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More Delays for Ender Movie
Arramol writes "IGN reports that difficulties in hammering out a screenplay have resulted in more delays for the Ender's Game movie. Despite attempts by several teams of writers, no script has yet been written that meets necessary standards in the minds of Warner Brothers or author Orson Scott Card. The latest plan involves an entirely new script written by Card himself."
Seriously, a film version of Ender's Game is going to require some serious acting on the part of leads who haven't even hit puberty yet. The film doesn't need just one child prodigy to pull it off, but several. They were almost ready to film once before with Jake Lloyd (Anakin from The Phantom Menace and Card's personal choice) in the title role. The project fell apart because, with only his performance in The Phantom Menace to recommend him, Lloyd didn't appear to be a good enough actor. (Let's face it, even excellent actors like Liam Neeson, Ewan Macgregor, Natalie Portman all gave wooden and unconvincing performances under Lucas's direction, so maybe it's not all Lloyd's fault.) Even once they agree on a treatment for the book they're going to have to find the actors fast and film it fast. A delay of a year or two in pre-production is fine for most movies, but for Ender's Game the entire cast would literally outgrow their roles!
As a result of all this, I think live-action would involve too many compromises. This is one film that really would be better done as a cartoon or CG feature. Unfortunately, adult-oriented cartoons have not fared well with U.S. audiences, who seem to expect cute little anthropomorphic Disney sidekicks and musical numbers from anything drawn or rendered. Japan does not have this problem. If I were Orson Scott Card and I wanted to see Ender's Game done right, I'd flip Hollywood the bird and hop on a plane to the land of the rising sun.
Anyone who thinks that a mass market, big budget Ender's Game will turn out to be anything other than Pirates of the Space Caribbean: The Enemy's Gate is Down starring a bunch of 20-something "teen" actors culled from whatever the hell it is that kids are watching on TV these days, has no idea how Hollywood, and particularly the distribution chain, works.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Absolutely agreed. Ender's Game is a very "psychological" type of book, which is all about what's going on inside Ender's head. Any script that fails to show that (and not in a blunt way with just a voice over) will fail miserably. I'd even venture to say that Ender's Game is probably harder to make into a movie than most books - eg. Lord of the Rings, being an epic, was much easier. Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy. Most Phil K Dick books/movies were also much more action-based.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
They can't cut that without destroying the whole point of the story. Ender's a nice kid, very smart, and more or less wants to be left alone. But he's been manipulated from the day he was born by a government that wants to train him to personally command the extermination of an entire sentient species. You've got to show that not only is he being driven to react this way against threats, but that the authorities who are watching will never help him, and actually approve of his retaliation with lethal force.
If Ender just turns out to be surprisingly tough, but lets the bullies live... you've negated the character. Ender doesn't do mercy. If there's a serious threat to his safety, he destroys it totally by any means necessary. That's what they wanted. That's what they built.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I think there's plenty of action scenes in Ender's Game. There isn't that much introspection as some of you say, there's very little that can't be put on screen. The book has great potential for becoming a movie, but it all starts with a good screenplay and needs a good director and a good cast of several wonder kids.
I strongly believe it would make a groundshaking movie if only it was done right. Perhaps the book is not known much out of the geek circles because it is marked SciFi and many people avoid this literature genre out of principle. But if you could sit them down and see the story it would reach them just the same, because it's a damn good story.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
He didn't intend to kill per se, he intended to hurt Bonzo sufficiently that he would never again be a threat. He intended to leave no possibility that Bonzo would go away, lick his wounds and come back for another go. So, he didn't actually intend murder, but he certainly intended to use far more force than was necessary merely for immediate self-defence.
Whether dead, incapacitated, or just terrified to ever go near Ender again, Bonzo would have been destroyed as a threat. That was Ender's goal in every conflict with such people.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy.
Funny you should say that, as the Harry Potter series is what convinced Card to give Hollywood another go at it. Before that he was convinced that it's just impossible to get enough good child actors to pull it off as live action.