Orson Scott Card Reviews Everything

H_Fisher writes "Orson Scott Card, author of sci-fi classic Ender's Game and many other novels and stories, has posted his review of the much-discussed Joss Whedon film Serenity (which opened at #2 in the US box office this past weekend). Among other things, Card has this to say about Serenity: 'Those of you who know my work at all know about Ender's Game. I jealously protected the movie rights to Ender's Game so that it would not be filmed until it could be done right ... 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.'" With praise for Full House, Friends, Being John Malkovich, and Lost to boot.

Comments

If you are wondering

[stoolpigeon]

like I was. Here is the count of mentions from the body.
 
Serenity: 7
Ender's Game: 6
 
So it really is more about Serenity.

Re:If you are wondering

[Naerymdan]

I should have watched Firefly before Serenity it seems.

It was still good, but i did find the lack of explanation and social understanding a great gap in such a movie.

Still it WAS good.

Re:If you are wondering

[SpryGuy]

The good news is that it's not too late for you to see the complete FireFly series on DVD.

I saw the whole thing before seeing the movie, and yeah, there's much of the movie that I can't imagine had the same impact if you hadn't seen the series as if you had.

But since you liked the movie, you might enjoy going back and watching the entire series.

Re:If you are wondering

[lgw]

Oddly enough I never liked the series, but really enjoyed the movie. It played very well for a SF fan who had no idea who these people were. The best "space movie" I've seen for a long, long time, thanks to characters with some depth to them. An extensive back-story, even one I don't care for, still makes a movie *much* better.

Glad he liked it.

[Trespass]

Pity he's batshit insane.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[bersl2]

Pity he's batshit insane.

Exactly what I thought, to the word.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let moderators not consider you to have anti-Mormon sentiment, Orson Scott Card is truly insane; he has declared positions exactly equivalent to the tenets of fascism in his personal philosophy, particularly he has advocated mass censorship of media by the state for any purpose considered worth while by the state without oversight. Reference: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005-05-15-1 .html If in the US this does not allow one to consider his opinions on any matter to be worthless (the same sentiment as declaration that he is bat shit insane), what might? He constantly references Ender's Game that is little more than an apologia for Hitler, see essay by Elaine Radford, at every opportunity for a reason; one which I suspect is related to his devotion of particularly fascistic views himself.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[mankey wanker]

Actually, this is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Having read the Ender series, I was left somewhat unsettled by it but I didn't give it enough of my focus to figure out why - and then I read this: "Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender's Game, Intention, and Morality" by John Kessel http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm

Given OSC's political views, I think it can pretty safely be said that the guy is basically a fascist sympathesizer or something else equally distasteful.

FWIW, you could check out Wiki on "Ender's Game" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_game

What's interesting is that there are many parallels between Hitler and Ender, watered down only by the fact that Card carefully constructed the story so as to ameliorate Ender's personal culpability - but when you think about it, the story is so contrived as to make that possibility somewhat implausible even within the context of a rather far out sci-fi story.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[haplo21112]

Humm, could this be the surfacing of localroger on Slashdot? I have been looking all over for that eassy, figured it oughta be on the net by now, but (admittedly I have not tried very hard) have had no luck searching for it in its fully body.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Localroger? No. Simply a concerned slashdot reader. That both the submitter and editor publisher of this story respect Card to any degree is a sign of the decay of this site, I only sought to delay that decay as the site may still be useful for a while despite the massive influence of increasingly militaristic Americans jilting everything to just left of Idi Amin.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Might it have something to do with John Smith, largely thought a con man and insane by his contemporaries, the PA angel Moroni, Smith's appropriating work's of texts previously written in England, or divining with a crystal ball laid in a top hat. Card actually believes this stuff. Mormonism isn't much less crazy then scientology.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's interesting is that there are many parallels between Hitler and Ender, watered down only by the fact that Card carefully constructed the story so as to ameliorate Ender's personal culpability

Um... Card spent the next 3 books writing about Ender's life as he tried to atone for what he did. Ender knew damn well what he had done, and placed the entire burden on his own shoulders.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[haplo21112]

I'll just agree to differ in Opinion. I personally respect Card as writer. I also generally respect his opinions on movies and books. I can't say I fully agree with all his political Ideals. However there are some people attribute to him that simply are not true. Ender's Game is not an apology for Hitler. Card as spoken about this time and time again, that Ender and Hitler have some parallels, Yes. However he was in way even thinking of Hitler when he wrote the book.

I also disagree with his point of view on the whole "Gay" marriage thing. My opinion differs, it doesn't however make me detest him as a person and I still read and enjoy his books. He is a Religious Family man and his views of the world stage are tinted by that fact. He beleives it is the role of our government to uphold some of his ideals. I think its the role of the governemnt to uphold some of mine too, they in someways differ form his, but it is what it is.

We even have a few incommon, for instance he believes that he has the right to rip music to MP3 just like I do.

Many people on the site do not even dig that far into the man however. They respect him as the writer of Ender's Game one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever published. They do not need or want to know anything more than that about him. And thats fine too!
The writer of Ender's Game likes Serenity...and thats good enough for them. I don't think this in anyway contributes to or shows any decay of the site.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That does not make it any less an apologia for Hitler; the extension in that aspect is that Hitler might have regretted his earlier genocidal acts if he had survived his own madness and his war's end.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to document your assertions or would you simply like us to accept them blindly?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Forbman]

Joe Scharf is a civilian contractor working for a three-letter agency, one that isn't published in the Congressional Record. One of his talents is that he's probably the best RPV pilot ever. He was picked when someone noticed him playing "Stargate: Defender" in an obscure mall arcade outside Augusta, GA. Only he was playing it with his eyes closed...for hours.

One of the new things brought on-line recently was that Predators are now armed with Hellfire laser-guided missiles.

His bosses have him "flying" a Predator around some non-descript valley in SW Asia. Word has it that a couple of cars will be coming through the area sometime tonite. The vehicles are supposed to have one of the main IED and bomb vest makers in the region, someone that has Mossad, US, Thai, Indonesian and other police agencies wanting...badly.

Oh, what is this, Joe thinks. It's cars. OK, imagery seems to match descriptions. I have authorization to fire. Oh, wait. They're stopping. Are those kids getting out of the car? Well, screw them. They picked the wrong daddy tonite. Fire-1, Fire-2. Car destroyed. Allah Akbar.

Now, how "responsible" is Joe if it just happened that the cars he blew up were just some random family going to a family clan dinner? What if Joe was told that the bomb maker's handlers essentially created the intelligence in order to create a public relations nightmare? What if someone in the Agencies were actually initiating a coup against the President, or a particular Supreme Court Justice, or whatever, and Joe actually was flying the Predator over central Pennsylvania, and everything about it was a fabricated hoax?

Any parallels to Ender's world and Hitler's Germany were also made about the society in "Starship Troopers" (the book, not the movie).

When will someone make a "Bolo" movie?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[autophile]

What's interesting is that there are many parallels between Hitler and Ender, watered down only by the fact that Card carefully constructed the story so as to ameliorate Ender's personal culpability - but when you think about it, the story is so contrived as to make that possibility somewhat implausible even within the context of a rather far out sci-fi story.

I'm not sure if you're personally negative towards OSC, but what you just described is brilliance in literature: to create a villain hero that we sympathize with. So in any case, he really is a brilliant writer. IMHO.

--Rob

Re:Glad he liked it.

[mankey wanker]

Oh Dude, that Xenu guy is gonna have to find you and nibble your bum for that one.

And yeah, the angel Moroni used to be my co-pilot - but we crash landed in the Andes and I had to eat him in order to survive.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ender's Game is not an Apologia for Hitler.

There are two major differences:
1. Ender is the "deceived" and Hitler is the "deceiver"
Unless you can make a substainal case that Hitler (or any other commiter of "genocide") was fundamentally used, manipulated, etc. I think I can ignore that both Hitler and Ender were supposedly virgins until age 37 and third children as a significant similarity.

2. Ender's actions where all logical given known information.

a. Buggers Better than Humans b. Human space unable to be defended c. destroy buggers completely

Unfortunately, the tradegy is that this logic is at no point tempered by other factors such as
morality. This can not be said of the majority of Hitler's actions. These actions where often both immoral and alogical.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Morrolan]

I don't think you understand the meaning of your phrase "fascist sympathesizer or something else equally distasteful" Check out http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM#TAB and educate yourself, but watch out for the quesiness...

Re:Glad he liked it.

[buraianto]

You mean Joseph Smith.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[thc69]

Somehow, I don't think Hitler was under the impression that he was playing a harmless video game when he tried to exterminate my ancestors. From the wiki:

Card entered the fray and responded in the same issue of Fantasy Review, claiming that this was an attack, and that no such parallel could reasonably be drawn because Ender kills unknowingly, while this can't possibly be said about Hitler.

Ender, meanwhile, got so pissed off at the school that he decided to cheat at the "game" so they would throw him out. He was trying to get out when he committed his xenocide.

As far as Stilson and the other jerk he killed in self defense, they got justice -- even if you think their punishment was too harsh, they're definitely the guilty parties. This isn't the questionable morality found in a drunk driver's excuse for killing a bicyclist. It's not a matter of Ender's intent being used as an excuse -- even though it's the only way he can justify it to himself. The truth is that they chose to enter a battle to the death with him, fully expecting to kill him, rather than to be killed by him.

Sorry, theorize all you want, but Ender fails to be eqivelant in any way to Hitler.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison is not based on such shallow detail as to be dismissed as coincidence. Are you ignorant of the abuse to which Hitler was subjected as a child? The tyranny of his father, his torment as a child born out of wedlock at the turn of the Century in Austria? Was his anti-Semitism not simply a product of the environment in which he grew from childhood into adulthood? What of his schizophrenia, or his later addiction to amphetamines, or his psychosis? In the entire progress of the Ender series Ender is described to experience the equivalent of all of these traits, yet we are to forgive him because of his action done at a time of supposed innocence and later regret (this aspect comparison you deny, still in context of genuine comparison it holds value)? The series communicated a poor story, a thinly veiled comparison to Hitler and encouraged acceptance of the behavior on the exception that the aggressor later regretted it and did not know the specific result of his action at the time of his action? Perhaps you only thought too far on the specific and shallow details and ignored everything else.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Rei]

About half of what he stated is straight from the Documentary History of the Church, written by his followers who were with him who later followed Brigham Young, and the official history of the Mormon Church (as recognized by the church itself). For the stuff about what his contemporaries thought of him, I'd start here - there are lots and lots of references in this thread from that post onward. Also, here's a site with several (also referenced) FAQs; they're a biased group, but they document their claims quite well.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Wateshay]

Alright I'll bite. I in no way agree with everything that Card says. For one, I'm not (nor would I ever want to be) a Mormon. That said, if you're going to demonize a man, at least use what he actually said to demonize him, rather than taking a slanted reading with a side of hyperbole. I just read the reference you provided (all of it), and nowhere do I see Card advocating unchecked censorship of the media. In fact, the only thing I see him call for is consequence for the media when they publish something that they should have known was false. Do I agree? Not really. Even though it's a nice idea to hold the media accountable, I think it's too likely to be abused. Do I think that expressing the opinion that it might be a good idea (while seeming to also realize that it's untenable) makes Card into some hard-right statist who wants to control my life? Not by a long shot.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[OreoCookie]

Great comment. Listen, if you ever read a book that you don't need explained to you, like say "The Three Little Pigs", give us a review of that. Ok?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[peacefinder]

Orson Scott Card may be a closet fascist, but Robert E. Howard was pretty open about believing in Aryan supremacy. Some asshats can write good fiction.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[mankey wanker]

Could you make your point more plainly please? I'm not going to read a whole essay or book just to understand your vague reference to it.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm
Check out the Hitler Article over at Wikipedia folks

above poster:

"Are you ignorant of the abuse to which Hitler was subjected as a child? The tyranny of his father, his torment as a child born out of wedlock at the turn of the Century in Austria?"

from wikipedia:

"He [adolf] was the fourth of six children of Alois Hitler (1837-1903), a customs official, and Klara Pölzl, Alois' niece and third wife. Of these six children, only Adolf and his younger sister Paula reached adulthood. Alois Hitler also had a son (Alois Junior) and a daughter (Angela) by his second wife. In Mein Kampf, his autobiography and exposition of his political ideology, Hitler describes his father as an "irascible tyrant"; however, there is little indication that Alois Hitler treated his son more strictly than was usual for that time and place."

So, Adolf Hitler -was- born in wedlock. It was Adolf's father Alois who was not. Furthermore, there is indeed little evidence outside of Hitler's propaganda that indicates Alois treated Adolf in an abusive manner...

above poster:

"Was his anti-Semitism not simply a product of the environment in which he grew from childhood into adulthood?"

Wikipedia:

"It was in Vienna that Hitler became an active anti-Semite, a common stance among Austrians at the time." Oh this was when he was 18+ years old.

So Ender who grew to love/like the Buggers as he became an adult is similar to Hitler who grew to hate the jewish as he became an adult.

I am sorry, but there is not a reasonable and consistent arguement that Ender is a "a thinly veiled comparison to Hitler". This is true both in the macroscopic sense of events and the microscopic details of life and motivations.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[WaterBreath]

Did you actually read the series, or just the first book???

While the (strained) comparisons between Ender and Hitler might be quasi-justifiable within the strict context of book 1, the other three Ender books go a long way in further establishing Ender's (adult) character, and in differentiating him from a genocidal sociopath like Hitler.

As much as I disagree with many of Card's religious and political views, I can't shake the feeling that the Ender/Hitler comparison is propaganda put together by people who are deeply offended and/or threatened by his religio-political stance.

And whether they are justified in that feeling or not, it reeks of an attempt at indirect social censorship. (Censorhip being, ironically, something to which the same people supposedly stand diametrically opposed.) Don't want people to hear what someone has to say? Slap a stigma on his writing, making it scary for anyone to identify with anything he says. And what better stigma than Hitler?

Bleh. Words cannot express how much I hate politics. It works exactly opposite to the scientific ideal. Decisions are not made by debating over the advantages put forth by each party of their chosen approach. Rather, they are made by debating over who has done the best job of demonizing their opponent.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is unnecessary. Reply in interest or do not, it does nothing. Relevant copy of previous reply, given moderation to your post deemed necessary as other at this point not moderated and not commonly visible parent to post made.

Laws regarding media regulation tend by their inherent nature to expand until they are absolutes regulating permission to public or refusal of permission to publish with heavy punishment for publishing without permission. Understand that the implications of Card's proposal can not be separated from his proposal because of their intrinsic relation to the goal of his proposal: that no stories of that character are published again so as to avoid inciting any response in any populous that opposes the US or its armies in any way to increase their resistance further.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

> In fact, the only thing I see him call for is consequence for the media when they publish something that they should have known was false. Do I agree? Not really. Even though it's a nice idea to hold the media accountable, I think it's too likely to be abused.

Err, actually, I really thought that "reckless disregard for the truth" was at least part of some claims for defamation? IANAL, but something like malice + falsity (which can include reckless disregard) == defamation was what I thought the law encompassed. Now, if he advocates that for *falsity alone* we might have problems--who judges where the facts lie? And what happens when we come to new understandings based on new evidence?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that they chose to enter a battle to the death with him, fully expecting to kill him, rather than to be killed by him.

That's a blatant falacy. Any being intelligent enough to know the minds of his enemies as well as Ender would also have been able to socially manipulate his way out of most situations, and even if it came to violence it's obvious that overwhelming force is not necessary to end a conflict. If Ender can beat the shit out of people once, he can do it anytime. A simple choke hold would suffice, repeated endlessly until the other party relents. Destroying an opponent is not a natural reaction, it is a psychopathic one.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Alaska Jack]

Two thoughts:

First, OSC may have quite different political ideas than you. You may think he's a crappy writer. You may think he has bad breath.

But you (and the GP) didn't say any of those things. You said *he's insane*.

Now, think for a moment. You know how sometimes you hear about how what's wrong with America is how we demonize people who don't agree with us? About how far political discourse has fallen, because instead of talking about ideas, all we do is call each other names? About how the few voices of reason get drowned out by all the voices shrieking hate?

Well, now consider this: I bet, when you do, it never occurs to you that they're talking about *you*.

OSC's views are, as far as I can tell, well within conservative mainstream. You may *disagree* with them, but that doesn't mean they're extreme, or that he's "batshit insane." Calling them "batshit insane" doesn't say anything about OSC -- if anything, it tells us about *you*, and how seriously we should take anything you say.

Understand? I think gun control advocates, for example, are wrong and misguided. But I don't think they're "batshit insane."

My second thought, to the moderators: I just wanted to point out that you took a post that said, essentially, "Me too," and modded it INFORMATIVE. Nice.

    - Alaska Jack

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Refrag]

How do you know Hitler didn't think he was playing a game?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Pii]

Totally agree, and I'd like to elaborate:

Ender's Game may not be your favorite novel; in fact, you may not even like it.

The themes expressed, however, are important and compelling. Forget the strawman Hitler argument. How plain can the differences between Ender and Hitler be made? Ender committed atrocious acts with no knowledge of their effects. For Hitler, the same cannot be said...

Did you know that Ender's Game is on the Marine Corps' recommended reading list for Junior elisted personnel? At first glance, you might think it is because of the various strategic approaches that Ender is forced to employ, but that's just the surface.

The reality is that the underlying theme of the book, that intent makes makes all the difference in measuring good and evil, that an otherwise "good" person may be obligated to commit horrible deeds in the name of the greater good... That's the message that matters, because that's the position that our people in uniform have routinely found themselves in throughout our history.

Pacifism is the default posture for most people. There's not a person in the service that would prefer to be at war, rather than at peace. None of you would rather fight with someone rather than peacefully co-exist. Still, in the face of aggression, there comes a point where action must be taken, and that aggression must be checked.

The morality of intent is what allows people to do the terrible things that sometimes must be done in all of our names, and live with themselves afterward.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[pboulang]

This is precisely why armies wear uniforms, so the individual can have some measure of confidence of who the enemy is and personal accountability is minimized.

I just wish you had gone more along the lines of "The Last Starfighter" instead... your opening paragraph gave me hope. . .

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

intent makes makes all the difference in measuring good and evil

But almost every person (except for the completely insane ones) believe that what they are doing is good. History is written by the victors.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[j4ck50n]

Gee, take yourself seriously much? Tell ya what Jack, *you* *are* batshit insane. How's them apples?

"Two thoughts" and then the shit that follows? What kind of jackass...Who cares about your two thoughts you humorless fuck?

Your stupid and overextended use of emphasis really paints the picture here. Completely missing the tone of the post, you grab hold and take some fucking stance like it's the 40's you are exposing the "red menace".

...and how seriously we should take anything you say

Please, "we"? Who is we? Oh, you just meant "me". Guess what, i'm laughing at *you*, *you* lonely jackass.

And the proverbial icing - the high and mighty stance with "the moderators", bravo..Point this out douchebag - OSC is a Nazi asshole, you are just a common idiot.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[AeternitasXIII]

No, he really is insane. He believes in the mystical sky pixie that martyred itself not once, but twice according to the LDS folks to save both native Americans and a bunch of genocidal, patriarchal ex-slave tribals in the arm pit of the Mediterranean. Such a disconnect from an otherwise banal and logically consistant universe is clear evidence that OSC, like most folk today, are legally insane.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Alaska Jack]

Hmm. Are you currently taking any kind of medication?

If not, you might want to consider it.

If so, perhaps you should consider reducing or increasing your dosage.

Respectfully,

        - Alaska Jack

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Alaska Jack]

Well, I guess, although by that standard (i.e., believing in some sort of religion or superstition or higher power, the existence of which cannot be proved) the vast majority of people in the world are insane.

      - AJ

Re:Glad he liked it.

[LarsWestergren]

Did you know that Ender's Game is on the Marine Corps' recommended reading list for Junior elisted personnel?

I actually find that very very scary.

The reality is that the underlying theme of the book, that intent makes makes all the difference in measuring good and evil, that an otherwise "good" person may be obligated to commit horrible deeds in the name of the greater good... That's the message that matters, because that's the position that our people in uniform have routinely found themselves in throughout our history.

Uhu, and that is the VERY THING the article objects to, the message that you are good and innocent while simultanously killing. Come on, like the nazis and all other killers through history wasn't justifying what they were doing the same way. "Sure, all this stuff is distasteful, but we are doing it for the greater good...". And the book constantly paint the opponents as completely evil with no redeeming qualities and no motivations of their own, making it a very easy choice to kill them. Very convenient don't you think?

I prefer this quote from Gandhi:
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"

Re:Glad he liked it.

[j4ck50n]

Go die. =)

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Alaska Jack]

That analysis of Ender's Game, while evidently suprisingly widespread, strikes me as pretty wide of the mark.

I guess one thing I find lacking is Card's endorsement, or advocacy. EG, like a lot of what we consider great works of literature, raises many more questions than Card "answers." It's not like Starship Troopers, which is the outlines of a plot loosely draped around a quasi-libertarian polemic.

Card is clear that Ender is manipulated in pretty awful ways, beginning with the genetic engineering that creates him. He also lets us listen in to the largely nameless, faceless military bureaucrats who are manipulating him, and who themselves realize that what they are doing is in many ways unforgivable, and who accordingly wrestle with their consciences throughout the process. They deliberately place a young child in positions of real danger, as a means of testing and strengthening him. As far as I can see, the reader is left to his/her own conclusions about whether they are doing the right thing.

You write: "The book constantly paint the opponents as completely evil with no redeeming qualities and no motivations of their own, making it a very easy choice to kill them."

Again, I find this pretty odd. Are you talking about the buggers? Because, in the book, *government propaganda* portrays the buggers that way, yet I found it pretty clear that Card was saying something else. And in fact, in the end, it is shown that the whole thing was a result of a stupid miscommunication, and a lack of understanding on both sides. The buggers killed the crew of the first human vessel they encountered because the crew members weren't sentient in a way they understood. The humans retaliated without adequately trying to understand what happened.

In the end (and as shown in subsequent books) Ender is not hostile but in fact sympathetic to the buggers. He is devastated and profoundly transformed by what he now realized he did.

Or, by "opponent," do you mean the older boy Ender kills in the shower? Because here, again, the situation is more complex than you seem to acknowledge. In the training facility, OSC sets up a "Lord of the Flies" scenario, where the kids basically run amok without any oversight from the adults. The adults, again, have morally dubious reasons for doing this -- they want to see which kids emerge as natural leaders. But I didn't find the plot progression overly "convenient" or unrealistic. Like in "Lord of the Flies," the kid with the greatest combination of size, strength and charisma gathers a clique around him and attempts to rule by force. This strikes me as being reasonably plausible.

So I guess I agree with a few of the other posters out there: Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect that a lot of people who don't like OSC's politics/religion/whatever read EG and convince themselves that he is saying what they think a big bad conservative boogeyman *would* say. It's understandable, but it's still too bad -- I think such people are depriving themselves of appreciating a thoughtful and thought-provoking work.

      - Alaska Jack

PS Of course, having given the matter more thought, I guess if you were a committed pacifist, none of what I just said -- or of Ender's Game, for that matter -- would make much sense. But that's because, as has been pointed out time and time again, that *pacifism* makes no sense, any more than senseless warmongering.

I mean, that quote from Ghandi sounds great, but doesn't really make any sense, unless you actually believe *there's nothing worth fighting for*. You don't really believe that, do you?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap, I accidentally mod'd this up. :-(

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Pii]

Walking home, you catch a child molester in the act, and you send him home, having brought an end to this incident. The following day, you catch the same child molester in the act again, and you send him home, having brought an end to the incident. The following day, you catch the same child molester in the act again...

You are convinced that left to his own devices, this child molester will continue to have his way with the children in your neighborhood.

Assume that "the state" will not intervene. You choose to kill him, rather than let him continue to terrorize the children in your neighborhood.

Are you a bad or evil person, or are you protecting the innocent children in your neighborhood, even though the action itself generally runs counter to your character?

How about a more timely and realistic example: You're stranded in the New Orleans Superdome in the aftermath of a Hurricane, and a group of men has dragged a screaming woman into the flithy public restroom to gang-rape her.

There are no authorities in the area, but there are a number of other able bodied men nearby.

If you don't intervene, the woman will certainly continue to be raped, and will likely be killed. If you and the other men nearby get involved, there will certainly be a fight, and you may even have to kill some of the aggressors.

If you intervene, and kill a man in the process, are you a bad person?

If you do nothing, refraining to resort to the violence that would have been necessary in this situation, does that make you a good person?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[LarsWestergren]

catch the same child molester in the act again, and you send him home, having brought an end to the incident. The following day, you catch the same child molester in the act again... You are convinced that left to his own devices, this child molester will continue to have his way with the children in your neighborhood. Assume that "the state" will not intervene. You choose to kill him, rather than let him continue to terrorize the children in your neighborhood.

That is an awful lot of assumptions you are making - the perpetrator is remorseless and psychopatic, "the state" will not intervene, there are no other options.

In reality there are many other possibilites. I could inform "the state" (police and/or social authorities), who would investigate without a doubt. I could try to reason with this child molester, or threaten to tell everyone else if he did it again. I could inform the neighbours that they should keep their children again. You are doing the same thing as in the book, you are making up a very black and white situation, where you are pure and the opponent is purely and unrepentatly evil. That is a dangerous way of thinking.

How about a more timely and realistic example: You're stranded in the New Orleans Superdome in the aftermath of a Hurricane, and a group of men has dragged a screaming woman into the flithy public restroom to gang-rape her.

Is it realistic?

But all right, all right, I'll answer your underlying question: Is violence ever acceptible? Yes. I am not a complete pacifist. I just think you (and especially OSC) are creating virtual worlds where everything is set up so that taking the violent path is obviously justified and moral. People in the real world are always justifying their violent acts to themselves, right? They themselves are always the misunderstood good guys in a bad world. So for me the important question to always ask yourself is why you think your own reasoning is any more valid than theirs? Do you really have all the facts, do you really know all about the situation and the motives of the people involved?

Re:Glad he liked it.

[Stroman Rebar]

I would like to point out that, I don't know, say... A couple BILLION other people believe in this same "mystical sky pixie". I guess they must all be insane as well. Call me a bible thumper if you want, but faith, despite some fine examples that I can think of to the contrary, is not the same thing as insanity.

Re:Glad he liked it.

[iceaxe]

I'm curious about the second martyrdom. I must have missed that somewhere. Elaborate please?

The way I read it, the martyrdom occurred to a flesh-n-blood person, once. Also, the group in the Americas was a group of your "genocidal, patriarchal" etc. people who had traveled there by boat.

Believe it or don't, but do get the story straight.

reevers

[solosaint]

i like the movie, with the exception of the reevers... how did these beings operate space ships, propagate, follow a chain of command... ???

Re:reevers

[wikdwarlock]

Amen! My wife and I both thought that this was the only serious flaw in the whole movie. They mentioned that the Reevers raped women, but do the Reever traits get passed down genetically? Do they let women who they've raped live long enough to give birth? Who raises the baby Reevers? Can infants who are "beyond insanity" survive infancy? Great movie, great story, but also a serious problem w/ the Reever social structure.

Re:reevers

[chphilli]

Both of you need to watch the Firefly series. That should fill in your missing information.

Re:reevers

[Morgalyn]

Well, they are still people. Very predatory people. They used to be human. They are basically science fiction versions of, say, semi-intelligent zombies. There are some holes (I think the only holes I noticed in the whole movie, which was refreshing) dealing with the Reavers and between the tv show and the movie, primarily in generation.

I guess some people might view the following as a spoiler, and thus are forewarned.


In Firefly, an individual who was the sole survivor of a Reaver attack starts becoming a Reaver due to being driven crazy / what he has witnessed / etc. In the film, the Reavers are the way they are due to chemically induced brain changes (basically). The time period between the creation of the Reavers and the events in the film is short enough that they haven't had to deal with issues like 'how do they have babies?'.

What I don't understand is why they don't eat each other, but they're not supposed to be entirely logical, you know?

Re:reevers

[Phs2501]

They mentioned that the Reevers raped people. I really don't think the gender mattered much.

Re:reevers

[Kelson]

The Reavers haven't been around long enough for the first generation to die off. That said, there's an episode of the series that suggests they don't reproduce so much as they recruit. There's more than one way to keep a society's numbers up.

Still not sure how they manage to cooperate well enough to run big ships, though.

Re:reevers

[robertjw]

Who raises the baby Reevers? Can infants who are "beyond insanity" survive infancy? Great movie, great story, but also a serious problem w/ the Reever social structure.

In the movie, they stated the Reavers have only been in existence for 12 years. Not a significant need to propagate in that time span - thus there isn't an immediate need for 'baby reavers'

Re:reevers

[wikdwarlock]

Thanks for the clarification. In a similar vein, why do the Reavers not attack each other?

Re:reevers

[Darth]

A couple of points about this...

If i remember correctly, the reavers have only been around for about 12 years at the time of the movie and there were about 3000 of them at the start. The lack of a propagation path isnt a real problem because they havent had time to die out yet.

The answer to how they propagate is actually explained in the series, though. They sometimes choose victims on their raids and torture them and make them watch their acts and participate in their acts until their minds snap. Then they start teaching them to be reavers. They dont breed. They make more reavers out of selected captives.

Re:reevers

[Wazukkithemaster]

Well from how it was explained in the movie I think i cant take a shot at this.

The gas that was released into the atmosphere was supposed to surpress aggressive urges but was too effective. As a result all urges to do anything were suppressed (most likely because our urges to preform basic functions are driven by our darker reptilian/id/whatever part of the mind). Then one tenth of one percent of the population had an opposite reaction... They became hyper aggressive and thus all of those 'dark' (primitive) urges were magnified. Urge to reproduce, fight, indulge, etc. etc. I also suspect that the Reaver mothers would have primitive maternal instincts and would be fiercly protective of their young as most mammals are.

Thats how i see it! Hope it helps.

Re:reevers

[Tsunayoshi]

Zoe's answer when Simon asks abouts the Reavers in the series pilot:

If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order

Re:reevers

[Darth]

correction. i think it's 30000 reavers, not 3000.

Re:reevers

[Supurcell]

You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til you understand who's in ruttin' command here.

Re:reevers

[AJWM]

You and the parent poster didn't pay attention. The event that created the Reavers (and we're getting into spoiler territory here) was less than a generation in the past, so none of that is relevant.

Presumably the Reavers are a self-solving problem in a few more decades -- they'll all have died out. Assuming, that is, that no more get created.

Re:reevers

[Kelson]

This was one of the things we were trying to figure out after the movie. I went with a bunch of friends and we were discussing: "How do they recognize each other? Why do they cooperate instead of attack?"

We do know they have at least some code/traditions they follow. In the first episode of the show, Serenity comes across a Reaver ship in deep space, and they take a chance: if they run, the Reavers "will have to follow. It's their way." If they they hold their course, the Reavers might choose to ignore them.

Unfortunately their "way" isn't "we'll leave you alone if you do X" so much as "we'll definitely torture and kill you if you do Y."

I'm okay with having some unanswered questions as long as they don't seem impossible. I can go with the reavers (as presented) getting along just well enough to be able to do more violence to others, but I can't imagine them raising children.

Re:reevers

[danudwary]

That or they expose their victims to that gas, and don't kill the ones that turn (which is supposed to be ~10%). None of it is very clear, and purposely so.

Re:reevers

[L33tminion]

The Reaver traits aren't genetic, so far as anyone knows. Furthermore, the Reavers are probably sterile, what with flying around on starships with no core containment on the reactors. Those raped by the Reavers don't survive. Even people who just witness such an attack (themselves escaping detection) tend to go insane (the usual manifestation of this insanity is for them to start acting like Reavers themselves, so the Reavers may get a few new "recruits this way, but it can't be more than a handful). More relevantly, the Reavers have only existed for 12 years, and there were 30,000 of them, so they haven't died off yet.

As far as operating starships and so on, Reavers are still intelligent. They're just insanely aggesive towards anyone who's not a Reaver.

Re:reevers

[AJWM]

why do the Reavers not attack each other?

Possibly for the same reason sharks don't, or (as a rule) other top predators don't. Like sharks, they might well turn on their own if they detect weakness, but otherwise it may not be worth the risk. (In one of the TV episodes, Serenity avoided a chance Reaver encounter by just continuing on, ignoring the Reaver ship -- if they'd run it would have triggered a chase. Although as it turned out, the Reaver apparently followed them to their destination.)

Reavers may be crazy, but they aren't completely stupid.

Re:reevers

[Kelson]

It was 10% of the population in question. IIRC that was 3 million or 30 million, (30M seems like a lot) which would leave 300,000 reavers to start with. (Or 3 million -- which seems like way too many, even if you assume most of them were wandering out on the fringe of the system.)

Re:reevers

[dbhankins]

Actually, Firefly being a "space western", it would be more accurate to say that the Reavers are the Firefly equivalent of Apaches.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

10% of the population, population 30 million.

Therefore, 3 million Reavers.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

It was one tenth of one percent, 1/10th of 1%, or .1%, and if you people still don't get it I'll try to think of some more ways to express it. ;)

Re:reevers

[Scrameustache]

If i remember correctly, the reavers have only been around for about 12 years at the time of the movie and there were about 3000 of them at the start.

30 000 by my count: One tenth of a percent of 30 million people.

Re:reevers

[Kelson]

One tenth of a percent... that makes much more sense than the 10% I heard, and now I can fit the 30 million I remember with the reaver population we saw.

I'm going to have to watch this movie again...

Re:reevers

[Kelson]

Got it in another thread. It seems I'm not the only one who misheard the line.

Re:reevers

[Morgalyn]

Uhm, I was trying to point out the parallel of the Reavers to other genres Joss Whedon has done a lot of work in. I don't think anyone would appreciate your comparison of them to Apaches. Last I checked, the Apaches were not bloodthirsty cannibals...

Re:reevers

[macgeek]

solosaint wrote:
with the exception of the reevers... how did these beings operate space ships, propagate, follow a chain of command...???

and then wikdwarlock wrote:
Amen! My wife and I both thought that this was the only serious flaw in the whole movie. They mentioned that the Reevers raped women, but do the Reever traits get passed down genetically? Do they let women who they've raped live long enough to give birth? Who raises the baby Reevers? Can infants who are "beyond insanity" survive infancy? Great movie, great story, but also a serious problem w/ the Reever social structure.

First and foremost, it's a movie. It's a good one, with compelling story-telling, but it's a movie. They call it the "suspension of disbelief". How else do you explain "Battlefield Earth"?

As far as how the Reavers did anything? Based on descriptions from the series - and keeping in mind that I haven't (yet) seen the movie - it appears that Reavers are almost like wild animals - they do what they do to survive and not much more. Based on info from the series and the Firefly Wiki:

Reavers are believed by most of the 'verse to be men that went insane at the edge of space and became savage. They stared into the void beyond and became what they saw... nothing. They gave into their primal nature and all that was civilized was discarded.

And as others have pointed out:
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

As far as how they're able to work together... How do lions and other predators co-ordinate themselves and pick out the weakest animals to kill? The human "fight or flight" instinct is a leftover from our ancestors who were less evolved and lived in caves and whatnot (let's leave the whole evolution debate for another day, ok?). It stands to reason that there might be similar herd hunting instincts left over.

As for the thought of Reavers reproducing... shudder. Their form of reproduction has already been mentioned - they force some poor soul to watch as they have their way with everyone else, and wait until their mind basically snaps from the horror of it all. Good clean family fun.

The Wiki entry I've linked to above has a spoiler that starts to explain their origins.

Re:reevers

[Morgalyn]

Your typo is hilariously funny in light of primate psychology. Thank you. Or was it intentional?

Re:reevers

[magarity]

Maybe we can think of the Reevers as a Sci-fi equivalent of the bandit gang in Seven Samurai.

Re:reevers

[Rei]

RUNtse de FWOtzoo, ching baoYO wuomun...

One of my favorite quotes from the movie: "Target the reavers. Target the reavers! Target everything! Somebody fire!!!" Great scene... Of course, I have about a dozen favorites from that movie. Does that seem right to you?

Re:reevers

[blincoln]

In Firefly, an individual who was the sole survivor of a Reaver attack starts becoming a Reave

No, he doesn't. Re-watch the episode. He starts becoming LIKE one in his behaviour. No one ever says that he's actually becoming one.

Re:reevers

[timster]

What precisely is the difference between acting like a Reaver and BEING a Reaver?

Are we going to have to come up with some kind of Turing test to figure it out? Perhaps if someone tries to get you to take a Turing test, and they survive, then you're not a Reaver?

Re:reevers

[topham]

The way I figure it you're just acting like a reaver until you start suffering the side effects of long term radiation exposure.

But then, I also think he was 'acting like a reaver' because, nobody knows what they look like, if they did they would have been killed. Everything about them is spooky, vial, horror assumptions. Nobody lives long enough to separate the fact from fiction.

Re:reevers

[h3llfish]

There is no way to explain why beings who are literally frothing with homicidal rage do not turn on each other. Or how they manage to be coherent enough to make repairs to a space ship.

And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one of the recurring themes in the series (dunno 'bout the movie, gonna go see it tomorrow) is that the government doesn't really give a shit about what happens on the fringes. If the Reavers ever managed to attack a core planet with any degree of success, the Alliance would probably go crush them, but until then, it's under a SEP field.

Re:reevers

[kathgar1]

It is a quote from a firefly episode, by Jayne.. the train job episode google says: http://www.wavsite.com/sounds.asp?id=107

Re:reevers

[Ioldanach]

Reavers may be crazy, but they aren't completely stupid.

Crazy might be apt, but it isn't really the right word. As the movie indicates, they're agressive to an absurd degree.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

To the extent that Firefly was a space *western*, the Reavers do play a role similar to that of the "Injuns" in a traditional western. That's to say, it has far less to do with actual Apache, Sioux and other native american peoples than it does with the role old-Hollywood put them in.

I'm not sure that has a whole lot to do with Serenity though. The film is a lot more sci-fi than western and, in it, viewers and characters learn things that fundamentally change the perceived nature of reavers. You could make the argument, if you wanted to start a fight, that the Reavers in Serenity are more like jihadists.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

nitpick: 1/10 of one per cent of 30 million is 30,000 and not 3,000. ;-)

Re:reevers

[Anthony Boyd]

And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?

I thought that's what they were secretly training River and her friends to do.

Re:reevers

[Rei]

The series, though, deliberately leaves a number of things vague, and I think it works against them. And, as much as I greatly enjoyed the movie, they did leave a number of incontinuities (some of which could be explained simply by time passing, others which would be a lot harder)

  * Book's background: Mal clearly didn't know it at the time of the movie, so it's not likely to be resolved except possibly through external reference.

  * Simon going from prim and proper coward to in-person rescuer and rival alpha male (i.e., he went from aggressive before the series, to weak in the series, to aggressive). During the series, Simon was afraid to touch a weapon, did whatever Mal told him (even when it put River in danger), etc. Clearly there has been a change in the downtime for him to gain self confidence, but *he* rescued River from the facility? And since Simon was outright being given the tour, why did he seem so unknowing of what happened to her during the series?

  * Book's becoming sickly-looking, Kaylee's weight loss (oh, come on! Making her like a normal person was one of the draws of the series)

  * Multiple methods of reaver creation (gas vs. watching)?

  * The "bad guys" seeming completely different (not a single craft like the Dortmunder, which is what every alliance craft looked like in the series; the prime river-hunters (the Blue Man Group) seemingly having nothing to do with a hunt for her that lets thousands see her; etc.

The universe itself has a number of problems that they choose not to address:

  * Several dozen planets in the habitable zone with earthlike gravity. In the series, there was enough vagueness that it could be partly resolved by being a star cluster (like Alpha Centauri), but in the movie, they claim that it's a single star system.

  * No FTL... but they can control gravity? (artificial gravity onboard ships, "grav boot" being a critical part of the engine, etc). The main reason for avoiding FTL is that gravity control is a rather unrealistic proposal, physics-wise. If you can control gravity, you should be able to do FTL. Furthermore, their gravity control even works when other parts of the engine, and even life support, don't (i.e., Out Of Gas)?

  * Even the most dirt-poor planet is terraformed? Terraforming requires staggeringly large amounts of industry on the surface; even the most effective greenhouse gasses need to be produced in many-teratonnes-per-year quantities to warm a planet that's too cold, and that's one of the easiest terraforming tasks you could have. One could perhaps explain this by assuming that there are parts of each of the planets that are industrialized, or all of this huge infrastructure was lifted off, but that can be hard to buy.

  * Minor: What good is assigning a specific date to Firefly once you factor relativity into the trip to the other star and the star's motion relative to the sun? Are their years constantly warping by various factors? (this is ignoring the fact that Earth years aren't going to be comparable to the year of any particular Firefly-universe planet).

Lets not even get into psychics ("We live in a space ship, dear.") These are just a couple things that jump to mind. Firefly is "soft sci-fi", in that sci-fi is just really the background for the more important character and plot elements to interact on. Personally, I'd prefer that they have defined their universe a bit more solidly before they started; if I had some magical wish-granting planks to use on the series, I'd ask for that. Nonetheless, Firefly/Serenity is a jewel. :)

Re:reevers

[Ioldanach]

One tenth of one percent, actually, not ten percent. The number went by a little quick for me the first time too.

Re:reevers

[dbhankins]

The Apaches of the old Westerns (movies, books and TV series) may not have been portrayed as cannibals, but they certainly were portrayed as bloodthirsty savages. After it became recognized that this was not an entirely accurate depiction, in later Westerns they were portrayed as oppressed native peoples.

Reavers were a way for Joss Whedon to introduce the kind of enemy that Westerns used to have, without giving the kind of ethnic offense that the old Westerns gave.

Re:reevers

[Morgalyn]

Well, yes, this is true. Sorry I left out a word. They never let him live long enough to find out how far it would go. When one's behavior perfectly simulates that of another group, can you not then be said to have the behaviors of that group? Reavers are defined by their behavior. They don't seem to have any sort of society, though.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but they are pretty kick ass web servers.

Re:reevers

[Morgalyn]

I am so sad no one would just let me make the comparison between the science fiction Reavers and fantasy/occult zombies. Somehow it had to devolve into some sort of argument about Native Americans and Hollywood depictions and... at no point was I trying to analyze the 'western' genre of Firefly, which was nearly nonexistant in Serenity! Oh well :) Points well taken. I don't think anyone is going to want to start the fight that Reavers are like jihadists. Given the average misinformed slashdot reader, that would likely turn into a giant flamewar on Islam.

Re:reevers

[Stripe7]

Consider the numbers, from the movie the Reavers started out at about 3 Million people about 5-6 years from the point in history where we see Serenity. Even if they do not reproduce it would take a long time for them to die out.

Re:reevers

[AJWM]

Yeah, but I was trying to avoid too many spoilers.

Re:reevers

[Jtheletter]

I was discussing this with my girlfriend after the film, but I don't believe that this method of "breaking in" new reaver recruits would be either effctive enough or constant enough to keep their numbers at breakeven. A couple variables you have to look at are things like the fact that they run with their engines unshielded, exposing themselves to some sort of radiation that is fatal in high enough doses and must radically shorten life expectancy. They have open wounds and are constantly "cutting on" themselves, leaving themselves wide open to infections of all sorts - you can't possibly argue that savages such as the reavers have a very comprehensive medical plan or an unending supply of antibiotics. And finally, they live an extremely dangerous lifestyle, living in scavanged and hacked-together ships, performing raids where they are constantly shot at and killed, etc.

So we see that there are constant factors that kill them off, but their only method of "reproduction" is through some sort of program of phsychological abuse, torture, and conversion? Their conversion success rate has got to be abyssmally low, I'd argue that most victims placed in the situation of being converted by them might go mad, but would most likely commit suicide along the way as soon as it was possible.

Of course, no where is it said that the reavers numbers are constant or increasing, and everything else in the Firefly universe is logical enough that I would expect given time Joss would have them die out from the cumulative effects of their lifestyle.

Couple related thoughts for you to mull over.
1) If the reavers were somehow able to get ahold of the gas that created them they could become a huge terror in the verse, effectively making whole populations become docile food sources and also instanlty conveting approx 10% into more reavers. A couple problems with that are how do thye know about the gas, or acquire it, and as my GF argues, they probably wouldn't be happy eating people that were as content as cows to just be slaughtered.
2) How is it that the reavers can even survive in space? The systems they have to run, and decisions to be made about things like trajectory and mechanics seem overly complex for a group that is as violent and irrational as they appear. I feel like reavers maintaining a ship even as simple as a firefly class would be equivalent to a group of zombies servicing a big-block chevy. But again, we've never seen them in any other mode than attack, and we have no idea how much of their previous skillsets or personalities they retained. Still, the impression one gets is that they are little more than mindless killing freaks who would need keepers to survive. And given the complexity of Joss' stories it wouldn't surprise me to learn that there is perhaps some more cognitive form of reaver which acts as leadership and provides for the grunts so that they may be sent to raid when commanded.

Just food for thought.

Re:reevers

[Tackhead]

> You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til you understand who's in ruttin' command here.

Ah. They're Klingons! Or they're like Evil Kirk and Bearded Spock from the Mirror Universe!

Re:reevers

[Darth]

yeah. i corrected my typo immediately after i posted it.

Re:reevers

[Darth]

There is no way to explain why beings who are literally frothing with homicidal rage do not turn on each other.
actually, i get the impression that they do periodically turn on each other. When they were pretending to be a reaver ship and going through the reaver's space, i recall one reaver ship tearing another reaver ship apart.

Maybe their rage is directed at order and society. Since they live in a state of near anarchy, they dont become the focus of their rage. maybe they hate humanity and their destruction of their own faces and flesh is about destroying their resemblance to humanity. They dont go after each other because they are sufficiently inhuman.

And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?
the empire would have to acknowledge their existance to mount a campaign to exterminate them. Also, they are conveniently acting as a barrier to keep people away from the evidence of the empire's mistake at Miranda while they decide how they want to proceed.

Re:reevers

[mfrank]

The reavers had only been around for ten years (since the death of Minerva); they weren't going to survive as a culture or propagate.

Re:reevers

[Digital11]

Miranda, not Minerva

Re:reevers

[blincoln]

My point was that I see a bunch of people claiming Whedon changed the backstory of the Reavers, or that the film contradicts an episode of the series, when actually neither of those things are necessarily true.

Re:reevers

[$tendec]

ok i agree with all the the obvious reever problems...but what really bothered me most in the movie was the final stand fight scene...it was terribly shot terribly coriagraphed and generally looked like a fight scene from one of those bad sci-fi channel shows like python vs anaconda and such. First the scene should have been about 5 min shorter. second should have been an over the shoulder shot of Jane when he fired the gatling gun...complete with reevers getting mowed down (yeah i know the pg-13 rateing...but there are ways) third an over head shot...again showing the reevers getting mowed down. forth a scene that follows one reever who starts from his ship gets in close enough hurts one of the crew and then gets killed. After the gun fight when river satrts the hand to hand etc the fight works out fairly ok...bet there is like 10 min there that just suck ass.

Re:reevers

[child_of_mercy]

because a major campaign would make it pretty hard to keep other things secret.

Plus the reavers are marauding at the fringes, where the independents were strongest, so not too much harm being done to the alliances long term interests and even a bit of help.

A bit like under-funding the levees when your opponent's supporters live on low ground.

Re:reevers

[Wraithlyn]

(MINOR SPOILER WARNING IN FIRST PARAGRAPH ONLY)

<minor spoiler>
I'm also wondering how these insane chaotic cannibals possess enough spaceships to blockade an entire planet so thickly that it's literally difficult to fit between them.
</minor spoiler>

That's actually a general pet-peeve I have with the Firefly-verse... Whedon seems to treat interplanetary space as about the size of a sea, where ships randomly encounter each other quite frequently. Happened several times in the TV series.

But... this is really a small gripe. Everything is secondary to the plot and characters, which are uniformly excellent, as is the dialog. If I want an epic space opera which at least makes an attempt at believable science (excepting hyperspace), I have my B5. :)

Go see Serenity, it rocks. I went with 8 people (most of whom were NOT familiar with Firefly) and we all loved it. The whole crowd loved it. I admit I was a little worried for the first 10 minutes or so, when Whedon crams 10 gallons of exposition into a 5 gallon hat, but once we get aboard the actual Serenity, everything starts to jive, and the audience was soon won comepletely over. And the whole movie is good, not just parts... a masterpiece of pacing.

Re:reevers

[tonywong]

I think your initial estimate of 30,000 is correct (1/10th of 1% of 30 million on Miranda to start), but Reavers can also potentially multiply without violating the storyline by being exposed to the gas and not being allowed to sleep.

(spoiler ahead)
If the population died by simply going to sleep as they lost all motivation to do anything, and reavers 'never lie down' (according to River), then it may be possible to create a reaver not allowing someone to sleep after being exposed to the gas (PAX-Cl?), or kill a reaver by forcing(?) them to sleep.

Re:reevers

[L33tminion]

Maybe. But the gas was gone by the time Mal and crew arrived (as a result of the air purification plants going down after everyone died), and there's no indication that anyone not on Miranda was exposed. (The Reavers were just affected permanently.)

The possibility is open, though...

Re:reevers

[anagama]

Well nuts, I just lent out my boxed set. But in that episode, I think Mal says something like (and this is paraphrased, not an exact quote) "the way I figure, if you see that much evil, the only way to cope is to become that evil." Something like that. That would suggest that the hapless settler beset by reavers did in fact become one. Of course, that would only be Mal's opinion. He did get all forky in the face, and that much is fact.

Re:reevers

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit like under-funding the levees when your opponent's supporters live on low ground.

So THAT's why Clinton blocked funding for the levees during his administration.

Probably also why the NYTimes called the funding GWB provided nothing more than a worthless boondoogle project.

You've certainly cleared that up!

Posting AC because I can't find my password at the moment,
john

Re:reevers

[mink]

I think most of it was debris (though some functional stuff looks like debris). It would appear they drag captured ships back (or the remains) as well.

At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[dgrgich]

OTFC = Olsen Twins Fan Club

Card had me at hello but lost me when he threw in the plug for 'Full House'.

Of course, I'm kidding. Great review written by someone who got the movie just like I did.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[aicrules]

Of course, I'm kidding.

I would agree, but I'm still not quite sure he WAS kidding. I felt he was genuinely disappointed that there really couldn't be a Full House big screen movie. Yikes!

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[scotch]

He lost me at his praise for "Friends" and his dig at "Seinfeld". "Full House" cemented it. That last bit may have been tongue in cheek, though. I've read most of Card's work, but I think he lost some of his early talent in his later work.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[fair_n_hite_451]

You're missing the point.
 
He's making fun of the fact that there are people out there actively wishing for a full cast movie of Full House. And trying to make the point that if you don't like Serentity, then perhaps that's the camp of television viewer you belong in...

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[dubiousmike]

He actually lost me at his praise for I-Robot, which I saw the otherday. The movie was a good movie in itself, but in terms of making a movie from a book and retaining the intent of the original author, well... lets just say that Asimov is rolling around in his grave.

But I do see his point about being able to create a storyline and mood so that we care about the characters and not just the story line. I guess in the same way that I-Robot is still a good movie even without Asimov's brilliance, Full House and Friends are good series regardless of its surface content. Friends was sucessfull becuase people could relate to the characters, not becuase we can always relate to the storyline.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[Quikah]

I think his critique of Seinfeld is pretty spot on, it is just a collection of funny anecdotes about a group of people, no real relationships are there beyond the superficial. Still it is a hilarious show, which I think works wonderfully.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[nmb3000]

He actually lost me at his praise for I-Robot

I agree. I saw that in the theater and had mixed feelings because I was torn between what the was and what it should have been.

Maddox sums it up pretty nicely.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[Anonymous Coward]

Great review written by someone who got the movie just like I did.

Well, I've read a number of OSC's works, and quite enjoyed several of them. This review is kind of rambling. To sum it up, he liked the movie a lot, because it focuses on the characters. Interestingly, much of the fiction that I enjoy, including OSC, is because of well developed, realistic characters, so I should be with him on that account.

Serenity didn't do anything for me. I consider it a pretty average movie, sci-fi or otherwise. I wasn't re-writing the movie in my head the whole time (which is common), but I wasn't surprised or interested by much of anything either. The plot was incredibly predictable (which I notice is a complaint a lot of people have about OSC). The effects were fine, no complaints. I think part of the problem was that there was too much plot to spend any time on these supposedly wonderful three dimensional characters. Might have helped if I had ever seen the tv series. They came off to me as movie characters, not as people. He could have murdered the whole group, and I wouldn't have cared. The interesting plot points weren't built to, developed, or used. They also had the name (which I forget), that nobody recognized, until they figured out what it was. Then a couple of them remembered all about it. Must be a big solar system to forget about that kind of thing.

I also found it amusing that Joss appears to be a total unabashed Japanese anime fan. The polite villain with a sword, the ass-kicking little girl, the fact that all the background writing was in Japanese.

Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames

[TheRaven64]

I disagree. Although heavily condensed, and pandering to the action-movie-wanting portion of the audience, I, Robot did explore quite well the danger of making robots responsible for humans avoiding harm - the basic premise of the arc that began with the Elijah Bailey novels and ended with Foundation and Earth. This theme was covered in some detail by Azimov, and was, in fact, a central theme of I, Robot. Don't forget that I, Robot (the book) was a collection of short stories, rather than a novel, and so it would have been very difficult to make a film of it.

Now that the movie is out

[DeadSea]

Can we take down the serenity poll now that the movie has been out for a few days?

Let me ask again. Can we pleeeeeeeaaaaeeeaaaze take the serenity poll down and replace it with something else?

Re:Now that the movie is out

[Builder]

It's not out in the UK yet... I saw it in the states last week when I was over there, but most UK denizens have not had the privilege yet. Leave it be for a while ;)

You know...

[Shads]

As a person I don't have alot of respect for OSC.

However as a writer I have alot of respect for his work and his ability to tell an interesting and complex story. Enders Game and The Tales of Alvin Maker are great stories and series in and of themselves and I think it's nice to see someone who sticks to their guns for a change and won't let their movie be utterly butchered... like ULG's Wizard of Earthsea, that was so sad. :(

That is about the absolute best review I've ever seen for any movie and it's enough to make me go see the movie several days sooner than I had planned... I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie now.

Hopefully OSC can get someone to make Ender's Game the right way, hell I'd even settle for the Tales of Alvin Maker... (speaking of which there is an MMORPG coming out based on that-- same people who did A Tale in the Desert.)

Re:You know...

[robertjw]

Hopefully OSC can get someone to make Ender's Game the right way

Like maybe Joss Whedon?

Re:You know...

[buraianto]

I agree with you on the Alvin Maker series. Very interesting and fun to read. I think it's a good story, interesting setting and good characters. I just wish the end didn't feel so abrupt. Anyone know if he's going to "finish" it? (Maybe he has -- it's been a few years since I checked. And maybe he considers it "finished".)

Crazy bastard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I just pretend that Card died in a car crash mere seconds after finishing the final draft of Ender's Game and he never wrote anything else.

Re:Crazy bastard...

[BushCheney08]

C'mon, it's not like Ender's Game was even that good of a book. I mean, it wasn't bad at all, but it certainly wasn't the piece of supreme writing that many people make it out to be.

Re:Crazy bastard...

[DG]

Nah, right after Xenocide.

Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide are three of the strongest, most powerful, best written books ever put to pen (for different reasons) but all else after that just goes to hell in a handbasket.

DG

I was with him...

[aicrules]

...until Full House...WTF?

Re:I was with him...

[gid13]

Despite what the summary says, the Full House support is ravingly sarcastic.

Re:I was with him...

[aicrules]

There's sarcasm...which I would say encompasses his first mention of Full House. But the follow-up sentence goes beyond sarcasm, or at least I think it does.

Re:I was with him...

[dr_dank]

That would explain his bestseller Enders Game Part 2: You Got it Dude.

Re:I was with him...

[Anonymous Coward]

He forgot his tag

Links for the lazy like me

[Work Account]

Biography at Wikipedia

Personality critique at Kuro Five Hin

Re:Links for the lazy like me

[tag]

"Kuro Five Hin"?

No.

It's pronounced "corrosion." See the FAQ. It means "lustful ferret" or something like that.

Re:Links for the lazy like me

[neutralstone]

> It's pronounced "corrosion." See the FAQ. It means "lustful ferret" or something like that.

Or, perhaps "kuro go hin"  ("black five things").

I mean, if it's going to start out looking all Japanese-y, you might as well say "5" in Japanese -- FAQ be damned!  (:

Re:Links for the lazy like me

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Kuro Five Hin to me.

I like to do the same thing to idiots who insist that the movie "Seven" is actually called "Sesevenen."

Re:Links for the lazy like me

[sgt_doom]

Thanks for those links. I've never cared for Card's writing, having read his bio I now understand why. This guy's philosophy is the reason why his "future fiction" and regular fiction are so mediocre.

I didn't see anything about his military record...oh no! Not another vocal bloody draft-dodger or too good to have served in the US military - i.e., chickenhawk who prefers others to do the tough work.

Re:Links for the lazy like me

[Anonymous Coward]

idiots who insist that the movie "Seven" is actually called "Sesevenen."

They are not idiots. They are nitwits.

Typical ignorant /.'er, can't tell the difference between and idiot and a nitwit. Idiot.

well respected author in my book

[Anonymous Coward]

i believe the ender saga to be among the best series i have ever read in the sci fi genre.

enders game is directed to teenagers like myself but the books that follow such as xenocide and children of the mind are definitely not something (most) people my age (14) can comprehend and enjoy. nonetheless they are still my favorite books

Re:well respected author in my book

[Henry V .009]

The short story was fun. He should never have tried to expand it though.

For good Card-bashing, I'll point you to: Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat. It's a great read.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you truly are superior to (most) people your age (14).

Re:well respected author in my book

[w98]

I've enver read the short version, but I listened to the full unabridged audiobook of Ender's Game a few months ago and loved it. I had no idea that it had evolved into two series of books, and would be quite interested to watch a movie about it if one were made.

Facist or not (from the list you posted), the guy's a great author.

Re:well respected author in my book

[BootNinja]

the guy's a great author. No, he was a great author. Now he just uses his novels to force his own political/religious ideology down his readers' throats. After reading his last two offerings, Crystal City and Shadow of the Giant, I vowed that I would never read anything he wrote ever again. After reading the blatant anti-muslim sentiments in Shadow of the Giant, I had to go take a shower, because I felt filthy from reading that trash. Now, I know that All his previous novels included bias from his mormon upbringing, but at least it used to be subtle. Now, he feels that he has to smash us over the head with it, and I'm rather sick of it. Card has metamorphosed from a truly awesome scifi writer, into a lazy hack who only writes for the money, and I for one will not be further supporting him until he can prove to me that he still knows how to write a decent story.

Re:well respected author in my book

[topham]

You can't possibly have read more than a couple of his books without realizing he puts his religion into everything he writes.

It's pretty much the reason why I will only read his works on occasion. I wouldn't read several in a row, it would upset my sensibilities.

Re:well respected author in my book

[(trb001)]

I wouldn't read several in a row, it would upset my sensibilities.

Does the world you live in have the same effect on you? The vast majority of the world is religious or has religious beliefs, so discounting or ignoring religion in any piece of literature is to ignore a fundamental foundation of society.

While Card inserts religious themes into lots of his works, it's not usually the overriding message or story (with exceptions).

--trb

Re:well respected author in my book

[TheRaven64]

I'm not sure he was ever a great author. He wrote one book which I consider superb - Ender's Game - based on a fairly so-so novella that he wrote earlier (I might be biased here, since I read the novel before the novella - the novella might seem better if you read if first). Everything else has been a re-hash of that book. He takes the same Ender character (who, really, was fairly two dimensional to start with), gives him a different name, and puts him in a very slightly different setting. I have read all of the remaining Ender, Shadow, Homecoming and Alvin books that were available this time last year, and they were all basically rehashes of his one success. Much as I liked Ender's game, after you've read the same story 16 or so times, it begins to pale...

Re:well respected author in my book

[bani]

ender's game is a mediocre story, I felt that way about ender's game long before I ever found out he was a fascist asshat.

i've written about this several times before.

There are many great SF stories out there, ender's game is not one of them.

The main reason why ender's game is popular (especially among children) is that it appeals mightily to teen angst. So many kids claim they "identify" with ender, it is truly disturbing.

Re:well respected author in my book

[BootNinja]

Yes, I am fully aware of this. We studied Speaker in my literature of the fantastic class, and hell, Alvin Maker is a fictionalized retelling of the life of Joseph Smith. But the point I was trying to make is that in the beginning, I.E. Ender's Game, Songmaster, Seventh Son, Even the Speaker Trilogy to a certain extent, (ok probably not by the time we got to Children of the mind) the religious message was not overt. He wasn't Preaching. Now, he is. Be it Crystal City(the last extant book in Alvin Maker) where he gets all hoighty toighty about religion, or Shadow of the Giant, where he uses the book as a pulpit for his "Geopolitical views", his later work is not up to the same standard that won him the Hugo and Nebula awards two years running. When the story starts to suffer because of the message, then the message needs to go. Or at least be reworded.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Fallingcow]

"He takes the same Ender character (who, really, was fairly two dimensional to start with), gives him a different name, and puts him in a very slightly different setting."

That sounds really similar to a criticism of Heinlein that I often hear.

Just making connections in my head and throwing them out there. Carry on.

Re:well respected author in my book

[2l82w84u]

Doesn't all this controversial discussion of morals/politics/history/ intent, etc. underscore the importance of this book? How many other kids books have done that?

Re:well respected author in my book

[Hast]

Personally I really liked Enders Game (and Speaker For The Dead, the others didn't do much for me though). Regarding your rants about the book I'd agree that the characters are quite simple, they have some development but it's not a character driven story in that way I guess. (However I can't imagine how you could prefer Niven's Ringworld stories. The characters in those stories are just around to take the reader to different cool places in the universe and have sex.)

I can't really agree with your complaint that it's a black-vs-white thing wrt good and evil neither. Seriously you seem to have missed that the entire point of the book was that the aliens weren't really evil at all. They were just alien. (That may have been in SFTD though.)

Re:well respected author in my book

[noamsml]

All authors put their life experience and beliefs into their books. At least in the books I read, OSC didn't usually try to force christianity on you too hard. True, Earthfall was a bit obvious, but it still had value on it's own. Besides, I have read some religious books that were also just good literature. Yes, he's a blantant homophobe and a militant to a certain extent, but his books are very enjoyable.

Re:well respected author in my book

[TheRaven64]

Ah, my problem with Heinlein is that he sails very close to advocating fascism in several of his books. I get slightly edgy when eugenics is portrayed as a good idea, repeatedly.

Re:well respected author in my book

[bani]

i didn't particularly like ringworld. it's one of the weakest known space novels imo.

the other known space novels are pretty good. the collection of stories in neutron star is almost completely devoid of sex, so you're safe there.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Anonymous Coward]

Any more award winning novels you hate? Seems you might be the only person who feels that way:

Ringworld: Hugo 1971, Nebula 1970.
Ender's Game: Hugo 1986, Nebula 1985.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_N ovel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best _Novel

Re:well respected author in my book

[bani]

hugos are like emmys. they mean fuck all.

britney spears won a grammy, does that somehow mean she's not shit?

but you go keep on quoting wikipedia since it makes you feel better.

Re:well respected author in my book

[multiplexo]

For good Card-bashing, I'll point you to: Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat. It's a great read.

Yeah, I suppose that that essay is a great read, if you're a pathetic sycophant who is trying to suck up to Roger Williams, aka "localroger", a totally unknown and apparently untalented SF writer who publishes through vanity presses and is so far below the radar that his books don't even have reviews on Amazon or B&N.com. I mean really, even Joel Rosenberg, who responded to localroger's increasinly bizarre claims on K5 (the web equivalent of a overflowing septic tank stuffed with dead rats and feminine hygiene products) and who is about as boringly tendentious as they come is better known than Williams and has actually been published by real publishers. localroger comes off like some paranoid SF version of John Hinckley or Mark David Chapman.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Evil Pete]

I didn't think much of Ringworld either. I think it was at the chapter titled "An Interlude with Sunflowers" that my unease was confirmed when I had the feeling I could see the creaking machinery of the novel. It was too mechanical. Good ideas, but no magic.

Most, if not all, the known space stories involved some mental power or attribute at the core of the story. So we get things like the intelligence of the Pak (Protector), the mind control of the Slavers (World of Ptavvs), telekinesis (Gil the ARM), the Teela Brown gene (Ringworld) and Plateau Eyes (A Gift from Earth). Just thought I'd throw that observation in for no particular reason.

To me the pinnacle of the Known Space stories was "Protector". A story that constantly surprised me and made me really feel I was looking at the actions of a super intelligent being, with a delicious and unexpected twist at the end.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Lemmy Caution]

Heinlein can be a bit repetitive, but he's genuinely provocative and makes compelling cases for his way of thinking.

I can't really say the same of Orson Scott Card. He practically has to invent a universe that will let him make the kind of moral observations he wants to make: none of it rings true.

And it's not about religion: two Christian writers of whom I am very fond are Anthony Burgess and Walker Percy.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Ender Ryan]

Heh, that was a wonderfully hilarious comment. Thanks for that. localroger certainly does resemble that.

Re:well respected author in my book

[pod]

What does fascism have to do with eugenics?

Re:well respected author in my book

[topham]

There is a flawed perception that eugenics wasn't performed except by the Nazis.

Of course, the fact eugenics was performed to some extent in every western society at the time is largly ignored.

UK, Canada, United States to name 3.

Re:well respected author in my book

[HardCase]

Youth is wasted on the young.

Re:well respected author in my book

[ak_hepcat]

> There is a flawed perception that eugenics wasn't performed except by the Nazis.

And then there's controlled breeding of animals other than human. Is there any difference?

No. Really. Is there? Is either 'right' ?

It's a great essay question for folks.

Re:well respected author in my book

[Anonymous Coward]

found out he was a fascist asshat.

Typical left winger, can't have a discussion about anything without name calling. Watch now, the next comment from him will invoke Hitler. Why is is that left wingers can't disagree with anyone without calling them a facist. I disagree with lots of people yet I don't think that I have ever resorted to screeming out "Socialist!" in the middle of a good argument/debate.

There are many great SF stories out there, ender's game is not one of them.

I don't agree. I thought Enders Game was one of the best stories I have ever read. I identify with Ender. As a child I was always the outsider who was way smarter then most everyone around, including adults. No one understood me or how I thought. The only reason that I am accepted now is that I learned to hide and to look like one of the sheep.

I didn't enjoy the rest of the series as much however. It just didn't feel the same. I think that Card would have been smarter to leave Ender at the end of Enders Game. Ender was done with the battle and we were just realizing the scope of his actions. Our hero had done something truly horrible, yet it needed to be done. If the human race was to survive there really wasn't any choice. Ender could see more clearly then most people so he made the hard choice and did what had to be done. The "people", once they realized what had happened were very uncomfortable. He saved them all, yet there were no ticker tape parades for him. They wanted him to go away. He is both a hero and a horror. He should have been left there, alone, not understood. Card could have moved forward in time a hundred years or so to a new hero in order to contiue the story.

By the way, just to get it out of the way, I am not a Mormon and I think that the Mormons are seriously off track. That dosn't exclude me from enjoying a great story, however, just because a Mormon wrote it.

Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[HeroSandwich]

How does a TV show go from being cancelled to being made into a top notch movie without somebody at the Network being fired?

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[ROU Nuisance Value]

Easy one: Because it's Fox Network, where morons like Bill O'Lielly are big stars.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Kelson]

Not gonna happen. That would require the network to admit it made a mistake.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[BewireNomali]

nobody watched the show. networks don't care how good a show is. they care that they program something that people want to watch. it's why american idol is still on. People actually get fired for championing shows that are good but no one watches. This is actually the more likely scenario.

Serenity is a movie with a $40 million budget (which means that its advertising budget was probably around $20-25 million) - this means that they spent $60-65 million on a film that earned $10 million its opening weekend.

You guys better buy that DVD.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the show was cancelled mid-season, after showing the episodes out of order on a Friday night slot.

One would think that Fox felt they had already invested too much before they even started showing Firefly. I am a big time SciFi fan, and I hadn't even heard of it until the DVDs came out, and I was shocked that I missed something like that.

I am kind of glad I did. I am not sure I could have appreciated Firefly out of order, at least, not the way I do now.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[fireduck]

that's happened before. See Family Guy as a good example.

Depending on how contracts were written, another network may be able to pick it up. Sci-Fi acquired SG1 at some point from Showtime. Sci-Fi has been hyping the movie by replaying the cancelled series, as well as extensive Serenity commercials throughout. I wouldn't be surprised if they were interested in it to some degree. You stick a reunited Firefly next to Battlestar Galactica on Friday nights and Sci-Fi network has a seriously strong evening lineup. However, a lot of planets have to align to make that happen...

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[robertjw]

People actually get fired for championing shows that are good but no one watches.

You have a point, but it does seem that someone should be in trouble for obviously botching the promotion and scheduling of a show that has shown potential for a significant fanbase.

this means that they spent $60-65 million on a film that earned $10 million its opening weekend.

Opening at $10 million at the number two spot doesn't seem all that bad to me. Beat out Corpse Bride which I'm sure had a much bigger budget than Serenity. Sure, it's not the blockbuster that we all hoped it would be, but it's not off to a bad start.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[timster]

Most of the huge TV shows of the last 30 years have had opening seasons that were not, shall we say, overwhelming. Seinfeld, for instance was not a hit its first year... or its second year.

Firefly had the misfortune of being released at a very odd time for TV, where shows were commonly cancelled after even a few episodes failed to attract mainstream attention. This was during the "reality TV" fad and was a common fate for shows at the time.

Studio execs have now realized that it takes time for a series to develop an audience, and a good show will do well in DVD sales even if the viewing audience is relatively small. As a result we are seeing more interesting and nuanced shows, with much less "reality TV" game shows.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Nidifice]

Had the series been on Sci-Fi, I believe it would still be on the air. FOX didn't give it much exposure in advertisements nor a decent time slot. There is a whole slew of new sci-fi shows coming out right now (1 for every major station: Surface, Invasion, et.al.) and every other commercial has them in it; plus, they are being run during prime time. I watched an episode of Surface, while somewhat interesting it didn't hold my attention; but, I bet it lasts longer than 1 season just for the exposure it has gotten.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys better buy that DVD.

No preblem. They will. To a first approximation, everyone who bought the series DVD will buy the film DVD. And the series DVD has been running at very respectable sales for quite a while now. There's a lot of films that have a far longer and more profitable career on DVD & video than they ever did in the cinema--Shawshank Redemption is the prime example.

The film did fairly well, but not spectacularly in its first few days, but I think it'll be a steady earner on DVD for quite some time: the studio won't make a loss.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Maxo-Texas]

It also takes showing the episodes in the correct order. Grrr!

Imagine if they showed Desperate Housewives or Lost in the order they showed Firefly.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[danudwary]

My understanding is that the TV show can't go to another station for five years (though I don't know when the five year period starts - cancellation?). Hence the plan to make a movie. If the movie does "well enough" as decided by the studio, then two more (I believe the actors are already in contract for the second filmn, if it happens). By that time the five years would be up, and it could go to another network. I suspect that even if Fox wanted it back before the five years is up, Joss wouldn't give it to them after being treated so badly the first time.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[WhiplashII]

Opening at $10 million at the number two spot doesn't seem all that bad to me.

Especially when you consider that where I live (downtown Chicago, 4 theaters in wlaking distance) I will have to drive 20 miles just to see it (I don't normally even use my car!).

I will hopefully see it soon...

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[autophile]

How does a TV show go from being cancelled to being made into a top notch movie without somebody at the Network being fired?

Just like that! (snap!)

--Rob

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[robertjw]

Really? Downtown Chicago doesn't have a theatre that's showing Serenity?

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Anonymous Coward]

He lives in the redlight district...

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Slow Smurf]

Remember, that's just the ORIGINAL contract. If another station wants it to happen very much, they could do it most likely by negotiating with fox.

Contracts are nearly always mutable if both parties agree(if not always, I'm not a lawyer).

And MY understanding is that there is virtually no intent to do a series until a trilogy of movies have happened. If that doesn't happen, then a series is virtually impossible. If that does happen, well, it'll have been a good 5-7 years since the series, so the contract will be the least of their problems.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[hardburn]

The Skiffy channel likes it because they're owned by Universal, who also produced the movie.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[WhiplashII]

Well, downtown is a big area... and the nearest theater showing Serenity is not downtown. Kind of strange, really - we tend to get a very wide selection here! (There is an AMC 30 screen theater two blocks from my house, and a Sony 8 screen 4 blocks away, and 2 smaller (4 screen and less) theaters about 8 blocks away...)

Of course, if you go far enough you can find one. But compare this list with this one.

Amazing!

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[mshiltonj]

You guys better buy that DVD.

Looking forward to it.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[pintofblood]

I was lucky enough to see one of the screenings in early September. They had a Universal rep there that had tons of info. (Like where all the Easter Eggs were) She said that is was written into the contract that they could not make new episodes for 12 years after the date of cancellation. This was probably an attempt at not having the Sci-Fi Channel pick it up like they have done with so many other shows. She also said the movie had to hit 80 million in order for Universal to consider a sequel.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[bani]

nobody watched the show.

nobody watched it because fox wouldn't let them. it was constantly pre-empted, rescheduled, and shown out of order to boot. from the very beginning fox seemed to do everything they could to ensure nobody could watch it, even if they tried.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[tholomyes]

Sadly, "Wonderfalls" was a victim to this same era of TV madness. It got the axe after three-- THREE!-- episodes. Of course, there are a good parcel more than that on the DVD set, but I can't help but wonder where this show was going to go.

How they can decide the fate of a show after three episodes is beyond me. It was a great show.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Anonymous Coward]

The AMC on Western is far less than 20 miles from downtown. I'd say it's about 4. Bus to Fullerton, bus to Western, walk to theater. Or a 4 mile cab ride on 90/94.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Bob Uhl]

AOL.

Wonderfalls was great--I've been loving it from Netflix. I can't imagine why it wasn't given a chance. Sigh.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Anonymous Coward]

... Had the series been on Sci-Fi, I believe it would still be on the air...

No, it wouldn't! They cancelled Farscape, remember...

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[thebdj]

You know I am reminded of a time when sci-fi shows were created and survived in syndication because they made money and were actually good. My case in point is Star Trek: TNG and DS9. Both of these aired back in the days when the shows were syndicated. So instead of having to make all their money on ad revenue and ratings that Networks want, they were able to make their money by selling the shows to different networks and local affiliates who would show it when they wanted to show it.

The problem is syndication is largely a cable business anymore and does not make as much money. Back in the day there use to be more and better time slots available for syndication. Heck, my local stations growing up (FOX I believe) showed Star Trek: TNG during the days on weekends and in normal time slots during the week (I think even prime time). Of course that was back when FOX was still the tiny 4th network and not taken too seriously by the big three. So I guess with the death of syndication as we know it came syndication of crappiness that resulted in some of the very horrible programs you see on your network stations at midnight and onward.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Isca]

Well, more to the point, UPN and the WB did not exist then. Unless you are in a very very very large market, that takes care of all the stations a local area can possibly even HAVE. Most areas of the country have enough cities within 50-60 miles of them that they can only have about 6-7 channels, which means ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, and PBS. Heck, here in Madison, WI there is a UPN affiliate that doesn't actually broadcast over the air -- it's a cable only channel actually owned by the local NBC affiliate's parent company.

-chris

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Sxooter]

I went to see it opening day at the Loews near the Grand stop on the Red Line.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[WhiplashII]

Where were you in my moment of need!?!?

Seriously, though - I just didn't really know where most of the other theaters were, and I had a limitted window of opportunity (got out of work early, daughter in Day Care for a few more hours, etc.). I just couldn't risk going somewhere that I did not know travel time for.

I could have made it to Grand, though!

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[TheRaven64]

That form of syndication also meant that shows had to die after 7 seasons. Once the studio had seven seasons of a show, they had enough to keep milking it for profits in syndication - any more, and they started to get into diminishing returns.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[ErikZ]

I don't know what's worse. That Serenity only made 10 mil it's opening weekend, or that it was in second place (Only 5 mil under #1) for box office recipts.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[thebdj]

You also have to remember that in many places they only picked up UPN or WB. When last I was in Columbus, OH we did not have WB only UPN. And I think if you had cable you got two, Columbus and Cleveland. This is part of the reason though why UPN and WB swap shows a lot, otherwise lots of programs would never get viewed.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[lowmagnet]

How about the fact that almost everyone out there is calling Flightplan rubbish? Universal may have saved money by not advertising heavily, but even I saw ads for Flightplan, and I don't have a TV. Panic room in the sky. Jodie needs to go back to indie movies like The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. At least that lets her act like a normal sane person.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[HardCase]

Wrong Fox.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Moofie]

Who needs TV channels anymore?

It's very easy for me to imagine Firefly being the first wildly successful pay-for-online-download "TV show".

Or, hell...release straight to DVD and make wheelbarrows full of money.

The TV studios just don't know that they're dead yet.

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Sxooter]

The showtime was at 1550, and all the other places I looked at were quite a bit later (1730 to 1900 or so).

Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then?

[Hyperhaplo]

they could not make new episodes for 12 years

You have to make them first.
Good point though. Same goes for Farscape.

Similar sentiments to Terry Pratchett

[ackthpt]

Terry has spoken or written a number of times regarding the lack of Discworld movies. With good reason. He swung through town on his Thud! tour a couple weeks back and mentioned there had been some film in the works (prelimiary stuff) but that's once again on hold.

I read Ender's Game about 10 years ago and thought it was brilliant and very dark. The political side of the story is the real meat and potatoes, but that's usually the first thing that gets cut when making a movie, as producers are more interested in what Ender Wiggin is doing, not why.

Re:Similar sentiments to Terry Pratchett

[Anonymous Coward]

Your .sig currently reads:

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Don't you mean FUBAR = Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition?

Re:Similar sentiments to Terry Pratchett

[TheRaven64]

I find that somewhat hard to believe, considering that the BBC has made animated TV series' of several of the Diskworld books, and a dramatisation of Johnny and the Dead - they are also in the process of dramatising Johnny and the Bomb. Maybe he just likes the BBC...

Re:Similar sentiments to Terry Pratchett

[arwel]

Err, no. Those were made for Channel 4, not the BBC.

It was not a bad movie...

[foxtrot]

But it wasn't the greatest movie ever, like some folks seem to think.

The camera work, for instance, left a lot on the table. I think Joss Whedon does a pretty good job directing TV, giving it a somewhat cinematic feel, but those same techniques applied to the big screen seem to leave it with a TV feel.

Plus, all the backstory required to cover 12 episodes of a TV show is very tough to do in a movie, and impossible if you want to leave any room at all to tell a story with the rest of the movie. The movie suffers some from this.

It's still easily the best movie I've seen this year, but if the next two happen ($10 million at the box office doesn't make that look likely...) I hope they grab a different director, and fortunately the backstory won't be an issue.

-F

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[br0ck]

I guess it's a matter of taste, to me it looked much better than some much more expensive movies. Some reviewers, like this one, were actually upset that it looked too polished--that it had lost it's TV retro feel. The director gives a lot more background on Jack Green's work in this interview and this book.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[robertjw]

I would agree that some of the camera work was not as good as it could be. I was actually almost dizzy at times as the camera whipped around the room.

As far as having a TV feel, I couldn't quite put my finger on why it felt that way. Not sure if it's because I watched the Firefly episodes first. It definitely didn't have as much of a TV feel as the last few Star Trek movies did. One thing that helped it feel more like a movie for me was the content. There were some scenes that I don't think would have ever made a TV show unless it was on FX.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[moogleii]

Thought the camera work was fine. Seen much worse. Personally, I don't want a sequel. Now that all the relevant backstory is gone, it seems like any sequels will just be bolt-on Star Trek style episodic movies.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Edward Kmett]

Personally, I preferred the camera work in this film to that of most big budget films of late.

The main reason is that the camera wasn't afraid of holding a shot for a long time in a battle sequence. Since Gladiator, every big budget film has felt the need to feel 'gritty' by playing with framerates, shaking the hell out of the camera and flitting between viewpoints like mad. It has been making things all but unwatchable. I "watched" half of the Bourne Supremacy without looking at the screen simply because they wouldn't hold a shot long enough to let you get your bearings and would shake the hell out of it just to keep things edgy.

Sure Joss is a huge fan of the two-camera over-the-shoulder dialog sequences, but the simple camera work in that case is effective and does not distract from the dialog, which is his real strong suit.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Kelson]

The only thing I didn't like about the cinematography was that it was just too dark. But for all I know that was the projector in the theater where I saw it.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[theblueprint]

Agreed. I am a huge Firefly fan, and I happily own the first season on DVD. I was anticipating this for months, went to opening night, and was disappointed.

It seemed to me like the script for the second season was crammed into two hours. I think that the movie lacked some of the subtlety of the series; I felt like the characters were caricatures of the ones in the show.

To me, the biggest appeal of the show was that they weren't "saving the universe", but getting into adventures while going about thier business. I suppose this development was inevitable, but I still didn't like it.

I was suprised that more /.ers weren't more critical of the movie. Reviews here were so glowing, I thought perhaps Apple had a hand in making the movie :)

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the DVD extras for the series.. they actually talk about why they chose some of the cinematography elements they did (for the series, which carried over into the movie).

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you people serious about the camera work? This was a fairly low budget movie and yet one of the first sequences was one long camera shot a la the Goodfellas nightclub scene (or pretty much the entire time in The Shining). I was downright impressed that as a first time film director Joss Whedon was able to pull off such an elaborate setup so well. Granted he directed plenty of his television shows, but to go straight for the steady-cam marathon shot in your first trip to the big screen... bravo. Haven't seen one done so well since Boogie Nights. All this was missing was a dive into the pool.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it wasn't the greatest movie ever, like some folks seem to think.

Good to see you speaking for "some folks" about this, because you obviously know The Truth about this movie. :-p

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[the phantom]

I would agree that I was a bit dizzy in one or two places, but they were places where it was appropriate to be dizzy. For instance, as Serenity was hurtling through the atmosphere, doing her best to imitate an areobatic biplane performing a Lomcovak. Having done a fair number of loops, rolls, and spins, I would expect to be dizzy after such a performance. That it can be done with a camera impressed me.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[Merovign]

$10 million on opening weekend, US only. Openings later in the rest of the world, and we've still got a few more weeks in the theaters (at least some theaters). There's been a big fan push in the UK, Australia, Germany, France... Yeah, I can see $80 million.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[cakesy]

This really gets to me, and as far as I am confirmed is cheap. It doesn't get me excited, it is easy to do, annoying, and often used to make it harder to see what is actually going on(to cover up mistakes in fighting choreography). It is supposed to make the heart beat faster.... bleh, it is a cheap trick, and should be gotten rid of.

Re:It was not a bad movie...

[mink]

They could make more films, but set them in the timespan between the tv series and the first film, or even before the tv series.

Um..

[Anonymous Coward]

Has Slashdot become Digg.com? Has anyone else noticed that 2/3s of Slashdot appears on Digg the day before?

Other than that, OSC is a nut. Is Serenity good? Yeah, it was good. In fact, I think it was great. But someone, please buy OSC a clue! This movie was not so complex that people wouldn't get it, it was rather straight forward. The political satire was clear as a baseball bat rushing to bust your head open. The "deep" parts of the story are there, yes, but let's not pretend they're so brilliantly interwoven into the "action" that it will be missed by those who aren't "in on the deal", so to speak.

I wouldn't take the review all that seriously, but as they say, "some press is better than no press".

Random question

[Work Account]

I think I may know the answer but why do film houses insist on making poor to average movies out of great books?

I'm happy with the books, no need for films, comics, plastic toys, etc.

In my opinion it's selling out, and those of you paying $8 to see these average movies aren't helping matters.

Re:Random question

[Overzeetop]

Well, you adminted you know that answer - it's those people paying $8 a pop you mention. Millions of them.

Anyway, the reason that you get poor to average movies out of great books is because great books are great due to their complexity. You can't slip that into 110 minutes. I never realized how awful moview were until I started listening to books on tape (long commute...thankfully no longer necessary). Once you've realized that a 20 hour performance simply can't be compressed into a two hour flick, you understand the problem. To sell the movie, it needs to move fast - partially due to attention span, and partially due to typical bladder size. All the really good stuff, the complexity, gets reduced down to make room for the main plot. What's worse is that to make it work usually requires substantial plot changes to make the whole thing hand together in its foreshortened version. Can you imagine what would have happend if Peter Jackson had to live with a 90 minute presentation of LOTR? I hear people moaning and complaining about what was left out of the 10 hours of DVD material.

Still, great stories are great stories, and people want to get their fix in the theater.

On a side note, someone (wife? co-worker? can't remember) related some info on an interview with a hollywood executive concerning the documentary Penguins that has been so popular this summer. He admitted that it was a fantastic film. He also said that, in typical hollywood style, everyone has realized the money that can be made in this type film, but that instead of original, engaging documentaries we should expect to see a raft of penguin movies in the coming years.

Re:Random question

[Kelson]

You're asking two questions. One is: Why do studios make mediocre movies out of good books. The other is: Why do authors let them? You've answered the second one: the money.

Of course, the first one breaks into two questions: Why do the studios make mediocre movies? That's easy, with the huge amounts of money involved, they don't want to take risks, so they dumb everything down by committee.

The hard question is: Why do the studios bother with the books in the first place if they're only going to make a mediocre movie?

Respect? nope gone..

[B5_geek]

I have heard many good things about Enders Game. It is actually on my short-stack of books to read. Then /. killed any respect that i might have ever had for this guy, and well now his book looks like it might goto the bottom of the pile.

"...With praise for Full House, Friends...."

All respect..

...poof....

gone

So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[MindStalker]

Then why doesn't he just get Weaton to direct it. I'm sure among the two of them they can scrape up enough money.

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whedon.

Although Wil Wheaton would be an amusing surprise. How 'bout it, CleverNickname?

Interesting story: in the mid-third-season climax of Babylon 5, arguably the high point of the entire series, Joe Straczynski needed to cast an XO to've taken command of the lead rebel cruiser after its captain was killed in action. It was really critical role, intensely pivotal to the way the whole series turned, and JMS wrote the part specifically for a certain actor fo whom he'd long been a fan. He told his casting director, point blank: I want this guy, I wrote the part for him, find out if he's available, do whatever it takes to get him if he's not, no auditions required.

So the casting director did just that, and the actor showed up on set, prepped and in full costume on the day of the shoot. One problem - Joe got the actor's first name wrong. So here was this total unknown to the writer/director/producer cast in what was arguably the series' most pivotal guest role, it was a done deal, everyone's on set, they're ready to start filming, no way to turn back now.

It turns out the actor was marvelous in the role - but it gives a whole new meaning to blind casting.

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[Demona]

Because Joss would make Ender teh ghey, causing Card to implode.

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[eMartin]

Weaton? As in Wesley Crusher Wil Weaton (yeah, I know we all love him here)?

Or did you mean Whedon?

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to wikipedia it's too late for that. Wolfgang Petersen is going to direct the movie, which is to cover bits and pieces of Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[Kelson]

Interesting... I wasn't aware of that.

There's also an interesting story about the captain that guy replaced. He'd been introduced during Season 2 and set up for this particular episode. The actor (Robert Foxworth) was signed to do the episode and everything...and then it turned out that he was also signed for a Deep Space Nine three-parter that was filming at the same time!

Well, say you're an actor (or his agent), and you have a scheduling mix-up. On one hand, there's one episode of show A, and on the other hand, there's three episodes of show B. Which one are you going to take?

New plan: the character is killed off-screen before the episode begins. There's actually an outtake of the "Where's so-and-so?" scene where he answers, "So and so... is doing Deep Space Nine. I'm afraid he was double-booked by his agent and there's nothing to be done. You'll have to make do with me, sir."

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[FuckTheModerators]

For everyone else who's stumped by this, the director apparently wanted Everett McGill, but got Bruce McGill instead.

Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this.

[Sxooter]

"He had an abyssinian cat named max..."

Somebody help me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly couldn't tell whether or not the last paragraph in his review was meant sarcastically.

I know OSC is a bit of a, well, Mormon and all, which would lead me to believe he meant it sincerely, but its tone and context within the review are way snarky. So which is it?

Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the show?

[MarcoAtWork]

I don't think I've heard more mixed reviews by my friends/acquaintances about this movie: the scifi crowd (who loved the TV show) thinks it's one of the best movies ever, the "other" crowd (gfs, etc.) says it's a total bomb; whom should I believe? My instinct is to go with the "other" crowd and think that this is a really lame movie that appeals only to folks who were totally into the TV show (not one of them, I saw half an episode and thought it was lame) but I'm kinda wondering...

OTOH most people were pretty unanimous in saying that "a history of violence" was quite good, I might check that out soon myself.

One Word:

[BugMaster ChuckyD]

FOX.

How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[Anonymous Coward]

OSC says in that review he didn't like Scifi much until Charlie Kaufman wrote "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", I didn't see ESotSM, but BJM was about a group of people who found a door into a Hollywood actors brain. Was there some scientific explanation of that which I missed? What's even more confusing is in the same article he says the Matrix is some kind of "magic scifi".

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[robertjw]

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" fulfills much more of the science requirement in Science Fiction. You are correct, "Being John Malkovich" is much more a fantasy than a sci-fi.

His overall point is well taken though, Kaufman is an amazing writer. If you haven't seen "Eternal Sunshine", watch it. His other major motion picture "Adaptation" is also excellent, although not sci-fi at all.

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[Scrameustache]

Kaufman is an amazing writer. If you haven't seen "Eternal Sunshine", watch it. His other major motion picture "Adaptation" is also excellent, although not sci-fi at all.

I loved "Sunshine", so I rented "Adaptation".
Rarely have I been more bored in my life. Horible, horrible movie, full of clichés and cheap gimmicks.
So I never saw "Malkovich". Since a movie I hated was sort of a sequel to that one (sortof).

"Adaptation" is nothing more than a writer's masturbation put on film. Figuratively as well as literally (twice, IIRC!).

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[robertjw]

"Adaptation" is nothing more than a writer's masturbation put on film. Figuratively as well as literally (twice, IIRC!).

Can't argue with the 'literally' comment, but I do have to disagree otherwise. I didn't want to watch Adaptation at all, thought it looked like a stupid, boring mockumentary thing. After watching it I was incredibly impressed. The beginning was a bit slow, but for me the second half of the movie was worth the slow start. I didn't see any of the story turning out the way it did, and that's not typical.

I think the one thing that Serenity had in common with Kaufman's films is the strength of the story. Many hollywood screenplays start out strong and hook you but the plot gets thin toward the end. Sunshine, Adaptation, Malkovich and Serenity don't fall apart at the end like most movies do these days.

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[Scrameustache]

The beginning [of "Adaptation"] was a bit slow, but for me the second half of the movie was worth the slow start. I didn't see any of the story turning out the way it did

He plainly described everything that happens in the last part of the movie during his lunch at the beginning.

It kinda pissed me off that he showed me what he said he didn't want the movie to be.
If you're gonna show me run-of-the-mill action and car chases, then for the love of kittens and puppies, don't promise me you won't!

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[metallikop]

The definition, or how I would define it, of sci-fi is just that: Science Fiction

Science Fiction is fiction with an element of science, or science with an element of fiction. Though the science behind the "portal" in BJM was never actually explained in great detail, it was still as much science fiction as Star Trek, Star Wars, or Serenity. The common misconception that all science fiction has to take place in space doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There wasn't any space scenese in Matrix, yet it is still pretty damn obvious that it IS in fact science fiction. There was something definitely other-worldly about BJM.

Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi?

[robertjw]

The common misconception that all science fiction has to take place in space doesn't make a whole lot of sense. There wasn't any space scenese in Matrix, yet it is still pretty damn obvious that it IS in fact science fiction. There was something definitely other-worldly about BJM.

My misconception isn't that science fiction has to take place in space. I do think it has to have a degree of science that is partially explained. With BJM they never attempt to explain any of it with science, which is why I would drop it more into a fantasy category. There were no engineers, or rational explainations, it was just a magic little portal that led into someone's head.

I could go either way on it, but my personal veiw that it's not hardcore type science fiction has nothing to do with the location of the story.

Card's Review was dead-On

[haplo21112]

I have long respected him as a writer and as a reviewer, my taste and his seem to line up alot, I guess thats why I like his books. Not my choice of religion, but then nobody's is...

I loved Serenity, it was a great movie, its about the story, take it for what its the story and what the story is saying. Is it high cinema, NO it not goona win any awards for its camera work. Thats what card is saying too, its about the story and the characters in the story. I also agress if Ender's game can't be made at least this good, then its not worth making.

I am sure that one of the many K5 cross overs will undoubtedly meantion the "Card is an Asshat" Story overthere...Personally I like the guy who wrote it for is fiction, but take is review of Card with a pound of Salt if you like over there and read it....

Straightforward is relative

[brokeninside]

I think you overestimate the comprehension skills of a significant portion of the movie-going public.

I liked it, but not the others.

[khasim]

Ender's Game was real decent science fiction.

But then he got into FTL.
And an artificially intelligent (and emotional) Internet.
And living images of people only sustained by the thoughts of their creator.
Let's toss in some obsessive compulsive references.
And now we have instantanious travel.

Taken as itself, Ender's Game was a really good book.

Taken as a whole, the series is a good example of bad "Sci-Fi".

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[BushCheney08]

Ender's Game was real decent science fiction.

I don't read much scifi at all, but based on the praise that scifi fans have given the few books that I have read, it's looked down upon as a genre for a reason. You folks should try reading some actual literary works sometime.

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[Forbman]

When I've had too much caffeine, nothing puts me to sleep more than cracking to a random page of a "literary" work, like "The Great Gatsby", "Pride and Prejudice", "Tale of Two Cities", etc.

I'm of the impression that those who like "great literature" also enjoy sitting around listening to the grandfather clock tick...tock...tick...tock...and take great joy when it finally rings its bells, once an hour or so.

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is both a good literary work and science fiction. There are, admittedly, few that are both. One of the reasons "scifi" fans praise many other books is because if they stuck to strictly literary science fiction they could read it all in a month.

Why?

Because writing good literary science fiction is hard. The people who are brilliant enough scientifically, creative enough in imagination, and able to pen a good story are few enough to begin with, and many of those that might fit the bill are busy being actual scientists. Carl Sagan wrote a decent piece of science fiction called Contact. I have a reasonably high belief that Stephen Hawking could write blisteringly good science fiction if he decided to pursue it.

I have high hopes for a book on my buy list called Building Harlequin's Moon by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper. Not that I haven't heard that there are flaws.

Of course, this may need to be tempered by the notion that I do like Mortal Passage quite a bit.

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[lidocaineus]

I'm of the impression that those who like "great literature" also enjoy sitting around listening to the grandfather clock tick...tock...tick...tock...and take great joy when it finally rings its bells, once an hour or so.

Wow. Simply... wow. Just because YOU don't like books that are considered classics doesn't mean those that do fit some sort of misinformed stereotype of stuffy old men smoking popes around a roaring fire. You couldn't possibly come off as more ignorant at this point.

(On the other hand, if I completely took something out of context and missed some sort of ironic endeavor, I am willing to take my lumps).

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[lidocaineus]

I agree. Writing good science fiction is incredibly difficult, and when it IS done well, a lot of the time, people don't classify it as science fiction anymore. Some of Jorge Borges' stuff could be considered sci-fi, but there's no exploding spaceships or planet hopping. And then there's Stanislaw Lem. The guy rocks so hard that it's painful. He has a very similar view of mainstream American sci-fi writing - mostly that a majority of it is juvenile.

I like sci-fi, but I have to agree with Lem on his views.

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[BushCheney08]

I feel that I should add that I wasn't disgusted be the scifi I've read. Sure, it was entertaining and most of it made for nice breezy reading. I think the categorization of a lot of it being "juvenile" is spot on. The mention of some of Borges' work being borderline scifi, though not categorized as scifi, is certainly understandable. Calvino's work fits in the same category. I will admit that I have read some "good" scifi. Vonnegut, though his writings are always brief, is quite good. Neal Stephenson, though his writings are quite verbose, is usually pretty good, too (though he does have a certain pulpish quality at times). And I should also mention that I like Iain Banks (both with and without the M).

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[Anonymous Coward]

Much as I love Heinlein, his books are unlikely to impress anyone who says things like, "You folks should try reading some actual literary works sometime." Heinlein's goals, in order, were to make a living, to entertain his readers, and to get his ideas across; creating "literature", as such, was well down on the list, if it was there at all.

Someone looking for "literature" in the SF genre would do better to read some of the following:

Robert Silverberg: Dying Inside is his best, but his early '70s work (Tower of Glass, The Stochastic Man) is generally excellent.

John Brunner: wrote a number of excellent future dystopias; Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up are his best-known. Heavily influenced by Dos Passos.

Keith Roberts: Pavane—one of the best alternate history novels, with a beautifully elegiac tone. Also try Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle and Kingsley Amis's The Alteration.

George R. Stewart: Earth Abides—part plague story (cf. The Stand), part creation myth.

John Crowley: Engine Summer—Crowley started out writing science fiction before moving into the literary mainstream; this is one of his best.

Walter M. Miller: A Canticle for Liebowitz

Theodore Sturgeon: More Than Human is excellent, though Sturgeon was at his best in his short stories.

Thomas M. Disch: 334—I don't find any of his novels completely satisfying, but Disch is one of the most self-consciously literary writers of science fiction.

And John Christopher is less ambitious than most of the writers above, but his novels are uniformly well-written. Most of them seem to be about small groups of British people dealing with global catastrophes; The Death of Grass is probably the best. John Wyndham (The Midwich Cuckoos) is somewhat similar.

Don't know what it is you don't like about SF, BushCheney08, but the books above are thoughtful, stylishly written, and mostly free of obvious genre conventions (robots and rocket ships).

Re:I liked it, but not the others.

[BushCheney08]

Thanks for the list. I'll add them to my amazon wishlist.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[haplo21112]

To each his own, remeber that despite his sci-fi/fantasy leanings at heart Card is a very religious Family man. His opinions on many things are based on that...

Author of Ender's Game.

[cornface]

Yes, the author of sci-fi classic Ender's Game, and the painfully boring, never ending flood of terrible preachy sequels that made me wish I had coated my copy of Ender's Game with lighter fluid, lit my eyeballs and genitals on fire, and used my flaming agony-ridden body to destroy the source of my pain -- the god forsaken book and the slow tedious hours of boredom that it put me through.

You suck, Card! You are the George Lucas of books.

Re:Author of Ender's Game.

[mankey wanker]

Take it easy, Cornface!

That other stuff's cool, but lighting your genitals on fire is likely to be fairly nasty. Just use a blowtorch, it's probably quicker.

Re:Author of Ender's Game.

[cornface]

So not liking Ender's Game is equivalent to being a troll?

Your pathetic life is retribution enough for your moronic distribution of mod points, moderator.

Intriguing.

[Leigh13]

Guess I'm going to have to see this now.

I never saw Firefly, but Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorite books. The trailers for Serenity haven't done much to get me interested in seeing it, nor has the marketing blitz they've tried to shove down my Tivo. Either the marketroids who put together the trailers are totally incompetent (quite likely), or else I might just end up disagreeing with OSC on this one (also likely.)

Either way, now I'm interested enough to find out more.

Re:Intriguing.

[topham]

While I think the movie can stand on it's own there is very little in way of character development in the movie. The expectation really is that you already know the personalities of the characters.

So, do yourself a favour and watch the DVD set first.
2 episodes a day for a week, then see the movie.

I thought the series rather ho-key, but I had my tivo record episodes anyway when 'Space' channel ran them (Canadian channel, sci-fi theme). Thankfully they like to run them in-order, and the complete set, including the 'unaired' episodes.

I thought the movie was very good, as did a friend of mine who watched only a couple episodes of the show.

Re:Intriguing.

[Rycross]

I've gotten comments from people who did not see the original series, that they hadn't really been interested in the movie because the trailer seemed pretty bad. They loved Serenity.

Re:Intriguing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Either way, now I'm interested enough to find out more."

So the folks at TiVO actually have a working a business plan?

LMAO

Re:Intriguing.

[Leigh13]

Thanks for the suggestion--I added the Firefly DVD set to the top of my Netflix queue. If the first disc gets me hooked, I'll continue with the series. I just hope I can get through them before Serenity finishes its theatrical run.

We hear ya screaming

[east coast]

From the blurb/article: If Ender's Game can't be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.

That's a fairly good outlook. As a fan of a lot of various fiction that I see get butchered in film I cringe everytime something comes around that I truely love only to find that it's either watered down or that the director/writers seem to have lost the original vision of the writing.

Take Lovecraft for example. Being very fond of the old gents work (obviously), I hate the crap that has his name associated with that is rarely more than a slasher film. I can appreciate the humor of Yanza's Re-Animator but the number of people who I encounter who think that somehow HPLs original work is anywhere on the same level of this film makes me fear for the future of Lovecraft's standing in the horror community. The Resurrected (based on the case of charles dexter ward), on the other hand, is a fine adaptation but still the original work is vastly superior. I still think (hope?) the film retains enough of Lovecraft's original vision to spur interested viewers into the works of HPL without being disappointed.

With the adaptation of American McGee's Alice I am fearful of what will happen. I love the game, I love McGee's vision but I really do not see how this is going to translate into a film.

I swear to God I will have a stroke on the day that Niven's Dream Park (or any other Niven work really) gets turned into a film. There is far too much going on there to make it a workable movie.

Re:We hear ya screaming

[Solder Fumes]

Well, Card certainly needs to wait at least until that one kid...you know who, the kid who's in everything like Sixth Sense and Star Wars and AI...we need to wait until that kid gets too old or dies or something. I don't want that kind of Ender Wiggin.

The other thing is that, since everyone's read the book, the surprise twist ending is ruined, where he finds out that his "training simulation" has actually been the control interface for a real war.

Re:We hear ya screaming

[Anonymous Coward]

"I swear to God I will have a stroke on the day that Niven's Dream Park (or any other Niven work really) gets turned into a film. There is far too much going on there to make it a workable movie."

I would love to see the novels as a three season TV series (one for each book).

Strange choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

What? No reviews for Will and Grace or Queer as Folk...?

Re:Strange choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is as close as he gets:

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1 .html

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[Herr Joebob]

I saw the movie but not the show. The movie is just OK. It feels very TV, meaning you have to already really love these characters to be interested. It just doesn't stand alone as its own movie. Looks like it would have made a decent episode of a regular TV show, though.

Not so well-respected outside sci-fi

[Anonymous Coward]

He may write sci-fi well, but he's a vocal homophobe in his non-fiction rants.

Re:Not so well-respected outside sci-fi

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never found his fiction writing to be any good. It really is too bad about him being such a homophobe though, because otherwise he has some really good ideas on the process of writing and scifi in general, even if he does suck at creating it himself.

Re:Not so well-respected outside sci-fi

[Simon Garlick]

Card really only has one story, and he just keeps churning out in different covers. I shall summarise:

Russians are evil and want to take over the world, but everything will be all right if you just accept Jebus as your savior.

Re:Not so well-respected outside sci-fi

[brucifer]

How is it that a comment copied from EVERY OTHER /. story in which Card is mentioned is deemed "Interesting"? Come on meta-moderators, get to work!

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Marillion]

I read the book years ago. I read it before I ever read Slashdot - and 33728 is a fairly low Slashdot ID. It is an amazing book. Regardless of what you think about his politics, lifestyle or whatever, you should read the book.

Read Maps in a Mirror

[dmeranda]

If you want to see some of his best writing (and most
diverse) get his short story anthology Maps in a Mirror.
It's also annotated, so it gives you a great peek into
his mind and how/why he writes certain stories. That
really shows off the brilliance of OSC as a writer.

Also, if you are or want to be a writer yourself (rather
than a typical /. complainer), then you can learn a lot
from OSC. His book on how to write SciFi is the best
on that topic. He also provides a lot of help for
writers on his website.

Really, what makes OSC great is perhaps not any particular
work, but rather his grasp of people, and that great
stories must be about the characters. Otherwise all you
have is a literary carchase and explosions, just special
effects with no meat.

Oh, and if the Full House thing at the end of the review
puzzles you, then you just haven't read enough of his
reviews to understand his sense of humor, or that he
is a devoted parent and thus sometimes cares about things
that may seem quite corny to adults.

Re:Read Maps in a Mirror

[Forbman]

"Full House" sucked. It's tragicomedy now thinking about it and the 'Olson Twins'. It's right up there with the kids of "Different Strokes", how screwed up Michael Landon's personal life was in contrast to his personna from "Little House on the Prairie" and "Bonanza", and even Bob Rivers' secret life.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[jorenko]

Yes, Card is a nut, and a lot of his personal values don't mesh well with those of the majority of the geek community.

However, a good portion of his work is exceptional. Ender's Game really is a must read, even if the man enjoyed Friends, or thinks the gays will destroy society, or whatever it is he's going on about now.

A reality check

[sielwolf]

(which opened at #2 in the US box office this past weekend)

Just a warning but it only did $10.1 million of business against no real competition in a Hollywood dead period. So folks better fill the seats and get the word out or this franchise will pull a Hindenburg. The two major Hollywood seasons are Memorial Day to Labor Day (the Summer Blockbuster months) and Thanksgiving to the Oscars (where Academy Award winners and big holiday films are given a big push. Before Jaws this was the only money period in cinema). September just up to Thanksgiving is a dead period: Hollywood release B features, also rans and things that have been rotting on the shelves. Of course this lack of competition has lead to a surprise breakout every few years and if Serenity can get a good word of mouth campaign to keep up interest then it'll stay solvent.

Re:A reality check

[Anonymous Coward]

Also keep in mind that the movie that brought more money in last weekend was Flightplan, which had *already been out for a week*. In movie lingo, there is a term for when a new movie can't dethrone a week old movie in which Jodi Foster designs an airplane and hallucenates a daughter; it's called a *bomb*!

Re:A reality check

[Slow Smurf]

Not when the budget is fairly low(and no stars) and DVD sales were far more expected than a blockbuster movie.

People hoped it would make more, but no one was disillusioned into thinking it wasn't a cult film. It is. It'll sell plenty of DVD's compared to tickets.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Saggi]

No matter how you feel about the review, I can highly recomend you to put the book back on the top.

Enders game is one of the best sci-fi books ever written. Most sci-fi is based on some fancy piece of tech, and rarely on a good story. This is not the case with Enders Game, here you have a really good story, that actually puts the sci-fi and tech parts into the background.

Of cause this is my opinion, but I have recomended this book to all my friends. And I do read a lot of sci-fi.

Re:reevers - an explanation

[Local Loop]

Well, I've thought about this entirely too much, and this is what I came up with.

Reavers probably don't reproduce well or take care of their children. Remember it's only been about a decade since their planet was poisoned. I imagine they would die off in 50 years or so.

How do they organize? They don't!

Why don't they eat each other? They probably do... But killing regular humans has got to be easier than killing other reavers which is probably why they bothered to get ships working to go on raids (after killing all the folks made docile on their home planet).

How can these savages operate advanced technology? They were normal people until their planet was poisoned. They still have all those memories and skills.

All in all though, I was VERY disappointed in the movie. I don't think it had the heart of the TV series at all.

High Praise for Serenity

[olddotter]

Sounds like he really likes FireFly and Serenity. And that is high praise from the writter of Ender's Game. I always ask people who hate Sci-Fi to read Ender's Game, and no one who has read it has been disappointed!

Orson Scott Card, personal idol

[kinglink]

I have to say this about Card, I don't get bad info from him. While I won't agree with everything he says (he of course is a mormon, and I'm a catholic, he likes Full house, I can't stand that show now ) he does at least apply thought and information to most things, political, entertainment or what ever, where others just ignore it.

He's also one of the few people who's opinion I trust pretty much emphatically, if he says something is "quality" I'm willing to try it out (of course factoring in his critism), most of the time reviewers just make me go "so what?"

Overall a good review by him, definatly makes me interested in a movie (the last three movies I saw? Hitchhiker's guide, Lord of the Ring, and Harry Potter) which is quite a feat in it's own rights.

Re:Orson Scott Card, personal idol

[Edunikki]

Those are the last films you saw?
You poor, poor man.

Re:Orson Scott Card, personal idol

[kinglink]

Sorry I perfer to watch tv, which has done a good amount of work with it's time if you know what to look for and character with better development. Those three movies I watched because they interested me and I already was familiar with the characters, last I checked hollywood admited they have been producing crap. Something I could have told them 2 years ago.

An experiment

[FlynnMP3]

or a calculated risk. That's what this movie was. Personally, I thought the movie was great and have since watched the Firefly DVD series (equally great, sometimes beter).

But this movie didn't really have any marketing, it was depending mostly on word of mouth from fans for people to see it. The movie was a gift to the diehard fans from Joss, made possible by the movie studio on the hope that open a new type of moviemaking (AKA a new revenue stream). Having is do great in movie theaters would be an acknowledgement that it is accepted by a mainstream audience. Not likely, as much as is saddens me to say that. Too many people just don't like the trailer, or something in it shocks their Sci Fi expectations, or aren't willing to go just because of all the other economic pressures that people face when deciding on where their entertainment dollars will go.

Direct to DVD movies have historically been badly done. This story has a chance to change all that. Perhaps the story can be told in that medium? I'm faily positive the fan base will purchase said DVDs in droves on the release date and it will attract the curious to rent and eventually purchase.

Re:An experiment

[pl1ght]

No marketing? How about a trailer commercial every 20 minutes probably. Sci-Fi just isnt popular enough with the mainstream to be huge. I liked the movie, but it did seem like a long EP. The 10 million it made is probably warranted. Especially for a series no one has heard of or cared about outside of die hard sci-fi peeps. Its like a Star Trek movie, they advertise nonstop for it, then it only makes 20 mil opening weekend. You can bet thats majority of star trek fans, hardly anyone else. Nothing to do with marketing, has to do with the stigma of nerdy sci-fi. Fantasy has broken out of that stigma. Sci-Fi hasnt yet.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[aardvarkjoe]

Orson Scott Card is a mediocre writer with an ego that is completely out of proportion to his talent.

Like most, the first book of his I read was Ender's Game. It isn't a bad book. But it isn't great, either. Everything in it has been done before, by better writers. Its popularity is due mostly to the "heroic geeky kid beats the adults and saves the world" theme, much like Harry Potter. The other couple books of his I've read seem pretty much the same.

Like I said, it's not really bad. I've got dozens of science fiction books on my shelves churned out by various writers that may not be great literature, but are still a fun afternoon read. Ender's Game should be one of them.

However, in the introduction to Ender's Game, he pretty much claimed to have invented the idea of wargames in the future. This "review" is pretty much just an excuse to talk about how great his book could be if made into a movie. This kind of nonsense leaves me with something of a bad taste in my mouth.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a perfectly great movie, even if you haven't seen the series if you LISTEN. Often the backstory is explained by a single line of dialogue. If you talk during the movie (especially the first 10 minutes or so) or if you're simply waiting for the next action sequence, then you're going to miss things and you're going to be lost.

Whedon doesn't like to beat you over the head with things. Pay attention, employ a few brain cells, and you'll have a blast.

Being John Malkovich SUCKED

[Spy Handler]

Okay I liked Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead and Ender's Shadow as much as the next SF geek, and I admit Card is a very gifted writer, but I'm sorry...... Being John Malkovich was not only the most overrated piece of garbage, it's NOT EVEN SCIENCE FICTION in my book.

Card apparently values moral decisions and human emotional drama over everything else. These are factors that go in a good movie, but so are special effects and kick-butt action. But most important is a good, believable, engaging plot. And for SF, some COOLNESS is essential.

As moviegoers go, Card is at one extreme, and the Star Wars prequel worshipping fools are at the other end. They are both nutty, imo.

Re:Being John Malkovich SUCKED

[AceCaseOR]

I don't know... Harlan Ellison might be further along that extreme then OSC is.

Re:Being John Malkovich SUCKED

[Anonymous Coward]

That probably has something to do with the fact that you have no idea what science fiction is and your lack of intelligence.

Am I the only one that thinks Serenity sucked?

[mcguyver]

The captain had cheesy one liners instead of believable dialog. The acting was stale, especially the anti-protagonist. Characters sacrificed substance by catering themselves to geek culture: engineering girl who likes sex, teenage girl who kicks ass with swords. The romance in the movie came at awkward times in fight scenes. Alien costumes were derived from old Star Trek or low budget sci fi films. The Reavers play a major part of the plot yet are hardly described and only mentioned in the beginning and end of the movie. In the absence of Star Wars and Star Trek movies I had hopes for Serenity but the reality is they took a cancelled low budget tv-show and made a two hour episode. To read Orson Scott say he wants Enders Game to live up to Serenety's billing is proof the man is batsh*t crazy.

Re:Am I the only one that thinks Serenity sucked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, Serentiy doesn't really have any "aliens" in the sense of non-human intellegent lifeforms. All of the inhabitants of other planets are human and their ancestors were colonists from old Earth. There are creatures that we see in the background that are unfamiliar, but they are generally pets, livestock, or similar.

Re:Am I the only one that thinks Serenity sucked?

[idsofmarch]

The acting was stale, especially the anti-protagonist

You mean the antagonist? I have to disagree with you, I thought the Operator was a very interesting character. His monologue about a 'good death' was equally creepy and gentle.

The romance came at awkward times.. It worked, it fit within the context and it had a funny line to boot, but okay.

Alien costumes...I must have been reaching for popcorn, but I don't remember a single alien. Reavers weren't aliens, you got that right?

In the absence of Star Wars and Star Trek movies I had hopes for Serenity, but the reality is they took a cancelled low-budget tv-show and made a two hour episode.

And that part of your post is just rife with irony considering Star Trek, the twice-cancelled schlock-fest that rewrote one of its own episodes for material. Serenity acted as the end (or maybe a continuation?) for a series by wrapping up issues from the series and exploring characters we had already been introduced to, although they did have some short-hand around to lead in new viewers. Yes, it acted as a two hour episode, and I'm glad they did that way.

Orson Scott Card is batshit, but even a blind squirrel finds an acorn.

Re:Am I the only one that thinks Serenity sucked?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a *HUGE* fan of FIREFLY... by far the greatest sci-fi series of all time. I've just finished my 17th time through the DVD set (which puts me at 20 viewings of the entire series as I've seen it on TV three times). I was CHOMPING AT THE BIT for SERENITY... and what do we get? Total CRAP that had NONE of the positive traits of FIREFLY.

Joss Whedon promised us FIREFLY and delivered RIVER THE REAVER SLAYER.

Re:Am I the only one that thinks Serenity sucked?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was not one single alien in the entire movie. All humans.

I have no idea where you saw the aliens, but it wasn't in Serenity

Ender's Game movie already in the works...

[Khopesh]

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.

Ender's Game is slated for 2007, directed by Wolfgang Peterson and with a screenplay by Michael Dougherty. The IMDB report on the movie provides very little information, except that it was certainly in the works before the Serenity movie was publicized.

Dougherty doesn't have any high-quality screenplays under his belt (just X2, which was a fun movie, but not the greatest screenplay, and I would think Card agrees) ... does Card retain enough control to carry through with the above claim?

Re:Ender's Game movie already in the works...

[AcheronHades]

Are you insane? I felt like X-Men 2 was brilliant.

Re:Ender's Game movie already in the works...

[p3d0]

Substantially better than the first, I thought. (And I thought the first wasn't too bad either.)

Re:Ender's Game movie already in the works...

[Anonymous Coward]

(triggering slashdot's message system, I responded to the other X2 comment replying to my post)
See parent, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164244&cid=137 14623&threshold=-1

Re:Ender's Game movie already in the works...

[DrXym]

Ender's Game doesn't need a great screenplay. There are no plot threads, no intricate dialogue to distill, no nothing that couldn't be easily transplanted from the book to the script. The challenge if there is any, would be add tension and excitement to what is a rather boring and repetitive book.

Full House?

[CloudsSpaz]

Why do so many people apparently think he's actually being serious in the last paragraph? This is Orscon Scott Card, people. That last statement is fully dipped in his usual dry sarcasm.

Re:Full House?

[Anonymous Coward]

People on the autistic spectrum can only make seemingly sarcastic remarks. They cannot recognize them.

Because it makes the authors scads of money

[ianscot]

I have an outlaw who wrote a best selling novel maybe ten years ago now.

The movie rights for a book are by far the biggest source of money for any book that can sell them. Authors give up "creative control" and those rights get moved around quite a bit, usually, before anything is made. Meanwhile it's a nice source of income, and as the rights bounce from spot to spot they get sold and re-sold, and the author's intentions drift further from the minds of whoever owns the rights.

I believe my relation's book (and a sequel) have done the Hollywood circle once and are coming around for a second lap. He's made well more than half a million USD on the deal -- I don't ask -- while nothing's happening except for "rumored interest" from people like Eastwood and so on.

"Selling out" maybe, but it does pay the rent.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Dasein]

Wow, I was thinking that you were nuts for thinking 33728 was a fairly low slashdot id. Then I looked around. Within a few posts, I found id's over 900,000. I hadn't been paying attention, I guess.

Card knows his stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Card knows his stuff. Here is what he said about MP3s 2 years ago:

Sep 7, 2003 MP3s Are Not the Devil - Orson Scott Card

Sadly, I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoyed Ender's Game. I really did. Then Ender's Shadow, and Shadow of the Hegemon were OK. By the time I hit mid-Xenocide, I was READY TO PULL MY EYEBALLS OUT VIA MY GENITALS. I thanked God Almighty that when I was done with Children of the Mind, I was DONE WITH THE 6 BOOKS I'D BOUGHT.

Cornface, I understand your sentiment completely. You are not alone, brother... you are not alone.

Card had reached a new level of pedantic rambling I've never seen before. Preachy, over-the-top impossibilities of his "let's just wish for corporeal travel and we're there" concepts. Uggh, the pain, even now, has me reaching for the lighter fluid...

Re:Sadly, I agree

[cornface]

You beat me. I gave up half way through the third one. This should have been a two book series.

Plot and charaters over sci-fi... good!

[Saggi]

First of all. I haven't seen the movie yet. Have to wait until it comes to town. (Copenhagen/Denmark...)

But I have seen all of firefly and read all the Ender books (including the second set of books). What I noted as important in the interview is that the focus is not on the sci-fi, but on the characters/community.

When I first read Enders Game, many years ago, I really liked it because the sci-fi parts was just background to a really good plot encircling the character Ender. There are a lot of good sci-fi books out there with good and fancy tech in them. But not many that is based on the characters and their dilemmas in life. The Ender series gets a little soft and blurry in the later books, but the first I really good. (The second series is also highly recomended).

It's the same in the firefly series. I have to admit that when I had seen the first episode I really didn't know what to think. Gunslingers in space? It was almost a joke. Half western and half sci-fi. Really weird. But the characters made the series believable. Many details, like the language, were making the universe around firefly real. After a few episodes I was hooked and couldn't really wait to see the next... and then it was all over. No more.

So now I cant wait to see Serenity. I really like the review, because if the focus in the movie is on the characters rather than the effects and actions, it will be good.

And I'll sign up to see Enders Game any time if it comes up... hope I won't be disappointed.

Just like Star Trek?

[LanMan04]

I agree, I wish there was no backstory (everything else was awesome, including camerawork)

Who's going to sit down to watch, say, Star Trek III, knowing nothing about the series, characters or any of their relationships, and expect to enjoy the movie anywhere NEAR as much as someone who is a fan of the series? Nobody.

I think Joss did a great job of balancing the two, and had to sacrifice very little of the movie's awesomeness to get enough backstory in to make it make sense, but I wish that sacrifice didn't need to be made at all.

Personally, I wish they'd cut all the backstory out (although Simon dressed up like an SS officer was kind of cool) and just leave it to people to watch the DVDs before they see the movie. Of corse, no one will do that because it would hurt the bottom line, but it would have been a better movie to those already familiar with the series.

Maybe by the time "Serenity III - The Search Badger's Nutsack" comes out, people will know enough that it can make Star Trek's casual assumtion of familarity.

Re:Just like Star Trek?

[nightsweat]

BIG difference, though. There were tens of millions of regular Star Trek viewers thanks to the reruns. Firefly has been almost impossible to find for most of its existence.

If you want to make money, you cater to your audience who mostly didn't know much. I loved the movie and have never seen a Firefly episode in its entirety. My guess is it does OK but not great at the box office but sells DVD's like nobody's business.

Different company

[Anonymous Coward]

It's ironic because in the 70's, Fox was giving Lucas a chance to film Star Wars, when no other studios had a clue.

FA

[tsa]

I read the FA, and all I learned was that Serenity is a SciFi movie about people. It would be nice if he had elaborated a bit more on the plot.

Re:FA

[EvilMagnus]

First off, it's a good movie. You might not get that if all you saw was the plot synopsis. But briefly;

A girl called River is kidnapped by Government, experimented on and given psychic powers, along with a healthy dose of 'teh crazy'. Rescued by her older brother, the two of them flee, and are given shelter by Captain Mal Reynolds of the tramp freighter/smuggler Serenity (who has a thing against the Government on account of being on the losing side of a Civil War some years back). That's the backstory. The movie centers around the hilarity that ensues when the Government realizes just how much of a boo-boo they made by letting River escape, so they send an Operative (a kind of philosopher-assassin) after River. Along the way we learn why the Government wants River back, and a Terrible Secret about the Government is uncovered.

Good plot, no huge holes, good dialogue, characters you care about, good special effects, and a subject that makes you think. It's not the Best Movie Ever, but it's head and shoulders above *any* mainstream sci-fi film in recent memory.

Basically, if you like Good Movies, you should see Serenity: both the NYT and Ebert liked it. If you like Sci-Fi, you should *definitely* see it.

Re:FA

[tsa]

Looks interesting, thanks!

reevers and miranda

[Anonymous Coward]

The reavers being sane enough to operate ships was one hole I saw as well.

However if it has only been 12 years since the accident at Miranda, why does no one know the planet existed. There had to be some very serious brainwashing on a solar system wide scale to make almost everyone forget that Miranda even existed.

Re:reevers and miranda

[Kelson]

It's a big solar system, and Miranda's a remote world. It was listed in the charts, just as a dead world. (IIRC the cover story involved a terraforming incident.) Kaylee even remembered the old "Move to Miranda!" ad campaign when she thought about it.

Think of it in western terms -- say it's 1875, and a mining town in the middle of nowhere, Nevada is wiped out by an industrial accident. The company covers up the news so people don't think it's their fault, it's listed as a ghost town, and nothing more is said of it.

Aside from people had friends or relatives who lived there, who's going to have reason to remember it?

Wrong genre

[MMaestro]

Thats generally the problem with the book. Put Ender's Game in the sci-fi section and its a total piece of crap (the only things sci-fi in it are the formacs/buggers, FTL travel and the ansible. Everything else is pretty much ~50 years into the future technology.)

View it as a theorical view of the future (Brainwashing child soldiers? Total control/censorship of the freedom of press? Earth suddenly turning into a giant militaristic society? Strictly controlled birth rate?) and you could put Ender's Game down right next to George Orwell's 1984.

Course the fact that Orson Scott Card published TWO series of books that had little to do with the original, besides being in the same universe, tends to cloud the judgement of most fans of the original.

Re:Wrong genre

[tabrnaker]

Perhaps you don't know what science fiction is?

Re:Wrong genre

[lidocaineus]

While I don't really like most of OSC's work, Ender's Game was entertaining, if not that thorough. But I consider it a definite sci-fi book. What do you consider sci-fi?

Have you ever read Stanislaw Lem stuff? Or Jorge Borges? Because many people consider that scifi, and some of the stories don't involve anything past the 19th century! SciFi is all about exploring the inner human condition with some elements of the future thrown in that server to heighten our connection with the characters - namely, that even if they're in a completely alien environment to where we are right now, they still feel and explore the same things we do in the here and now. Ender's game at least touches on those subjects.

Unfortunately, popular SciFi has co-opted the more thoughtful and provoking aspect of SciFi into blowing up planets and George Lucas flicks. And don't even get me started on "hard scifi", which in almost all books I've read are completely soulless, and read like a technical manual from a geek's wet dream.

One final thing...stand up for yourself...

[haplo21112]

...stop posting as a pussy AC...If you have a true strong Opinion at least have the decency to put your name to it...

Re:One final thing...stand up for yourself...

[Anonymous Coward]

That post does not deserve a response excepting the following: Your idea of decency is poorly constructed,and as far from accurate as is possible in my opinion, based on your shallow reference to it. I do not have an account, I will never have an account; I refuse the games of false authority that fools who hide behind those accounts play-accounts that are freely available at no charge and do not by any means support the posts made using them with any validity at all-they are worthless. As it is entirely possible to post on this site without one I choose to do so without one. Delay required by imposed limits.

Re:One final thing...stand up for yourself...

[haplo21112]

Thats fine however in my opinion...You have no right make a comment about the Editors and Users of the site, and the site either evolving or devolving if you are standing outside the community. I normally would not even bother to reply to the raving (for ravings they are) of an AC (aka Troll) other than you happen to have hit on an area for which I have a passion.

To that end this reply makes so little sense, and is so much double talking babble that I'm not even going any further into it, since its not worth the brain cells to do so...

OSC doesn't really like Sci-Fi

[digidave]

OSC says he likes Sci-Fi, but what he really likes is drama with some edgy technology. As much as he puts down makers of bubble-gum-space-ship sci-fi for not being true to the genre, his own favourites such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are no more true to the genre.

The problem with sci-fi movies may be the lack of real drama and relationships, but that doesn't make movies which excel on those two points any more sci-fi.

Serenity is a failure

[aeoo]

Personally I think Serenity has one fatal flaw -- the characters receive no development and there is no emotional connection to them. I haven't seen Firefly and have no background at all. I went to see it because of all the buzz, and I was disappointed. Who is River? I don't really understand. It's obvious she's psychic and she kicks ass, but why should I care for her? Should I care? Should I dislike her? I have no idea. I feel nothing whatsoever for River character. I can say the same for all the other characters. Who is the assassin? Why is he that way? Why is he going around killing things with a katana? Yes, I know all the obvious answers that are provided by the movie, but those answers were not enough to get me to feel anything whatsoever about that character.

I feel that some ideas were interesting, like the idea of "what happens if people are made ultra-docile?" and so on. However, this interesting idea took all of about 10-20 mins in the movie. The fights with the reavers (or whatever they're called) took 90% of the time, but content having to do with reaver's background took about 10% of the movie time. As a result, reavers are like stupid zombies that mindlessly attack things and I feel nothing, neither for them nor for the people they slay, simply because the situation is so absurd and nonsensical to me.

In short, Serenity may be a good movie-length feature for those who have seen Firefly, but it sucks badly as a stand-alone movie.

Re:Serenity is a failure

[GMFTatsujin]

The words of Dr. Frankenfurter come to mind: "I didn't make him for you."

Re:Serenity is a failure

[Refrag]

River was always mysterious in Firefly. Serenity answers questions about her mystery.

The assassin is a new character. You get everything you want to know out of the movie.

"reavers are like stupid zombies that mindlessly attack things and I feel nothing"

Then you grasp their essence perfectly. They're sci-fi zombies.

Re:Serenity is a failure

[Merovign]

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but did you see the movie? 'Cause from your description it doesn't seem like you did. Or you slept through a lot of it. Or you decided to hate it before you saw it.

Hey, maybe it just wasn't your kind of movie.

But the fights with the reavers, counting the space battle, were maybe 5-7% of the movie? And the whole main plot of the movie was about where the Reavers came from.

It just seems like you missed most of the movie. The relationshipse between the crew? The whole intro with the Operative, his self-description throughout the movie, the hints about him by Book and Inara?

Did you miss all the parts about River being the subject of an experiment to make humans into weapon systems? The relationship with her brother and the captain?

I can understand not liking the movie, but you seem to have missed it almost entirely.

bullshit

[Ender Ryan]

For good Card-bashing, I'll point you to: Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat. It's a great read.

Localroger is a shitty writer with delusions of grandeur. Noone worth a damn pays any attention to his juvenile whining.

Re:bullshit

[On Lawn]

My favorite commentary came when he wrote a serious article about politics at the time. I think it was even about Iraq. Someone wrote as a comment, in essence:

Cool! LocalRoger SciFi without the space-ships!

He has a good visual style of writing, but his politicle commentary is so obvious and egregious I can't really stomach reading much of it. No wonder he thinks the same of Card.

What does he know?

[SumDumFloridaGoy]

Card hasn't even seen The Matrix.

http://edition.cnn.com/books/dialogue/9908/orson.c ard/index.html

Question: What do you think of the movie The Matrix?

Orson Card: Haven't seen The Matrix.

Alrighty then.

Re:What does he know?

[topham]

What, you mena because he didn't see it before '99 he hasn't seen it at all?

Don't know about you, but I have seen lots of movies between 1999 and October 4th, 2005.

But maybe I just have an unusual amount of free time.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[nightsweat]

Never saw the show. LOVED the movie. It was character driven, had a plot, character development, a couple of great villans, tension and humor among the heroes, and a good zing at the end.

There were moments that I thought "Huh. I bet that's really a big deal if you're a fan of the series," but they didn't slow the movie down. You sympathized with characters in the movie because of their actions in the movie, not because of the series (which I haven't seen).

I will admit I walked out and put Firefly on my Netflix Queue as soon as I got home.

Guess that makes me a Reaver.

[Scrameustache]

nobody watched the show.

I did, but I happened to have a few friday nights loose where I could leave the TV on ALL NIGHT waiting for it to come on... at 12:05 (more or less), or 12:15 (not sure, I missed the beginning and only caught it around 12:22). That is, if it played at all. Sometimes it didn't, and then sometimes I go out on friday and some of those were on nights that it did play.

So, it's not that nobody watched it, it's that it was humanly impossible to watch it.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[AJWM]

Orson Scott Card is a mediocre writer with an ego that is completely out of proportion to his talent.

I've never met the man, so I can't address that specifically. However, any author whose first novel wins both the Hugo and Nebula awards -- and then goes on to do that again the very next year with the sequel (Speaker for the Dead), certainly has a right to at least some of that ego.

Stop talking...now.

[Anonymous Coward]

By anti-protagonist did you, maybe, mean antagonist?

Serenity had zero aliens. Not a one.

Perhaps next time you hsould write something constructive about a movie you've actually seen? Or, more likely, you're an adolescent troll.

Re:Stop talking...now.

[mcguyver]

Note the correction to antogonist, thanks. The point is not that characters were aliens or people. The point is their costumes, and set for that matter, are given enough attention as a cheap made for TV sci fi film. It's dissapointing. Surely this movie is not the Star Trek / Star Wars killer that so many fans said it could be.

Re:Stop talking...now.

[nick this]

See, that's funny to me. I thought the sets were fantastic. I thought that they put a lot of effort into building sets that looked like what these things would *really* look like, not what they would look like in a sf movie. That's what was interesting to me. Stuff looked functional and used, not chrome and useless, like they do in most sf shows.

Interesting that you would have the opposite reaction. I guess what cemented it for me is that the spaceship has the same ugly functionality as a naval vessel does. Conduits and piping with clear labels (in two languages!) and on the outside of walls.. deckplates not floors, that sort of thing. It looked very much to me like a space-ified guided missile cruiser. :)

And as far as a Star Wars killer, I'm not sure what that is. Except go back and watch Ep 4 again. It sucks. "The costumes, and set for that matter, are given enough attention as a cheap made for TV sci fi film. It's dissapointing." to borrow a quote. But the thing that makes Ep 4 good is the same thing that I thought made Serenity good. It's a movie about people, not about technology for technologies sake.

That's what lucas forgot when he excreted Ep 1, 2, and 3.

Just my 0.02. Cheers.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[FuckTheModerators]

Yes, OSC is a batshit fascist asshat.
Yes, Ender's Game is still worth a read.

Just do like the AC earlier in this thread suggested and:

...just pretend that Card died in a car crash mere seconds after finishing the final draft of Ender's Game and he never wrote anything else.

His opinion holds no weight

[feanor512]

because he's a fascist.

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using "fascist" in this new-fangled sense of "anybody I disagree with vehemently", right?

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[zippthorne]

That's rediculous. If Hitler himself had written a review of various paintings, its value would be independant of his desire to kill jews. It would probably still be worthless based on descriptions of his own art, but it would have nothing to do with the fact that he was also a monster.

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[feanor512]

Perhaps insane is a better term. He claims that no one has died because of anything Bush ever said about Iraqi WMDs. He also argues for self-censorship in the name of patriotism and that terrorists hate us because we have too much freedom. He laments that liberals and atheists in the US don't respect Christianity and then goes on to say that it's ridiculous that Muslims expect others to respect their beliefs. He concludes by ranting that atheists (whom he labels Puritans) seek to establish a dictatorship in the US.

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[feanor512]

I wouldn't trust someone who can't evaluate the value of liberty to evaluate a movie. Nor would I trust someone who can't evaluate the value of human life to evaluate paintings.

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many ideas in play regarding the war and there is no right one answer. Self censorship at the very least does not lend the terrorists an encouraging ear. Buying their arguments and taking their side detracts from what should be an honest debate instead of random emotional outbursts.

While I do not subscribe to any particular religious belief, the analysis and history I have seen of Islam is shockingly a blatant ripoff with the goal of benefiting the person in charge of the ripoff, where as the religion(s) it pulls from have at their core interest ideas of fairness that have the interest of the community at heart. I think its funny that liberals and atheists side with the intolerance of Islam with its very hairy, very blatant warts just because some Christian says they should control their sexual urges and take responsibility for the spawn of their loins.

Re:His opinion holds no weight

[feanor512]

Actually those liberals and atheists offer more choices (i.e. birth control) to take sexual responsibility than do the neocons whom Card defends.

This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[efuseekay]

I don't know about you.

But. Writing sentences like these.

Makes reading the review. Like.

Riding a really, really bumpy vehicle. You know, car.

It's so sad.

I have a caveat. I thought Ender's Game is boring.

I mean, really boring. The ending was so blatantly obvious.

I knew what was going to happen half way through the book.

Chill dude. Go see the moview anyway.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[Anonymous Coward]

Art is artificial. Art exists for itself. Art is created by the self aware. Art produces an aesthetic response in some audience.

To claim that art is that which one finds beautiful seems to be ..a different definition.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[Pharmboy]

Actually, Uncle Orsen writes for the Rhino Times, an independent conservative newspaper here in Greensboro, North Carolina (a free weekly that gets better numbers than the for-pay newspaper here). You pick them up any any decent bar or eatery. Quite big for a free paper.

His style is always like that, but he's actually pretty easy to read once you get used to that. He writes like some people talk. Or think.

He's kind of a mix of the non-irritating parts of Andy Rooney, and the uncle you wished you had growing up. Ultra practical. And yes, he reviews everything, from movies to new cars to restaurants to new TVs.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[HarvardFrankenstein]

What he's doing there with his paragraphs is actually standard newspaper practice. I used to write for my college's newspaper, and my editor would hack apart my lengthy paragraphs into stuttering, syncopated messes all the time. The reasoning for it was the column width used in the paper, which is typically very narrow. Paragraphs that are normal length in a paperback sized page suddenly look enormous when copied to a newspaper column. In order to keep readers from being intimidated, and thus not reading the articles printed, editors usually chop long paragraphs up.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[iamlucky13]

Which doesn't make it any easier to read or follow. Please tell me Ender's game is not written like that article.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[HarvardFrankenstein]

I know. I'm not saying it's good. You'll notice I already voiced my disapproval of the practice. I'm just saying, that's what happens in the biz.

Re:This is like. Most lousy. Review.

[imr]

I have a caveat. I thought Ender's Game is boring.
I mean, really boring. The ending was so blatantly obvious.
Same.
Exactly.

Serenity NOW!

[nightsweat]

I think you saw a different cut than I did. I'd never seen a Firefly episode and the movie had plenty of character development.

Why should you care for River? Well, I'm not sure you really should until later in the film. That uncertainty about whether she's a sympathetic person or an impersonal weapon carries the tension for the first part of the movie. The Reivers I thought were a great "force of nature" villain - impersonal, mysterious, and scary as hell.

I think most sci-fi fans will enjoy this movie. I loved it.

Re:Serenity NOW!

[aeoo]

Uncertainty? I guess I am not affected in the same way as you. I don't build up any anticipation but only see what is visible NOW. I don't guess into the future. Also the "force of nature" villain didn't scare me at all, and appeared contrived and boring to me.

Re:Serenity NOW!

[Suidae]

In the series the reavers were one of those villans that sounded cool for the first couple episodes, then you find out that they are basicly just people that have been traumatized (for example by being forced to watch the slaughter of their crewmates). They don't really have a sensible motivation, and their only advantage over regular people is that they evidently don't care if they die.

Pretty stupid villians really, I was disappointed when they revealed more about them in the series. I hope to be able to enjoy the movie regardless.

Your Info is out of date...

[haplo21112]

He has since seen all 3...I forget what his opinion was, and I'm not in the mood to research it...

What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer?

[ianscot]

Orson Scott Card is a mediocre writer with an ego that is completely out of proportion to his talent.

For whatever reason I've had five or six personal run-ins with mid-tier science fiction and fantasy authors. They've all fit your description: okay writers with colossal egos.

One example sent in a bombastic resume for a position we were hiring for. He asked for roughly twice the going market rate on the long-term contract, and his cover letter was two-plus pages of wildly arrogant justification for that. We all sat around reading it aloud and laughing, which was kind of low-class, but it was that unintentionally funny. Perhaps as a consequence of the unvarnished ego represented, he had also failed to edit it with any especial care.

That same guy shows up around the city I work in giving flambuoyant courses on the handling of concealed weapons.

Maybe the trials of getting published just select for people with more-than-healthy egos... But you know, I worked in book stores for a while, and then in a small publishing house, and other genres of book did not seem to be exclusively written by maladjusted ego cases. (Other genres didn't seem to be written almost exclusively by far-right-wing types, either.)

Re:What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer?

[Peter La Casse]

(Other genres didn't seem to be written almost exclusively by far-right-wing types, either.)

I've been noticing more and more lately a distinct sub-genre of far-right-wing mid-tier science fiction. I consider myself to be pretty right-wing (though the political compass puts me near the origin), but some of these guys just make me want to throw my hands up in the air and laugh out loud, which is hard to do when reading without sending the book flying across the room (which would be bad, because then I would lose my place.)

Obviously, so-called right-wing themes have been a part of sci-fi for ever; many stories involve use of force by the good guys, which requires an ideology that doesn't frown upon use of force. Many stories *have* good guys, which is a so-called right-wing theme in itself (contrasting with moral relativism.) Lately, though, I've been noticing more of a blatant contrast between the "good" so-called right-wing ideas of the protagonists and "bad" so-called left-wing ideas espoused by other characters. Example: _Watch on the Rhine_, where those silly European leftists oppose a military buildup in the face of the bloodthirsty alien hordes who are coming to eat them. (Spoiler: many of them get eaten.) Even Card's preachiest books don't approach that level.

Be sure, though, that this is a sub-genre of science fiction. Many excellent authors (Banks, Stross, Bujold) do not write books that fit the above stereotype.

Re:What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer?

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! His name wouldn't be Joel, would it? Now there is an overblown ego and a shitty writer who's only gotten worse over the years. I'd pay good money to see that cover letter and resume...

Read any of his posts in the LONG discussion on Kuro5han for a good portrait of his personality...

Re:What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer?

[ianscot]

Many stories *have* good guys, which is a so-called right-wing theme in itself (contrasting with moral relativism.)

That made me just cringe. As someone who wouldn't identify myself as anything but an independent on any political scale, let me suggest the following distinction:

• In your "good guys" Sci Fi, the main characters are inherently good. The reader roots for them to accomplish the things they know they should do, which they very often know because they're opposing manifestly evil arch villains -- Sauron or whatever; whereas
• In a ("left-wing") morally relativistic writer's world, characters actually have to struggle, with themselves and their consciences, to figure out the right things to do.

One of them is just escapism, the other one is much more satisfying, at least to me.

Re:What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer?

[Peter La Casse]

I don't think I would be quite so specific. The first category of cookie-cutter good guy is common in the so-called right-wing sub-genre, but it's also common in all kinds of bad fiction that crosses many genres. The second is similarly not very clear cut. Saying that in a morally relativistic story characters face inner moral struggle invites people to jump to the conclusion that inner moral struggle is unique to stories written from a morally relativistic perspective, which is certainly not true. If a character struggles to figure out the right thing to do, and succeeds, then I don't think the struggle is sufficient to place it outside the so-called right-wing sub-genre. Even if a character concludes that there is no right or wrong, it doesn't mean that the work can't exist in this right-wing category; maybe the character is a bad guy.

I used the words "so-called" because obviously the idea of absolute right and wrong is not unique to the so-called right-wing ideologies. But if a story concludes that moral relativism is absolutely true and correct, it's not written from a so-called right-wing point of view.

In my opinion, the stories that are part of the far-right-wing sub-genre of science fiction that I described in my earlier post are relatively easy to categorize. This excludes stories like _Ender's Game_.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[jo42]

Personally, I was disappointed with Serenity. Expectations where set high with all the glowing preview reviews. Visually, it was too dark. Camera work left much to be desired. Special effects shots where too short - let us enjoy the visuals for fsck sakes! Dialog was hokey. Acting was hokey. Soundtrack couldn't decide what genre it was. Bottom line, amateurish move making effort.

Oh, he's just full of crap then.

[SumDumFloridaGoy]

My mistake.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Phurd Phlegm]

Like most, the first book of his I read was Ender's Game. It isn't a bad book. But it isn't great, either. Everything in it has been done before, by better writers.

I wasn't that impressed by the novel. However, it was a fantastic short story. I think that was one reason I didn't like the novel-length version--it felt like the same short story inflated with enough novel gas to take up the necessesary space. Which was Just Sad.

I think I have to take issue with the claim that it was all done before, though. I can't remember an earlier story with the "kid directs a successful war without knowing it" gimmick. And it was a great gimmick, at least based on my initial reaction to it. Of course, I haven't read every science fiction story published prior to 1975, but I did read several metric assloads of them.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

No coherent point, i.e., troll

Re:Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Says negative things about something all the slashdot fanbois are wet over -1 Troll.

Democracy in action you little narrow-minded assholes.

Full House. That's pretty out there.

[Poietes]

Mork calling Orson ... come in, Orson ...

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[account_deleted]

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Thank goodness.

[blair1q]

Ender's Game is a bad Harry Potter book, with far worse sequels.

I was worried that it might actually show up on film.

Now, I can sleep better.

Re:Thank goodness.

[Anonymous Coward]

I shudder to think that anyone can honestly think that Harry Potter is in any way superior to Ender's Game.

What a sad sad prospect.

Gah

[Urusai]

I read some book of his that I guess came out after Xenocide. It sucked, sort of like 1980's Robert Heinlein. Self-indulgent and plotless, it was.

As for Serenity/Firefly--look, Ma, it's a space Western! Talk about your one trick ponies. And guess what, they have a tortured Messiah figure cum prophet. And a preacher! Gosh diggety darn, it's a space jamboree! YEEEHAAAWWWWWWW!!!!

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[B5_geek]

Troll?
How why was this modded as troll?

Is somebody having a case of the Mondays?

*Hint THAT WAS FUNNY!

Hollywood's Attension Deficit Disorder

[stuffduff]

Two things are happening here, one of them is IMHO a damn fine movie, go see it; the other is a quiet, elegant miracle that should speak volumes to the entertainment industry.

Fox wanted not to just broadcast Firefly, they wanted to manipulate it to pander to their low perception of their audiences' values. Fox failed to appreciate what they really had and they canned it. So if something this good is unavailable on television, especially if it is not available on Fox; well, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Fans of the show assembled an absolutely unprecedented response, one greater than all of their predecessors, to raise the funds, take the ads out in Variety and they rook it to the web. Why did they do it? It's just like OSC said; they cared about the characters.

And who was the one person in all of Hollywood who didn't snooze through it? Chalk that one up to Mary Parent.

Now failure for this kind of project is always an option, don't get me wrong, but after all, this was and is a risky business.

So what actually did happen? Well they re-assembled cast & crew and conceived a fine, hand crafted and heart felt movie.

The decision to share the movie with friends and fans was also a huge risk. But the word of mouth was good and there were no spoilers. Because the fans 'Believed.' Belief's a funny thing. Maybe Hollywood should take a lesson from that one single point, as it alone will be responsible for the success of Serenity.

Hey Orson!

[soupdevil]

Since it influences so many of your own writings, how about reviewing the Book of Mormon? I'm especially interested in your take on the ten lost tribes of Israel becoming legendary sailors, moving to America to become the Amerindians, and the part about black people being the damned sons of Cain. But feel free to talk about the disappearing golden plates, special underwear, or polygamy, if you prefer.

Re:Hey Orson!

[haplo21112]

He he he...read Cards "Homecoming" series, pretty much the best indepth review of the book of mormon your gonna get.

Re:Hey Orson!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can show me the part of the book of Mormon where is says those "sailors" are the 10 lost tribes, or the part where is says black people are sons of Cain, or anything else you mentioned for that matter. Sounds to me like someone here has never read the book he's attempting to trash talk.

Orson Scott Card, Dead at 44

[Mr. Underbridge]

Personally, I just pretend that Card died in a car crash mere seconds after finishing the final draft of Ender's Game and he never wrote anything else.

Orson Scott Card was found dead today in a pile of flaming wreckage on the 405. Even if people don't agree with his political message regarding procreation policies, his impact upon the science fiction genre is undeniable. Truly an American icon.

Wha?

[jswalter9]

From TFA: "Watch reruns of Full House. That was a really funny, heartwarming TV series"

I was thinking the guy's opinion was credible until I read that. But then, maybe he was just being sarcastic...

Why are the reavers still around?

[Aexia]

And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?

To keep the populace in fear. Stick close to the Alliance and they'll protect you from the big bad Reavers who may strike at any moment. It's only those rebel outlying planets that get snatched after all. Sure, you'll have to give up a few freedoms in exchange but it's worth it right?

This sounds familiar for some reason...

Re:Why are the reavers still around?

[h3llfish]

That's a very good reason, and it's what I assumed at first, except that the movie specifically says that the alliance denies the existance of the reavers. This makes sense because they are responsible for the reavers in the first place. They are trying to cover the incident up at any cost. So why leave all this evidence around?

And I'll be really impressed if you can come up with a sensible reason why the reavers don't kill each other in bathroom-related disputes. Or over who takes out the garbage. Or whatever. My roomie and I can barely stay civil, and we're not cooped up in a space ship. Did anyone see Das Boot? It's rough when you're in cramped conditions with a bunch of smelly d00ds. Even if you're not homicidal with rage.

Re:Why are the reavers still around?

[Fallingcow]

Reminds me of Starcraft.

Re:

[hal200]

Not to mention, IIRC, that the average weekly viewership for Firefly was in the 3-4 million range.

Frankly, I think it's a testament to how good the series was that so many people held in there to watch it DESPITE Fox playing the episodes out of order (when they played them at all) in the most abysmal time slot possible. (Late Friday evening. Even geeks have social lives sometimes)

It's a miracle ANYONE knew it even existed.

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[account_deleted]

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Why he expanded it

[emarkp]

Read the introduction. He expanded it into a book to prepare for "Speaker for the Dead" -- to write about a child hero who has grown up. I like both the short story and the full book (of course, I read the book when I was younger and didn't expect the ending--later I read the short story).

bashing muslims?

[emarkp]

His comments about extreme Islam has to do with his interpretation of geopolitics--it has nothing to do with his religion.

Read his political page here.

Re:bashing muslims?

[Scrameustache]

His comments about extreme Islam has to do with his interpretation of geopolitics--it has nothing to do with his religion.

It may have little to do with it.
But when a religious person discusses another, competing religion, it's fair to say that his religion has something to do with his views.

Re:bashing muslims?

[emarkp]

But when a religious person discusses another, competing religion, it's fair to say that his religion has something to do with his views.

I find this comment to be somewhat ironic. You make a blanket assertion about members of a religion making blanket assumptions.

Re:bashing muslims?

[Scrameustache]

You make a blanket assertion about members of a religion making blanket assumptions.

No, I make a blanket assertion about members of a group making negative comments about members of a competing group.

Someone said Orson dislikes Muslims only because he's a mormon.
Someone else said that he has geopolitical reasons to dislike muslims, and that therefore his religion has -nothing- to do with it.
I say: It may not be the only factor, but it obviously has more than nothing to do with it.

Why you infer that by "something" I meant "everything" is your own problem though.

Literary Fiction isnt for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is more of a difference in taste and what constitutes quailty.

Literary fiction (i.e. not "pulp" or "pop") attempts to tell a story by being character driven, not plot/event driven. A character has an arc, or a personality trait that drives the story. Sometimes a story is a collection of characters and their interactions. Literary fiction does not always have to be as obviously literary as Salinger or some of Vonnegut. But if you walk into a bookstore and peruse the sci-fi section, only 10% of those books could be classified as literary versus pure genre pulp. Besides not being plot driven, literary works (I know this sounds incongruent) use the standard "show don't tell". I.e. a pulpy/genre story will just say "This made me mad" or "he was a troubled soul"... because those are revelations that are not convincing (not earned) in and of themselves. But describing thoughts (first person) or scene paint a more detailed picture, and make a story a piece of art.

What makes science fiction, "science" is the attempt to ask the reader to believe something unbelievable, that may not or not yet be scientifically possible. Some argue that Slaughterhouse Five (while literary) is certainly Sci-Fi (time traveling, aliens, etc). But it is considered to be "literary fiction" as well, but often a literary author will dismiss it as "magic realism".

That is not to say that "pulp" books can't be fun to read, but they are not very stimulating and some people are bored by that style of writing. The same is true for the medium of movies. The difference is that in a movie, the visual aspect is as much as part of the art as is the story telling. But a movie that is pure visuals does not appeal to the artist or it appeals only to the visual artist. Take much of Kubrick's later works: while visually inspiring, the story behind "A Clockwork Orange" is muddled as it makes a hero out of Alex (yes I know it is from a book of the same name). But the movie is pure visual/cinematic delight.

Other movies rely heavily on action and events to move the story forward. Some (like myself) find movies like this to be largely a waste of time, while it is clear that there are those that like action and such. The Matrix, at its heart, is not a good story, from a literary perspective. Card points this out. Star Wars (especially the later movies) are horrible muddles of plot point jumping. Card argues that Kaufman is writing Sci-Fi, and in a way he is. Not every sci fi story is "spaceships" and "explosions".

Take Bradbury, for example. Farenheit 451 is not about spaceships. Even Stephenson and Gibson don't write about spaceships (not always). Yet, some of Gibson's work is literary ("Pattern Recognition"), and you will find it in the sci fi section. Heinlein is a good example as well. Reading "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strangeland" gives you the literary Heinlein. Reading "Starship Troopers" gives you the political Heinlein (but the opposite conclusion as the movie). But he still wrote alot of pulp, too ("Have Spacesuit Will Travel", "Glory Road", etc).

Card has his moments as a writer. Ender's Game is fairly literary, character driven. And alot of the derivative works are as well (of course as Ender changes, his character changes, i.e. "Speaker for the Dead"). Although I am tired of the whole saga.

FWIW, I liked Serenity much more than any other sci-fi movie (save Equillibrium, but for other reasons) in the last ten years. Really. I didn't even expect to. I was not a huge fan of the series, but I was suprised. And I know that a "literary" story does not sell, people like sex, drugs, and explosions. Othewise we would see Lethem's work in film (wouldn't that be nice?). So I agree with Card, for the most part, but i am not a huge Kaufman fan. Adaptation was horrible.

Re:Literary Fiction isnt for everyone

[rco3]

I think Glory Road has more going on than a quick-and-dirty bit of pulp, honestly. Otherwise the book would have ended at the point when they got the Egg and found out who Star really was. At worst, I think it belongs in the same category of political fiction as does Starship Troopers. It's not as blatant and pervasive as in ST, but GR is all about political and social commentary. Top to bottom.

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel is one of RAH's juveniles, and is by no means targetted at those who would appreciate literary fiction. Those are just for fun, probably for him and for us. I just read The Rolling Stones (again!), and that's what it was. Fun.

Just to be on-topic, though, I'll say that I enjoyed Firefly - at least the episodes I've seen of it - and I'm looking forward to the movie. I also like OSC, especially Ender's Game and the Alvin Maker series. I can do without Folk of the Fringe, though. As one of my greatest fears is that someone will do to {insert any one of a hundred favorite SF novels here} what they did to Starship Troopers and to a lesser extent LOTR, I find OSC's endorsement of the movie to be very meaningful.

Re:Literary Fiction isnt for everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah in hindsight I agree, it had been a while since I had read "Glory Road", I stand corrected.

Star Trek / Star Wars killer?

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Surely this movie is not the Star Trek / Star Wars killer that so many fans said it could be.

Why is this even an issue? Firefly/Serenity isn't Star Trek nor Star Wars, and it isn't trying to be. All three are good, entertaining SciFi, and they're all different. There's no need for competition and argument over which is "better".

Which is better, apples, oranges, or roast beef? Discuss.

Re:Star Trek / Star Wars killer?

[Anonymous Coward]

roast beef.

vocal homophobe?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a junk piece that was. I've seen very little of Card's non-fiction ranting (as you so call it). However, given the bit included and compared to the rest of that about.com piece, I find the about.com piece to be far more phobic than Card's writting.

his laughable claims to being a Democrat

Always good to start off with a bit of character smearing...

he might just as well claim that he isn't homophobic.

...and a prerequisite bias.

Card doesn't simply think that homosexual behavior is sinful - a person can think that without also being homophobic.

The writer here seeks to draw an arbitrary boundry on what it is okay to think, and what isn't, that I would guess are based on the writers own beliefs.

The problem here is that Card goes quite a bit further.

An arbitrary measure on an arbitrary scale. It would imply that there has been a gross violation of what is right and wrong, with the assumption that one agrees with the beliefs of the writer.

He believes that homosexuality is a threat to heterosexual marriages and heterosexual relationships

The writer here assumes to ascribe a belief to Card, but it does not agree with given quotation of Cards writtings.

so as not to shake the confidence of the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable, dependable marriage and family relationships.

 

In my opinion, that about.com piece was written by a heterophobe. Hetero-, as other, or different. -phobe as a person having a fear of a specific thing.

OSC -- Just say No

[arth1]

He may write sci-fi well, but he's a vocal homophobe in his non-fiction rants.

The later Ender Wiggins books, as well has his whole Alvin Maker series have serious credibility problems due to the proselytizing. He found Jesus, I found other authors.

As for this "review" of Serenity, OSC writes:

Because for me, a great film -- sci-fi or otherwise -- comes down to relationships and moral decisions. How people are with each other, how they build communities, what they sacrifice for the sake of others, what they mean

Ah, so it's a chick flick then. Great -- I almost wasted ten bucks there.

Regards,
--
*Art

Re:OSC -- Just say No

[dar]

Oh yeah. No guy would ever want to see a movie that has relationships and moral decisions in it.

Re:OSC -- Just say No

[SpryGuy]

Ah, so it's a chick flick then.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

Trust me, your $10 wouldn't be wasted. The movie rocks.

Re:OSC -- Just say No

[child_of_mercy]

Everyone I know leaves the cinema pondering how many times they'll see it again before they die.

Then we get back to the simpler task of figuring out how many times we'll see it while it's still in the cinema.

Re:Anybody seen the movie but NOT the show?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've not heard people speak ill of it, but then I really haven't been polling everyone I meet. My girlfriend liked the movie a lot, and she hadn't been that excited about the few episodes she had seen. Another friend of mine had never seen the TV series, and really liked the movie, to the point where he really wants to see the series now.

I was a minor fanboy when this first aired, and liked the world and characters created fairly well. I didn't bother seeing any episodes re-aired, nor do I own the DVD collection, but I really liked the movie. I agree, the focus is on River (finally) and Mal (the best option for another key character). It'd be nice to see more episodes to fill in more backstory (as this was rather an end-piece, or an end of one phase, with the possibility for a second pphase/ season of Firefly).

I've heard a number of people from odd sides say they want all their friends to see this movie. Some people I would never take for being fanatics about this movie, which goes to prove it's pretty good, if nothing else. But if you're really questioning things, you can wait until a friend buys the DVD, and mooch off of their good graces.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[-kertrats-]

We all know that OSC is not only a mormon, but also batshit insane even given that. However, his writing is excellent, you really should check it out despite the author.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[renderhead]

It's become fashionable in the last few years for geeks to bash on Orson Scott Card, especially those who disagree with his worldview. My theory is that it gives them geek cred to say "I'm so morally pure that I'm not afraid to tear down one of my past idols when he disagrees with me." It's quite cliche by now to read the three following statements in any online O.S.C. discussion:

1.) "Orson Scott Card is a great writer. Too bad he's such a nut."

2.) "I used to love Orson Scott Card until I read some of his political essays. Now I refuse to read anything he writes."

3.) "Orson Scott Card is overrated. I've never thought he was any good. No, really!"

Frankly, it's tiresome, and it's rare to find anyone who will take on his point of view with a real argument before dismissing him outright. The essay about "Innocent Genocide" that's floating around this discussion is an unusually intelligent exception, and even that spends its time trying to prove that Card is saying something specific without refuting it in any meaningful way. It's taken as a given that once Card's "true" meaning is known, the reader will automatically reject that meaning as false or dangerous.

Personally, I think Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass, but I don't pop up in /. discussions about the man to say "Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass! He's never been that good of a writer, and you should all dismiss everything he writes without thinking about it critically." It's not germane to the discussion, and worse, it's not even intelligent.

Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

It's actually incredibly shallow. It's something I might recommend to kids as "my first SF novel" but that's about it.

ender's game might make an okay movie, but then modern movies - especially SF - are not particularly known for being cerebral masterpieces.

There's much better SF out there than enders game. For instance, any of the known space stuff by Niven. Greg Bear. Asimov. Herbert. Clarke. Those are great SF writers. OSC is a novice hack by comparison. He can write decently enough, but his stories are shallow, he telegraphs events light-years off, and story development is as subtle as being clubbed over the head with a baseball bat.

i'd really much rather see a larry niven or greg bear movie than an osc one.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Gulthek]

Don't forget Stephen Baxter.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[14erCleaner]

Hmmm, maybe it's time for "Ringworld" to be made into a movie. Special effects should be advanced enough to create a convincing Puppeteer. Of course, it's probably wind up looking like Jar-Jar with two heads or something.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[pilkul]

I wouldn't even let my kids read Ender's Game. The book is a megalomaniacal wish-fulfillment fantasy. Ender is this perfect superman who murders several children and yet remains perfectly innocent and good as far as Card is concerned. Because they are evil bullies and he is only defending himself --- "thoroughly". I can see why kids love it, it's so satisfying for a kid being bullied around in real life to imagine that scenario.

Not to mention, he and his siblings are such geniuses and so above the mass of humanity that his brother is able to easily conquer the world by the sheer power of his intellect. It's heady stuff for a scholastically over-average kid who fancies himself smarter than his peers. That's why Ender's Game is popular, not because it has any value as SF. I wouldn't trust kids to understand the difference between the twisted world of the book and reality.

See this article from John Kessel for more extended criticism among these lines.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

ringworld wasn't all that good either imo (but it was better than enders game). there are other known space novels which are far better. not to mention to really "get" ringworld you need a good background of known space and all the races.

better yet, make the mini-stories in 'neutron star' into a miniseries. each chapter being an episode. that would rock.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[14erCleaner]

Well, maybe...I did like Ringworld, though. A nice organlegging morality play would go over well as a movie, wouldn't it? Or maybe "Protector", speaking of special effects; spaceships and human-based hyperintelligent monsters, brrrrrr.....

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of Card's writing is boring and the charachters shallow, however enders game is not part of that body. It has genuine, if slightly contrived, tragedy and emotion.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

This sort of subjectivism regarding OSC became quite stylish about the time that a certain interview came out, revealing some of Card's religiously held sentiments. People who were once quite passive about Card, or even complimentary, suddenly became his worst critics. I know some who loved Ender's Game, and then found out that Card is Mormon. Now they hate it. It's similar to what has happened to L. Ron Hubbard, now that Scientology is a prime target of persecution.

Several years ago, Slashdot's conversations about OSC were generally quite positive. Now you can guarantee that any OSC discussion will contain the following elements:

1) Ender's Game is a Nazi-loving revenge saga. This is a recent argument based on a particular review from an OSC critic. Disciples of this "received" idea now push it as gospel truth.
2) OSC is a homophobe because he disagrees with the gay lifestyle and with gay marriage, even after science has proven that these things are perfectly normal.
3) I hate OSC, but I still think his books are pretty good.
4) I used to love Ender's Game, but now that I'm older and smarter, I find that I hate it because it's actually quite shallow. People who still like it are nostalgics.
5) OSC is a crazy mormon (followed by a list of crazy things about mormonism). Usually followed up by a post redirecting the interested and "uneducated" reader to any number of anti-mormon sites.
6) General fear and loathing of OSC and his "political" ideals. This is followed by a good dose of anti-right-wing hate talk.
7) Posts from OSC apologists (hi!) interspersed throughout the discussion.
8) OSC is trying to brainwash us with his books and I resent it.

Anyone can say that OSC is a novice hack. Well, I've read several of those other SF novelists mentioned in the parent post, whose books I also enjoy. I find that, lacking the anti-OSC bigotry, it is difficult for me to categorize OSC as a novice hack. Ender's Game is an award winning SF novel and was once quite well-regarded by those very deeply interested in the genre.

I find that OSC is quite outspoken, but nowhere near the bigot that his critics are.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

As I stated before, I thought ender's game was incredibly shallow and unimpressive long, long, long before that "article" you refer to was ever published.

If you're implying the only reason I am criticizing ender's game is because of that article, you're dead wrong. Simple as that.

And FWIW I thought clarke's "3001" was a pile of doggie poo also. If something is shit, I call it like I see it. I'm so terribly sorry if that offends you, but shit is shit.

I care not if OSC is a blathering idiot, but a good writer he most definitely is not -- regardless of his political/economic/sociological leanings.

ender's game won awards, big deal. those were dry years and slim pickings. ender's game was the least shit of the piles of shit at the time. but it still doesn't mean ender's game isn't shit.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[swillden]

ender's game won awards, big deal. those were dry years and slim pickings.

Wow, the whole decade from 85 to 95 was "dry"? Because Card had books that either won Hugo, Nebula, and/or Locus awards or were finalists pretty much every year during that span, as well as a smattering of other awards before and after that, particularly productive, period.

If you base your opinion of Card's works on Ender's Game only, you're missing out on a lot of other excellent fiction. Of course, you may not like all of the rest of that work (much of which is not science fiction), but you can't really make sweeping claims about whether or not he's a good writer based on that single -- and very early -- data point.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

osc apologists hail ender's game s _the_ pinnacle of osc's works. if that's the best he can do then quite frankly i'm not interested in the rest.

hugos and nebulas are as meaningful as grammys. just because britney spears won a grammy doesn't mean she isn't shit.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[daigu]

Ender's Game is interesting because it tells a story about a child that is not condescending - a rare treat in any type of writing. It also is not a bad reference for leadership and tactics. Is it the best sci-fi? Probably not, although tastes vary.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[swillden]

osc apologists hail ender's game s _the_ pinnacle of osc's works.

Why would anyone be an OSC "apologist"? And no one who has read a great deal of his fiction would hail Ender's Game as the "pinnacle". The most famous, yes, and maybe even be most beloved. But not the best.

hugos and nebulas are as meaningful as grammys.

You obviously haven't read many Hugo and Nebula award-winning books. Grammy's don't mean much, I agree, because they're primarily awarded to albums that sell well. Sales have nothing to do with Hugos and Nebulas. They're awarded for originality and quality. Now, winning books generally do become good sellers, but that's an effect, not a cause.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[cas2000]

> Anyone can say that OSC is a novice hack. Well, I've read several of those other
> SF novelists mentioned in the parent post, whose books I also enjoy. I find that,
> lacking the anti-OSC bigotry, it is difficult for me to categorize OSC as a
> novice hack. Ender's Game is an award winning SF novel and was once quite
> well-regarded by those very deeply interested in the genre.

perhaps so, but the kind of people who think OSC is a great (or even good) writer are the same kind of people who think that David Eddings is a good fantasy author.

i think that says it all, really.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[khallow]

I'd put Card on the same level as Bear or Niven. All three authors have written some great stuff and some truly embarrassing stuff. Despite some of the obvious ploys, clumsy forshadowing, and emotional exploitation, I still think Ender's Game is an excellent work.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Anonymous Coward]

It's similar to what has happened to L. Ron Hubbard, now that Scientology is a prime target of persecution.

I won't comment on your Mormon comments, but Scientology, a "prime target of persecution"???!?!

WTF? Have you READ any of the nutty things that they do? Well, I have, and I can vouch for the accuracy of much of it - because, as a young, nubile, and easily impressioned teen, I was on staff at the "Church" of $cientology.

For example, as staff, they are pretty clear that the "WOG" (derrogatory slang for non-Scientologists) are the enemy, and are pretty stupid. Even as they talk about the power of finding "basic truth", they openly discuss what their "PR front" is that they give to excuse their rediculous behavior. In short, they talk about what lies and deceipt they'll tell the "WOGs" this week.

And I do mean rediculous... Read about their "Cadet Org" for children. Read about the broken families, the several deaths, the kidnappings of those who are "Type 3 PTS".

Scientology is truly a scary organization, and that's why I'm posting this anon.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

hugo and nebula winners simply indicate they were voted by the most fans. this does not mean they are a good story. popular authors may win awards on mediocre stories simply due to their name alone.

"ringworld" won a hugo, though it was really not a very good niven story. but niven's name helped carry the award. the competition at the time was also not terribly strong.

a hugo does not mean a book is excellent and stands the test of time, only that it was the least suck for that year ;)

fortunately i don't judge a book on its hugo, i judge a book by its contents.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Alric]

Orson Scott Card is a skilled craftsman. That is a fact. You may find his plots boring and his ideas banal, but he possesses some undeniable talents as a writer. His greatest skill, in my opinion, is to create realistic voices for his characters and to understand that a character's voice should change, if only subtly, in different social contexts with different actors. This is an important facet of reality that many "great" writers fail to remember.

Also, Ender's Game is wonderfully fun and original novel. Rereading it as an adult who has read the works of Herbert, Tolkien, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, Kafka, Robert Anton Wilson, etc., does make the novel seem less awesome than it seemed to me as a twelve-year-old, having only read mediocre mainstream literature. I had no delusions of greatness or vicarious revenge fulfillment; it was just really great to read a novel that respected children while still somewhat admitting their faults. I still think it is a well-crafted, fast-paced, immersive and absolutely enjoyable read.

In my opinion, Ender's Game is the most shallow, ham-fisted and purely fun novel he has written.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[swillden]

hugo and nebula winners simply indicate they were voted by the most fans.

The Hugo is voted by fans. The Nebula is voted by writers. Since you obviously don't know what you're talking about, I'm going to stop here.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

thanks for stopping, you were getting rather tiresome.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[bani]

osc definitely knew his target audience -- angsty teens. i guess thats why so many people say they liked ender's game because they personally "identified" with ender as a kid.

as far as original, i disagree. osc exploited the fad of the time -- video games -- as a basis for his story. however, the fad was already old and tired by the time he got to it.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[agm]

I enjoyed Enders Game, but the "Homecoming" set of books (5 in total) is my most enjoyed sci-fi/fantasy book after Tolkiens classics. Well worth the read, IMO.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Anonymous Coward]

nicely cut + pasted. bravo. care to come up with an original thought once in a while?

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

Hey, I think David Eddings is a pretty good fantasy author. :) But I'm not much of a fantasy reader anymore.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

Sorry if I copied one of your posts. Like you said, I was feeling pretty stupid at the time and your writing must have matched my mental state.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

Like you said, I don't know about scientology. It may be that they are a wacky group, but I have come to a point where I don't like to make those kinds of judgements without a lot of personal thought. Now, I won't disagree with your assessment since you seem to have some sort of information that I don't. I just can't enter into your opinion at this time. I don't like to arrive at conclusions based on research that other people have done (or their experiences), although sometimes that's a good starting point. Although many people hate the church of Scientology, there are clearly those who love it. I'm curious about why that is, and maybe if it isn't actually by some virtue of that organization.

I stepped back one day and realized just how nutty _I_ am by the standards set by others. So now I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, in spite of all of the "crazy" things they do.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

I realize this thread is dead by now, but I've been following up with all of those who kindly responded to me, so I thought I would say "hey," and also have a bit of a response for you.

In spite of my earlier post, I totally respect your opinion of OSC. That's cool with me, and I'm not offended by it at all. You know about your own opinion, and thanks for setting the record straight on it.

Anyway, someone accused me of not having any original thoughts of my own when I replied to you. While that accusation may have been acurate in the past, I have to say that your post started me thinking quite on my own, and so that's always a positive development. :)

As far as it goes, I'm not an OSC fanboy myself. I admit I loved Ender's Game, and also Treason (read Treason if you haven't). I didn't care for Speaker for the Dead, and I thought that the Alvin Maker series were only so-so (I only read three of them, and only because I had them on my bookshelf. I don't like owning books that I haven't read). Oh, and I disliked Folk of the Fringe (most), Hart's Hope (got bored) and the Worthing Saga (finished it, anyway). I also read a book that OSC edited called Future on Fire, which was a collection of SF shorts by other authors. That might have been an excellent read, except that I was way too young for that material at the time.

I do read OSC's opinions, too; as he occasionaly writes the odd op-ed article. I confess that his opinions are partially distasteful to my own, and are very outspoken indeed (though I love to read them). I'm all about reading ideas from people who I disagree with. Those opinions often make me _think_ more than other opinions which I already agree with. Hence my earlier post to you. :)

Loved Niven's Ringworld, by the way. And Asimov's Foundation. Haven't read much from those other authors; SF reading isn't my forte.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[greggman]

Wow, hmm, well, since he won the Nebula award, and since the Nebula award is a peer award, that would mean many of your favorite authors think OSC is pretty great.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Shads]

I really enjoyed Ender's Game and the following books in the series, they *are* good sci-fi in my estimation. I also enjoyed Niven's Ringworld and Greg Baer's Eon. I'd enjoy seeing alot of sci-fi movies well constructed but the fact of the matter is, alot of sci-fi is less action and more mental... and that makes a bad movie generally. Ender's game because of the way it was written lends itself well to a movie.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Shads]

If your kids can't distinguish between the reality and a book like enders game I would say you've massively failed as a parent.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Ender is this perfect superman who murders several children and yet remains perfectly innocent and good as far as Card is concerned.

his brother is able to easily conquer the world by the sheer power of his intellect

(spoiler alert)

You sound like you've never read the sequels (either the Speaker arc or the Shadow arc). Ender's Game as a novel may have its faults, but the whole set is well thought out. Ender does not remain good. Even as early as "The Investment Counselor" of First Meetings, which happens just after Ender leaves earth, he's already demonized and thus has to hide his identity, and his duty is to redeem himself by giving the buggers a home. He is not innocent for the xenocide, nor the deaths of Stilson and Bonzo. There is a moral responsibility there. The catch is that he is not responsible, since from his birth he had been abused by the IF so that they get a leader who will win at all costs. Ender never realizes as a child the immorality of what he did. If you want to read it as a child, go ahead. Stick it in the back of your mind and ignore its morality. Then mature a little, read the sequels, and realize that you, the reader, have also been duped by the IF into believing that what they made Ender do was acceptable.

As far as Peter, the only real power he ever had was stopping a couple of potential wars. Peter didn't even have power to stop Achilles in any reasonable manner. The events that led to his demise - the kidnapping of the Bean/Petra embryos, the shot in cold blood - were all mishandled. Achilles could've been led to a proper trial or something if the Hegemon and his forces had been kinda smart. Peter as Hegemon is not the meritocrat he appears to be. By no means does he "conquer the world", as you say.

I guess you're right that Card's kinda weak on making the morality explicit in Ender's Game. But the later novels make it more than clear.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Konrad9]

Hm... the book is bad because it puts people into a situation that is imporbable and what people wish could happen to them. Hey, that sounds firmiliar...

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[ajs]

"This sort of subjectivism regarding OSC became quite stylish about the time that a certain interview came out"

That is to say, around the time that he let loose with his The Hypocrites of Homosexuality rant which included, among other choice bits,

"Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society."

Yes, that's about the time that I started re-reading Card's work with an eye to the views that he was attempting to push into the mainstream. It's when I became aware of the comparisons of Ender's Game and Xenophile with this history of the Third Reich (which, I have to say, are weaker than simply saying that Card is detatched from any sense of right and wrong, and much more interested in relative "correctness").

"People who were once quite passive about Card, or even complimentary, suddenly became his worst critics. I know some who loved Ender's Game, and then found out that Card is Mormon.

I found out that Card was a mormon just after reading Ender's game, and just before I picked up The Tales of Alvin Maker, book one. I don't think it affected my thoughts about him. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian / athiest family which allowed me to develop a healthy respect for both the religious and non-religious points of view, and I've since come to respect many religions. Mormonism isn't really one of those, but I give it the benefit of the doubt on most topics. Card is a dangerous sociopath, as best I can tell, and that has nothing to do with his choice in faiths.

"Several years ago, Slashdot's conversations about OSC were generally quite positive. Now you can guarantee that any OSC discussion will contain the following elements:

"1) Ender's Game is a Nazi-loving revenge saga. This is a recent argument based on a particular review from an OSC critic. Disciples of this "received" idea now push it as gospel truth."

Recent?! You do know that the original essay, "Ender's Game: Sympathy for the Superman" was published in 1987, don't you? You're also widely misrepresenting the point of the essay, but I presume you know that.

"2) OSC is a homophobe because he disagrees with the gay lifestyle and with gay marriage, even after science has proven that these things are perfectly normal."

Clarify. Do you mean that science has proven that homophobia is perfectly normal or that homosexuality is? Either way, Card is not considered a homophobe because he doesn't think same-sex-sex is a good idea. He's considered a homophobe because he passionately advocates the supression of homosexuality at a legal level.

"3) I hate OSC, but I still think his books are pretty good."

I can't say that I like Hemingway as a person either. Not to say that Card is any Hemingway in terms of writing, of course, but the hyperbolic example makes the point clearly, I think.

"4) I used to love Ender's Game, but now that I'm older and smarter, I find that I hate it because it's actually quite shallow. People who still like it are nostalgics."

And this is unreasonable, why?

Most of the rest of your points repeat the above points, so I'll just leave it at that.

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[Kismet]

I wasn't aware of Card's essay on The Hypocrites of Homosexuality. I agree that the snippet you provide is curiously outspoken for an author who often treats the subject rather openly (if not indirectly) in some of his other work. I'm thinking of Treason, specifically. Such was the surprise of the interviewer if I recall: she thought that Card would have been more "open minded" towards the topic, but it wasn't so. Well, I think that "open-minded" and "in agreement" are two things. Anyway, one man's sociopath is another man's neighbor (I don't live by OSC, btw, but I still only classify him as "outspoken."). :)

Regarding the Superman Essay, no, I didn't know it came out in '87. Ok, my whoops; but at any rate, it's only been in the last year or two that I've seen it used in these OSC arguments.

Now, I don't have a good argument for you on the point about homophobia, in #2. Like I said, I was only aware of a certain interview, in which I thought the content was rather tame. It was around that time that OSC debates starting getting, in my opinon, heated. So I connect those events together. Your quote from the other article (presuming it's in context, which I have no reason to doubt) opens up a whole new can of worms. I tend to agree with you that a "passionate suppression of homosexuality at a legal level" belies homophobia, although I'm not certain that what I know of Card's feelings qualify him for "passionate" on that count. Sometimes people say things that aren't really smart, just so that they can be obnoxious or outspoken. Has anyone every quantified homophobia, and just how many ounces of fear is required before a person becomes a homophobe? I used to think that I had arachniphobia - you know, the nightmares and extreme aversion to those little devils whenever they show up. But I still get up the courage to squish those beasts and remove them from the premises when others around me positively won't do it. By medical standards, I'm no arachniphobe. So what is the threshold for these things, and is it prudent to talk about homophobia when we haven't even had the man under the psychological microscope for more than a few tangential articles and interviews?

You also wanted me to clarify about my little "science has proven" comment. I was actually making a little dig at those people who claim that homosexuality can be somewhat demonstrated in a genetic sense, so therefore it is socially acceptable. So my antecedent was homosexuality, not homophobia (which is more a product of synapse pruning, I think. I'm not a scientist.). Anyway, that little dig of mine got me on some Foe lists out there, but in fact I was merely trying to illustrate, via sarcasm, that scientific facts don't readily translate into social maxims. Science can tell how things are, more or less, but not if they are right or wrong. I was trying to demonstrate a logical fallacy and at the same time, bring into question the philosophy of secular empiricism. It was stupid, and it failed brilliantly!

Have I made any good arguments yet? No, I guess I've lost some ground.

I will argue your point #4. I agree that it isn't unreasonable to change your opinion of something as you age, or as you encounter good arguments and new information. This is natural, and we hope that people can do it. What isn't logical is to assert that those who still hold their old beliefs (e.g., those who still like OSC after all these years), only do so for the sake of tradition in spite of what "facts" may have become available. If I believed that OSC was a raving sociopath, it might be more difficult for me to enjoy his work in light of that. But as I don't hold that opinion at this time, I'm still happy to give his stuff a try. I don't think that I've been turned into a raving sociopath because of it (maybe I was one already).

Alas, my original post was sadly under-researched, but this is, after all, Slashdot. I just don't have that kind of serious interest in OSC, so my observations were mostly intuitive. In spite of the tru

Re:Ender's game is not great SF

[ajs]

"I wasn't aware of Card's essay on The Hypocrites of Homosexuality."

It's shocking just how many people are not. I responded pretty much just as you did to a mailing list when someone took a stand against Card, and they pointed me to the article... I was stunned.

"Regarding the Superman Essay, no, I didn't know it came out in '87. Ok, my whoops; but at any rate, it's only been in the last year or two that I've seen it used in these OSC arguments."

It's not a perfect essay, and I think it tends to fail the test of Occam's Razor on many points, but it's good. Sadly, there aren't any sources of it online that I know of. You're likely thinking of the guy (forget his name) who wrote ABOUT it, and about Card. He also seems to have an axe to grind, but also makes some OK points here or there.

"Your quote from the other article (presuming it's in context, which I have no reason to doubt)"

You can just search for the title on Google. There are several copies available from Mormon sources as well as in the GLBT community. However, I applaud your hesitency to simply buy into what some random person on Slashdot asserts. I wish more people questioned sources without just flaming, as you have.

"You also wanted me to clarify about my little "science has proven" comment. I was actually making a little dig at those people who claim that homosexuality can be somewhat demonstrated in a genetic sense, so therefore it is socially acceptable."

I think I pretty much got that, but wanted to confirm. Just one note: the argument as I've seen it stated is a bit more narrow:

Christians and some other religions assert that homosexuality is a sin.
However, we are discovering (and the evidence IS getting pretty solid) that homosexuality is an attribute of a person's genetic makeup (at least in part)
Thus, homosexuality is one of God's creations, and cannot be a sin.

Card's counter to this argument is:

God also created the temptations for many other types of sin, but that does not make the commission of those sins right. In essence, he is arguing that homosexuality is a test of one's ability to resist sin, and those who are ACTIVELY homosexual (as opposed to simply being pre-disposed) are thus sinners.

My counter to that is:

That's all very nice, but I'm neither a Mormon nor a Christian of any sort, and I couldn't care less. Keep your laws off my privates.

Aside from Card's rebuttal, another angle is:

Ok, well if it's genetic, then it's a genetic disease just like Down's Syndrom, and we should seek to cure it at a genetic level.

Of course, this runs aground immediately, especially in light of Kinsey's research which shows that there is a clear continuum of sexual orientation, and that extremes on either end are no more the norm than any single point on the line. It's not very workable to label something so prominent in the human species as a "disease", and seeking to "cure" homosexuality isn't as simple a prospect as you might think.

It's also not clear that you can reasonably refer to a social stigma as a "disease". There have certainly been cultures where being homosexual was not a disadvantage at all.

"Have I made any good arguments yet? No, I guess I've lost some ground."

Nope, I think I understand whered you're coming from.

"I will argue your point #4. I agree that it isn't unreasonable to change your opinion of something as you age, or as you encounter good arguments and new information. This is natural, and we hope that people can do it. What isn't logical is to assert that those who still hold their old beliefs (e.g., those who still like OSC after all these years), only do so for the sake of tradition in spite of what "facts" may have become available. If I believed that OSC was a raving sociopath, it might be more difficult for me to enjoy his work in light of that."

I don't think I disagree with any of that.

"Alas, my original post was sadly under-researched,"

This is Slashdot. No one noticed, trust me ;)

"Thanks for the response."

And you for yours!

Indeed!

[Grendel Drago]

The first time I read it, I was in middle school or early high school, and thought it was the best damn thing I ever read. I reread it late in college, and couldn't shake the feeling that something about it was very, very wrong---but I didn't really know what it was until I read that article, along with "Sympathy for the Superman". It's an astonishingly well-constructed fanwank, playing to the infantile fantasies that people like us eventually grow out of. (Taking over the world by talking smack on Slashdot? Saving the world through gaming prowess? Killing endless waves of slavering bullies jealous of his ubermenschen nature because he's just that superior?)

Card's view of Ender's Game

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is taking a popular fiction class right now that is taught by Orson Scott Card (he teaches at Southern Virginia University). He has said in class that Ender's Game isn't that great of a book--someone told him that it would be a cash cow if he made a book out of the short story. The person said that if you give the short story a history and a future, with the short story as the meat, you end up with a book. He did that, and then he got the liberty to do whatever he wants in his writing.
There was a comment in one of the links on a post about how Card writes stories similar to ones already written (like the Mormons' Book of Mormon)--Asimov's Foundation series is based on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This is the stuff writers do to educate people about things important to the writer that the reader wouldn't read otherwise. (Asimov's passion--above that of theoretical chemistry even--was history, and Card's is his religion)

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[pythorlh]

Which has nothing to do with his review. If it did, he'd have been ranting about the fact that Serenity has a bi-sexual prostitute on board for half the film. Instead, he gives a thoughtful analysis of why this movie is better than other "sci-fi" movies in his opinion. At no point does he mention his religion, or yours. Frankly, he's a bigot. But he's also an intelligent, well-spoken, and well-respected author. Which is why he's occasionaly worth listening to. Nobody's perfect.

mod parent up

[bani]

I 100% agree with you.

my summary of why ender's game is ok but not great can be summed up here.

i can think of a lot better sf that deserves the big screen treatment a lot more than ender's game.

Worst.....series....ever!

[LanMan04]

I suffered through the entire Homecoming series, and I've got to say it was some of the most boring sci-fi I've ever read. It had a ton of promise at the beginning, but it REALLY went downhill quickly. By the time you get to the hyper-intelligent bats and mole rats, well, it's too late.

That being said, I did enjoy Ender's Game and all related books, but David Brin (especially the Uplift books) and Arthur C. Clarke are much better authors.

No special underpants required.

Re:Worst.....series....ever!

[haplo21112]

Yes I agree Homecoming was at times tediously boring....I swear two of the books were exactly the same story. The first book has alot of promise, The last was interesting, but seemed a let down due to its moving so far forward of the originals and being almost an entirely different story that happened to involve concepts from the previous ones.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Marillion]

I didn't either until people with 600,000+ started saying like "such a low number". I don't have my original sign-up email anymore, but it clocks in somewhere around the summer of 1997.

We've been through this before

[Anonymous Coward]

I am too busy to look now, but I think this allegation was previously made on Slashdot, and we had a fun flame war then. Having read the allegations, and Ender's Game, I continue to remain unconvinced that Ender is Hitler, or any other way you want to put. It just didn't pass the logic test for most of it.

I have also read the article in question listed above (also on Slashdot previously, if I remember right), and I understand the point Orson Card is making, and it is not that the media should be censored. One of his points is the media have large amount of unchecked power in telling stories, and that that power is often used ways that is unhelpful to the country and in specific instances dangerous to country as we face Islamic facisim and terrorism. The country is at war, although many still refuse to believe. Unless you believe the media/press is perfect and has no agenda, his essay is strong in delivery, but not a call for censorship.

Re:We've been through this before

[Anonymous Coward]

"We?" Do not forget that this community consists of more than simply yourself and those with whom you have had some contact in the past. Laws regarding media regulation tend by their inherent nature to expand until they are absolutes regulating permission to public or refusal of permission to publish with heavy punishment for publishing without permission. Understand that the implications of Card's proposal can not be separated from his proposal because of their intrinsic relation to the goal of his proposal: that no stories of that character are published again so as to avoid inciting any response in any populous that opposes the US or its armies in any way to increase their resistance further.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[brkello]

He speaks very highly of Serenity. Maybe it was his intention to talk about his book (I doubt it), but if people are reading his reviews, they probably have already read it anyways. The reason why I like Ender's Game and other OSC books so much is that he actually writes interesting characters with interesting interaction. Most sci fi is more about the science than developing interesting characters. OSC puts the characters first (in my mind) and that's what make his books moving.

The movie is already being made, so it's not some pitch to do that. Anyways, everyone has their opinion but it seems like you have some personal bias based on who he is. Just read the books...you don't have to love the person to love the books.

Re: reavers

[Anonymous Coward]

Book's background--not a discontinuity, simply not explained. I actually LIKED that it remained mysterious. We know quite a bit about Book from his actions, is that not enough? Vagueness happens in reality too.

Simon--Yeah, serious discontinuity with the series. Simon the commando worked within the context of the movie though, for what it's worth.

Book and Kaylee looking different--people's appearances change (within reason) over time. I imagine Book got sick. Maybe Kaylee did too. It's not a discontinuity.

Reaver creation--There can be more than one way, and in the series it was pretty clear that "watching" was the exception, not the rule--as survivors were extremely rare.

Alliance ships--yeah possible discontinuity. However, the "cruisers" like the Dortmunder seemed to operate much like an aircraft carrier--a station for smaller, faster, more dangerous military vessels. If a battle/chase was going to happen, the aircraft carriers would be nearby, but not in the middle of the action (maybe in orbit but not in atmo like the other ships)

Several earthlike planets--and moons. One gas giant in the habitable zone could yield scores of habitable moons, assuming some other things like terraforming and maybe also gravity control work. Having it be a single star system allows travel between planets without FTL in a human timeframe--I think that's a good thing.

No FTL, but artificial gravity--FTL is a good thing to avoid having to explain, so they don't have it. Artificial gravity is a hard thing to shoot a relatively low-budget TV series without, so they have it. Yes, artificial gravity is problematic, but it makes filming much much easier. It's a pretty much universal kludge, no worse on Firefly than elsewhere.

Poor planets are terraformed--Getting a usable atmosphere seems the logical first step on any planet that can support it. Getting an Earth-like hydrocycle, ecosystem, etc, may take longer on some planets than others, based on what the planet was like to begin with. It's possible the core planets didn't need to be terraformed at all. Rim planets might still not be "done" yet. In the meantime, they are cheap real estate for those who want to live there. Once they get done, the value will go up and the poor dwellers will need to move on.

Dates & Times--From one of River's rants about the word "year" being an anachronism on the series, it's reasonable to assume that they are still using Earth years uniformly everywhere. This measurement is obviously long divorced from its original meaning of a trip around the sun, thus it's anachronistic--as River points out.

Yes, yes, certainly some things are left unexplained (artificial gravity being the big one in my book). Certainly the realism of the world did not have priority over the realism of the characters, ability to write and shoot the story in a reasonable timeframe/budget, etc. But Firefly the series was great. The movie is only pretty good, but that's better than a lot of movies these days.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[haplo21112]

Humm...I have never found him to be a bigot. Infact he often speaks out against just that sort of thing. But again that has nothing to do with his review.

Now personally I am seeing Bigot in the racial sense. If however you are applying it to his point of view on sexuality, then perhaps...However I can't actually remember anypoint in the movie where the fact that she is a high class call girl is actually referenced. The go the the Training house, however I don't think the movie actually mentions what the training is for. Cards point of view in many things is colored by his sense of Morality. His morality says that certain things are immoral. He however at least from what I have seen does not hate others for running counter to his moral compass. I'm not sure that makes him a bigot...just my $.02 however...YMMV

I rather liked his comments.

[solomonrex]

Fascist is the most overused insult this decade. Let me know how that works when you read Lincoln's and FDR's biography. Or are your heroes DeGaulle and Clinton?

Re:I rather liked his comments.

[feanor512]

I don't completely agree with the ideology of any of them.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[AJWM]

Lawrence Block, a prolific and award-winning writer of mysteries and science fiction, has a character (who is a renowned author) say this about people who try to analyze his (the mythical author's) work: "I have enough trouble with getting the words down to tell the story I want, let alone trying to hide any meaning in them".

Fiction writers, first of all, have to tell a good story. If that means coming up with a story whose characters or background bear absolutely no resemblence to what the author believes, then that's what takes precedence. That may not always be the case, but it's worth considering before one bases his beliefs about what an author thinks solely on the fiction that author has written.

Truth to tell, I haven't liked much of Card's fiction beyond Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, but that hasn't stopped me from recommending Ender's Game to my daughter.

It's a Western, silly.

[Grendel Drago]

Oh, but you haven't seen any old-school Westerns, have you? All that talk about the girl kidnapped by the Injuns "going native"? Yeah, that's code for having sex with one of them, and thus, I dunno, being tainted or something.

Firefly is indeed a Western. It's got the confederacy, the frontier and the savages. But just like the Independents weren't fighting to preserve a way of life that intimately depended on slavery, the Reavers aren't the hapless natives decimated by those wacky "trick" smallpox blankets.

So, no, the Reavers don't resemble actual Apaches. But then again, neither did those dreadful Hollywood Injuns.

Re:It's a Western, silly.

[Morgalyn]

Bahh. I don't know why I am bothering to reply, but I'm bored. I've watched plenty of westerns - I find them pretty boring. Firefly had definite western underpinnings - but it was not "A WESTERN". Serenity had even less of a western influence. Mr. Whedon borrowed thematic elements from westerns, but I think both pieces of work have more in common with science fiction than westerns.

Ender's Game

[Zzanath]

Regarding this article, the author expounds on exactly how I felt about Ender's Game: it's a violent nerd revenge fantasy. The reason it was popular then and continues to draw new converts is that the book is simply begging SF readers to identify with the super-intelligent, ultra-skilled outcast with a heart of gold who is beset on all sides by bullies, uncaring authority figures and a brutal system. And when he's pushed into a corner, he responds by killing his enemies. What middle school geek isn't going to identify with that?

It's a decent enough book, and held my attention up until the last few pages (with Ender nursing a bugger from his super-child teat). Unlike most first-time readers, I had the benefit of being older than 20 when first picking it up. Like many other things from childhood (Star Wars, anyone?), the book picks up a gilded nostalgia that prevents an objective look later on. I'm no literary critic, but it's interesting to see other people reach the same conclusion.

But Ender's Game isn't that great

[DrXym]

The ending is a zinger, but most of the stuff that precedes it, especially the dialog is rather average. In fact the dialogue is extremely clunky. I hear people say "well these kids are geniuses so they'd speak like adults", but that is more like someone making excuses for the poor dialogue. Kids, even precocious kids don't talk like the ones in Ender's Game.

ender's game is "the wizard" of SF novels

[bani]

the wizard

"i love ender's game. it's so bad "

"Forget about the Box Office"

[fnurb]

As Edward J. Epstein explained more fully in Slate back in May:
http://www.slate.com/id/2118819

In 2003, box office receipts accounted for less than 20% of a movie's revenues. Home entertainment provides more than 80%. Since then, the shift from theater to home has only accelerated. Last year, Walmart alone accounted for more than a third of studio revenues in video and DVD.

Home sales account for an even greater percentage of profits for the studios, given the high costs of theater promotion.

In fact, most studios expect to *lose* money as long as a film is in the theaters. The purpose of theater release is to build recognition and audience awareness, NOT to make money - not any more.

So, using your number of $10 million for Serenity's opening weekend, the movie can expect to make around $55-$65 million, if not more (given the strong cult fan base for the series and a lot of initial hesitation, given precedent of lousy films based on TV series).

Epstein uses the example of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which made only $8.1 mil in its opening weekend in the theaters--but sold over 1.5 million DVDs during its first week in the stores.

Re:"Forget about the Box Office"

[BewireNomali]

Those numbers are right. In fact, Hollywood uses the box office merely as a springboard for the way more lucrative home entertainment market. But, with varying exceptions, box office success translates into DVD success, which translates into favorable rates when the film hits pay cable, basic cable, and network revenue streams. In other words, if a film doesn't do particularly well, it tends not to do well on DVD, which in turn drives down the realistic asking price when the film is pushed down the pipeline.

I don't doubt that the film will be a success. Geeks are loyal DVD purchasers. DVD alone will push this into the black. I'm sure that's what the argument was in order to get hte studio to put up the cash, especially to a first time feature director.

Re:"Forget about the Box Office"

[jafuser]

DVD alone will push this into the black.

But that's Reaver territory! Best not be goin' out there without some mighty fine plannin'.

Re:"Forget about the Box Office"

[joskay]

Revears or Hollywood execs when going into the black. Is there a difference? I think one might be easier to handle than the other...
: )

Re:"Forget about the Box Office"

[mink]

At least all a Reaver can do to you is rape you to death.

Define SF.

[Grendel Drago]

(the only things sci-fi in it are the formacs/buggers, FTL travel and the ansible. Everything else is pretty much ~50 years into the future technology.)

Huh? What is it if it's not more than fifty years in the future? So Vernor Vinge's upcoming Rainbows End isn't SF? Explain this fascinating new system of classification, please.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[bani]

ok, so he won hugo and nebula awards. must have been dry years.

#2 may not be good enough

[Hollins]

Serenity grossed $10.1 million opening weekend. It cost around $40 million to make. I read somewhere that Whedon was promised two more features if Serenity tops $80 million. It's going to be a stretch

What's literary?

[Grendel Drago]

What does literary mean?

No, seriously. There's a lot of people looking down their noses at SF readers, claiming it's not literary, and I just don't have a good idea of what literary means. Is Shakespeare literary? It was popular in its day. Is Watchmen or Cerebus literary? They both have extraordinary depth, complex self-reference and cultural reference.

Is it that "eternal human verities" crap that literary people seem to love so much, where people are doomed to make the same sort of stupid mistakes over and over again? 'Cause that's pretty much anti-SF, but in that case, who wants to be literary?

Re:What's literary?

[IpalindromeI]

The only consistent definition I've been able to find is: something that enough people who are "trained in literature" agree is literature. Otherwise, it might still be a good read, but it's not Literature. Mostly it seems like one more thing that people can use to feel superior to others. My wife doesn't agree with that definition, but then, she has a degree in literature. :)

Explanation for Reavers

[WraithRealm]

The trick to all of this Reaver Talk is considering the initial "creation" of the Reavers.

They were "made" by the PAX (long name i can't remember), a drug that induced chemical changes in the host.

My Points:
1. As one of the previous posts said, there's the "Shark-to-Shark Attack" case where they won't attack because they're not stupid enough to take on equals, but what about the fact that the only time we see Reavers become crazy/insane is when they're in the general proximity of LIVING HUMANS. Perhaps the PAX is inducing these in-human rage-filled instincts to feed/rape/kill. Perhaps it's the "Untainted Human" that causes these traits to come out - which would explain how they're coherent enough to pilot ships and plan attacks - no Untainted Humans around. Obviously, they can't be *that* coherent because they wouldn't be crazy enough to continue.

2. How exactly does a Reaver tell another Reaver from a Untainted Human? Perhaps the blood - The PAX could have changed a Reaver's blood - some chemical properties that would make it inherently different from normal blood. Good old fashioned "blood in the water" scenario.

3. Also, The "Recruit" vs. "Made" argument is this - the "Recruiting" is making a human "unstable" - in truth, the "recruited" Reavers are simply humans-gone-mad, emulating their captors/torturers. In "Bushwacked", the "Recruit" killed and ran - But obviously he didn't try to feed! No blood on his lips/face! He just tried to get back to familiar ground - and attempted to take out invaders (Mal, Alliance Commander et. al.)

4. Reavers aren't more than 10-12 Years old (meaning there haven't been Reavers for more than 10-12 years - not that their ages are 10-12). They haven't had time to reproduce to the point that their offspring would be old enough to continue. Perhaps they will, though - this could be a future plot line. So "raping" women may actually just be the above mentions rage/insanity (the primal urge to have a go at everything in site) and not for procreation reasons at any step of reasoning.

And, Off that subject, The "One Star System with ~12 planets and hundreds of moons" Scenario makes more sense than multiple star systems or even a bi/tri-nary system. During the series, one of the most confusing aspects of the "space travel" was that they never seemed to move fast enough to warrent traveling between different star systems, and they never really explained the positional/relational locations of the planets/moons that they visited - all very much left up in the air. When the movie came out, and explicity explained that it was one solar system - it makes much more sense that it would take "2 weeks" to get to another planet or "a couple of days at a hard burn". Planetary positioning and all that.

Just my $0.02.

Re:Explanation for Reavers

[WraithRealm]

Sorry about the Spoilers, BTW - The information was inherent to the discussion. I figure not many people would really know that much about Reavers and be able to discuss them - my mistake.

Wait a sec...

[Mad Ogre]

Is this Slashdot or Fark?

For those that have seen it....

[MacGod]

One thing not addressed in the review is whether it would still make a good movie if you haven't seen the Firefly. He makes it clear you'll love it if you have seen Firefly, but never truly indicates if it's good for us Firefly-virgins.

I think it looks like a great movie, but have yet to see the original series (and please, spare me all the banal "turn in your geek card" jokes, I don't own a TV and haven't gotten around to renting the DVDs to watch on my computer). But if it will be much better for having seen the TV series, I will hold off on the movie until Have done so.

So, for those that have already seen Serenity, please weigh in and let me know your thoughts.

Re: reavers

[Rei]

Several earthlike planets--and moons

Dozens of earthlike planets, as well as many moons, if I recall the movie intro correctly. Also, scores of habitable planets and *moons with earthlike gravity*? That's my main problem with the "moons" hypothesis.. not to mention the lack of a monstrous gas giant looming in anyone's sky at any point. Planetwide gravity control? Even Star Trek doesn't propose anything like that (to the best of my knowlegde... I'm not the world's biggest trekkie ;) )

It's possible the core planets didn't need to be terraformed at all

I don't see how. Humans breathe O2, which doesn't exist in quantity in nature, because it's too reactive. It would seem to require life, and we all know there is no alien life in Firefly. Also, the odds of getting acceptable pressure and no gasses toxic to us (barring alien life) are pretty slim - comparing Venus to Mercury shows how extremely pressures vary on even solid planets (Venus = ~90(?)x, Mercury = (~1/10000?)x)

Rim planets might still not be done yet

They've got the pressure, rough temperature, and oxygen to live outside - close enough to "done" to have done 95% of the work. Where's the teratonne (best case, for Mars-like planets; worse for others) gas-producing industry?

Earth years uniformly everywhere

That's a problem, though: time changes based on velocity. Even the difference between the outer and inner planet velocities will distort time. Their trip to the planets will heavily distort it (and if they moved at different speeds or left at different times, relative to each other), and if it's based on Earth's orbit at all, that will change as the new solar system moves as a whole relative to the sun. River's anachronistic rant on Simon's birthday ("Day is a vestigal mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. It's not applicable." (beat) "I didn't get you anything.") is about yet another point, that a year is irrelevant even if you ignore stretching because years are different on different bodies and irrelevant on a spacecraft.

He seems so discerning...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

...yet he's a practicing, believing Mormon. Maybe he focuses on the relationships in the Book of Mormon rather than the science fiction (e.g. Kolob).

Mommy, where do baby reavers come from?

[Thedalek]

Very few spoilers here. No Serenity spoilers.

So, Reavers are viciously insane humans. They rape, eat, and kill pretty indiscriminately. Usually the same target for all three, in that order.

Most of the time, they're depicted as being hyper-aggressive zombie-like creatures. There is nothing, however, to suggest that there couldn't be an intelligent Reaver. Even a supergenius reaver. Similar to Farscape's Scorpius in some ways, but more vicious. The Reaver that wants to play with it's food. "The line between madness and genius is very thin."

If such Reavers exist, they're probably the ones who control the ships and coordinate raids.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[galatea2.2]

My husband and I went with two complete Firefly newbies. They had a blast.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[gdesignrr]

I haven't seen the TV show, but I loved the movie. The characters were great... the captain reminded me of the best of Han Solo. A scoundrel but also a hero. The tech also wasn't neat and polished like Star Trek. The ship was a mess. It had a very real feel to it. So did the people. After seeing the previews I was afraid the humor would be cheesy, but it was just refreshing. I was afraid the girl River would be a bad actor and ruin the movie like so many other movies with children in them, but she did great. I thought the idea of a solar system with a bunch of planets in it was a wonderful idea... forget about trying to invent hyperspace or some other scifi solution to interstellar travel.

I haven't seen the series, but I've set my DVR to record it, and I'm looking forward to it.

I should say that I was a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I may be naturally inclined to like Joss' work. I just didn't have time to watch the series when it originally aired.

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[slaida1]

It's just a novel, an appealing novel to most young people. I've personally never understood why some have to read books with magnifying glass, looking for hidden messages and seeing underlying secrets when there necessarily aren't any.

Either they take themselves too seriously or they take fiction too seriously. In both cases, they are annoying lot and should stuff their beliefs where sun doesn't shine.

"Creating the Innocent Killer"..riight. Card "created" a book. Not a killer.

Given OSC's political views, I think it can pretty safely be said that the guy is basically a fascist sympathesizer or something else equally distasteful.

Could you people please just fuck off already with your fascist-this and nazi-that? That subject got old and tired years ago and one might believe that Godwin's Law was sufficient hint to drop it. It's boring history and I'm starting to hate people who still whine about it as much as I hate neo-nazis.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[GMFTatsujin]

Its popularity is due mostly to the "heroic geeky kid beats the adults and saves the world" theme, much like Harry Potter.

Damnit!

What am I going to do with all these "Wesley Crusher Must Die" t-shirts???

Haha

[kentrel]

This is without doubt the funniest review of a film I ever read. Did he really compare the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer to Shakespeare and Tolkien? Did I imagine that? The guy who writes great Shakesperean pieces of dialogue like this

>i>"Kaylee, what the hell's going on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose? "

Did he really say it was the greatest science fiction film of all time, beating those great ones that I don't even have to mention on slashdot, but do anyway because we're such geeks. 2001, Bladerunner, Metropolis, Alien!

ENDERS GAME may be a classic science fiction novel (I haven't read it, so I always reserve judgement) but one things for sure, OSC has certainly lost his marbles since then.

Re:reevers - an explanation

[WraithRealm]

Why don't they eat each other? They probably do... But killing regular humans has got to be easier than killing other reavers which is probably why they bothered to get ships working to go on raids (after killing all the folks made docile on their home planet).

If they "killed all the folks" then why were their many, many bodies on the ground, and pretty much everywhere else?

Answer - They didn't. If you read my post waaaaay up there in the ancestory, you'll see what I mean. Probably the thing that created the Reavers (which was the same thing that made everyone else unresponsive/mentally-docile) prevented them from eating the people - hence, you see lots of dead and decaying people on Miranda.

As for why they bothered to get the ships working - also see above post.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164244&thresho ld=0&commentsort=0&tid=214&mode=nested&cid=1371609 4

Monkey Island

[schweini]

I just wanted to point out that OSC was the guy that wrote the classic Monkey Island swordfighting insults. Gotta love him just for that!

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ignorance of literature is no reason to call for an end to discussion of this book. Educate yourself. Interpretation is the most important aspect of a text-Shakespeare is nothing without interpretation. Card is nothing with interpretation, nothing but what is indicated in his work. You may dislike it, but discussion of literature is complex. Card's book does depict a character who after being described as suffering extensively is forgiven for the extermination of an entire species, because he regrets it. This acceptance is exactly that required to forgive Hitler, if he had lived and displayed regret for his genocidal acts against the Jews of Europe. Nothing is "just a," everything is complex as it is written that way-shallow interpretation, childish interpretation, refusal of interpretation does not and can not remove the material that the interpretation is based on. Interpretation is the key to any sort of actual understanding of the material in a text. This, one commented on by many here, is an interpretation. It may have been a children's book, it may have been his manifesto, it does not matter-all is open to and can only be understood by interpretation.

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[mankey wanker]

What can I say? Suck my dick, or just fuck off?

Like I care...

Weird dig at Larry David

[pjp6259]

On that ship we had an interlocking community with a history, rather like what has been a-building with Lost and what was developed over the years with Friends (but what never existed in Seinfeld because the main writer, Larry David, doesn't seem to believe in anything, and you can't build a powerful community on a sneer).

Anyone else think it was kind of out of the blue for OSC to throw in this dig at Larry David? I know I personally was a lot more upset over the ending of Seinfeld than the ending of Friends (ok, so I hadn't watched Friends in years at that point..), and it wasn't just a sadness at the ending of a great show, but also because the characters and their relationships did resonate with me.

Re:Weird dig at Larry David

[Anonymous Coward]

If the "characters" of "Friends" resonated with you, you should be instantly killed. Instantly.

Re:Weird dig at Larry David

[Schwarzchild]

Yeah, it did seem kind of weird but perhaps he did made the dig because he's a mormon and I imagine that Larry David is an atheist? In any case, the ending of Seinfeld was pretty horrible. I don't know how they screwed that up.

i dont get the big deal about this show

[ProfBooty]

Ive seen the show but not the movie.

Got through about 8 episodes that were on the scifi channel then deleted the rest off my replaytv, couldnt stomach the characters, the situations or the dialouge. I really liked Angel, and was hoping for similiar direction, but firefly just never felt right.

Personally I prefer the new BSG for newer scifi TV. Much harder, much more serious.

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[pilkul]

It's just a novel, an appealing novel to most young people. I've personally never understood why some have to read books with magnifying glass, looking for hidden messages and seeing underlying secrets when there necessarily aren't any.

I first read Ender's Game when I was 9 years old or so. It had tremendous emotional power for me; I reread it at least 10 times over the years and knew it practically by heart.

Now looking back on it, the book fucked me up a little. The book's heroes are geniuses of world-shattering historical importance, and the reader's meant to identify with them. As I grew up I had this vague vision of myself as having similar importance in the future. When I eventually was forced to accept that actually, I was pretty much an ordinary guy and would live an ordinary life (actually even Churchill or Shakespeare or whoever are ordinary guys compared to Ender and his siblings), it was a wrenching transition. My life seemed worthless if I couldn't do anything as important and meaningful in the world as Ender. I didn't actually compare myself with Ender explicitly, but the worldview implanted by Ender's Game was floating in the back of my mind, influencing my attitudes.

Books contain ideas and worldviews and if they're false or misleading, real harm is done. In the case of novels it's if anything especially dangerous, because they pack an emotional punch that can strongly influence readers.

Re: reavers

[Penguinshit]

Re: relativistic "year" measurements:

Try explaining that in a movie and keeping 99.99999% of your audience...

There are no aliens.

[Scrameustache]

Alien costumes were

One of your crack-induced hallucinations.

Orson Scott Card's Secret Plan

[frank_adrian314159]

1. Write movie review.
2. Put on secret magic underpants.
3. ????
4. Profit!

Re: reavers

[luna69]

> Also, scores of habitable planets and *moons with earthlike
> gravity*? That's my main problem with the "moons" hypothesis..

There's nothing about being a moon that prohibits high gravity. Dense material = smaller radius per unit of mass = higher gravity. Similarly, there's noting about being a huge planet that mandates high gravity. If one were able to stand on the "surface" of a gas giant, its gravity wouldn't be all that different from what we experience. It's all about density.

Kolob == Kobol

[sadler121]

Hey now, if it weren't for Glen Larson being Mormon, then we wouldn't have Battlestar Galactica and no Kobol which means no remaked series with sexy human cylons...I mean...I think I had a point...

Re: reavers

[Anonymous Coward]

Moons with appropriate mass for Earthlike gravity can and probably do exist. The existence of a large number of them was probably a criterion for choosing this star system over any others (it WAS chosen on some criteria after all). Or, alternately, planet-wide artificial gravity, which I find no more implausible than spaceship-wide artificial gravity. Incidentally, at least one world visited in the series was definitely referred to as a moon, and there was no gas giant in the sky--so if it's an oversight, it's a consistent oversight.

Fair point about Oxygen. The point still remains that either some planets may take longer to terrform than others or the process itself could take 80 years or so, and the core planets just started earlier.

A "done" terraformed planet is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. A planet with adequate gravity, pressure, oxygen, and temperature is not "done" by my definition. A planet where even a tiny human population will die of thirst within days is not my idea of "done". A planet entirely dependent on outside sources for food and water is little more than a space station with an unenviable gravity well. If breathable air was all people were shooting for, they wouldn't have bothered with planets.

Relativistic time contraction happens in the Firefly universe and they use Earth years. Relativistic time contraction happens in the REAL universe and we use Earth years. I suppose they use the same kludges we do (resync the shuttle clock when it lands), possibly more frequently, as they have spaceships that regularly go an order of magnitude or so faster than the shuttle, but still nowhere near the speed of light--so we're talking about losing a few seconds here and there, tops. Not the big deal that it would be if FTL travel or near-light-speed travel existed, but luckily they don't so they (and we) don't have to worry about it.

ok, I'll bite

[Scrameustache]

As much as he puts down makers of bubble-gum-space-ship sci-fi for not being true to the genre, his own favourites such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are no more true to the genre.

What makes you say that "Eternal etc etc etc" is not science fiction? What demented, overly restrictive, private little definition of "sci-fi" are you using to get you to that apparently illogical conclusion?

For those who haven't seen it, "Sunshine" is a movie about the effects of a possible, but as-of-yet non-existant technology on people/society. I didn't know it was sci-fi when my friend rented it, but I was pleasently surprised.

Re:ok, I'll bite

[digidave]

"For those who haven't seen it, "Sunshine" is a movie about the effects of a possible, but as-of-yet non-existant technology on people/society. I didn't know it was sci-fi when my friend rented it, but I was pleasently surprised."

"Sunshine" has little to do with memory erasing technology. That's just a plot device to push the characters through the emotions of losing something special. The movie's theme is that you don't know what you have until you lose it. It could have worked just as well if they got into an argument and walked away from each other, only then realizing they needed each other.

That's what I meant by a drama with edgy technology. IMO, not every movie or book with futuristic technology is sci-fi. I think sci-fi has to have that technology as central to the plot. You couldn't make Star Trek without travelling the galaxy because in order to face their own humanity and prejudices the crew had to visit other worlds and meet other intelligent life. (Which is why Stargate and Star Trek share the same themes... they just changed the plot device used to travel with).

Re:ok, I'll bite

[Scrameustache]

"Sunshine" has little to do with memory erasing technology. That's just a plot device to push the characters through the emotions of losing something special. The movie's theme is that you don't know what you have until you lose it. It could have worked just as well if they got into an argument and walked away from each other, only then realizing they needed each other.
That's what I meant by a drama with edgy technology. IMO, not every movie or book with futuristic technology is sci-fi. I think sci-fi has to have that technology as central to the plot.

I disagree on all parts of that : )

"Sunshine" was about the implications of the memory wipe, both personnal and social. There were questions of rape, love, fraud, identity theft, etc. The sci-fi element WAS central to the story. It just didn't get into the technicalities. Hell, by your standards, Gattaca wouldn't be sci-fi either.

You know, instead of arbitrarily excluding all sorts of things from sci-fi, you'd better define the sub-category of sci-fi that you prefer. Because sci-fi is simple: It's science-fiction. Fiction with fictional science in it. You seem to prefer the ratio of science-to-human to lean on the inhuman side, which is a matter of tastes that I fully respect, but when you go around claiming that things which aren't your cup of tea aren't tea at all, then you create confusion, which is a problem. Just call a spade a spade.

And then some

[Scrameustache]

Personally I think Serenity has one fatal flaw -- the characters receive no development

Aside from the ones who die, have a loved one die, have their entire belief system shatered, gain a lover, loose a lover? Yeah, aside from those, they get NO development at all!

Re: corrosion

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always read the 5 as a hard break plus an S sound, thus "cure-oh shin," and I just assumed it meant something in Japanese.

Of course I also thought ICQ was "icy queue" instead of "I seek you."

Re: reavers

[Rei]

There's nothing about being a moon that prohibits high gravity

There is something fundamentally preventing significant numbers of high-gravity bodies around a single gas giant (and really, within a given planetary system at all). If they get too close, they disrupt each other's orbits. You can't shove large amounts of mass into a small area and expect it to be stable. Now, you can keep expanding further away from the gas giant, but then the star starts to distort their orbits, requiring an even bigger gas giant, which displaces further other potential spots for planet formation. Also, gas giants don't expand infinitely - they become brown dwarfs at about 8x jupiters' mass.

Our solar system is about as densely packed as you can get it while being relatively stable. You could tweak things - for example, you could probably have less large moons of Jupiter and have them be bigger (same with Saturn) - but you can't just keep jamming planets in there.

If one were able to stand on the "surface" of a gas giant, it's gravity wouldn't be all that different

The heck it wouldn't. Lets use Jupiter here, and assume that you mean "the tops of the clouds at the equator" by "surface" (as opposed to the theoretical metallic hydrogen layer) (lets also assume Jupiter is a point mass - the numbers should work out pretty similarly to integrating across the whole planet):

F=G*(m1m2/r^2)
F=6.6742e-11 * 1kg * 1.9e27kg / 7.14e7m^2
F=24.9N - 2.5Gs - almost as much as Space Shuttle peak acceleration.

Re: reavers

[luna69]

2.5g's would be no fun to (try to) walk around in, true. But try it for Saturn, or Neptune, etc. You get a different picture.

Saturn: ~10.4g
Neptune: ~11.1g
Uranus: ~8.9g

Re: reavers

[luna69]

Duh. off by a decimal with those. Sry.

Re: reavers

[Rei]

You can't have a large number of heavy moons - they interfere with each other's orbits.

Our solar system is about as densely packed as you can get it and still have it be stable (there is some rearranging that you could do to fit more in, and you could change masses - i.e., give Jupiter less moons, but heavier ones).

A planet with adequate gravity, pressure, oxygen, and temperature is not "done" by my definition.

Compared to the total work required, it essentially is. That atmosphere is no laughing matter. Earth's atmosphere is 5,100,000,000,000,000,000 kg in mass (and you know how sparse gasses are, mass-wise). Yes, they want more, and they have good means to want more - but compared to getting that atmosphere on them, getting them water is a nothing task (and in most cases, would happen on its own, unless the planet has been baked-dry by the star).

and they use Earth years

You're not getting the point: There is no standard "earth years", because the speed that time passes on Earth depends on what planet you're on at the time.

Relativistic time contraction happens in the real universe and we use Earth years

That's because we're on earth - we're in the same frame of reference as what we're comparing to.

Resync the shuttle clock when it lands

You're not getting the problem: if you use Earth time in another star system, a second is not constant because your speed compared to earth varies on relativistic scales. Nowhere in their entire star system would a second be constant, and that's disastrous as far as performing any sort of detailed calculations are concerned. Variable seconds might be fine for washing your clothes, but they're simply intolerable for precision spaceflight (or many other scientific tasks)

A real time system for such a system would be to have an *independent* localtime for each body, be it a planet, spaceship, or whatnot (the shuttle has its own localtime). The localtime has constant seconds. Just like having a watch that tells you the time in London, New York, and Rome, your ship could also tell you the localtime on Ariel, Miranda, and whatnot; one second of their time wouldn't tick up as one second on your time, of course - but it'd be darn close. Trying to tie these localtimes together indefinitely would not work. You could have them start out at the same time, but they'll drift; you could resync with things like leap seconds. Linking to another planet in the same solar system may take a sixth of a second on average per year (although it will vary). Linking to a body in another solar system (like Earth's) will vary by several seconds per year. Linking from a ship travelling at the speed of Serenity, and much of the rest of their solar system, will vary from several seconds per hour to several seconds per day (rough estimate based on how long it takes them to travel) (this also applies to the ships that got them to the star system).

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[MalachiConstant]

Here's a review from someone who purposefully avoided the TV show. He's a great independent reviewer. He gave it three stars out of four.

Re: reavers

[Rei]

I suggest you recheck your numbers. I get 0.22Gs for Neptune, using the data on Wikipedia. I.e., too little gravity.

ObSamKinison

[sharkey]

I might take the car,
I might take the train,
But baby I'm coming and
Using my chains!

Gonna tie you up. Gonna tie you up.

Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho

[shmlco]

Most of the visuals were just fine. Hold them too long, and I tend to burst into laughter at the sight of that overweight "duck" of a spaceship.

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[Cstryon]

If I came to you and said "Hey Pilkul! I just had this great adventure that turned my life around!" Then proceed to tell you about my adventure, would you turn yourself into me, or picture yourself in a similar situation? Enders game was a Novel, not a comparison meant for you to make for your life. Card wanted to create a world in the future, where a an ordinary boy, who just happend to be very smart, was put in a situation where his intellegence is abused by his government and he is eventually lead into commiting Xenocide. It may have ruined your Childhood, but that probably wasn't the intention. Enders Game was just a story meant to entertain. It may have had some political, maybe even philosophical views. But I doubt it was meant to say "Reader, imagine you were a genius that is tricked into Xenocide." I think it was really meant to say "Isn't this boys life interesting?".

Re: reavers

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the number of Earth-mass moons you can have before they start interfering with each others' orbits? Well, the Firefly universe has one less Earth-mass moon than that. That's not actually as flippant as it sounds--it means that if, as I suggested, they were going for maximum possible Earth-mass moon density, X-1 is the very best they could ever hope for. Maybe they got X-2. Doesn't matter. They got the maximum possible density. The fact that there's a limit isn't relevant.

I never said putting breathable atmosphere on a planet wasn't hard work. But creating a self-sustaining ecosystem/hydrosystem from nothing? That's a totally different league. So maybe it's more like 80 years for atmosphere, 250 for the rest. Whatever the values or difficulty, my point is the same--some planets may not be "done" yet and are therefore less desireable to live on.

I get your point about time. Really I do. I took Physics in college and everything. And one thing I learned is that we use Earth as our arbiter of what's a "real" year for answering the question "What year is it?", even for our space shuttle. Even for Voyager (the probe, not the TV series). It doesn't matter what their localtimes are--Earth is all that matters when it comes to what date we put on the news articles about these speedy objects.

Let's say the Firefly universe uses Sinon (the planet) as its ultimate arbiter of time measurement. Let's say it's January 1st, 2650 on Sinon. Let's say spaceship X takes off that day at such a speed that its time is continuously happening at exactly half the rate of Sinon (no acceleration/deceleration to make things easier). It lands one year later according to its clocks. It lands two years later according to Sinon's clocks. What date is put into the ship's log? January 1st, 2652!--because Sinon's clock is the "official" timekeeper. Does the ship even need to resync its clocks? No, because it's aware of what speed it's travelling, it could alter all human-visible clocks to be automatically Sinon-correct, while using internal spaceship X seconds for various internal trajectory calculations.

Is the year on Sinon the same as a year on Earth? By some measurements, probably. We already have defined time units as the amount of time it takes [predictable particle X] to decay. Obviously, this is at the speed Earth is travelling. Well, that same particle decaying on Sinon gives them a time measurement, which they use from that point forward. Is it the same amount of time? That's not even relevant, as all Earth time is historical anyway. For all intents and purposes, it's the same. It doesn't align with a solar cycle, but that doesn't make sense in a multi-planet system anyway, so it's doubtful they'd go through the trouble of making years match solar cycles on one planet but not on others.

Your original point was "What good is assigning a specific date to Firefly"? Well, I'll tell you. Beaurocracy likes to track dates and times. A single arbiter for all time measurements (Sinon) is not only possible FOR THIS PURPOSE, we already do it on Earth with our own spacecraft. Yes, navigation systems will need to internally track relativistic time distortion, possibly without people even knowing it. Doesn't mean you can't write a date in a log file and have it mean something.

Re: "fast" editing- nail on the head

[Maxo-Texas]

You hit the nail on the head.

This started a few james bond films back with a fight scene which was so quickly edited to make it exciting that we couldn't tell

a) who was fighting
b) who was winning
c) whether it was an arm or a leg sailing by to inflict the blow.

It's gotten worse since. Combined with EXTREMELY LOUD VOLUME (Had to wear earplugs AND noise dampening headset and it was -still loud- and the manager didnt' see any reason to turn the volume down), and commercials (only TWO before Serenity-now that is some kind of new record- last film I saw had 17 commercials) I just don't have much interest in seeing movies any more.

Saw this in Serenity in the theatre. Thought it was a good solid film- but it had less "intensity" than expected. Was disappointed with Reavers being explained - sometimes better to just leave things a mystery. OTH, reavers made more sense as an SF villian than a fantasy villian after the explaination. Not sure the evil bad guy would have changed his belief based on only one mere planet full of people being sacrificed if it meant "peace" would result for the rest of mankind.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe, just possibly, it could be that some people actually think that Card is not a good writer. Nah, it *couldn't* be that.

Takes a 'phobe to know a 'phobe...

[KnarfO]

Oooh... look at the brave AC outting the nasty homophobe!

You are my hero :-/

Harry Potter a blatant Ender's Game ripoff.

[tuser]

This is kind of off-topic, but does anybody else think Harry potter is a blatant Ender's Game ripoff.

Hogwarts - Battle School
Quidich - Battle Room
The schools separated by teams in competition
Teachers play same role
Brilliant/Magical kid taken away from his family to fulfill his potential at Battle/Wizard school
Harry's friends and Ender's friends have some parallels

(Please excuse my spelling on the Harry Potter items)

Re: reavers

[Rei]

one less moon than that

It's not that simple: There are a lot of stated worlds in the firefly 'verse. Ariel (the world with the hospital), Bellerophon (where they stole the laser), Londinium (a world with a king - according to Whedon, one of the two main core planets with Sihnon), Osiris (where the Tams grew up), Greenleaf (a civilized planet with good med facilities that Wash mentions), Sihnon (the jewel of the core worlds - Inara loves it), Boros (a civilized planet with a strong alliance presence), Beaumonde (where Serenity was headed before YoSaffBridge hijacked them), Bernadette (where the Bushwhacked settlers came from), Beylix (mentioned in Trash), Dust Planet (where we see Monty and YoSaffBridge), Dyton Colony (where Badger is from), Ezra (Planet where Mal and Wash were captured by Niska), Hera (where Serenity Valley is), Jiangyin (Planet with the hill folk), Newhall (Where the bushwhacked settlers were going), Paquin (mentioned by Kaylee in Out of Gas; Serenity had work there), Persephone (scene of start of ep. Serenity and of Shindig), Santo (where Mal robs a slaver), Shadow (where Mal was born), Silverhold Colonies ("Eight solar systems (???) from St. Albans"), St. Albans (Tracey's home), Triumph (mentioned in Our Mrs. Reynolds), Verbena (mentioned in the unproduced episode "Dead or Alive"), and Miranda (where the Reavers are from). That's just the stated worlds. And we don't see a planet overhead on a one of them.

80 for the first, 250 for the rest

Rain works on its own, as long as you have the water.

It doesn't align with a solar cycle

Exactly my point :) You can't align it with a solar cycle - at least, not for very long - and the rate that time passes relative to a second on Earth varies. Certainly timekeeping is needed. Timekeeping relative to Earth is not, and is problematic.

Re: reavers

[$tendec]

"Book's background--not a discontinuity, simply not explained. I actually LIKED that it remained mysterious. We know quite a bit about Book from his actions, is that not enough? Vagueness happens in reality too."

book was an operative like Chiwetel Ejiofor was an operative....duh

The OSC Show!

[Merovign]

Maybe Orson made his review more about him than Serenity, and maybe he didn't.

But Slashdotters have definitely made this thread more about him than Serenity!

L. Ron Hubbard is a geek g-d

[solman]

How can you compare Card's religion to Hubbard's.

Hubbard repeatedly publicly stated that starting your own religion was the easiest way to make money. Then he went out and did it WITH GUSTO. Come on, the souls of masacred aliens are inhabiting my body and cause all my problems? Hubbard started talking about starting his own religion in the late 1940s. If somebody in 1940s America had told me that he could make millions by inventing a religion with this as its central premise, I would have (correctly) assumed he was on drugs. Hell, I would have a difficult time believing this in 2005 if it weren't for the fact that Hubbard has already proven his point by demonstration.

I think that for accomplishing this, Hubbard deserves a vast amount of geek cred. It is unreasonable to compare such a monumental feat, with the mundane act of simultaneously being a true mormon believer and obnoxious.

Re:L. Ron Hubbard is a geek g-d

[Kismet]

Well, I didn't mean to compare the two religions. Honestly, I don't know much about scientology, but I am interested in Hubbard's books because of it.

Re:L. Ron Hubbard is a geek g-d

[Moofie]

Wow. I figured out that Hubbard's books weren't fit to line bird cages when I was about 14, so I wasn't at all surprised to find out that his synthetic religion was cuckoo, too.

I mean, if he created his religion as a Discordian-esqe "You all are so stupid, wait till you get a load of THIS!" scenario, then my hat's off to him.

But I think he was reading his own press, and drinking his own kool-aid.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[bani]

Ok, since you find 1) 2) and 3) "tiresome", I'll give you a fresh new angle you will find interesting.

"I thought ender's game was a pile of doggie poo and osc was a mediocre hack, many many many years before I ever found out any single thing about osc's ego or political or sociological or economic opinions or anything else about osc personally. i stopped reading osc after ender's game because osc fans promoted ender's game as the pinnacle of his work. if thats the best he can do then quite frankly everything else by him is a complete waste of my time. there are many great SF writers and SF stories, osc and ender's game are neither."

there. a completely brand new fresh approach for you to enjoy.

try reading the rest of books, twat ;)

[KZigurs]

ahh. The funny thing is that you probably ARE right. And wrong. Enders game, as a book, sci-fi, etc, really is ... entertaining, interesting, but NOT particulary special.

but the rest of the saga... Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide. Well, this is a very good literature by all measurements you could come up with.

So, yes, Enders game isn't a particulary good sci-fi, but everyone has his weak days ;)

Re:try reading the rest of books, twat ;)

[bani]

actually speaker for the dead is regularly criticized by osc fans ("nowhere near as good as ender's game","ender's game was classic", etc). if osc fans think speaker for the dead is a lesser story than ender's game, well... bleh.

and xenocide is usually called the weakest of the series.

oddly enough i might actually bother to watch ender's game as a movie if it ever gets made. not because it's a particularly great SF story, but because it will probably suck less than most other SF movies -- it's a pretty simple, straightforward story and should be hard to fuck up too badly. and if osc has the passion to force production values as high as serenity, well... it should make a decent movie.

i'd really rather see a niven or greg bear movie made though.

Re:try reading the rest of books, twat ;)

[KZigurs]

remember - you are referring to the people who doesn't agrees with your opinion about Enders game ;)

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[slaida1]

Now looking back on it, the book fucked me up a little. The book's heroes are geniuses of world-shattering historical importance, and the reader's meant to identify with them. As I grew up I had this vague vision of myself as having similar importance in the future. When I eventually was forced to accept that actually, I was pretty much an ordinary guy and would live an ordinary life (actually even Churchill or Shakespeare or whoever are ordinary guys compared to Ender and his siblings), it was a wrenching transition. My life seemed worthless if I couldn't do anything as important and meaningful in the world as Ender. I didn't actually compare myself with Ender explicitly, but the worldview implanted by Ender's Game was floating in the back of my mind, influencing my attitudes.

Books contain ideas and worldviews and if they're false or misleading, real harm is done. In the case of novels it's if anything especially dangerous, because they pack an emotional punch that can strongly influence readers.

It seems you still haven't got away from your delusions since you seem to think that you were emotionally strong enough to notice its evil influence whereas others might be weaker.. And you now think it's dangerous, wait, especially dangerous, because they pack an emotional punch that can strongly influence readers. Whoa, lucky us a superman like yourself got to read it first and warn us weaklings of its powerful mind influencing powers.

..take themselves too seriously.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[renderhead]

Oh, thank you for the fresh new perspective. The unsolicited and completely subjective review of a complete stranger is always enlightening, especially in the context of a discussion that isn't really about whether or not anyone liked Ender's Game.

So kudos and congratulations for being so fashionable. I'm glad to know that you were cool enough to disrespect a popular author before everyone else was. Let me guess... you also listened to the Shins before they sold out, right?

On X2's writing

[Khopesh]

First, let me back up. I loved X-Men, enjoyed X2, and will like the third movie, too. I am the kind of person that lusts for complex movies that make you think about how they unwound. I also have read far more than my share of comics, including the X-men. Additionally, I realize that movie adaptations of comics (and books) need to have significant differences in order to hold their own ground. My main gripe about the X-men series is NOT about its accuracy in representing the comics; it is more akin to the opposite: X2 has too much taken from comics. So much that it can't be properly stitched together into movies of top-class caliber like Serenity.

X2 lacked character development and the plot was shallow; given how this was simply an adaptation of pre-written works (the comics), there is no excuse for a weak plot - there is tons of material to draw from. What did X2's writers do? They drew from these sources making sure to focus on every mutant from the last movie, bumped up two students, and handed out as many cameo mutant appearances as they could. Too many main characters, too sloppy; the audience can't so easily associate with so broad a lineup, since there are too many to develop.

Wolverine was the focus of the movie, but they didn't make the other X-men supporting characters; they were main characters. The end of the movie was far too blatantly a bridge for an obvious third movie focused around another of the main mutants ... it weakened the movie. Noting the billed cast for X3, Wolverine is there ... he should not be; his interest is resolved, and being the wanderer that he is, he would leave. Sure, there's reason for him to stay (a fault in X2's writing - his relationship with Jean should be more peripheral), but there are already too many main characters.

The X-Men are a vibrant group with vast amounts of complexity and history; their movies should have been of the caliber of Serenity - illustrate a problematic world (mutant racism), key players who are neither good nor bad, simply on different sides (Xavier, Magneto, Stryker), and very interesting group dynamics (Logan/women/Scott, Logan/Beast, even the movie-exclusive Bobby/Rogue). Contrast: Serenity has a problematic world (solar system with Alliance vs outlands), key players neither good nor bad (Serenity crew, Inara, the operative), and very interesting group dynamics (Mal/Inara, crew/Tams, Simon/Kaylee, Shepherd/Mal, Jayne/people).

X-Men have something going for them that Serenity doesn't, but it isn't well delivered in X2 - politics. Xavier is at the front of the debate. Mutantism is huge; it defines the comics, correlating directly to the Red Scare and the Cold War politics of the 60s ... the same politics we see today in the form of fear-driven anti-terrorism. The X-Men movies could easily draw on that as an amazingly colorful backdrop. X2 utterly fails in this regard, instead delving into a history that does no justice to the "early days" of mutantism and butchering a simplification of the whole Deathstrike storyline.

I must correct my parent post; Dougherty was one of three writing the screenplay to a story written by another three. Only David Hayter contributed to both. He was one of the few writers not exclusively tied to movie adaptations of comic series, but he hasn't written much else, either. So who knows what Dougherty will bring to Ender's Game... (Orsen, are you wasting your time reading this? Care to comment?)

Re:On X2's writing

[AcheronHades]

Any movie that is an adaption of a book or comic or anything like that is going to be butchered in some way or another. There are things that work in comics but dont work in movies. Or maybe they COULD work in movies, but they just wouldn't sell. People don't crave a movie focusing around mutant-human politics, they just want to see Wolverines claws flash.

That being said I understand where you are coming from and I would have liked to have seen more of some of the things you talked about, especially better dynamics between the characters. But I think the reason Serenity's characters worked so well was because they had 14 TV episodes to set up their relationships. Most people who watched X2 had seen X-Men 1, but thats about all the exposure to those characters they have had..

I really dont think anyone can write an Ender's Game screenplay the way Card wants honestly.. In a movie, there just isnt enough time to get as emotionally attached to Ender as you are able to in the book.

And BTW, did you know that David Hayter also does the voice acting for Snake in the Metal Gear Solid games? :P

Re:J

[ianscot]

(On the outside chance you read this even though it was an AC post -- yes.)

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[Lemmy Caution]

A lot of media made for children, and especially teens, fits under the meta-genre "adolescent power fantasy." The fact that a lot of geek media also fits this description could be read to mean that there's an element of arrested development to geek culture.

Re:Killer_000 gives too much credit

[pilkul]

Meh. It's hardly delusional to believe that adults are generally emotionally/intellectually stronger than children, the main readers of this book. (Actually, if you believe the opposite then that's a delusion --- indeed precisely one of the delusions fostered by Ender's Game.)

The best propagandists have always understood that the best way to sell your bogus message is to wrap it in a glorified, emotionally powerful tale of heroism and tragedy. And Card understands perfectly well that he's doing this --- go read his quote at the beginning of the Kessel article again.

Orson Scott Card is an arrogant ass

[Anonymous Coward]

His politics, for those who care about such things, are those of a fool.

Hopefully some of you know better than to respect Card's opinions about the world in general.

Re: reavers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that list of worlds was EXACTLY X-3. What a coincidence! Also, we already talked about "no planets overhead". It's a proven oversight in the series, I'm just saying it could be a consistent oversight.

Rain works on its own, eh? How about aquifers? Do they just spring up out of solid rock? Where do you get limestone deposits without ancient seabeds and plate tectonics? Rain accomplishes very little for terrestrial life if it turns into 100% runoff. A hydrocycle isn't just "it rains". Soil is more than just dust with plants growing in it.

Ah. I misunderstood your point then. I thought you were saying there was either no point or no capacity to assign a year to Firefly and be consistent about it. Clearly if you throw solar cycles to the wind and standardize years on some other factor, you can. It then becomes a "vestigial" unit of measurement (thanks for the actual quotes, although I think "anachronistic" is a better term)

Re: reavers

[Rei]

EXACTLY X-3

You seem not to be understanding things here. You cannot shove an arbitrary number of planets or moons into a star's habitable zone. Even with an artificially broadened habitable zone (greenhouse gasses, albedo changes, etc), it simply doesn't work. With a black surface and heavy greenhouse gasses at 1atm, around Sol, you could probably get Earthlike temperatures as far as Jupiter's moons, and with a greenhouse-free reflective body, as far in as Venus, or perhaps a bit closer. A larger star? That extends the outer range, but it also extends the inner range, and since the closest stable orbits planets can have to each other are harmonic, the distance between planets scales equally. If you fit a couple extra Earth-sized bodies in by having them be moons of gas giants, you reduce the number of star-orbitting bodies you can have in the habitable zone (gas giants tend to sweep everything else out of their path), and each gas giant could only support a small number of them before the orbits become unstable due to either being clustered too closely or being far enough away that it orbits slowly enough the sun's gravity disturbs it.

In short, you simply cannot fit enough large bodies with stable orbits in this range. I'm not sure what's hard about this for you to understand. You can have, at max, about four or five Earth-sized bodies orbitting in the habitable zone of your star (and that's with the above-described tweaks to the planets). There's just not enough room for many large bodies with stable orbits.

Here - lets try and come up with some alternatives, to try and give Whedon an excuse :)

You *could* get more planets with warmth further away from the star by upgrading the gas giants to brown dwarfs, but there are two problems with that. One, it wouldn't be a single-star system anymore (although we could perhaps allow excusing away of brown dwarfs as "not being stars", since they only have dt-dt fusion, no main-sequence fusion). Two, for much if not all of a brown dwarf's life, it would be a very dangerous high radiation environment at distances that it warms sufficiently.

You could have internal planetary heat. I'm not sure what (if anything) could cause a planet to be formed unusually enriched in uranium and thorium, but if you had a high enough amount, you could heat the planet. Background radiation and gasses like radon would be a problem.

Planets could be tidally heated if they had a relatively new, very large moon, or was in a (potentially unstable, but newly so) harmonic orbit, especially around a gas giant or brown dwarf. The planet would be a mess, and naturally, any oceans would experience monstrous tides, but the stretching of the crust and mantle would heat the planet.

You could have a newly formed star system. Residual heat of accretion could still exist in the planets. The planets would be a complete mess, of course (very unstable), and meteor impacts devastatingly common (and even if you could deflect them all, a chokingly high dust influx).

You could have a new, but not as new, star system, in which solid planets have radiated excess heat, but large gas giants are still getting significant amounts of energy from heavier elements settling inwards, and thus radiating energy that heats their moons without being as radioactive as brown dwarfs. Still has the "planetary formation" problems as above, but not as bad.

You could have the star be a multiple star system, but with all of the settled planets around one of the stars, thus still qualifying as a single solar system; you would then have to have the other stars giving off as much energy as possible without messing up the orbits of the settled planets. Perhaps if the other stars in the system were either being just born (unlikely; clusters tend to be born at once), or dying (possible), it might work - they'd give off excess energy compared to their mass. It'd still be very tricky, though, to get enough light to make a difference wi

Re: "fast" editing- nail on the head

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been a slew of movies that think fast editing is exciting. Being a fan of ultimate fighting and a decent fight scene, I can't stand it. Bourne did this, and it sucked. Gladiator's fast cuts sucked, but they still had a couple good scenes. Serenity gave me some of the best fight scenes I've seen in years.

Commercials -- my theater showed 5 commercials, so that had little to do with Serenity. But then I like trailers, so I was fine with it.

[SPOILER]
Regarding the bad guy at the end...he was willing to kill dozens of people to preserve the peace for millions. But when he realized the people he works for were both incompetent and evil, it destroyed his entire world view. His bosses killed 30 million just conducting an experiment, not counting the thousands killed afterwards by the Reavers. Also, the Operative may have been repulsed by the mind control gas itself...it destroys free will, which a warrior would find ugly.

Personally, I liked the idea of Reavers being caused by a psychological collapse, but I was ok with the explanation. It's a two hour movie, not a twenty hour tv series, so you have to go with the short quick plot.
[/SPOILER]

Scrameustache is insensitive, frequently

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Scrameustache is always doing stuff like that. Get him on a topic where Mormons are discussed, and his true colors really come out. He's really disgusting.

References to his anti-mormon posts:

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=148046 &cid=12409229
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=143423&cid =12026023

My beef with Scrameustache is that he attacked me for no reason, then refused to apologise. He's arrogant in the extreme, and considers an apology to me to be beneath him. For him, apologies are only due to those people who are better than you, and he'd never apologise to anyone he considers to be "low".

He could get rid of me forever by simply responding to one of my posts with the two words "I'm sorry". He won't do that, because his ego won't let him.

Re: reavers

[timster]

Or the evil Alliance teacher could be lying.

The truth is, when the ships left Earth-That-Was, once they got more than about a light-year out they discovered that Earth was actually in a region of extremely high-density space. Once outside this unusual region, it turned out that stars were not very far apart after all, and gravity worked much differently than had been thought. This neatly explained various problems in astrophysics like dark matter and the Pioneer anomaly.

So in the Firefly system, there are planets and stars sort of scattered around, but not really in orbit, just stationary and in balance. Gravity is simply not strong enough to pull them all together. The Alliance doesn't explain this to schoolchildren, and in fact existence the high-density space is a carefully guarded secret. If the Independents knew, they could look for a way to increase spatial density, and make their planets too far apart from the Alliance for central control. If you're heard using the word "orbit" in public, you'll soon hear some blue knocks on your door.

Stupid movie adverts killed their own business

[Hyperhaplo]

I saw that previous too when I saw Serenity last week.
What can I say? Wow. I'm impressed. Yet another 'let's show the whole movie in under three minutes'.

This preview showed the story plot setup, action sequences, one of the turning points (kiss on the glass the girl made) and the main star 'solving' the issue (blowing stuff up, using her knowledge of the plane to her advantage). The only thing we don't know is the ending. Having seen most of the movie already - I don't care. It's not worth paying to now see that last 20 minutes.

Let's try this again: The Island.
Remember this one? Once again: The preview shows the plot setup (earth has been destroyed, humanity is rebuilding inside advanced shelters) and the main characters. The preview then went on to show the entire movie in split seconds: even the ending!

However.. at this point I thought that too many negative thoughts had been brought forward on this topic: I went to see the movie.
What happened was a real shock. I was drawn in for the entire movie. It was GOOD. No, really. Even though I spent the entire movie waiting for scenes from the preview to appear it was captivating (for me anyway).

After I left the cinema I was extremely annoyed. I would have far preferred to have not seen the preview and just seen the movie. It was then that I figure out the movie exec strategy: show most of the movie in the preview and bet on people needing to see the ending.

Let's add to this list: Hellboy.
Once again the preview showed most of the movie. No, I didn't see it at the cinema. I saw it later on TV. I'm dissapointed: It would have been far better on the big screen.

Go another one: Fantastic Four
Was it absolutely required for them to show all the good bits in the preview? Yes, I went to the flicks to see it.. I figure that it wouldn't be as good on the small screen.

Yet again: Sky High
Nope, not seeing it. It's all in the preview.

Why don't cinemas allow people to vote on a 'spare' cinema and show previously released movies? I'd love to see The Fifth Element on the big screen.

Stargate?

[Hyperhaplo]

What about Stargate then?
And it's split into two seperate shows now.

Mod parent and grandparent up...

[smallpaul]

Insightful.

Re:Respect? nope gone..

[mink]

Sell them to Clever Nickname.

an OT observation on Gattaca

[Medievalist]

Hell, by your standards, Gattaca wouldn't be sci-fi either.

Did you recognize the buildings and cars in Gattaca? What a fantastic insider reference!

Once I noticed that it was Danny DeVito who made Gattaca, and that he is genetically handicapped in his chosen profession, I realised that it's reality masquerading as science fiction. Brilliant work.