Ender's Game (film)

[Obsidian Fire]

^^Yep! That one. Yeah, it'll be tough to balance it in such a way that both the people who know the ending and those who don't will like it, or at least be okay with it.

 

[Hisako]

If so, I hope they make this movie in a way that I will find enjoyable even though I know the ending.

The same has held for every book series adapted to film.

Harrison Ford's typecast changed over the years from snarky gruff young man to plain old gruff old man, I think he's a great fit for Colonel Graff, though.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

A description of some of the footage sounds pretty good: http://io9.com/war-is-shiny-hell-in-the-first-enders-game-footage-476354308

Hopefully this means that we'll be getting a proper trailer soon.



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[Ⓐaron]

Old, but:

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are producing

This movie is fucking doomed from the outset.

There's no reason to be getting your hopes up people.

Those guys wrote Star Trek and were a large part of the brains behind Fringe. I don't see any reason to be pessimistic.

...Maybe you were being sarcastic? This late at night I might not be able to tell.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

• Orson Scott Card talking about what was changed and why.
• An interview with Asa Butterfield about the challenges of filming.



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[X-SOLDIER]

Proper trailer in 4 days. First footage shown here:

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[X-SOLDIER]

11/1/2013.

I am pretty pleased with how this looks.



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[Hisako]

I wasn't as tickled by the trailer as I thought I'd be, but it still looks pretty good yes! :3

 

[Geostigma]

moar here.

 

[Geostigma]

 

[Lex]

I'm having an internal struggle about this and I don't have a clue what to do.

My friend gave me the book two weeks ago and I started reading it yesterday - I'm halfway through it. Her thinking was that I'd read it and we'd go to see the movie when it comes out here in October. This sounds fine except I've just discovered the author is a rampaging homophobe and it's completely put me off the whole story. That might sound stupid to some of you but now when I read interactions in the book my brain automatically colours them with "it's because he's a bible bashing homophobe".

I mean I might as well finish the story but to be honest I was having trouble aligning myself with the idea that a 6 year old thinks and behaves in a more mature manner than the most intelligent adult anyway (yes, even if it is set in a crazy sci-fi future). The author's characterisation is so strange that I had to look him up which is how I came across this information. Sigh sigh sigh.

Knowing he's a producer on the movie also makes me slightly ill because if I go to see it I feel like I'm directly funding his little gay-hating council that has tea on Sunday's and talks about how all the gays are gay because they were molested when they were children and that regardless of why we chose (yes, he believes the "choose" thing) to be serpents of satan we're all second class citizens at the end of the day anyway. I'm seriously not kidding with any of that, he believes these things. A science fiction novelist believes these things. A guy that is a huge fan of Firefly believes these things. I think I might actually throw up thinking about it.

Oh god I'm so fucking annoyed.

EDIT: And here's the part where I go back through this thread like I didn't do before I started reading because I didn't want spoilers and realise that Hito got there two years ago.

I remember enjoy Ender's Game despite only going half way through it, but finding out what a religious nutjob Card is kind of put me off reading the rest. Maybe I just need to divorce the author's life and his works better.

Also, weren't there a bunch of naked kids in space in the book?

Holy fuck do I wish I'd read this post before I started reading this book. I just don't know if I'm capable of divorcing the author from his work, that's my problem.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

@Lex: http://www.avclub.com/articles/lionsgate-to-hold-lgbt-benefit-premiere-for-enders,100092/

Hopefully that's worth something for ya.



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[Lex]

Presumably he'd still get royalties from the movie though. I mean it's a really nifty gesture and more than they had to do, but still.

 

[HylianMogget]

I can definitely understand being put off of the book/movie because of Card - he's so vehement that it makes it hard to separate him from his work. I'm torn about the movie myself, since knowing now about his views I don't really want to be giving him more money, but it's tricky because those who worked on the film don't necessarily deserve to get dragged down as well. I think the strange thing about Card being the massive bigot that he is is that literally the entire point of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead is the tolerance and acceptance of others no matter how different they are. The disconnect between his views and the books' message is jarring in a way that somehow makes his homophobia extra disturbing.

About the movie itself, have they said anything about how they're going to handle the ending?

Spoiler

Are they going to try to maintain the twist, or will the audience know what's up beforehand? In any case, those propaganda promo posters are really pushing the irony

.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Presumably he'd still get royalties from the movie though. I mean it's a really nifty gesture and more than they had to do, but still.

Presumably, yeah but I figure that at the studio is at least going to ensure that while some of the film's profit does go to an old homophobe that MAY end up funding his old homophobe ways that some of their portion of the film's profit DOES go to the exact opposite of that.

As a bit of schadenfreude, his bigoted views are already causing him issues when it comes to writing DC Comics: http://io9.com/5988700/dc-artist-quits-adventures-of-superman-over-writer-orson-scott-card

Here's another bit of a good food for through when looking at the issue: http://io9.com/from-now-on-pleading-for-tolerance-while-actively-boyc-750024340



I think that, for me, it comes down to a lot of what's expressed in this comment: http://io9.com/484951429#comments (and what HylianMogget mentioned about the irony of the story vs. his views). The story in and of itself doesn't really seem to have any specific negative agenda in reference to homosexuality, and it's even a story ABOUT tolerance, which is what keeps my interest in seeing it. In addition to Card getting some unknown amount of money for the project, it's also providing money to a large number of people that are PRO gay rights, and the studio is ensuring that some of what it does explicitly goes to that cause.

Hopefully that makes some degree of sense / offers enough text for a decent conversation.


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[wander]

who gives a shit about the man. tarantino has publicly stated that black people are an inferior race and that homosexual people are "a form of cancer on the person-scale" but everyone likes pulp fiction.

 

[Lex]

^I'm going to need you to link me to proof of that, because Tarantino hasn't ever said either of those things to my knowledge and apparently limited google skills.

And it matters because I don't want to give the fucker any money.

 

[Geostigma]

who gives a shit about the man. tarantino has publicly stated that black people are an inferior race and that homosexual people are "a form of cancer on the person-scale" but everyone likes pulp fiction.

I dont know about all of that...

About all i can remember is some stuff in the 90's when he said "Nigger is just another word" in defense of how much his movies used the word.

 

[Ⓐaron]

black people are an inferior race

That doesn't sound like something the director of Django Unchained would say.

 

[wander]

okay so it's a fictional example. the point is that if he was a racist and a homophobe, pulp fiction would still be a good film. alan moore is a fucking occultist maniac but v for vendetta is still a cracking graphic novel.

 

[wander]

and for those of you who like anime, do you know how many anime writers/directors/artists have heads full of horseshit? doesn't stop them writing a decent story (sometimes).

read the book. if you like the book, watch the trailer. if you like the trailer, see the movie. don't judge by the man. objectivity is a virtue. if it's a fuck up, boycott it to all your friends. after you've seen it.

 

[Geostigma]

okay so it's a fictional example. the point is that if he was a racist and a homophobe, pulp fiction would still be a good film. alan moore is a fucking occultist maniac but v for vendetta is still a cracking graphic novel.

I disagree about Alan Moore but what evs.

Frank Miller is a homophobe and racist and that actually brought down some of his decent work a few notches. And ofcourse the other terrible work way more..

Difference between Tarrantino and Card is that tarrantino usually has a point to make with his films.. Card was just being an asshole.

Plus its pretty tough to connect tarrantino to your claims when hes made movies like the aforementioned Django and Jackie Brown.

 

[wander]

well yer, it was a lie.

 

[Geostigma]

You dont have to lie to make friends =/