Ender's Game: The Movie, news
Jan. 19th, 2009 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timepiececlockThe Ender's Game movie is off the table. In an interesting twist, it appears the film was stifled by author Orson Scott Card because none of the scripts or directors optioned in the last few years have satisfied him.
You know what? I'm kind of okay with that. I'd love to see Ender's Game in film medium, but I don't mind waiting longer to get the right kind of film. The book is too important to my memory of adolescence for me to be satisfied with seeing it turned into The Matrix 4. Ender Wiggin isn't Neo, or John Connor, or Malcolm Reynolds, or Frodo Baggins. And he's certainly not Will Smith's Men In Black character.
If they do make a film at some point, I hope they don't cut out the Peter and Valentine subplot, which to my critical mind is the first thing that would hit the editing room floor, regardless of its thematic and emotional importance to the novel. I'd hate to see it go, though, because Valentine and Peter are the two most important people in Ender's world, and Valentine is one of only two female characters who have recurring importance. The other is Petra, who has a much smaller role and is essentially The Girl of the kids at the battle school. I'd hate for her to be only female left if scriptwriters decided that two teens trying to take over the internet wasn't an interesting B plot.
According to Card he “was not interested in a ‘tough-hero action film’ and refuses to condescend to green-screen Hollywood. Card imagines a ‘film where the human relationships are absolutely essential — an honest presentation of the story.’”
You know what? I'm kind of okay with that. I'd love to see Ender's Game in film medium, but I don't mind waiting longer to get the right kind of film. The book is too important to my memory of adolescence for me to be satisfied with seeing it turned into The Matrix 4. Ender Wiggin isn't Neo, or John Connor, or Malcolm Reynolds, or Frodo Baggins. And he's certainly not Will Smith's Men In Black character.
If they do make a film at some point, I hope they don't cut out the Peter and Valentine subplot, which to my critical mind is the first thing that would hit the editing room floor, regardless of its thematic and emotional importance to the novel. I'd hate to see it go, though, because Valentine and Peter are the two most important people in Ender's world, and Valentine is one of only two female characters who have recurring importance. The other is Petra, who has a much smaller role and is essentially The Girl of the kids at the battle school. I'd hate for her to be only female left if scriptwriters decided that two teens trying to take over the internet wasn't an interesting B plot.
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Date: 2009-01-19 07:40 pm (UTC)Though two teens trying to take over the internet sounds EXACTLY like the kind of B-plot Hollywood does like.
I was excited when the movie was announced because the novel cover they used to promote it reminded me of War Games -- I'm holding out for a movie that looks and sounds like an escapee from the 80s.
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Date: 2009-01-19 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 08:01 pm (UTC)