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

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.

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: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.

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.)

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: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.