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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.
Biography at Wikipedia
Personality critique at Kuro Five Hin
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Pity he's batshit insane.
Exactly what I thought, to the word.
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.
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.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is a quote from a firefly episode, by Jayne.. the train job episode google says: http://www.wavsite.com/sounds.asp?id=107
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.
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.
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.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]