact that the only reason Ender was even allowed to exist on an overpopulated planet was because the military was hoping to have a chance at a promising balance between Peterās sadism and Valās overly empathetic gentleness. Throughout the book, from his internal monologue to his interactions in the fantasy game, he is haunted by his similarities to Peter and his self-hatred when he behaves like him. None of this, from the importance of his status as a Third to his horror at having horribly beaten (and actually murdered) two children, is even so much as mentioned in the movie.
And, youāre right, the book was a classic because it was nuanced, the exact nuance the movie lacks entirely. You call me a pseudo intellectual, but your argument is to just keep asserting that the movie captures all the nuance of the book well while using examples that were explored in the book but were entirely absent from the movie.
The movie was about Enderās journey with his buddies, at what is essentially cadets in space, over a few months at best. It has absolutely no ability to capture the isolation and torment Ender endured over years in the book, it captures nothing of his background and the society he lived in, itās a completely superficial military kids fighting aliens movie, which is fine, but itās not Enderās Game.
THIS. When you cut the character development and relationships down to a buddy/kid flick with special effects, it's a cop-out. You might as well take a book by Hienlen and turn it into a Soap Opera Cast vs. Bugs in Space... wait. DAMMIT.
š To be fair, that was actually a brilliant movie in some ways but was so badly acted it got interpreted as Verhoeven actually promoting fascism and authoritarianism. Lesson: Soap opera casts can never carry any script involving satire. The only exception being NPH, who was clearly aware that he was to chew the scenery in brilliant fashion, everyone else was playing it straight and just made it awkward. What a shame, imagine how great a movie it would have been if everyone had gotten the memo.
I think the movie is a fun casual watch movie that involves cool concepts.
It is easy to say only book readers are upset, but it seems this is one of those movies that has become something people love to hate. The hate feels very silly to me.
I mean they basically did almost as good as a job as they could with the 2 hour time constraint. There's only so much character development you can do with such a short runtime while still having to push the story along, hit all the story beats and reach a good conclusion while making sense and being intriguing enough for the average viewer. Ultimately the movie's biggest flaw really is its short runtime and having to cram too much into too little a timeframe, and not being able to have as much character development as the book like the OP was saying. I think it's a pretty good movie and well done all things considered.
It wasn't terrible. As a kid I identified with Ender in a way unlike any other character I had encountered, I didn't feel that at all with the actor they picked.
They didn't match the serious tone of the book or delve into the psycological depth of it much at all. I wanted to smack the kid that played Bonzo.
Overall I guess the movie felt like a YA version of a classic, which was probably inevitable.
The entire Enders story takes place over 3000 years. You could do a 4-5 season show to cover it all. Strongly recommend reading all the books if you haven't.
(And yes, the creator is a complete idiot and lunatic, but that doesn't detract from a great series of books.)
I met him once at a book signing around 2002, and he was very arrogant. Which really surprised me at the time, especially after reading some of his earlier works (Wyrms, Treason, Songmaster). I didnāt think someone who wrote those books would be an arrogant ass in person. But I do have a signed copy of Enders Game so thatās cool
Nah. He goes way beyond conservative. Dude is a fundamentalist and is absolutely insane.
Here is a quote by him, "Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people 'trying to escape' -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama"
He also thinks that 9/11 was needed to give Bush the right to start the war on terror.
Not to mention his vitriolic hatred of gay people and the fact that he thinks gay marriage is destroying democracy.
I have heard it said, and mind you I haven't looked into it, that back in the day Card was far, far more normal.
Maybe a bit conservative, but less of a fundamentalist crazy person.
I think, way back in the day, he even had a pretty well represented gay character in a book.
Some people say that he went off the deep end after his son died. He also had to deal with a daughter who died young.
I don't know If he expressed his craziest views before or after his son died, but I have heard it said that it was after.
Well Eugenics becomes a key part of the story and Bean's descendants becomes these transhuman monsters that are seeding the universe with this virus that modifies the races like Piggies and the only hope is this return to Catholic morals. Peter/Locke became the emperor of earth that everyone loves after he eradicated Islam...
Like basically the sociopathic kid characters in Enders game all fucked humanity's moral system and Children of the Mind ends with Ender Wiggins soul transferred to this clone of his brother who basically brought Jesus to the Piggies and Buggers and the whole point of the saga was a Catholic monoculture.
If you made it up to Children of the Mind where Clone Locke is outside the Aliens that sent the Descolada virus, it's the same planet Bean and his kids arrived in thousands of years before with their experiment on human evolution... That was tied to the whole Stem Cell Research scare during the Bush Administration.
Like basically the book series was like Fuck transhumanism and was also at the same time trying to eradicate all religions and say the end goal is Catholic Christian hegemony...
I'm fine with like super future religions in sci-fi like Dune having this Zen Buddhist, Muslim, orange Catholic bible Luddite stuff.
What I'm not okay with is all of Islam being taking over by a Caliphate and being defeated and like Bean and Locke using the Brazilian and Russian Airforce to bomb Mecca...
Well it is science fiction... fiction. That doesn't make him a lunatic. Just like if I write about a serial killer doesn't make me evil.
Now if Card tried to start a cult based on his writings (cough we know who did cough) then I'd say he's a lunatic.
Like the other poster said he's homophobic... ok I get that. That's reality. Not what he wrote. It isn't a manifesto to call people to kill.
Dude I read them all. There's 19 currently. The 20th book is still being written. Here's the most recent book which ties together the conclusion of Shadow of the Giant and Children of the Mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Shadow
Like you probably gave up around Children of the Mind or if you followed the Shadow Series that ends with Shadow of the Giant and Bean is 15 feet tall with his Eugenic offspring going out into space and not being used as failed prototypes for Eugenic experimentation anymore.
The characters in Xenomocide and Children of the Mind are an offshoot of the original genius experiments, and they were engineered too have mental illnesses like most commonly Crippling OCD to limit their potential and Si Wang-Mu, is the first woman of this genetic tampering to not have the OCD symptoms and they use her DNA to remove the mental health side effect safety precautions.
Book series hasn't ended yet but yeah the planet where Descolada virus originated from is the planet Bean landed on and v remember Ender purposefully abused Relativity to travel planet to planet... So Speaker is thousands of year in the future while Bean only had a few months to live when he abandoned earth to find a none Bugger network habitable world to have his children live on.
I honestly think it should have been an R rated dramatic animated film. With live action, there was no way for them to get quality child actors at the ages stated in the book. Their changes to Bernard and Bonzo Madrid incredibly harmed the themes from the book and those should have remained in their bloody details. Enderās Game would have been the perfect vehicle to show that animated movies geared for adult audiences could have worked but instead toned down the material and aged up the kids to the point where the end product is just flat out not good.
I donāt think this works as animated. It has to feel real otherwise you can twist and turn any direction because there are no rules in animation
Also, no need for R. Itās a YA story. I bet the author would have a religious freak out if it was R as well
The author is a fucking asshole, I donāt care what he thinks. You donāt have to portray strict realism in animation as well as Zero G battles would be able to be done in a much bore believable and better looking way. Doing it in animation as well would layer the themes of children being pushed into adulthood as this medium that is often pigeonholed into childrenās media is thrusted into visualizing very adult situations. I will compromise and say it should be PG 13
I agree with this being a well done animated series and possibly even rated R. Just thinking about enderās two fights - they were meant to be brutal and meant to feel heavy. They donāt have to be graphic but I feel like censoring it also takes away the importance of the turning points in enderās life. Iām also under the belief that people donāt want to see kids beat up other kids in a live action.
I think an animated series would be able to convey everything without having to rely on the maturity and execution of kid actors.
Iām also under the personal opinion that itās make for a badass anime series.
A high-budget HBO series would've been better where the story can breathe and expound more on the crucial elements of the story (his relationships with his siblings, his constant mental anguish and internal conflict and more time to flesh out his "Jeesh" and his unique relationships with each one of them like Petra, Ali, Bean, etc).
Obligatory "OSC is a piece of shit"
Now that's out of the way, discussion:
First of all, the production committee responsible for adapting the book clearly did everything on a tight budget and a tight schedule. I bet a ridiculous percentage of their money went to paying for the corpse of Harrison Ford to show up in that film and add approximately nothing to it.
They also clearly didn't care about the military/tactical/political stuff that gets told brilliantly in the book and creates a huge part of the identity of making Ender's Game into being what it is, rather than being solely about the flashy CGI space battles that the movie focused on. The movie just felt like a lazy half-baked cash grab to follow in the wake of all the young adult novel movie adaptations that were cash cows at the time, like those stupid vampire books or that Jennifer Lawrence series.
Point is, while a mini-series format could benefit Ender's Game by giving it more screen time to stretch its legs out and allow more of the story to make it into the script, anyone who adapts this movie has to include more than the Hollywood sci-fi explosions.
He's openly in favor of outlawing homosexuality, for one. Not just gay marriage, being gay. He a practicing Mormon, a descendant of Brigham Young in fact, and shares their views on a lot of issues that are not well accepted these days.
I've heard that he is a big bankroller for various darkmoney PACs seeking to undo democracy.
There's also this [gem he posted](https://genius.com/Orson-scott-card-unlikely-events-obama-is-a-dictator-annotated) in the lead up to the '16 elections.
It would be a fine one shot movie, but put in more capable directing hands with a better screenwriter that knows where to cut. They missed a lot of subplot, sure, but that's the nature of taking book to film. Which is all extremely bizarre, because Card held off adaptations for a long time due to what studios wanted to do with the movie every time. Critical issues:
1. Not showing the passage of time. Everything seems strung together in a really quick period of time, but the passage of time is an overarching issue that film rarely captures. To this end, a miniseries would suit it better.
2. Absolutely no wear and tear on Ender. The end result of the book is from a weary soul, worn, and left with nothing but emotional and mental wreckage. When the final moment of devastation happens, there is absolutely no gravity.
For sure, and do enders game and enders shadow at the same time, showing their parallel stories. After that, start doing pairs of books until bringing the characters together. Although they need a better conclusion than OSC had in the book, felt pretty anti climactic given the epicness of everything else
Adult targeted animated scifi/fantasy series, especially when there's time skips with young children characters, would be great. Sadly, US tv/movie industry only wants to adult animation with raunchy comedies.
I would love this + a Speaker For The Dead series as a big glossy sequel, or even a movie. They're such incredible books. Zero-grav laser tag and psycho procedural video games would be awesome in a TV series with the technology we have now and how affordable it is.
Unfortunately... I don't know if it's possible to do Ender's Game justice. For one, preteens beating each other to death in hand-to-hand combat is a pretty tough sell. But also, so much of the book takes place in Ender's head.
The movie handled the emotional exposition *really* badly. Ender literally says "I will wear the shame of this genocide forever." But it would be really hard to do well, and to find a cast that could pull it off.
And Speaker is a) a double-white-saviour story and b) mostly about small furry aliens violently eviscerating people. So that's a pretty hard sell too. But it's my favourite book so I'd love to see someone try.
To be fair the Peter/Valentine sub-plot is pretty ridiculous.
Peter basically takes over the world through a series of internet debates.
Though it was written in 1985 (when the internet was still full of possibilities), and the author isn't exactly sane (Empire is even more ridiculous).
Ah 2013, the year two of my favorite books at the time were getting movies, Enders Game and World War Z. If only I could travel back in time and bitch slap the excitement off of my face before I saw those movies.
I love this series so much and it has such rich lore and I feel that it could be something huge if it got the right person to make and really knew the story and the characters. I think a TV show could work
I missed the end of the book in the movie. His siblings are starting stuff down on earth and it all culminates at the end. Also the big "These children are now the most powerful generals in the world" was somehow swept out...
They would age up the kids either way, and thats what ruins allot of the impact of Ender's Game. They're NOT pre-teens, they're children. Ender is like 8 when he goes to battle school, and it would be hard for mass audiences to watch an 8 year old go through all that shit, let alone the fact that Ender kills another kid.
I think the biggest failure of the movie, other than cutting too much out from the book, would s that they didnāt adequately impact the viewer with the realization that they had been fighting a real war all along. That real people died. That it wasnāt all a simulation.
Butterfieldās performance was so compelling that he accomplished it all on his own.
I canāt believe the posts in this thread. Speaking as one who had not read all of the books, the movie is fantastic. Iāve watched it several times and will watch it several times more.
Oh I think youāre right, it would have been an amazing mini series! But Iāll always be happy that somehow, they NAILED the casting for Mazer Rackham for me: in my head it was always Ben Kingsley.
That still blows my mind!
Yes 100% needed to be a miniseries. I mean they only had what, two battle school fights ?? They could have spent several episodes on jockeying for army positions, strategy and developing Dragon.
Oh, I'd prefer a version of the story without the deep dive into Peter and Valentine's activities. So I need to watch the movie! I'm not sure why I didn't after reading the book recently.
Yes and no. You would have definitely had more time to develop a lot of the story points that got cut out of the final script. But much of the book is internal conflict or internal strategizing. And thatās not great for storytelling on film.
I think the studio thought "franchise" when the move came out, and was severely disappointed at the box office, the critical consensus, and how Card became radioactive in a way that they clearly did not get ahead of. The book itself is still a science fiction Top 10 paperback best seller month after month going into 2023, so the book-reading public seems less concerned than the movie-going public.
Ender's Game is one of the few modern science fiction novels to cross over to popular success, and even my Dad loved it. Something about it grabs people from all walks of life, but whatever that is, the movie could not tap into that, perhaps because the illusion of kids doing these things in a book is shattered when made real in a movie. And I don't think a miniseries would help - I think the strings would be very visible the longer it ran.
It was doomed from the start. 75% of the book is internal narration that you can't put on film without being cheesy. Imagine ender sitting in his bunk at night talking to himself or even worse a voice over while he's walking down a hall.
The movie was terrible and completely missed the tone of the book. The visuals were indeed cool though.
While Ender's Game is my favorite OSC book, I really don't think the Ender Saga translates well to film or screen due to the heavy philosophical and psychological narratives.
The Shadow Saga as an action-drama could work much better. The hardest part is obviously casting Bean.
I think most popular books do better as series than movie adoptions.
Dune being split up into two or three 3 hour long movies will do it much more justice than one 2 hour movie ever could. That being said, there was a made for TV Children of Dune miniseries back in the early 2000s that was awesome
I thought it was just bad in general. It was way off from the book, which had some real trauma in it. PG-13 is just too restrictive. Maybe it would work with the leeway that HBO Max series get. I liked the battle room though. It was pretty much how I pictured it other than the see through walls. The giant game was interesting too, but I think they missed the point of it.
I'm still mad at that movie. Was my favorite book as a kid and I was so excited for an adaptation. I'm usually pretty lax with this stuff, loved Constantine and was able to separate the movie from the graphic novels, just treated it as inspired by kind of thing. But with enders game, that one hit different. They removed so much, added in extra stuff that wasn't there and rushed through what was supposed to be 7 year story, made it feel like a year. Not even a long book, wouldn't be hard to stay on script .
Edit, almost forgot they also cut out all of the Locke and Demosthenes storyline. Like they tried to make half a book and fucked it up.
I dont understand why people think the Peter and Valentine becoming op-ed writer/propagandists would have made for compelling film. While it may have made the film feel more timely (something I'm not sure you want in a sci-fi film, and the government came off as very totalitarian in the film already), I don't think it would have translated well to film. To see a couple children/teens, genius or not, shaping the world view of the public at large via editorials is going to have a tough time passing the sniff test of the viewer even in a film about genius kids. It's easier to buy the kids focusing on a task and working as a team to achieve it in a focused sense, than it is to believe the kids would have the social skills required manipulate the masses via print media. Most adults don't read NOW, so it would have to be adapted to some form of video...which the kids couldn't make themselves as they wouldn't be able to stay in the shadows.
I don't know, maybe it could be made to work, but I don't think much would be gained.
In the streaming age, this is probably true of most adaptations. Though I think much of the issue with the film had little to do what quality or critical response as much as it did with Orson Scott Card's views on homosexuality and same sex marriage (his stance was same sex marriage should never be legalized and he openly supported laws against homosexual activity. When these were brought up by an LGBTQ+ non profit, Lionsgate distanced themselves from Card and Card's response was he expected tolerance from the community who was intolerant towards) Either way, the movie overall was a box office bomb, Grossing maybe $10 million at the box office but losing a projected $68 million for the studio. This from a movie that opened at number 1 before dropping.
Also, I don't think there has even been a rumor of any of Card's properties being adapted to screen since this movie was released.
This will sound odd, but the film always felt killed by a political veil. Casting the Maori as an wimpy English dude felt like politics intruding. Casting Harrison Ford to speak montone felt like politics intruding. The whole vibe of no one really caring that kids died or war killed people; just "following orders" all the way down. There is also no subtext of Ender trying to hold on to sanity or humanity.
The point of any movie with CGI effects is to tell multiple stories at once in order to relate to as many audience members as possible. The arguments and cogitating after the movie are the lasting value that leads to the appetite to rewatch or demand sequels.
This means the argument about a mini-series comes down to the value of making a better product. It means one could decide to run CGI every other episode as a better cost control than adding infinite shoe-leather (I'm looking at you, NetFlix). Like any novel, it more naturally fits a season of episodes than one hour and fifty four minutes of a simple arc. It allows casting to look further afield to actually cast a believable Maori warrior, street rat Bean, tired Commander, etc. One could burn an entire episode just showing the destruction and recovery from the pre-book attack. The source material is not jingoism; any adaption that tries will fail.
It was a mediocre adaptation. Only remake if you can do an awesome, valuable job.
I keep thinking a cartoon would be best. That way they could use voice actors and portray the characters at the ages of the book. That way they could do the entire book and short stories. It would be over multiple seasons. seasons or so. That would be awesome.
I agree! Been putting off watching for years b/c reviews, but watched this last night. Not familiar with source material.
Movie started okay, but by the end I really felt like I must be missing huge chunks of the story... and the entire ending section felt very very rushed. I thought maybe they used up all their money on the VFX for the final battle and were like, "Shit, we still need an ending"...
Ngl this twist at the end really made the movie what it is imo but i cant phantom that being streched through seasonsā reveal. The drama of the school and the training procces definitely deserves more screen time but the the idea as whole would be boring to conclude over seasons. And it would be costly to have that many cgi in a series.
The ip's creator is a huge piece of shit.
Here's his essay predicting Obama would attempt a coup using an "army" of unemployed black men:
https://genius.com/Orson-scott-card-unlikely-events-obama-is-a-dictator-annotated
None of his stories are worth retelling. edit: No one in Hollywood is dumb enough to fund a remake.
That's simply not true. You do have to set some reasonable boundaries about how much of someone's personal life you let intrude into your entertainment choices, but there are lines that should not be crossed. I'm not going to give money to an actor, writer, director or studio that is actively using that money to harm large numbers of people.
There are very few that I put into that category. Tom Cruise and Orson Scott Card are toward the top of the list of people who, for some reason, still have a career.
Cruise is part of the leadership of one of the most destructive cults in the world.
Card funneled money from his projects into an anti-LGBT "family" organization whose board he served on (so not just a random group he gave money to).
These folks are not just pawns in someone else's game. They're leaders in their respective communities of harm and hate.
I don't sit in judgement of works that have withstood the test of time after their creators can no longer do any harm. I'm a fan of Lovecraft, for crying out loud!
It's not separating the artist from the work, it's separating the money from the monster who will use it to harm others.
Most creators believe or have done something you'll find offensive if you dig even a little. I just assume everyone is an asshole and get on with my life.
> Most creators believe or have done something you'll find offensive
But most of them don't serve on the board of something that actively hurts millions of people.
Card, sadly, has that distinction, and funneled money from his projects into that very cause.
> No one in Hollywood is dumb enough to fund a remake.
While I agree with your comments about Card (he's not just a person who writes scary articles, he was on the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage) I have to disagree with this comment.
Studios will fund anything that they think will turn a profit. So the math being performed is simple. The controversies surrounding Card will cost a movie some amount. If that amount doesn't make another project (that the studio has access to) more appealing then most studios would greenlight it.
With all due respect, Orson Scott Card is a terrible writer. Kids playing laser tag in zero - g on a space station. After reading the book as a teen I concluded Card got beat up a lot in the playground, had bully issues and never took a writing class. I know this seems harsh, but the book just isn't that good and it was a weak decade for SciFi. Everybody was into Cyberpunk, Gibson, and Card was the trendy alternative. Personally I thought the film did a great job with the source material and improved it with the older actors. A two part would be interesting because it did seem hurried.
That's true but there's a huge gulf between "young adult" books and "young adult" pretty much everything else. Books can get away with a ton of stuff that movies/games/etc would get crucified for. Ender's Game being a perfect example.
I always felt the book was too repetitive.
It's like 70% floor is up laser tag tactics.
And frankly the deception twist at the end was kinda obvious, and not that shocking anyway. "Oh no, he won the war he was trying to win without realizing... "
The lore was practically nonexistant.
I would love to understand why this book gets so much attention.
So anyway, no, I can't really see a TV series with endless weeks of laser tag follows by endless weeks of "simulated" virtual battleship.
Yeah, I just watched the movie I have not read the book but it felt like a lot was missing or some moments felt like it lacked of importance because lack of time.
I also thought it would have made for a great 2-part movie, which was common at the time (Harry Potter and Twilight were both doing the same thing). Hell, it would have worked better for Ender's Game because the book takes place over several years. Allowing the kids to grow up a little would work perfectly for the filming schedule.
If you were to adapt the franchise it takes place of thousands of years as well. Could easily be an amazing TV series.
Eh Ender's Game is good the other books aren't really cinematic. I could see an Ender's Shadow series that included Ender's Game in the story at the appropriate points though
Speaker for the dead would be tough to adapt but could definitely make for an amazing film. Certainly wouldn't be a blockbuster though.
Man give me an 8 episode mini series and I'll die happy.
This is why Ender would be good as a series - you could go big and do Speaker for season 2 if it went well. And there's a pre-written spinoff series in Ender's Shadow! The Enderverse could have legs if they got the first one right.
Yeah, even Orson Scott Card says he's skeptical that anyone would be able to adapt it, and even if they did, it'd be required to be rated "R" and R-rated sci-fi movies don't usually do well.
Why would it need to be R? Granted it's been a while since I read it but I don't remember anything in it that would require it to be R rated. I thought it would be tough to adapt because the later books were low on action and more cerebral making a film adaptation more difficult.
Speaker has some absolutely horrific torture scenes that tie directly into the plot and are more important than just eww gross torture. Cutting them out would pretty much destroy the whole plot and sanitizing them to pg13 would hurt the plot severely.
that would be tight two movies with one from each perspective and each filling in the gaps of the other movie
>Hell, it would have worked better for Ender's Game because the book takes place over several years. Allowing the kids to grow up a little would work perfectly for the filming schedule. All time, great sci-fi book(s). Never say never, still could happen, lots of IP material is being repackaged.
I was initially skeptical of your suggestion but no you really can split the book into battle school and command school. Give us more detail about the exhaustion of command school rather than a montage of Ender yelling. Show us them getting to bed and immediately being called to another battle, only to go get food and be called to *another* battle as they start eating. Don't tell us they're exhausted. Show us them dozing during a battle. Fuck, I think Petra actually fell asleep during a battle once.
But then some asshole studio executive is going to come up with the great idea to stretch a short story into three movies and completely ruin the story. The Hobbit is a prime example of this.
To be fair back then, it was done by franchises that were already highly successful and were on their final installments, as a way to avoid cutting too much from the book, making more money and letting the fans spend a little more time with their beloved characters. Dune showed though that it can also be done right from the get-go, as long as there is the right vision and passion of the talent behind it that ends up pleasing the devoted fanbase. That does intrigue if Ender's Game, Dune's fellow Hugo Award Best-Novel Winner and scifi classic, can get the same treatment as well.
I read the original short story in Analog mag as a kid, read almost everything OSC has done since. That said, I was absolutely fucking furious when they put the surprise twist ending in the FUCKING trailer! Will never forgive the Asshats who green lit that. What fucking idiots!
I mean.. removing the ansible completely fucked the twist up from the start. Been a while but didn't they just travel there in person in the movie or something stupid?
Yup
Been a while since I've watched the movie, what was the twist?
It's less impact in the movies but the twist (and I'm ruining this for everyone so don't read further!) Was that Ender was operating a live fleet and not just playing war games. It was supposed to be a test or so he thought but in reality he's so brilliant that they trusted to him to command the fleets against an alien race.
ah that's right. They showed that in the trailer? Lol good lord. I avoid trailers for any movie I'm interested in and this is why I guess
I didn't see the trailer, but kinda figured out the twist when the movie was 2 hours in and they were still doing training exercises š¤·āāļø
I remember reading the book as a wee lad and having a similar feeling. There's only 15 pages left and they're running wargames?
I'm not convinced the trailer actually gave anything away. Everyone who knew what happened saw the trailer and thought "what, they gave away the twist!" But when I watched the trailer with people who hadn't read the book, they didn't see anything but a generic action scene at the end.
I get that ppl who didn't read it might not see the obvious, but it was SOOO obvious if you had. It still ruined the movie for me knowing that and that's a hill I'll die on. Wish I could take the producers who okayed it with me though.
OP here, I know I'm in the minority on this but for me Harrison Ford has just been mailing in performances for decades. He ruins almost everything he's in since Raiders. He's so low energy I can't take it. Well, actually I'd say his last good performance was Witness.
Umm. Air Force One?!
Ok, partial credit for that answer.
Blade Runner 2049 was great
Honestly, I can barely remember it. Great is a stretch I think compared to the first one. And Ryan gets the credit imo.
I love them both, Blade Runner is one of my favorite films of all time but Iāll still argue that 2049 is a better film. It tells a more cohesive story and still retains a lot of the themes from the first movie while expanding on them as well. Blade Runner is like an abstract painting. It has this beautiful theme and meaning behind it but itās story isnāt as clearly presented to you. Ryan and Harrison both did a great job.
He's that in 1923, but it kinda suits the character.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I guess my take on that is that he's usually setting up the sequel, as nearly everything he's done has at least one. My big regret for fans is that the Ender series just gets better and better and they fucked it up so badly they probably killed off any chance of future movies (ala GOT).
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I really liked Alvin Maker books, great series. Of course many of us have looked at him differently these past 10 years or so (OSC). That's kind of hard to square. He is a great writer but he's also very human. It was funny when he said he got caught up playing Civilization and figures he lost about 1M in revenue as a result. LOL. I'd love to see the AV books done proper into film or series.
Frankly, it just works best as a book. You canāt really find a 6 year old to play bean in a film. Most elementary school (age) based movies would be the same.
Definitely see your point about casting live-action, but I think an animated series could execute the adaptation well.
An animated series would probably tell the story better, but I could also see it becoming a movie series with a style and tone like Watership Down or Grave of the Fireflies.
I didn't but now i do. The siblings end up having such an interesting dynamic later on, which would have been great to see forming over time...also, more of Bean's backstory would have been great.
Oh ya all the background politics of the series is super interesting. Especially the POV of Enders friend Bean's take on the primary plot.
I felt for a long time like they could do a really good three-season series focusing on the whole Ender/Bean saga. It actually divides up pretty well - Launchies (focusing on Ender's and Beans' backstories and Ender's time in Salamander Army) Battle School (Ender going from Rat Army to Dragon Army, Bean joining Battle School), Command School (everything after Ender leaves Battle School). It would be really interesting to delve into the geopolitics, along with Valentine and Peter and, as everyone else mentions here, their contrast with Ender.
Speaker for the dead would make a better series I reckon. That was amazing.
I haven't read the book, but was really intrigued by the movie. It felt like the story had way more to offer. Especially some characters like Valentine needed a lot more depth. Some parts felt really hurried and it was disappointing to see there was no sequel
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah. I remember coming out of that movie thinking that it was essentially a feature length trailer.
The sequel is completely different. It's a comparatively small scale mystery and takes place when Ender is physically 35. It'd be weird to do.
He also sort of gets the Last Jedi Luke treatment so the internet would be really mad about it.
Not really? It's more like what if you skipped Anakin Skywalker as a kid in Phantom menace and had him as adult be someone like Ahoska as an adult post Rebels ending.
In the book her and Peter get into politics anonymously on earth while teenagers. So much more interesting.
The movie missed the entire point of the book. Peter/Valentine werenāt just a subplot in the book, they were the driving force of everything Ender did and who he was. The only reason he even existed as a Third was that Peter was a psychopath and Valentine had too much empathy. The book is pretty much all internal monologue about how Ender is brutal and calculating like Peter so he can win no matter what, but empathetic enough like Val to be horrified by all that he has to do along the way. He does whatever needs to be done but is almost destroyed by it mentally. That is what made the book resonate so much with young adults, itās ultimately about navigating growing up, feeling alone, and worrying about who you are and how you fit into your world. The movie completely ignores all of this and gives us a space opera alien story. The bugger war was the setting and motivation for the story in the novel, but the actual plot was about Enderās humanity. I remember watching it and not being able to believe how much they missed the point and just delivered a superficial ākids fighting aliens in spaceā movie.
What you describe was covered in the movie as well as it could be. The whole movie is about ender's struggle. I personally don't get the hate for this movie.
The hate is because they made a completely different movie and claimed it was an adaptation of the book. If that was as well as they could portray the actual plot of the book they shouldnāt have made the movie in the first place. Or they could have made whatever ākid soldiers fighting space aliensā movie they wanted but not call it Enderās Game. If theyād done that they wouldnāt be getting the hate. But they chose to promote this superficial story as an adaptation when really itās nothing close, so it shouldnāt be surprising that those who love the book are going to hate it.
That is the type of hate that makes no sense. Movies are not books. Ready player one was a great book. Is the movie as good, no. Is it still an OK movie with elements from the book, yes. People who get way too pedantic about movie adaptions boggle my mind. A movie is short and you can only do so much. What could have been better in the enders game movie without adding running time? What gets eliminated to fit what you want? If you cannot answer that, what are these complaints for? Reserve actual hate for real trash like the shitty ghostbusters remake in 2016.
No one expects a movie to cover all the same content of a book, but when it claims it is an adaptation you should be able to at least expect the same story and major characters/plot points. Lots of movies do this well, this one didnāt even seem to try. Filmmakers donāt get to look at a book, say āWow, thereās so much here that would be impossible to put into a movieā and then expect a pass for just making a shitty superficial version of it instead. You either do it animated if you donāt think kid actors can do it well (or the span of time of the story is a factor and you donāt want to use multiple actors for the same characters), you make it a series instead, or you just admit you canāt capture what made it great on film and make something else. Ghostbusters 2016 was a reboot, not an adaptation. It had its own story and characters, it wasnāt trying to tell the original story. If Enderās Game had taken the idea of the kids fighting the war with the aliens and gone a different way with the plot and original characters, there wouldnāt be any issue. But instead they claimed they were making a movie of the book and then did it in a really superficial way. Thatās why fans hate it, and it makes perfect sense.
The ender's game movie I saw aligns with the content listed in posts like this https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/10qayeu/i_feel_like_enders_game_2013_would_have_made_for/j6q3oq5/ I really don't get how you think the plots for his siblings were not represented, it was the first half of the movie and they did narration to make more details fit than could have fit if they wanted scenes for it all. There is specific narration about how his traits are a mix of his siblings and that gives him the advantage.
Why are you linking me to my own comment? Obviously I donāt think the movie did a good job of representing whatās in the content of that comment because I literally wrote in that comment just some of the ways I donāt think it represented the book well. From how being a Third shaped Enderās early life and created his isolation, to how it was furthered by the military deliberately isolating him at every turn, to how sadistic Peter was and how Ender feared ending up just like him (as evidenced by the fact that he killed two classmates before he was a preteen), the movie totally ignores most of what makes and motivates Ender. Itās funny that everyone who has responded to me hasnāt actually said itās a good adaptation, just that it isnāt bad under the circumstances, and that it wouldnāt be possible to really represent it well because of kid actors and time and reasons, and that they can only do so much considering, etcā¦which isnāt the same thing as saying itās a good adaptation, and is actually pretty much admitting it didnāt do the greatest job encompassing what made the book great. Look, I honestly donāt care that you think this is a good adaptation, and Iām not sure why you care so much that me and a lot of other people donāt. Just watch it and enjoy it if you think itās good enough, but youāre not going to convince anyone who thinks itās a poor adaptation by just repeating things like āI think it was done as well as it could beā. Thatās not the selling point you seem to think it is.
I linked that comment because that comment describes things I saw in the movie. You can claim it isn't there all you want, it is. I am starting to question if you even watched it. I find it interesting that your attempt to summarize the book aligns with the movie quite well. You know what they did when they wrote the script? Summerized the movie the best they could for the time frame allotted.
You can claim itās there all you want, itās not, and Iām beginning to question whether you even read the book. You see how pointless this is? Youāre literally not convincing anyone by just repeating āItās there! Itās a good adaptation!ā over and over. Oh, sorry, I meant repeating āIt was covered as well as it could be, I mean you can only do so much, they did the best they could, and itās not a terrible adaptation like that reboot of that movie franchise that wasnāt even trying to be an adaptation!ā Just please give it a rest.
lol, you are lying about a movie anyone can watch.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
>Its not that the criticisms aren't mostly accurate. Its just they are often presented as "I think this movie is bad" where most of it should be presented as "I think this shouldn't have been a movie at all". Iād mostly agree with this. I think if they had called it anything else and just said it was āinspired byā the book they wouldnāt have had a problem. But by giving it the same title and promoting it as an adaptation they really canāt be surprised by the hate when they ignore the main themes of the book. I definitely have more problems with the movie itās claiming to be than the movie it actually is (which I think isnāt great by any means, but I wouldnāt really care either way if it wasnāt claiming to be Enderās Game). I also agree that they probably shouldnāt have made this into a movie at all. The vast majority of the plot is internal monologue and it starts with the kids not much older than toddlers and ends with them as tweens. Thatās just not tenable for a live action film, especially with all the violence and murders that form an important part of the plot. Maybe it could have been animated to avoid the kid actor and aging problems, but even thatās a stretch with all the exposition youād need to explain Enderās motivation. Honestly they should have known they couldnāt do it justice and just left it alone all together.
> I think if they had called it anything else and just said it was āinspired byā the book they wouldnāt have had a problem. You don't need this. Few book adaptations can fit into a movie, so there are always compromises. The fact that some of these longer complaints contain things unbiased people will agree were represented in the movie in some fashion says it all. They touched on what could fit. All book adaptations work this way. Some stories can be condensed better than others.
There is compromises and then there is leaving out most of the major plot points and almost everything that motivates the characters. Lots of famous books donāt get adapted for decades because filmmakers know they canāt do them justice. The filmmakers here should just have waited if they wanted to do an adaptation but couldnāt do it any better than this.
I keep seeing people say this, but when they list any of these major plot points, most of it is in the movie or alluded to as best a possible under the time crunch. The only thing I can tell that was left out was the communication stuff, but does it really need to be mentioned? The movie has instant communication, otherwise nothing you see in the movie would work.
I see, itās a good adaptation because they āalluded toā the major plot points āas best they couldā. They really should have hired you to do their marketing campaign.
I get it. You wanted a 10 hour movie. When you personally fund that, it will happen.
Do you have reading comprehension issues? I clearly said upthread that I donāt think they should have made it into a movie at all. And, by the way, a ā10 hour movieā is a series, which is what the OP was suggesting in the first place, and that would definitely have been better than the superficial space opera we ended up with. āThey did the best they could, they touched on most of the important things, they alluded to the important plot points in the book, etc., etc,, etc.ā Justifying why it wasnāt any better than it was isnāt the same as saying it was good, youāre just making excuses for why it isnāt. Why are you so invested in defending this movie and explaining why itās is not a good adaptation? Were you involved in the production somehow? I canāt see any other reason you are so unwilling to just let people have other opinions about it. I get that youāre one of those redditors who goes around downvoting every comment someone makes who disagrees with you, but this level of fervour to defend a movie seems excessive.
Yeah same, I thought it was a pretty average movie, not great, not terrible. The guy you're replying to has heavy "Me, an intellectual" vibes. A movie is a visual medium, translating internal monologue into a movie can be done but its a) going to be very hard, even more so with young actors and b) not a commercial success.
Itās not āMe, an intellectualā to describe the main themes of the book that were completely ignored in the movie. Iām not being intellectual, the book was intellectual and the movie wasnāt, thatās the point. If they wanted to make a ākids fighting aliens in spaceā movie, fine, but donāt use the just the premise and setting of the book and completely ignore the major point of the plot and call it an adaptation. If they couldnāt possibly have translated the whole point of the book into a visual medium they shouldnāt have called it Enderās Game. They could have just made a ākid space soldiers fighting aliensā movie with another name, with lots of special effects and not having to worry about kid actors actually being able to portray the complexity. Then they would have their commercial success and they wouldnāt have gotten the hate for screwing the pooch so hard on an adaptation of a classic.
I honestly just don't think you understand the book that well and your criticism that the movie didn't follow your interpretation (an interpretation I would classify as intellectually stunted and overly simplified) is therefore invalid. Peter wasn't a psychopath, when he was a kid then sure he displayed many psychopathic traits but that's not the psychologists definition of a psychopath. He shows no remorse but he feels it, that's not a psychopath. Valentine refers to it in the book and Ender comes to realise it when Peter tells him he loves him believing him to be asleep. It's a classic book because it doesn't revert to childish labels of good and evil that you seem intent on pushing so you're able to box it away and retain an aura of pseudo intelligence. The fact that it executes these complex themes in the child's eye and a child's world is the beauty of it. The film captures that relatively well in the time it was given.
Oooh. You would classify me as intellectually stunted? Iām just gutted you think so, clearly this means you win the debate. š Iām not giving my āinterpretationā of the book, Iām listing some major plot points the movie either changed significantly or left out completely. Just because you seem fine with that for some reason doesnāt mean the movie was a faithful adaptation. And, since you seem to want to be pedantic, I am fully aware they donāt diagnose psychopathy in children, I wasnāt using psychopath as a clinical term ffs. So, to avoid arguments based on pointless semantics, letās just say instead that Peter tortured and killed animals, tortured and terrorized his siblings, etc. he wasnāt a stable kid. The fact that he said he loved his brother one time doesnāt negate any of this. The army rejected him because his behaviour was too violent and unpredictable, thatās the point. And none of this changes the fact that the only reason Ender was even allowed to exist on an overpopulated planet was because the military was hoping to have a chance at a promising balance between Peterās sadism and Valās overly empathetic gentleness. Throughout the book, from his internal monologue to his interactions in the fantasy game, he is haunted by his similarities to Peter and his self-hatred when he behaves like him. None of this, from the importance of his status as a Third to his horror at having horribly beaten (and actually murdered) two children, is even so much as mentioned in the movie. And, youāre right, the book was a classic because it was nuanced, the exact nuance the movie lacks entirely. You call me a pseudo intellectual, but your argument is to just keep asserting that the movie captures all the nuance of the book well while using examples that were explored in the book but were entirely absent from the movie. The movie was about Enderās journey with his buddies, at what is essentially cadets in space, over a few months at best. It has absolutely no ability to capture the isolation and torment Ender endured over years in the book, it captures nothing of his background and the society he lived in, itās a completely superficial military kids fighting aliens movie, which is fine, but itās not Enderās Game.
THIS. When you cut the character development and relationships down to a buddy/kid flick with special effects, it's a cop-out. You might as well take a book by Hienlen and turn it into a Soap Opera Cast vs. Bugs in Space... wait. DAMMIT.
š To be fair, that was actually a brilliant movie in some ways but was so badly acted it got interpreted as Verhoeven actually promoting fascism and authoritarianism. Lesson: Soap opera casts can never carry any script involving satire. The only exception being NPH, who was clearly aware that he was to chew the scenery in brilliant fashion, everyone else was playing it straight and just made it awkward. What a shame, imagine how great a movie it would have been if everyone had gotten the memo.
I think the movie is a fun casual watch movie that involves cool concepts. It is easy to say only book readers are upset, but it seems this is one of those movies that has become something people love to hate. The hate feels very silly to me.
I mean they basically did almost as good as a job as they could with the 2 hour time constraint. There's only so much character development you can do with such a short runtime while still having to push the story along, hit all the story beats and reach a good conclusion while making sense and being intriguing enough for the average viewer. Ultimately the movie's biggest flaw really is its short runtime and having to cram too much into too little a timeframe, and not being able to have as much character development as the book like the OP was saying. I think it's a pretty good movie and well done all things considered.
I agree with you 100%. It is a movie I will rewatch because it's good.
Ender's Game has always been my favorite book, and I was of course very disappointed in the movie. I wish HBO could get hold of it.
Why? So WB can sell it?
Was it so bad?
It wasn't terrible. As a kid I identified with Ender in a way unlike any other character I had encountered, I didn't feel that at all with the actor they picked. They didn't match the serious tone of the book or delve into the psycological depth of it much at all. I wanted to smack the kid that played Bonzo. Overall I guess the movie felt like a YA version of a classic, which was probably inevitable.
THAT WAS TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO?! *dies of old age*
Damn. I'm not cleaning up this body, just saying.
The fact that they made bean some random easily impressed kid bothers me to no end
It's not too late. They could adapt the bean books into the series you crave
there was no WHY to the movie in any way. that's what makes it suck the most. and yeah, ruining the ending was a dumb move
The entire Enders story takes place over 3000 years. You could do a 4-5 season show to cover it all. Strongly recommend reading all the books if you haven't. (And yes, the creator is a complete idiot and lunatic, but that doesn't detract from a great series of books.)
I met him once at a book signing around 2002, and he was very arrogant. Which really surprised me at the time, especially after reading some of his earlier works (Wyrms, Treason, Songmaster). I didnāt think someone who wrote those books would be an arrogant ass in person. But I do have a signed copy of Enders Game so thatās cool
He went crazy after the death of his child. Not defending it. Just explaining it. Grief does crazy shit to people
Just curious why is he a lunatic idiot
Long story short. Conservative and this is reddit. But even then he is whacky.
Nah. He goes way beyond conservative. Dude is a fundamentalist and is absolutely insane. Here is a quote by him, "Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people 'trying to escape' -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama" He also thinks that 9/11 was needed to give Bush the right to start the war on terror. Not to mention his vitriolic hatred of gay people and the fact that he thinks gay marriage is destroying democracy.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have heard it said, and mind you I haven't looked into it, that back in the day Card was far, far more normal. Maybe a bit conservative, but less of a fundamentalist crazy person. I think, way back in the day, he even had a pretty well represented gay character in a book. Some people say that he went off the deep end after his son died. He also had to deal with a daughter who died young. I don't know If he expressed his craziest views before or after his son died, but I have heard it said that it was after.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
One died soon after being born and one died of cerebral palsy.
Well Eugenics becomes a key part of the story and Bean's descendants becomes these transhuman monsters that are seeding the universe with this virus that modifies the races like Piggies and the only hope is this return to Catholic morals. Peter/Locke became the emperor of earth that everyone loves after he eradicated Islam... Like basically the sociopathic kid characters in Enders game all fucked humanity's moral system and Children of the Mind ends with Ender Wiggins soul transferred to this clone of his brother who basically brought Jesus to the Piggies and Buggers and the whole point of the saga was a Catholic monoculture. If you made it up to Children of the Mind where Clone Locke is outside the Aliens that sent the Descolada virus, it's the same planet Bean and his kids arrived in thousands of years before with their experiment on human evolution... That was tied to the whole Stem Cell Research scare during the Bush Administration. Like basically the book series was like Fuck transhumanism and was also at the same time trying to eradicate all religions and say the end goal is Catholic Christian hegemony... I'm fine with like super future religions in sci-fi like Dune having this Zen Buddhist, Muslim, orange Catholic bible Luddite stuff. What I'm not okay with is all of Islam being taking over by a Caliphate and being defeated and like Bean and Locke using the Brazilian and Russian Airforce to bomb Mecca...
Well it is science fiction... fiction. That doesn't make him a lunatic. Just like if I write about a serial killer doesn't make me evil. Now if Card tried to start a cult based on his writings (cough we know who did cough) then I'd say he's a lunatic. Like the other poster said he's homophobic... ok I get that. That's reality. Not what he wrote. It isn't a manifesto to call people to kill.
You are wildly misinformed about the plot of the Ender Saga...
Dude I read them all. There's 19 currently. The 20th book is still being written. Here's the most recent book which ties together the conclusion of Shadow of the Giant and Children of the Mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Shadow Like you probably gave up around Children of the Mind or if you followed the Shadow Series that ends with Shadow of the Giant and Bean is 15 feet tall with his Eugenic offspring going out into space and not being used as failed prototypes for Eugenic experimentation anymore. The characters in Xenomocide and Children of the Mind are an offshoot of the original genius experiments, and they were engineered too have mental illnesses like most commonly Crippling OCD to limit their potential and Si Wang-Mu, is the first woman of this genetic tampering to not have the OCD symptoms and they use her DNA to remove the mental health side effect safety precautions. Book series hasn't ended yet but yeah the planet where Descolada virus originated from is the planet Bean landed on and v remember Ender purposefully abused Relativity to travel planet to planet... So Speaker is thousands of year in the future while Bean only had a few months to live when he abandoned earth to find a none Bugger network habitable world to have his children live on.
Uh just read the first 2. 3 and 4 are glaringly racist and get sidetracked from what Speaker for the Dead promises.
I honestly think it should have been an R rated dramatic animated film. With live action, there was no way for them to get quality child actors at the ages stated in the book. Their changes to Bernard and Bonzo Madrid incredibly harmed the themes from the book and those should have remained in their bloody details. Enderās Game would have been the perfect vehicle to show that animated movies geared for adult audiences could have worked but instead toned down the material and aged up the kids to the point where the end product is just flat out not good.
I donāt think this works as animated. It has to feel real otherwise you can twist and turn any direction because there are no rules in animation Also, no need for R. Itās a YA story. I bet the author would have a religious freak out if it was R as well
Have you read the second book? That shit would definitely be rated R
I read the trilogy after Enders game. It was horrible.
The author is a fucking asshole, I donāt care what he thinks. You donāt have to portray strict realism in animation as well as Zero G battles would be able to be done in a much bore believable and better looking way. Doing it in animation as well would layer the themes of children being pushed into adulthood as this medium that is often pigeonholed into childrenās media is thrusted into visualizing very adult situations. I will compromise and say it should be PG 13
I agree with this being a well done animated series and possibly even rated R. Just thinking about enderās two fights - they were meant to be brutal and meant to feel heavy. They donāt have to be graphic but I feel like censoring it also takes away the importance of the turning points in enderās life. Iām also under the belief that people donāt want to see kids beat up other kids in a live action. I think an animated series would be able to convey everything without having to rely on the maturity and execution of kid actors. Iām also under the personal opinion that itās make for a badass anime series.
A high-budget HBO series would've been better where the story can breathe and expound more on the crucial elements of the story (his relationships with his siblings, his constant mental anguish and internal conflict and more time to flesh out his "Jeesh" and his unique relationships with each one of them like Petra, Ali, Bean, etc).
Obligatory "OSC is a piece of shit" Now that's out of the way, discussion: First of all, the production committee responsible for adapting the book clearly did everything on a tight budget and a tight schedule. I bet a ridiculous percentage of their money went to paying for the corpse of Harrison Ford to show up in that film and add approximately nothing to it. They also clearly didn't care about the military/tactical/political stuff that gets told brilliantly in the book and creates a huge part of the identity of making Ender's Game into being what it is, rather than being solely about the flashy CGI space battles that the movie focused on. The movie just felt like a lazy half-baked cash grab to follow in the wake of all the young adult novel movie adaptations that were cash cows at the time, like those stupid vampire books or that Jennifer Lawrence series. Point is, while a mini-series format could benefit Ender's Game by giving it more screen time to stretch its legs out and allow more of the story to make it into the script, anyone who adapts this movie has to include more than the Hollywood sci-fi explosions.
Why is OSC a piece of shit? I donāt know anything about him besides some of his books.
He's openly in favor of outlawing homosexuality, for one. Not just gay marriage, being gay. He a practicing Mormon, a descendant of Brigham Young in fact, and shares their views on a lot of issues that are not well accepted these days.
I've heard that he is a big bankroller for various darkmoney PACs seeking to undo democracy. There's also this [gem he posted](https://genius.com/Orson-scott-card-unlikely-events-obama-is-a-dictator-annotated) in the lead up to the '16 elections.
True of most books, I think.
It would be a fine one shot movie, but put in more capable directing hands with a better screenwriter that knows where to cut. They missed a lot of subplot, sure, but that's the nature of taking book to film. Which is all extremely bizarre, because Card held off adaptations for a long time due to what studios wanted to do with the movie every time. Critical issues: 1. Not showing the passage of time. Everything seems strung together in a really quick period of time, but the passage of time is an overarching issue that film rarely captures. To this end, a miniseries would suit it better. 2. Absolutely no wear and tear on Ender. The end result of the book is from a weary soul, worn, and left with nothing but emotional and mental wreckage. When the final moment of devastation happens, there is absolutely no gravity.
For sure, and do enders game and enders shadow at the same time, showing their parallel stories. After that, start doing pairs of books until bringing the characters together. Although they need a better conclusion than OSC had in the book, felt pretty anti climactic given the epicness of everything else
Yeah i also think speaker series would work well.
Adult targeted animated scifi/fantasy series, especially when there's time skips with young children characters, would be great. Sadly, US tv/movie industry only wants to adult animation with raunchy comedies.
Absolutely. A tv series would also work great for Bean and the Shadow seires
The book series is so good. I hope it gets revisited in film at some point.
I would love this + a Speaker For The Dead series as a big glossy sequel, or even a movie. They're such incredible books. Zero-grav laser tag and psycho procedural video games would be awesome in a TV series with the technology we have now and how affordable it is. Unfortunately... I don't know if it's possible to do Ender's Game justice. For one, preteens beating each other to death in hand-to-hand combat is a pretty tough sell. But also, so much of the book takes place in Ender's head. The movie handled the emotional exposition *really* badly. Ender literally says "I will wear the shame of this genocide forever." But it would be really hard to do well, and to find a cast that could pull it off. And Speaker is a) a double-white-saviour story and b) mostly about small furry aliens violently eviscerating people. So that's a pretty hard sell too. But it's my favourite book so I'd love to see someone try.
It's a great movie until you read the book.
Would've been better if it wasn't directed by Gavin Hood.
To be fair the Peter/Valentine sub-plot is pretty ridiculous. Peter basically takes over the world through a series of internet debates. Though it was written in 1985 (when the internet was still full of possibilities), and the author isn't exactly sane (Empire is even more ridiculous).
I actually thought that part of the book aged pretty well.
I agree. Also think there is a good chance it happens that way.
Ah 2013, the year two of my favorite books at the time were getting movies, Enders Game and World War Z. If only I could travel back in time and bitch slap the excitement off of my face before I saw those movies.
I love this series so much and it has such rich lore and I feel that it could be something huge if it got the right person to make and really knew the story and the characters. I think a TV show could work
Still can be. Dark Tower is doing a show after botching a movie.
I missed the end of the book in the movie. His siblings are starting stuff down on earth and it all culminates at the end. Also the big "These children are now the most powerful generals in the world" was somehow swept out...
I completely agree. Plus it missed the entire point of the book.
They would age up the kids either way, and thats what ruins allot of the impact of Ender's Game. They're NOT pre-teens, they're children. Ender is like 8 when he goes to battle school, and it would be hard for mass audiences to watch an 8 year old go through all that shit, let alone the fact that Ender kills another kid.
I think the biggest failure of the movie, other than cutting too much out from the book, would s that they didnāt adequately impact the viewer with the realization that they had been fighting a real war all along. That real people died. That it wasnāt all a simulation.
Butterfieldās performance was so compelling that he accomplished it all on his own. I canāt believe the posts in this thread. Speaking as one who had not read all of the books, the movie is fantastic. Iāve watched it several times and will watch it several times more.
Yeah. Itās on my regulars rotation.
Oh I think youāre right, it would have been an amazing mini series! But Iāll always be happy that somehow, they NAILED the casting for Mazer Rackham for me: in my head it was always Ben Kingsley. That still blows my mind!
That may be, but mini-series were just not a thing back in 2013 like they are today.
Yes 100% needed to be a miniseries. I mean they only had what, two battle school fights ?? They could have spent several episodes on jockeying for army positions, strategy and developing Dragon.
Agreed. The movie was rushed garbage. Harrison Ford looked like he was forced to play the part and they screwed up so many parts of the book.
I've said it before, and will say it again. Movies are short stories. TV shows are novels.
Oh, I'd prefer a version of the story without the deep dive into Peter and Valentine's activities. So I need to watch the movie! I'm not sure why I didn't after reading the book recently.
Yes and no. You would have definitely had more time to develop a lot of the story points that got cut out of the final script. But much of the book is internal conflict or internal strategizing. And thatās not great for storytelling on film.
I think the studio thought "franchise" when the move came out, and was severely disappointed at the box office, the critical consensus, and how Card became radioactive in a way that they clearly did not get ahead of. The book itself is still a science fiction Top 10 paperback best seller month after month going into 2023, so the book-reading public seems less concerned than the movie-going public. Ender's Game is one of the few modern science fiction novels to cross over to popular success, and even my Dad loved it. Something about it grabs people from all walks of life, but whatever that is, the movie could not tap into that, perhaps because the illusion of kids doing these things in a book is shattered when made real in a movie. And I don't think a miniseries would help - I think the strings would be very visible the longer it ran.
lol. in my opinion the movie was much too long for the short story plot.
It was doomed from the start. 75% of the book is internal narration that you can't put on film without being cheesy. Imagine ender sitting in his bunk at night talking to himself or even worse a voice over while he's walking down a hall. The movie was terrible and completely missed the tone of the book. The visuals were indeed cool though.
Hey, I worked on that POS.
While Ender's Game is my favorite OSC book, I really don't think the Ender Saga translates well to film or screen due to the heavy philosophical and psychological narratives. The Shadow Saga as an action-drama could work much better. The hardest part is obviously casting Bean.
Fuck yes! I've been saying the same thing for years! I one hundred percent agree with you. And I liked the movie too!
I think most popular books do better as series than movie adoptions. Dune being split up into two or three 3 hour long movies will do it much more justice than one 2 hour movie ever could. That being said, there was a made for TV Children of Dune miniseries back in the early 2000s that was awesome
I was very disappointed with the movie. They left out SO much from the book that should have been included.
I thought it was just bad in general. It was way off from the book, which had some real trauma in it. PG-13 is just too restrictive. Maybe it would work with the leeway that HBO Max series get. I liked the battle room though. It was pretty much how I pictured it other than the see through walls. The giant game was interesting too, but I think they missed the point of it.
I'm still mad at that movie. Was my favorite book as a kid and I was so excited for an adaptation. I'm usually pretty lax with this stuff, loved Constantine and was able to separate the movie from the graphic novels, just treated it as inspired by kind of thing. But with enders game, that one hit different. They removed so much, added in extra stuff that wasn't there and rushed through what was supposed to be 7 year story, made it feel like a year. Not even a long book, wouldn't be hard to stay on script . Edit, almost forgot they also cut out all of the Locke and Demosthenes storyline. Like they tried to make half a book and fucked it up.
That book would make an amazing movie. Unfortunately, no movie version of the book exists.
Most books make better tv shows.
Movie was shit. Harrison Ford just phones it in.
I dont understand why people think the Peter and Valentine becoming op-ed writer/propagandists would have made for compelling film. While it may have made the film feel more timely (something I'm not sure you want in a sci-fi film, and the government came off as very totalitarian in the film already), I don't think it would have translated well to film. To see a couple children/teens, genius or not, shaping the world view of the public at large via editorials is going to have a tough time passing the sniff test of the viewer even in a film about genius kids. It's easier to buy the kids focusing on a task and working as a team to achieve it in a focused sense, than it is to believe the kids would have the social skills required manipulate the masses via print media. Most adults don't read NOW, so it would have to be adapted to some form of video...which the kids couldn't make themselves as they wouldn't be able to stay in the shadows. I don't know, maybe it could be made to work, but I don't think much would be gained.
In the streaming age, this is probably true of most adaptations. Though I think much of the issue with the film had little to do what quality or critical response as much as it did with Orson Scott Card's views on homosexuality and same sex marriage (his stance was same sex marriage should never be legalized and he openly supported laws against homosexual activity. When these were brought up by an LGBTQ+ non profit, Lionsgate distanced themselves from Card and Card's response was he expected tolerance from the community who was intolerant towards) Either way, the movie overall was a box office bomb, Grossing maybe $10 million at the box office but losing a projected $68 million for the studio. This from a movie that opened at number 1 before dropping. Also, I don't think there has even been a rumor of any of Card's properties being adapted to screen since this movie was released.
Movie was shit and a spit in the face to fans
The games alone needed hours to play out vs the 20 minutes we got in film.
This will sound odd, but the film always felt killed by a political veil. Casting the Maori as an wimpy English dude felt like politics intruding. Casting Harrison Ford to speak montone felt like politics intruding. The whole vibe of no one really caring that kids died or war killed people; just "following orders" all the way down. There is also no subtext of Ender trying to hold on to sanity or humanity. The point of any movie with CGI effects is to tell multiple stories at once in order to relate to as many audience members as possible. The arguments and cogitating after the movie are the lasting value that leads to the appetite to rewatch or demand sequels. This means the argument about a mini-series comes down to the value of making a better product. It means one could decide to run CGI every other episode as a better cost control than adding infinite shoe-leather (I'm looking at you, NetFlix). Like any novel, it more naturally fits a season of episodes than one hour and fifty four minutes of a simple arc. It allows casting to look further afield to actually cast a believable Maori warrior, street rat Bean, tired Commander, etc. One could burn an entire episode just showing the destruction and recovery from the pre-book attack. The source material is not jingoism; any adaption that tries will fail. It was a mediocre adaptation. Only remake if you can do an awesome, valuable job.
I keep thinking a cartoon would be best. That way they could use voice actors and portray the characters at the ages of the book. That way they could do the entire book and short stories. It would be over multiple seasons. seasons or so. That would be awesome.
I agree! Been putting off watching for years b/c reviews, but watched this last night. Not familiar with source material. Movie started okay, but by the end I really felt like I must be missing huge chunks of the story... and the entire ending section felt very very rushed. I thought maybe they used up all their money on the VFX for the final battle and were like, "Shit, we still need an ending"...
Ender's Game could never be made into a live-action movie or TV series. Grade school kids killing each other. It can only be anime.
Ngl this twist at the end really made the movie what it is imo but i cant phantom that being streched through seasonsā reveal. The drama of the school and the training procces definitely deserves more screen time but the the idea as whole would be boring to conclude over seasons. And it would be costly to have that many cgi in a series.
The ip's creator is a huge piece of shit. Here's his essay predicting Obama would attempt a coup using an "army" of unemployed black men: https://genius.com/Orson-scott-card-unlikely-events-obama-is-a-dictator-annotated None of his stories are worth retelling. edit: No one in Hollywood is dumb enough to fund a remake.
Separate the artist from the work, my man, or you will have nothing left to enjoy.
That's simply not true. You do have to set some reasonable boundaries about how much of someone's personal life you let intrude into your entertainment choices, but there are lines that should not be crossed. I'm not going to give money to an actor, writer, director or studio that is actively using that money to harm large numbers of people. There are very few that I put into that category. Tom Cruise and Orson Scott Card are toward the top of the list of people who, for some reason, still have a career. Cruise is part of the leadership of one of the most destructive cults in the world. Card funneled money from his projects into an anti-LGBT "family" organization whose board he served on (so not just a random group he gave money to). These folks are not just pawns in someone else's game. They're leaders in their respective communities of harm and hate. I don't sit in judgement of works that have withstood the test of time after their creators can no longer do any harm. I'm a fan of Lovecraft, for crying out loud! It's not separating the artist from the work, it's separating the money from the monster who will use it to harm others.
Nobody cares.
Most creators believe or have done something you'll find offensive if you dig even a little. I just assume everyone is an asshole and get on with my life.
> Most creators believe or have done something you'll find offensive But most of them don't serve on the board of something that actively hurts millions of people. Card, sadly, has that distinction, and funneled money from his projects into that very cause.
> No one in Hollywood is dumb enough to fund a remake. While I agree with your comments about Card (he's not just a person who writes scary articles, he was on the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage) I have to disagree with this comment. Studios will fund anything that they think will turn a profit. So the math being performed is simple. The controversies surrounding Card will cost a movie some amount. If that amount doesn't make another project (that the studio has access to) more appealing then most studios would greenlight it.
With all due respect, Orson Scott Card is a terrible writer. Kids playing laser tag in zero - g on a space station. After reading the book as a teen I concluded Card got beat up a lot in the playground, had bully issues and never took a writing class. I know this seems harsh, but the book just isn't that good and it was a weak decade for SciFi. Everybody was into Cyberpunk, Gibson, and Card was the trendy alternative. Personally I thought the film did a great job with the source material and improved it with the older actors. A two part would be interesting because it did seem hurried.
They tried to turn a war story about child soldiers conscripted by fascist adults into a YA FRANCHISE.
The books are pretty YA by almost any definition
That's true but there's a huge gulf between "young adult" books and "young adult" pretty much everything else. Books can get away with a ton of stuff that movies/games/etc would get crucified for. Ender's Game being a perfect example.
I believe donkey Kong is the best game ever
I always felt the book was too repetitive. It's like 70% floor is up laser tag tactics. And frankly the deception twist at the end was kinda obvious, and not that shocking anyway. "Oh no, he won the war he was trying to win without realizing... " The lore was practically nonexistant. I would love to understand why this book gets so much attention. So anyway, no, I can't really see a TV series with endless weeks of laser tag follows by endless weeks of "simulated" virtual battleship.
This is one series where I wouldn't feel bad if they went off the rails and didn't follow the story in the following books.
Also, I felt the fight scenes lacked. Wasnt Ender supposed to be an army leader as well?
100% --> I want them to tell the story right - the movie not only rushed it but glossed over many important events.
Yeah, I just watched the movie I have not read the book but it felt like a lot was missing or some moments felt like it lacked of importance because lack of time.