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More Delays for Ender Movie 334

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the wiggin-out dept.
Arramol writes "IGN reports that difficulties in hammering out a screenplay have resulted in more delays for the Ender's Game movie. Despite attempts by several teams of writers, no script has yet been written that meets necessary standards in the minds of Warner Brothers or author Orson Scott Card. The latest plan involves an entirely new script written by Card himself."
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More Delays for Ender Movie More

More Delays for Ender Movie

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  • More adaptations/sequels? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anakron ( 899671 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:38AM (#14307268)
    Are adaptations of books, old movies and sequels all that Hollywood can produce now? Sad state for a supposedly "creative" industry. That said, I'm actually looking forward to this one - I think it's a good thing that the script is being held to some standards.
    • Erm.. maybe you read it wrongly. "Standards" depends on who's standards, sounds to me they haven't found away to sell enough junk and keep the story how the artists want it. When they do it'll roll on.
    • to be fair, hollywood has produced some major directors who are fairly decent storytellers recently. look at peter jacks--

      ok. bad example.

      on topic, this is a book that will only work if the script is killer. blockbuster sci-fi it is not, and done poorly, it'll just make fans of the series take up pitchforks and torches. if they want to hold off making the film until someone with sufficient talent decides to touch it, that's fine with me. still, regardless of whether it makes a good movie or not, i'd be

      • Re:More adaptations/sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by KDan ( 90353 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:22AM (#14307531) Homepage
        Absolutely agreed. Ender's Game is a very "psychological" type of book, which is all about what's going on inside Ender's head. Any script that fails to show that (and not in a blunt way with just a voice over) will fail miserably. I'd even venture to say that Ender's Game is probably harder to make into a movie than most books - eg. Lord of the Rings, being an epic, was much easier. Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy. Most Phil K Dick books/movies were also much more action-based.

        Daniel

        • Re:More adaptations/sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Crayon Kid ( 700279 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @08:31AM (#14307889)
          I think there's plenty of action scenes in Ender's Game. There isn't that much introspection as some of you say, there's very little that can't be put on screen. The book has great potential for becoming a movie, but it all starts with a good screenplay and needs a good director and a good cast of several wonder kids.

          I strongly believe it would make a groundshaking movie if only it was done right. Perhaps the book is not known much out of the geek circles because it is marked SciFi and many people avoid this literature genre out of principle. But if you could sit them down and see the story it would reach them just the same, because it's a damn good story.

        • Re:More adaptations/sequels? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by aonaran ( 15651 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @10:49AM (#14308820) Homepage
          Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy.

          Funny you should say that, as the Harry Potter series is what convinced Card to give Hollywood another go at it. Before that he was convinced that it's just impossible to get enough good child actors to pull it off as live action.
    • I'm actually looking forward to this one - I think it's a good thing that the script is being held to some standards.

      Why? You KNOW it's going to suck. Ender's game was filled with lots of psycho-babble, with lots of little moments, and the primary skill Card has is that of describing something beautifully, not in coming up with OMFG! plotlines.

      Ender's game has a cult following. It's like a VW - you either love it or hate it. And, sadly, Ender's game will NOT be a big blockbuster, but rather something like "
      • "Why? You KNOW it's going to suck. Ender's game was filled with lots of psycho-babble, with lots of little moments, and the primary skill Card has is that of describing something beautifully, not in coming up with OMFG! plotlines."

        Uh, did you read Ender's Game? Do you remember the huge plot twist at the end of the novel?

    • Ender's Game would be better as an anime flick (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Cordath ( 581672 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @05:20AM (#14307382)
      Seriously, a film version of Ender's Game is going to require some serious acting on the part of leads who haven't even hit puberty yet. The film doesn't need just one child prodigy to pull it off, but several. They were almost ready to film once before with Jake Lloyd (Anakin from The Phantom Menace and Card's personal choice) in the title role. The project fell apart because, with only his performance in The Phantom Menace to recommend him, Lloyd didn't appear to be a good enough actor. (Let's face it, even excellent actors like Liam Neeson, Ewan Macgregor, Natalie Portman all gave wooden and unconvincing performances under Lucas's direction, so maybe it's not all Lloyd's fault.) Even once they agree on a treatment for the book they're going to have to find the actors fast and film it fast. A delay of a year or two in pre-production is fine for most movies, but for Ender's Game the entire cast would literally outgrow their roles!

      As a result of all this, I think live-action would involve too many compromises. This is one film that really would be better done as a cartoon or CG feature. Unfortunately, adult-oriented cartoons have not fared well with U.S. audiences, who seem to expect cute little anthropomorphic Disney sidekicks and musical numbers from anything drawn or rendered. Japan does not have this problem. If I were Orson Scott Card and I wanted to see Ender's Game done right, I'd flip Hollywood the bird and hop on a plane to the land of the rising sun.
      • If I were Orson Scott Card and I wanted to see Ender's Game done right, I'd flip Hollywood the bird and hop on a plane to the land of the rising sun.
        I think what you're saying about anime is really insightful, but your final sentence might sum up the problem - Card is too much an American... I mean he even subscribes to an America-centric religion!

      • Ender in anime: Evangelion? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @07:04AM (#14307657)
        If Ender's Game were to be made as an anime, would Ender turn out looking a lot like Ikari Shinji?

        Shinji, we recall, has been manipulated by his parents, by the government, by the Marduk Institute and by NERV, all in the cause of a vast secret project. He attends a school full of kids who are in the same position as he; all of them have been similarly manipulated, all are on Marduk's list, all are candidates for Evangelion pilots. Shinji has great difficulty relating meaningfully to any of them. He fights, reluctantly, causes enormous damage through little or no fault of his own, hospitalises one classmate, kills another, and gets some severe psychological problems as a result. Finally, some extremely weird shit goes down and an entire species turns into yellow goo.

        I'm quite sure that Shinji, Asuka and Rei would fit right in in Ender's world.

    • Are adaptations of books, old movies and sequels all that Hollywood can produce now?

      The majority of good movies have always been adaptations of books or plays. Just look at a list of Oscar-winning movies. Remakes, sequels and TV-related (not to mention video-game inspired) though are usually crap, as we all know.

    • Are adaptations of books, old movies and sequels all that Hollywood can produce now?

      That's pointless cynicism. This isn't new. A majority of Hollywood movies have always been based off of books. It's not some new "in the last few years" kind of thing.
    • Are adaptations of books, old movies and sequels all that Hollywood can produce now? Sad state for a supposedly "creative" industry.

      Key word above is "supposedly". It's actually not a very creative industry*. The vast majority of TV and film writers are (to put it bluntly) talentless, literarily ignorant hacks. Good writers, no matter what they write, are invariably voracious readers, and in my experience people who go into TV and film writing often tend to be fans of TV and film rather than readers of bo

  • How else to film a beloved book? (Score:4, Funny)

    by derinax ( 93566 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:40AM (#14307272)
    They should take a card from Douglas Adams et. al... and just slap some shit together, and let the digital effects speak for themselves.

    No... wait... don't.

  • too bad... (Score:3, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:51AM (#14307297) Homepage
    IGN reports that difficulties in hammering out a screenplay have resulted in more delays for the Ender's Game

    Sounds like endgame for Ender's Game.

    (Maybe we could get Uwe Boll to direct it?)
  • ... the original screenwriter's decision to make Valentine a lesbian and have her marry her partner in Act II may have been a mistake.

  • Film's Challenges... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by myheroBobHope ( 842869 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:54AM (#14307310) Homepage Journal
    As far as I'm concerned this film has some major challenges to face that are integral to remaining true to the book.
    1. The characters age from 6yrs old to 12 yrs old. That's a HUGE swing. Them being children and developing are two important themes that need to remain.
    2. How are they going to film the Battle Room scenes? It's a 3d fight, so there really isn't a good way of doing it. I think the best way would almost be a first person view directly from Ender, so the battle flows as he sees it, but this would lead to problems in the final battle.
    3. The Computer Game at the end (i can't remember it's name). That is going to be an extremely difficult thing to replicate, and build tension with. The build up of hopelessness at the very end will be crucial (more so than in the book) and will be hard to pull of with blips of light.
    4. Will they even cover Peter Wiggin? It will be hard to do that as well, especially his rise to power on the nets...
    Those are just a few of the problems I see. It's going to be a huge challenge to accuratley represent the book well. The only way I can see it getting done is CG, but this seems to dark for a CG movie.
    • I really don't want to come off as a know-it-all. Certainly writing a screenplay is HARD WORK. I've never done it. But Ender's Game strikes me as quite cinematic and possible to do. Let's go through your issues 1. The characters age from 6yrs old to 12 yrs old. That's a HUGE swing. Them being children and developing are two important themes that need to remain. Yes, this is a Big Problem. Particular the whole issue of actors at that age. They will probably have to move the age to 12-16. Unfortunate,cuz it

      • Re:Film's Challenges... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by myheroBobHope ( 842869 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:03AM (#14307491) Homepage Journal
        12-16 completley destroys the innocence of Ender's actions. Remember, he kills two kids.
        The battleroom is the central focus of the children, battle school, the book. It was the reason EG was turned into a full novel. It has to be done exceedingly well. Sports movies with bad sports almost never work. This will hold true if the battle room isn't shot well, regardless of how little time is spent in there.
        I forgot about the psych test, but it is hugely important if they are going to keep the adults opinion about Ender in.
        The final battle is going to have to be CG with ships that look like ships, and will cut back to Ender in the cube, watching on a screen. The final explosion will hopefully be awesome.
        There's a lot of subtleness behind the children's nakedness... Garden of Eden imagery and all.
        I almost feel like they are going to have to raise the ages and take out both fights. The Bonzo one especially. Ender will have to have another sort of killer instinct test...
        I don't think this movie can be made successfully. I want it to be good, but there are too many crucial plot elements that won't translate to the screen.
      • Particular the whole issue of actors at that age. They will probably have to move the age to 12-16. Unfortunate,cuz it dilutes it a bit. OTOH it avoids the risk of the Cute Factor, and reduces people protesting the film because it shows violent young uns.

        This is a controversial book. If they attempt to cater to the PC crowd they condemn it right from the start. The movie should be every bit as controversial as the book or it will fail horribly. The whole gist of the book is having small children as the main
    • 1. Make the age difference smaller so the same actors can play the part all the way. They could have the initial character - before Enders enters the space station - played by a younger actor and let the main actor play Ender from say 8-10.

      2. Battle rooms scenes should be done the same way Hongkong movies are made today - with a human on a string - those fighting scenes should be really good. If they are given covering uniforms in the Battle room most scenes could be done by grown-up stunt people.

      3. Inste
    • 2. How are they going to film the Battle Room scenes? It's a 3d fight, so there really isn't a good way of doing it. I think the best way would almost be a first person view directly from Ender, so the battle flows as he sees it, but this would lead to problems in the final battle.

      That will be difficult. Probably CG. Everything else is these days... Someone else suggested that this film would work best as anime, which I can't help but think is perhaps the right idea.

      3. The Computer Game at the end (i c

      • That will be difficult. Probably CG. Everything else is these days... Someone else suggested that this film would work best as anime, which I can't help but think is perhaps the right idea.

        Actually, I'd rather hope that they hold off the CG effects as much as possible, short of places where it's a must, like recreating imponderability.

        This movie should be more of a drama, an less of an action flic. You know what I mean. We don't want to see some BatMan type beating up scores of opponents single-handedly. We
      • The part of the film I think will be most difficult, however, will be the Fantasy Game: the weird RPG they use as a psych test. How the devil do you do that and not look absurd
        Make it a virtual reality / holodeck type game.
    • The Battle Room scenes will be 40% close-ups and 60% those lame Spiderman special effects that make people look like wet GI Joes. For that reason, I'm dreading the movie (I loved the book), and I wish they'd wait a decade until we can build some realistic CG people (or have an Apollo 13 "vomit comet" about 20 times bigger than the current one[s]).
    • "1. The characters age from 6yrs old to 12 yrs old. That's a HUGE swing. Them being children and developing are two important themes that need to remain."

      Please, they have tweenagers play like they're high school students all the time. You can take a 16 year old and make them look 12. In the alternative, you can start with a child younger than 6. Or, shorten the age gap where the result is still 12.

      "2. How are they going to film the Battle Room scenes? It's a 3d fight, so there really isn't a good way of do

  • Cause of conflict: Bonzo Madrid (SPOILER WARNING) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LordZardoz ( 155141 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:55AM (#14307314)
    Given the sort of person who views this site, this is probably not stricly necessary. However...

        SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST CONTAINS KEY PLOT ELEMENTS OF THE BOOK

    One of the things I see as a probable cause of conflict is that some of the key scenes in the movie, and key scenes of character development, is that Ender basically gets picked on, and then retaliates by beating is antagonizers to death.

    Now, given todays mass market, I dont expect that Warner Brothers wants to spend a hundred million or so on a sci-fi epic and then have to cripple potential box office gross by slapping an R rating on it. The main character is essentially a very likable child who is very smart and a great leader. They want to get children in to see this thing. They wont be able to do that if they have to get an R rating on the movie. But given the brutality of these scenes, I dont see how they can do justice to them without showing the brutality.

    If Warner had their way, I would have to guess that they would like to see it cut out entirely, or have Ender not kill them. But I doubt that Orson Scott Card will let that happen. One of the reasons that Ender is ultimately chosen is that when he has to, he strikes without mercy and utterly destroys his opponent. There is no way to portray the character of Ender properly by having him pull a half assed beating on Bonzo, or that first bully, that lets them live.

    Beyond that, I dont see any other likley cause of conflict with a script. Like any novel adaption, it will have to be cut down for time constraints.

    END COMMUNICATION

    • Re:Cause of conflict: Bonzo Madrid (SPOILER WARNIN (Score:5, Insightful)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:39AM (#14307589)
      If Warner had their way, I would have to guess that they would like to see it cut out entirely, or have Ender not kill them. But I doubt that Orson Scott Card will let that happen. One of the reasons that Ender is ultimately chosen is that when he has to, he strikes without mercy and utterly destroys his opponent. There is no way to portray the character of Ender properly by having him pull a half assed beating on Bonzo, or that first bully, that lets them live.

      They can't cut that without destroying the whole point of the story. Ender's a nice kid, very smart, and more or less wants to be left alone. But he's been manipulated from the day he was born by a government that wants to train him to personally command the extermination of an entire sentient species. You've got to show that not only is he being driven to react this way against threats, but that the authorities who are watching will never help him, and actually approve of his retaliation with lethal force.

      If Ender just turns out to be surprisingly tough, but lets the bullies live... you've negated the character. Ender doesn't do mercy. If there's a serious threat to his safety, he destroys it totally by any means necessary. That's what they wanted. That's what they built.

      • It's been over ten years since I read the book.

        As I remember, Ender did not want to kill bonzo. In fact, Ender didn't even know that he had.

        • Re:Did Ender want to kill bonzo? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @10:04AM (#14308457)
          As I remember, Ender did not want to kill bonzo. In fact, Ender didn't even know that he had.

          He didn't intend to kill per se, he intended to hurt Bonzo sufficiently that he would never again be a threat. He intended to leave no possibility that Bonzo would go away, lick his wounds and come back for another go. So, he didn't actually intend murder, but he certainly intended to use far more force than was necessary merely for immediate self-defence.

          Whether dead, incapacitated, or just terrified to ever go near Ender again, Bonzo would have been destroyed as a threat. That was Ender's goal in every conflict with such people.

        • Well, that's true, but it doesn't invalidate the points by the parent. Ender agonized about what he did to Bonzo and the first bully after the fact (even without knowing that Bonzo had died, he still disliked what he did to him). However, when cornered, his only goal was survival at any cost.

          At the time Ender was in danger, he didn't care if Bonzo was hurt by his actions, which is what the government thought made him such a great leader. He had compassion, but he was definitely capable of doing whateve

        • Ender didn't set out to kill Bonzo, but he did want to completely remove him as a threat.

          What you miss, understandably, is that Ender may not have even *known* that he wanted to kill Bonzo because it was so utterly programmed into him. We can only fully realize it by listening in on some conversations of those who did the programming; but we can glimpse it in Ender's "victory without mercy" attitude that he took to every fight.

          Yes, every fight. Ender always fought to the complete defeat of his opponent, he
    • Actually, I have a fairly easy solution for this. It comes directly from the book too. Don't tell the kids. The people who have read the books with know what happened, and the kids who haven't will just think he won the fight.
    • Can't he kill them off camera?
    • There is no way to portray the character of Ender properly by having him pull a half assed beating on Bonzo, or that first bully, that lets them live.

      "Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire" featured a kid getting killed and had mildly disturbing scenes involving that ghost chick checking out Harry's package and Voldemort attempting to kill Harry, yet it only received a PG-13. Episode III featured a pretty gruesome scene with Anakin's skin being burned off, and it only received a PG-13. Frankly, someone under the a

    • Re:Cause of conflict: Bonzo Madrid (SPOILER WARNIN (Score:5, Funny)

      by Spackler ( 223562 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @09:25AM (#14308149) Journal
      If Warner had their way, I would have to guess that they would like to see it cut out entirely, or have Ender not kill them.

      Dude, if Warner had their way, you would just send them the 10 bucks, and let them skip making the movie.

    • One of the reasons that Ender is ultimately chosen is that when he has to, he strikes without mercy and utterly destroys his opponent. There is no way to portray the character of Ender properly by having him pull a half assed beating on Bonzo, or that first bully, that lets them live.

      I agree that Ender has to beat the kids to death in the movie to stay true to the book. But if the movie stays true to the book, then it likely won't show anything beyond a PG-13 style beating.

      The key, here, is that when y

    • The reason it's so vital to the plot to have Ender get picked on and retaliate beyond all possible reason (it's a tribute to Card's writing chops that we don't notice that the murders of Stilson and Bonzo are, well, kinda psychopathic) is that it's an adolescent revenge fantasy, with its dials all cranked to eleven.

      Consider that a kid who seldom fights and is smaller than his opponents invariably manages to beat them to death. He conquers every obstacle before him, commits murder and genocide, and yet is th

  • Orson Scott Card's personal views (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lovebyte ( 81275 ) * <lovebyte2000@gmail3.1415926.com minus pi> on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:58AM (#14307325) Homepage
    Let's hope Orson Scott Card's personal views [wikipedia.org] will not be reflected in the movie script!
    • if his personal views come across in it then so be it. Yeah some of his views are not exactly politically correct and some grate against the self-perceived intellectuals of society but why isn't his view allowed to be known?

      do we want a world where everyone acts like a politician? Telling you one thing and believing the opposite, or worse getting into office and doing the opposite?

      if bigotry or racism, neither I will attribute to Card, are hidden then how are they ever dealt with?

      finally just because he d

  • Sort of like Hitchhikers... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hitchhikerjim ( 152744 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @05:03AM (#14307332)
    The only way Douglas Adams got his script done was to die... then the arguements him and the studios about what constitutes a good script ended, and the movie got made. I suspect the same will be true of Enders... we'll see it in the theaters about five years after Card dies.

  • It won't be an Orson Scott Card story... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... without some sort of homoerotic, underage action. Oh wait, Ender has that - sweaty young boys wrestling in the shower.
  • Given the ominous "Development Hell" label being placed on "Enders Game", the movie may get made, it will bomb, and it will kill any chance to see "Speaker for the Dead". Which, to me, is the real written masterpiece. And they could totally sell out and market the piggies for the kids.

  • Oh,let's be serious for a second (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @05:27AM (#14307408) Homepage
    Anyone who thinks that a mass market, big budget Ender's Game will turn out to be anything other than Pirates of the Space Caribbean: The Enemy's Gate is Down starring a bunch of 20-something "teen" actors culled from whatever the hell it is that kids are watching on TV these days, has no idea how Hollywood, and particularly the distribution chain, works.
  • I've been waiting patient ever since the live action [trivialbeing.net] version was announced. Some of the people involved sound like they actually understand the show too... it has like, a 1 in a million chance of being any good, but imagine if it were? Hell would freeze over I'm sure.

  • Mandatory Link (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mankey wanker ( 673345 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @05:51AM (#14307457)
    "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality" by John Kessel
    http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm [ncsu.edu]

  • What about Joss Whedon directing? (Score:3, Informative)

    by ZoomieDood ( 778915 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:01AM (#14307485)
    From Orson Scott Card's own website [hatrack.com]:

    So here's what I have to say about Serenity:

    This is the kind of movie that I have always intended Ender's Game to be (though the plots are not at all similar).

    And this is as good a movie as I always hoped Ender's Game would be.

    And I'll tell you this right now: If Ender's Game can't be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.

    I'd rather just watch Serenity again.

    • That is an extremely lame sentiment (from Card). If I went around with the attitude "my work must be better than the work of X, or I'd rather not do it", I'd end up not doing anything at all. It may be that Card thinks of his novels as being the best in the genre, but who knows what ideas he may have shelved for fear of not besting the novels of others?

  • This movie's going to be great. We all know the longer a screenplay is the development, the better it gets! Right? Right?
  • I have not read the book, but from everything I have read about it (from both supporters and detractors) it seems to be pure male adolescent neo-fascism. Which of course will do great because the latest hollywood movie we had that was adolescent neofascism was starship troopers and that was a huge success.

    Of course the maker of starship troopers, was not a fascist ... he was a bleeding heart european liberal trying to make some kind of an ironic statement. Imagine his surprise when not only did no-one see t

  • The twist at the end will be difficult - SPOILER (Score:3, Informative)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @07:44AM (#14307766) Homepage Journal
    For the film's final twist - that Ender has been fighting the actual war not just a simulator - to be feasible, the audience needs to understand the existence of Ansible, and the way the Dr. Device chain reaction works, without these explanations seeming like blatant clues as to the ending when they happen earlier on in the movie. In a 600 page novel you can hide these sorts of key facts in the general 'fleshing out' of the world, but by the time you trim it to a 2 phour script, then it gets difficult.

    I'm worred that the book's plot holes will be shown up with great clarity - in my opinion it's never adequately explained why it has to be a kid who controls the fleet, rather than Wrackham. If the reason is video game skills, then I can see a swing to teenagers not young kids in the lead roles, which makes sense from the studio's point of view but will ruin the empathy.

    I don't see the computer simulation episodes being a problem, they will simply look like PS3 games (bacause that's what they will be, there's money in tie-in games). Hollywood never bothers to extrapolate the state of the art when computers are concerned, witness the Nostromo in 'Alien' being less graphically capable than your cellphone.

    On the upside of all this rewriting, the longer the movie takes to get made, the better the battle room / war scenes can be done with state of the art CGI.
    • Well, I think that the likely target audience for this film (teenagers, if the target isn't boomers, it's teenagers)would better empathize with people who are more like themselves, rather than a bunch of kids.

  • Dullest Sci-fi book I ever read (Score:5, Funny)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @08:00AM (#14307811) Homepage
    Seems to be popular on her but I'll risk a troll rating by saying
    that I found Enders Games to be the dullest sci fi book I've ever
    read and in fact I got so bored I gave up 3/4 way through.
    The only other book that got even remotely close in tedium rating
    was Radix by A. A. Attanasio.

    Enders Game - great book for people who rate political allegory above
    anything remotely resembling a good plot.
    • The only other book that got even remotely close in tedium rating was Radix by A. A. Attanasio.
      I took that festering crapheap of a book on vacation once, and forced myself to read it all the way through. Hideous.
  • Where is Rendezvous with Rama? Morgan Freeman has been 'producing' it since 2000 or something. What is happening?
  • How many movies based on popular media have been completely ruined due to the standardization of the Hollywood script/ending?
    The author's own writing most likely will make the movie more unique and interesting, and true to his own vision. Hopefully the director will be someone who works hard to get the right shot.
  • OSC has repeatedly come under attacks for not being politically correct. His writing style, characters and some deep beliefs in his stories seem to bring new enemies to the battle.

    I personally could care less about his personal religion or what he thinks of gays or blacks or chefs. It doesn't matter to me -- he doesn't seem to have any opinion of me, so I'll just let him write.

    And write he does. Ender's Game really was such a key element in my youth and I know it was the same of many of my friends. I do
  • The latest plan involves an entirely new script written by Card himself.

    Every book-gone-movie with a still-living author should be done this way. If the author isn't willing or able to write the entire script, they should be actively involoved in the process- deciding which plot elements are required, approving dialogue, essentially editing the script as it's being created... Sure, not every author is suited for this kind of thinking (ahem: stephenson and his unwillingness to even edit his books down).

  • Maybe do a miniseries instead? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by foniksonik ( 573572 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @12:05PM (#14309492) Homepage Journal
    If OSC is listening... maybe a miniseries for sci-fi would be a better option? If it was my book and my option to move it to screen, I think I'd do something like Star Trek and Serenity ended up doing (though this would be better planned) which is to do a series on TV that starts in the beginning.... build the characters over several seasons, then plan a big blockbuster movie at the end of it all for the final shootout.

    This would allow for the actors to grow physically... start them at just before puberty and hope that they get growth spurts, and as actors. In general it would let the story develop more fully and on a timeline more consistent with the novel... I don't think I sat down and read the whole thing in one night, longer stories can be more interesting because you have to stop and think about the events between reading periods, so take advantage of that.

    On the business side of things, they could use the time and revenue to develop the CGI over years instead of months and would be able to reuse the models, effects, etc. and incrementally improve upon them as the CGI becomes more important in the story. The revenue from commercials could seriously offset this development and allow for a really good movie at the end instead of having to blow the whole budget on CGI they could spend more on 'getting it right'.

    For the actors / kids this would really give them the time to 'become the characters' as they could start off as regular kids with a few quirks and grow into the personalities that make the book powerful.

    For the audience... well how big is the audience for this movie right now? I know very few people outside of sci-fi fans who have read this book unless they were assigned it as summer reading in high school. A TV series could certainly grow the audience size and bring them up to speed on the story at the same time. I hate movies that have to tell this huge backstory because the meat of the plot is at the end but you won't understand the motivations of the characters without the back story.... spend more time in the movie on the events that unfold and let the characters just be who they are the whole time without having to explain how they got to be the way they are.

    As a side note, it would be very interesting to do some web based tie in 'marketing' by creating a web community around the idea of Peters forums... where people could discuss the implications of the events in the show...

    the downside to all of this is that we already know how it ends... it'd be really cool to not know and have a series that builds up the tension, with a web based extras feature for creating anticipation and a big movie at the end to wrap it all up in a final crescendo.

  • Production delays (Score:3, Funny)

    by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @12:21PM (#14309664) Journal
    They'd better hurry up and get this produced. The actor they'd tapped to play Ender just died of old age.

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