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Part of Ender's Game Script Posted 215

Posted by Hemos from the getting-the-buggers dept.
SilentJason writes "Orson Scott Card posted a few of the pages from the Ender's Game script onto the web. He changed some material, as to be expected, like the buggers becoming Formics, as well as cutting the fight between Ender and Stilson. I first saw this on Ain't It Cool News, reported by Cassius the Evil. You can read the script at Fresco Pictures. "
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Part of Ender's Game Script Posted More

Part of Ender's Game Script Posted

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  • Both right, both wrong. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This [slashdot.org] was posted earlier, only about Jake Lloyd playing Ender.

    There were links further in the story to the partial script, which has not changed since August or so when the story was originally posted.

  • Classic science fiction book by Orson Scott Card. The first book in an excellent series, actually.
  • I originally saw this script in essentially the same form over a year ago. Card tends to do lots of interesting things on the web, including a virtual community in which everybody pretends to be resident's of his Alvin Maker series.

    Card suggests he has rewritten this, but I'm not sure how extensive the rewrite has been.
  • Reasons why this movie will *not* "blow":

    (1) OSC's track record. Have you ever seen "The Abyss?" Can I get a show of hands (ooh, Rush reference :-) for those of you who think it rocks? Thought so. :D

    (2) OSC himself. This man is an amazing author (and arguably the best sci-fi one behind Asimov). He's also a warm, humorous and open guy. I interviewed him when I was in elementary school (long, long ago) for a reading project and have known his family forever (it seems). His tireless energy and keen sense of plot coherence/integrity will not allow the script to be distorted into something beyond recognition.

    (3) Wing Commander. To put it bluntly, the series is great, but the movie was *the* biggest disappointment of my life (next to the near-sterile passing of 1999-> 2000 ;-), and I *know* EG will blow WC out of the water.

    -dtc
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hey! Starship Troopers had some excellent parts! What about ... no that was stupid. How about .... No only and idiot would land on a planet with out Space to Ground support. Well ... no that was stupid too...

    Well it was nice to see Kurgan working....

  • I always like getting book recommendations..particularly if I decide I like the author! :-)

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Look, it may be old news for the site, but not for slashdot. This is news that I, and I suspect alot of other people, want to hear about. Slashdot doesn't have to be up-to-the-second-or-it's-too-old-timely. Now sit down, be quiet, and let the rest of us enjoy this tidbit.

  • Regis: Is that your final answer?

    c+era: Yes, Reej, that's my final answer.

    Regis: I'm sorry, you lose the $100 question. The correct answer is allot, and I'm pretty sure even Tom Christiansen will back me up on this one.

  • /me likes a little bit of crow, served right up with some humble pie.

    I stand firmly and humbly corrected. :)

  • I think that "The Lost World" suffered even worse than "Jurassic Park"....they want to make a third movie that is being written by someone other than Michael Crichton.

    The only suffering having to do with "The Lost World" was the suffering of those of us who read the book. I was so pissed off at Crichton for having written that piece of crap. He magically ressurects a dead character and then ships him off as Mr. DinoHunter ("I'll stick my thumb up this dino's butt, he really won't like that!") tosses in some really lame child characters, and basically craps all over the first book. (Now should I tell you how I really feel about the book?)

    "The Lost World" book was so obviously written to be a squal to the movie version of Jurassic Park that I felt cheated by reading it. Words like "sell out" came to mind as I was reading it. I never even saw the sorry-ass movie. I'm suprised that the tripe he wrote wasn't good enough for Hollywood, it was perfect for what the movie making monkeys of today would want to see.

    Maybe in someone else's hands the third movie would be as much of a sucky crapfest as the second book AND second movie. The sad thing was I enjoyed the first movie. I read the book before seeing the movie, and I thought the movie was a good adaptation of what the book presented. There was no way they could get everything in, but they did a good job. (I still wish they would have killed off the old man. Actually, in the movie he was much too much sympathetic. In the book you were more willing to hate him and see him come to a bad end.)

    I hate when Hollywood takes away from the authors original intentions just to try to make a buck

    I agree that it sucks when Hollywood takes away from the authers original intentions. But I think in the case of The Lost World and any other movie in that series, Crichton already gave them permission by writing the second book the way he did.

    As for Ender's Game...I'm really looking forward to the movie. Card obviously cares about his characters and cares about how they are portreyed. It looks like he'll be pretty involved in every stage of the movie and I think because of that it'll turn out okay. However, if director or some movie producer deceides that Card is screwing up what they think the movie should be, get ready for the worst movie of the decade. Done right (with Card's help) the movie will be brilliant, done wrong (Hollywood's usual attempt at greatness,) it'll just be terrible.

  • Re:hmmm (Score:1)

    by Ark ( 7744 )
    Heck yeah! That kid in sixth sense would be perfect. I can't stand the brat from Phantom Menace.

    I went to a booksigning that Card gave here in Naperville, IL, right after Ender's Shadow came out. Before he even started signing books, he addressed the assembled masses/geeks on this very point. (I have this feeling he's been hearing it a lot.)

    IIRC, what he said that is by the time filming rolled around the kid from Sixth Sense would be too old to play ender. (Remember, Ender is under 10 when he's shipped off to battle school.) Also, the kid from sixth sense could do scared, depressed, and thoughtful well, but he didn't have a track record for doing anything more. I also remember a bit about Caulkanizing as well...

    Of course, its been a few months, but I think that was the gist of it.
  • He wrote a novelisation of the movie. The resulting novel, of course, was far better than the film.


    Really? The Abyss is one of my favorite movies of all time.

    I found the extended laser disc version of the movie was astounding with the revised ending. The original movie that was cut for time had a really quick and rushed ending.

    I'll have to check OSC's novelization out.

    I've only read a couple of his books: Ender's Game and Wyrms. Wyrms was really strange--it felt like some sort of writing experiment with weird SciFi plots. Didn't read well for me and actually turned me off reading most of Card's other works.

    I've avoided the sequeals to Ender's Game because I felt that the story ends really well as it does in the original novel. Sure, it's nice to see continue on and see where the characters go and take us with them, but after the double-surprise, I was left pretty fulfilled.
  • Sadly, the only basis that the public has to judge him on is star wars

    He's also in The Pretender, and a few other things.
  • from my pov very important:
    1. a good translation for the foreign languages
      a bad translation can ruin the best film.
      no matter how good the actors are. they will
      no longer carry the story after a bad translation.
      i know mr.card can't deal with every aspect of
      the film, but he can put up rules for the
      translators to follow... hopefully :-)
    2. a good translation of the title
      ONLY IMAGINE: "Ender the Alien-Killer"
      or: "Ender who murdered all the Aliens"
      such translations of titles are quite common here
      in europe. i allways thought these people choosing
      the titles must be absoluteley brain-dead.
    3. a suiting trailer!!!
      have you seen the trailer of contact? what does
      it have in common with the film? or the trailer
      for StarTrek - Insurrection? absolute crap!!!
      IMAGINE: "Once a Boy killed 500mio Ants. But those
      were not ordinary Ants...[dramaticmusicplaying]      "

    hoping the best for the movie :-))
  • Lots of movies have had realistic zero-g scenes. 2001 did it beforeanyone else, by rotating the camera to approximate the effect from the viewer's point of view. More recent movies, like Apollo 13, have just rented the Vomit Comet, which is an airplane owned by NASA which flies in successive parabolas, and used that. At the top of each arc, there is very little gravity (well, actually, there's still 9.8 m/s^2, but it's counteracted), for about 15 seconds IIRC. They just pay NASA a chunk and rent the Comet for a day or two, and build a set inside the plane.
  • I think you have to setuid root.

  • The script isn't finished, so in order to execute it, the computer has to fill in some parts. Your installation should have a program called more whish should be able to fill in certain bits and execute it.


    ---
  • I imagine Futurama would have the same impact on preserved heads that SST had on the term "buggers."
  • The first "50 years later" was really 46 years rounded up to the nearest 10. Add 7 years which had been rounded up to "ten years later". and you get 53 which rounds to "50 years ago".
  • This is an awful lot of effort you're going through just to be funny.

    May have worked better if you'd just said:

    "I can't get the script to work. I've tried everything! I downloaded it from the site, and named it 'ender' in my home directory.
    I typed 'ender' and it said 'bash: ender: command not found'"

  • They're gonna be in suits most of the time, right? CGI, with some blue-screen should probably be all that's necessary.
  • He's not that bad, dude.. Sure, his voice is a bit annoying, but we really don't have any clue about whether or not he can act. I mean, in SW:TPM he didn't really have a large part. Heck, there wasn't a lot of acting to be done in that flick at all.

    ---
  • Well then I might as well submit a new story saying that the Pentium II has been sent to distributers. The reason slashdot is so great is because it focuses on TODAY'S news, not news from several months ago.

    Perhaps, but my point actually was that it's pointless to post a comment saying "hey, this is old news" or anything useless like that. If you knew it already, fine, just go on and read the "new" news then.

    I've tried to see why people post stupid things that are completely pointless and waste everyone's time, including the posters, but I can't. I can't sink my mind to that level. It's beyond me. Maybe it's just me, but I post when I think I have something of value to add to the conversation, or something to respond to directly. I just can't see why anyone would do otherwise.

    ---
  • Maybe the poster was trying to help slashdot become a better place. If we don't point out their errors and pretend they don't exist, then the quality of the website will deteriorate - we obviously don't want that to happen.

    True, but in point of fact, it's posts like these ("Hemos posts bad articles" or "this is old news") that are the primary causes of the deterioration of the system, at least in my view. Many others have expressed the same feelings.

    Maybe the reason you don't see why "why people post stupid things" is because you're not understanding the poster's point - it isn't stupid to them. Everyone has the same thinking; if you don't agree with something or don't understand it, you assume it's wrong or ill-intentioned. I'm sure that the original poster had a reason completely different from what you suspect for posting their comment.

    Perhaps. I don't know his intentions. I don't assume intentions. I see results. The result was that he made himself look like he was stupid. :-) (no offense). However, I do know "why people post stupid things". It's usually because they are stupid. Ahh well...

    Read my sig. This may give insight into my character. :P

    ---

  • Has anyone ever heard of filming a sequel simultaneously with the original? This is a interesting concept.

  • The Pink Panther and A Shot in The Dark were both filmed simultaneously, and although A Shot in the Dark was meant to be the first story in the series, The Pink Panther was released first.

    This is interesting, as when a friend and I rented this in college, I found the two to not be of comparable quality. Panther was okay, but Shot absolutely had all of us on the floor laughing. No way I would have suspected they were filmed together.

  • While I know that Mr. Card is more than capable of defending himself, I'd like to jump in with a few points to counter yours:

    Silly Sci-Fi Gear: I'm certain the amazing art and costume departments of any major studio are up to the task of making a headset look "military" enough for you. Since I've been in the Army for over a decade myself now, I've seen enough real military tech to wonder if our weapons manufacturers are capable of the same, but the fake stuff from Hollywood always looks good.

    Lousy scripting: I'd certainly hope that Mr. Card is the best person to adapt his book to a movie. If you think the script is lousy, have you read the book?

    Mazer being cool: Shooting from around the moon shows a certain type of mind, and that scene, although heavy with interest, is not the focal point of the movie.

    Training room: As above, I'm sure the Hollywood folks are able to make a realistic looking null-G environment. Computers are amazing, no? And, the 30-year-old 2001 did OK for zero-G look.

    No noise in space: View 2001. Probably MORE powerful because of the silence. Undoubtedly the test audiences and studio types will force some noise in there, but let's hope it is dialog and not "laser fire". :-)
  • I rather thought that in the book, IMHO, the fight with Stilson after the monitor was removed was crucial to Ender's development. It gives us an early view of how Ender is, and how he reacts to situations. It disappoints me that they've cut that, and I think it will take longer for moviegoers who haven't read the book to identify with Ender's view of the world.
  • I'm glad that you've grown a thicker skin since the first preview of the script was posted.

    I think that you are doing a wonderful job. Of course, the book will always be better than the movie. I am sure that you will create an enjoyable, meaningful two hour movie.

    Its just cruel telling us about the movie so far before the release date. :)
  • Try Italo Calvino, one of Umberto Eco's favorite writers... in "If on a winter's night, a traveler" he plays with reading misprinted, mistranslated, misappropiated, etc. novels... very fun and cute.

    Always nice to see some literary figures appear on slashdot--too often are we limited to blurbish thoughts that dont really develop... like this one.
  • Nice to see people listen (read) my recommendations... Calvino isn't exactly sci-fi, though just this morning I read a short story with him starring particles or somethings in space-time. But I heard that Eco (Foucalt's Pendulum, etc) calls him an inspiration or something.

    I really enjoyed the first 3 Ender books when they came around. I think I've lost interest in the form/genre/style/taste/smell/texture/furriness and now find Stephen Dedalus a more convincing anguished youth. But Ender seems a little more Sturm und Drang, ja? It might just be the passing into late adolescence though.


    How 'bout this story? tchrist, tchrist's antagonist agreeing with tchrist, and OSC all posting... think my standards for /. are getting lower ackshully
  • Thanks For the Correction, Your point is well taken, I will refer to it as anime from now on.
  • I agree with you completely ralian, No movie can reach the expectations that I have made in my mind.
    On a different topic(sort of) I wish that more scifi/fantasy authors would take a look at japanamation, those artists are not afraid of not catering to the moronic movie viewing public. I would love to see ender's game turned into japanamation series.
  • First of all, I'd like to think that Starship Troopers was almost made for it's camp value rather than a true story in and of itself.... lots of cheese with some eye candy thrown in. But as a movie it was very entertaining in and of itself. While I haven't had the pleasure of reading Heinlen's original and seeing how badly it was distorted from it's original writing (and given Heinlen's record, it was probably a pretty bad representation of his work).

    Ender's Game is a little different, in this respect. Character portrayal is probably one of the most important aspects of this film... Ender, obviously, but Peter and Valentine as well... after all, they are an integral part of Ender's psyche, as was pointed out in Xenocide. While the Demosthenes/Locke personae could be left out since this was basically a sideline to the story, I think the Ender/Stilson conflict really shouldn't be... IMHO the whole point of the scene exists to show that Ender is basically a "doomsday machine" ( a la Dr. Strangelove ), that is to say that he'll take a situation to it's logical conclusion and act accordingly... hence with Stilson he aims to discourage future retribution or harassment with one decisive action, which neatly parallels the government with its use of the MD device. Anyways, I'm rambling on... I guess I just hate to see any part of a work that I really enjoyed cut out or changed, regardless of practicality or marketing concerns.

    ----
    Dave

    "I love chess! It is like ballet only with more explosions!"
  • What is Ender's Game? Why should we care?
  • The problem here is that the script ender can not be executed!

    I would fix it myself, but it's been release under an non open source license. When will these big companies learn that closed source just won't cut it anymore. I think we should boycott orsonscottcard.com until they start using the GPL.

    Anyone out there want to start an ender work a-like script?

  • Don't worry, Uncle Orson. Some of us still remember the sword-fights from The Secret of Monkey Island.

  • True, Hamill didn't survive being Skywalker

    Beg pardon? Judging from his performance as the Joker on Batman, the Animated Series, I'd say he's recovered from Skywalkerdom incredibly well.

  • This is an awful lot of effort you're going through just to be funny.

    Aw, be a sport! If George H. had only said that much, he probably would've only sounded a few evolutionary rungs above Windozers who say "Duhhhh, I double-clicked on the icon but I just got a screenful of text and no pretty buttons to push".

  • The foreword to Ender's Shadow describes how the project was initially undertaken, and how Mr. Card "selfishly" (his words, not mine) swiped the offer to write ES from another author...
  • If the portion of the script posted up is any indication, the movie's really going to blow. Here's why:

    Silly Sci-Fi Gear: The script stumbles immediately by calling for everyone on the bridge to be wearing computers. While this may be realistic, its hard to take military guys dressed like McD's employees very seriously. With movies, its really important to project the right image. This can be done -- take the Marines in Aliens for example. They used tech -- IR, trackers, cameras, etc -- but they also used Big Guns, bad-ass body armor and a gung-ho attitude.

    Of course, these being naval guys, the best way to make them bad-ass is by making them British (consider the change in the Imperials from Star Wars to Empire). Even the British, however, will look silly with McDonald's headsets on.

    Lousy scripting: Woolies? You expect people to be scared of aliens nicknamed "Woolies"? You gotta be kidding; how do you expect people to take a threat named after long underwear seriously? Additionally, a lot of the script reads poorly; just pick a section of lines and try saying them. Finally, they try to establish Mazer as cool the wrong way -- you need a valient charge into the enemy fleet, diving through swarms of lasers and missiles and enemy ships, attacking the Queen's ship in what would otherwise be a suicide mission. Instead, they shoot a missile from around a moon. Right.

    Think about The Hunt for Red October. When did Ramius seem like a naval genius? When they said he was a genius? Or when he risked ramming the Neptune Massive and avoided the torpeado through sheer intuition (while the rest of the crew sh*t themselves)?

    The training room won't work: Simply, the training room scenes described in the book just won't work on film. Besides the technical challenges, the action will have to be simplified too much to be really meaningful. Its simply a matter of not translating from book to screen (unless we get some brilliant writing to make up for it, which I haven't seen).

    Too much attention to detail: This is a toughie. I mean, that moron at the Sci-Fi convention who insists that the X-Wings in Star Wars shouldn't have made noise is correct in that sound doesn't conduct in space. However, there's a *reason* that Lucas had the space fighters make noise: it would have been lousy without it. Experience tells us that explosions and fighters and war make noise. It'll look odd without it, technically correct or not. These are the sorts of concessions you make for a decent film.

    The only thing that might save this film is a kick-ass job on the director's part. A good director can make up for a multitude of sins by altering the script or coming up with original ways of showing things. Still, I also doubt that will happen in this case.

    I'd hate to see Ender's Game turn into a Wing Commander-quality movie.

    ----

  • Of course, I never said that you couldn't write dialogue. I did say that certain sections of the script "reads poorly", and by this I meant that they sound odd when recited.

    What I did say is that the portion of the script I have read will have to be seriously reworked before it will play well on the big screen. I said this for a number of reasons, all of which I tried to explain in my original post. As an insider on the project, I would be interested to hear your replies to these criticisms (for instance, maybe the director has a plan to demonstrate the evolution of strategy in the battle room).

    I'm interested in seeing Ender's Game translate well onto the big screen because I've seen other beloved books (Dune stands out in my mind) turn out very badly on the big screen.

    ----

  • It will be interesting to see how the zero g stuff is done. I have a bad feeling that when the movie goes to test audiences, there might be problems with it. EG emphasizes that in z-g, there is no fixed "down", only how you define it, and Ender uses that to his advantage in winning the various games. Thus, the game room should have no features of a normal "gravity" room ; you should not be able to tell what the difference between the floor or the ceiling or the wall is. And this might not fly over well with the test audiences - typical humans need points of reference, and without expected features, the audience may become queasy with the room, and so the producers may go back and add just enough features to do that (like putting lights on the 'ceiling', which would ruin how the room is supposed to work.

    However, I may be overconvcerned about this. I'm more worried that they add tons of space-battle footage (since this *is* a story about humans vs aliens) at to make the film be what was expected for the general audience rather than those familar with the book. If the latter is true, there should be almost no space shots in this, maybe a docking scene, but that's it. No battles, no nothing.

  • I find it hard to complain about an author that has written several of my favorite books, all quite different. Ender's Game, Songmaster, Speaker for the Dead, Wyrms, Seventh Son, Pastwatch, and Treasure Box. I have disliked a few as well: Xenocide, Folk of the Fringe, and Prentice Alvin, but great artists have great works and secondary works (i.e. works that I like and works that I don't).
    I think the charge of retelling the same story is a weak one. Card has written better in more genres than any author I have read (Suspense, Sci-fi, historical fiction, Fantasy). In fact when he has explicitly retold a story, as in Ender's Shadow or his novelization of The Abyss, it is with fresh insights that enriched my experience of the original.
    Indeed variations on a theme is an honored tradition in art. Does anyone think Van Gogh drew too many sunflowers, or that Austen wrote too many novels about romance among the landed elite? (Bonus points if you find published expressions of these opinions, which no doubt exist.)
    In short, to dislike his books or particularily his series is quite fair. To challenge his artisitic integrity because of this, is not.
    --
  • Bean is supposed to be younger and smaller than Ender. I don't know if they could fudge that one, especially if they wanted to make an Ender's Shadow movie.
    --
  • I can't get the script to work. I've tried everything! I downloaded it from the site [frescopictures.com], and named it 'ender' in my home directory.
    I typed 'ender' and it said 'bash: ender: command not found'
    So I realized . wasn't in my $PATH, so I typed './ender' and it said 'bash: ./ender: Permission denied'
    So I typed 'chmod 700 ender', ran it again and it said './ender: EXT: command not found'
    So I opened up the file and added a #! before EXT, thinking that EXT might be the shell it needs, but I don't have EXT installed on my system.

    So my questions are:
    a) What is this EXT shell that the script was written in?
    b) How can I get this script to run under Linux?
    c) What does this script do?

    Maybe I'll just stick to compiled languages, scripting languages seem like more pain than their worth!

    --
  • I loved Ender's Game. And Loved it the way it was orginally. Buggers becomming something else? How else would it Ender's game be unique? and the brutal murder of that fat kid being taken out?! I dont believe that.. that was one of the msot deeply emotional bits of the whole story, the realization at the end the way he mirroed it by killing the other kid.. truly unique piece of writing, I wish it would remain as it was. Bean is my hero btw! So is ender.. but ender was almost robotic..
    --
  • He has this attitude, "If it was worth selling once, it is worth selling twice."

    Many times he has written essentially the same story and sold it as a short story and a novella, or as a novella and a novel. The story is usually pretty good, but reading the second version always leaves me with this irritating deja vu since I know that I have read this before, but I know it wasn't quite this...so I re-read the whole story but I am irritated all the way through.

    OK, so turning a book into a movie is standard, but it is too close to a habit of his that eventually made me stop reading him.

    Now if only Steven Brust will come out with another few stories... :-)

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • I am criticizing Card, not for being a good author, but for failing to clearly draw a line in the sand when a work is done. I see other authors writing similar stories (eg Zelazny) but no matter how clearly the characters are essentially repeats, the story itself is different.

    Card is the only one that I know of who publishes the same exact story, same people, places, and plot, several times. And for me personally the result is incredibly frustrating to read.

    Incidentally I mentioned Brust as an extreme counter-example. Brust plays games with his stories, so much so that frequently you would swear that his stories are written by different authors!

    Also the games are themselves interesting. Remember that deja vu that I complain about from Card? Read To Reign in Hell from Brust. There is about a page-and-a-half in there that is repeated. Exactly. It isn't a mistake, it was a deliberate way to emphasize that a small confrontation near the beginning of the story is the same as the major war at the climax. Did I get irritated? You bet! So irritated that I went back and verified that it was a word-for-word repeat, then I read the lead-in to each section and verified that it was deliberate.

    You see, Brust understood how irritating deja vu can be, and so used it for an artistic device. Card does not and so has permanently irritated me. Which is why I will read Brust instead of Card any time I can...

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • I would say that film and books are two different media with different properties, and when a film version of a novel fails, it's likely because the filmmaker is not properly taking advantage of the medium.

    I can think of two examples of films when stand very well in their own right apart from the books upon which they're based: Contact and Blade Runner. Both films knew just what to chanage to take advantage of the things that film does well (visuals, mood, and emotion) and drop the things which film does not do so well at (detailed debate and internal thoughts).

    Both films I believe produce something which is very distinctive. Are they better than their novels? They're different. They're just as good, in a different way. (Well, actually I liked Contact the film better than the novel, personally.)

    Film versions of books CAN be done well.
  • (Sorry about the alliteration...)

    Kubrick had the scenes of spaceships (and on the moon) silent, and nobody complained. (OK, he had all those "atmospheric" classical music pieces playing...) I don't think anybody has ever said "2001" wasn't a "decent" film.
  • ("Culkinize", heh, heh. Oh, that's a good word.)

    I'm glad Jake Lloyd will be playing Ender. I was afraid that his being in Phantom Menace would ruin the careeer of someone who obviously has some talent.

    I guess I shouldn't have worried too much -- after all, Harrison Ford managed to live down being cast as Han Solo. (True, Hamill didn't survive being Skywalker ... but I'm not sure that much was lost in that case.)

  • Yup. There were clear signs of talent in his performance in Phantom Menace. Granted, given the lame script and even lamer direction of that movie, those signs may have been hard for some people to see. But they were there. Hopefully they'll get a better showing in Ender's Game.
  • >Or do you just not trust the production team?

    I think this is probably the sticking point for most people. It certainly is for me.

    >But has Card any screenplay experience?

    Abyss. The book is worth the read too. It was written at the same time the movie was being filmed and written. The book was necessary for the movie, and the movie formed the book. A very interesting synergy. I'd like to see more projects of this nature. BTW, after the book, the movie ending actually makes sense.

    -matt
  • Hi Orson,

    Thanks for dropping by to chat with us. It's nice to be able to interact with you personally as well as be transported and carried away by your stories. Are there other forums where you do this as well?

    [And before somebody chimes in with 'it's in his own best interests to do so', so what? The same could be said for many other stories/discussions here where the people concerned can't be bothered to participate or don't want to weather the inevitable flames and snide digs. I don't blame them, and when somebody does decide to enter the fray anyway, I think they deserve recognition.]

    cheers,

    -matt
  • When Graff says "Who stopped the formics when they invaded fifty years ago?" it should be "sixty years ago" if you add the "50 years later" and "ten years later" notices.

    --
    grappler

  • Orson,

    I have been always curious to ask you if you ever drew any of the social dynamics of _Ender's Game_ from _Lord of the Flys_ by by William Golding? For me, your books have taught as much about human behaviour as any sociology or psychology book; at least within the context of the personalities presented in the plot.

    I really do think it is too bad that Peter Brook (Who directed the original _Lord of the Flys_ movie) isn't around to direct this film.

    -AP

    P.S. Come to think of it, have you ever considered using the sociological behaviour patterns of the average SlashDot user as the premise for a book? :)
    Speaking of SlashDot, howabout a SlashDot interview!

    Write Malda [mailto] and set that one up!

  • I got the impression from the script excerpt posted that Card was doing his best to keep most of the brutality intact (I don't really like the fact that the fight with Stilson has been dropped, but there are other chances to keep the themes alive). I think Card has the integrity to make a true-to-theme movie or none at all. You're absolutely right - a Disnified movie would be a disaster, but I don't think he would allow that to happen.

    Hollywood can get away with making this movie as long as they're very careful to market it to adults and not children... It'll be difficult to keep a movie starring mostly kids from looking like a kids' movie in a trailer, but it can certainly be done. And I don't think anyone who goes for this script will be dumb enough to try to bring in young audiences with it.

  • I didn't know about it, so it's news to me. If you knew about it, good for you. Let those who had no idea learn the facts too, okay?

    ---
  • Somehow I feel that Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide wouldn't make a good movie.

    While I'm not sure that I like it, Hollywood seems to have come to the conclusion that a sci-fi movie = an action movie. Those two stories are pretty darn far from action movies.

    Ender's Game is nearly an action movie already. There's stuff blowing up other stuff, which is all an action movie requires. :) Card sounds like he's cut the non-action stuff out for the picture.

    Ahh well.. Just rambling..

    ---
  • I really don't care if Lloyd plays ender, just as long as he does it right. one of my main fears is that Ender's Game will be toned down for a kids audience because it has kids in it. The plot is so much deeper then TPM. You would think OSC would see it as an affront to his own beliefs to not make this movie good. Was his intented audience for the original novel children?

    He mentioned that high quality children actors are hard to find, this makes sense, just consider that Lloyd was the best choice out of thousands for TPM.

    So with that in mind wouldn't it be cool if some producer went out on a limb and decided to make this all CG? we have gotten to the point where emotions can be conveyed through CG. I imagine that the battles would pose a problem to any director, and CG would be an obvious solution. So why not make the whole movie CG? it would provide a solution to having to find good child actors; you can just create them.

    anway, just my lousy 2 cents.
  • This is because A Shot in The Dark was loosely based on an award-winning and excellent stage play (the first performance of which, coincidentally, starred William Shatner). Shot introduced the character of Inspector Clouseau. The Pink Panther was an original screenplay built around the Clouseau character that was created for the first film, thus the difference in quality.

    --

  • The Pink Panther and A Shot in The Dark were both filmed simultaneously, and although A Shot in the Dark was meant to be the first story in the series, The Pink Panther was released first.

    --

  • Consider the closing scene of the first act of Earth 2, the scene where the Earth colony ship tumbles into the atmosphere with its outer surface boiling away and pieces breaking off -- in all, a scene of great visual violence -- took place in *complete silence.*

    Amusingly, such complete silence is technically inaccurate. A large object entering an atmosphere, especially as you described it, is going to make a lot of noise. You probably won't be able to hear it from high orbit, but if you are close enough that the ship is well visible (rather than a flaming dot), you are going to hear a lot of noise.

  • One possible solution is to have the entire story framed as a flashback in the head of an older Ender, and having that older Ender provide some narration for the flashbacks.

    Blade Runner.

    Dune. Narration almost always gets in the way. If you need narration in turning a book to a movie, either you're doing it wrong, or the movie should not be made.

  • I'm actually rather surprised that I haven't seen much really good zero-G on either the big or little screen. Still, one of the better attempts was Kubrik's 2001.

    2001 did quite well for its time with rotating sets and all. Note the flight attendents in this movie. They either were directed well in doing "velcro-walking" (pretending that velcro, not gravity, held their feet to the floor), or they were actually wearing velcro.

    Even more interesting: those ugly hats they were wearing. As near as I can tell, this got around the issue of long hair, which doesn't fall nicely to the shoulders in zero-G. Today, the real way to handle this might be to "scrub" and computer-animate all long hair in post-production. Since this is expensive, one may cheat by making short hair the fashion for all characters in zero-G. This may not be too unrealistic--do you want long, flowing hair where it can float into your face? Kubrick couldn't do this because women just didn't have short hair in those days--it would freak people out. But now we have Ripley and Sinead!

  • hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to pain and pain leads to excessive quoting of popular science fiction characters.

    dave
  • I'm glad Jake Lloyd will be playing Ender. I was afraid that his being in Phantom Menace would ruin the careeer of someone who obviously has some talent.

    I really didn't like him in Phantom Menace...

    I suppose no one could live up to the type of hype and scrutiny that he had to go through but I just don't think he's a very good actor. He came off as whiney, he messed up some lines, etc.

    -- iCEBaLM
  • Take a look at the other books (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind). Ender's Game was rather juvenile, but the other three were definitely not. I can't speak for Ender's Shadow (I just started reading it), but I certainly enjoyed the first four. Card definitely takes a look at some interesting subjects in Speaker, Xenocide, and Children - further, they're not shoot-em-up action books like EG.
  • My Webster doesn't have "pedicator" in it. What does it mean?
    I was trying to be slightly circumspect, lest anyone be needlessly offended. You can look it up in these verba cloacae [obscure.org]. More naughty bits are available on the obscene Latin [obscure.org] page.
  • Correction: I misposted the link to the LOTR page. I gave a fan page. Apparently, this is the official [lordoftherings.net] one. Sorry about that. It's very hard to read with lynx, however. :-(
  • I, at least, meant what I wrote. See the other references.

    Ok, I looked in Websters. Pedophile is a word, "pedicator" is not. So, I still don't know what you mean.

    You're doing a good job at raising my ire. This is good for neither of us. :-(

    "Websters" is hardly the end-all and be-all of whether something constitutes a `word' or not. Most of us laugh at "Websters", you know. The OED is a good starting place, much better than any old "Websters" silliness, but even that isn't absolute. Words aren't what you think they are. They derive from many sources, and anyone, especially a native speaker, has full licence to invent new ones.

    In this case, however, I did not. In fact, the word in question has seen use for around twenty-four centuries at least, and probably more. I suppose you'd try to tell me that fajitas and quedadillas "weren't words" either, just because "Websters" was ignorant of them.

    Furthermore, "Websters" is not a well-defined term. Any one can publish a "Websters". And many people have. And most of them are crap.

    Most importantly, I already posted [slashdot.org] a reference in this thread which, if one were to follow the link, would in graphic and offensive detail explain precisely what the word means, and why. Today, I choose not to violate the delicate sensibilities of the gentle readership of this august forum by printing verbatim such foul material as to be found in that link. Kindly respect that position. Here's another such link [ohio-state.edu] that the prurient may read if they're interested.

    The alleged connection to pædophile is suspect at best, since the pædo- stem did not appear in pedicator. Circa 110 AD, Suetonius wrote in De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius (The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius), citing the earlier C. Licinius Calvus, the following: Bithynia quicquid et pedicator Caesaris umquam habuit. [gmu.edu]

    I don't see why pedicator would be related to pedometer or pedology. I think you're confused pæd- (often written paed-) and ped-. The prevalent America spelling of pædophile as pedophile not only confuses those of us accustomed to and reliant upon proper stemming, it probably also annoys the pedestrians and podiatrists, with the only folks happy with the confusion being the pædogogues. :-)

  • I mean, that moron at the Sci-Fi convention who insists that the X-Wings in Star Wars shouldn't have made noise is correct in that sound doesn't conduct in space. However, there's a *reason* that Lucas had the space fighters make noise: it would have been lousy without it. Experience tells us that explosions and fighters and war make noise. It'll look odd without it, technically correct or not. These are the sorts of concessions you make for a decent film.

    Pet Peeve: I would like to point out that there is no good reason why starships, etc cannot make roaring noises in outer space. This is one of those transparently obvious "facts" that "everybody knows" but is also wrong.

    Sound is not the experience of air particles bombarding your ear drums. It the experience of your eardrums vibrating in response to an applied force. If the force can be conducted to your eardrums without the intervening air, you will still hear a noise.

    Since we have no knowledge of what kind of physics would power an interstellar ship, we cannot logically exclude the possibility that the ship is propelled by a mechanism other than compressed explosions (the combution engine). If a starship were pushed or pulled by a force that could transmit through a vacuum, like gravity, then you could potentially hear a resulting noise.

    But I agree Star Trek would suck without the sounds :)

    -konstant
    Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
  • I was wondering about that. I am quite sure that "Formics" is never mentioned in "Ender's Game."

    And I'll check now...

    Nope, no mention of Formics. It's all from a kid's perspective. "Formics" is a very adult word. Of course, Ender has the brains of a grown-up kid.

    I do hope that the Stilson thing remains. It's disturbing but crucial, after all. Kids kill.

    Oh, God, I hope no one makes an Ender-Columbine connection and boycotts the movie...

  • Don't get too mad at Mr Coward; "Anonymous Coward" is a catch-all name for anyone who posts anonymously. It took me a while to figure that out too. The various cretins who've been lobbing mudballs at you and your work under that name are each discrete entities, most of them barely literate. While certainly your books are worthy of some criticism, the thick-skulled posts of the Anonymous Cowards rarely qualify as such.

    While I have your attention, let me say that I've been an ardent admirer of your work since the early eighties, "Maps in a Mirror" is my favourite anthology besides my Arthur Clarke omnibus, and "Unaccompanied Sonata" is the most beautiful SF story I've ever read; I come back to it again and again. Thank you, Mr Card.
  • He wrote a novelisation of the movie. The resulting novel, of course, was far better than the film.
  • Someday someone will write a script about slashdot not posting an article about Card or Ender's game for an entire week. Scary, I know.

  • Bugger means sodomy in many contexts.

    And I think you meant pedophile.

    as well as cutting the fight between Ender and Stilson.

    I hope this doesn't mean that changed the death of that boy. It's tragic when they neuter strong writing (think Lord Of the Flies [imdb.com]).
    ---
  • Sound is not the experience of air particles bombarding your ear drums. It the experience of your eardrums vibrating in response to an applied force. If the force can be conducted to your eardrums without the intervening air, you will still hear a noise.

    Yeah, but "listening" to those huge asteroids in last year's evil batch of "We're going to die!" movies really, really sucked!

    Every time I "hear" things I should not (not thumps through the hull or shockwaves, as those are fine, but the engines and lasers [light makes no sound, stupid]), I always make comments along the lines of "Gee, space sure got noisy from when NASA last was up."
    ---
  • I, at least, meant what I wrote. See the other references.

    Ok, I looked in Websters. Pedophile is a word, "pedicator" is not. So, I still don't know what you mean.
    ---
  • then you put in a couple of gratuitous breast shots so the film has an R

    In Australia, it often works the other way. A few tits & ass are OK but lots of graphic violence gets an R rating. Many movies that are PG in the USA get R down here due to the amount of violence. (Predator 2 for instance).

    It's always amazed me that violence is OK to censors in the USA but sex is not. Oh well, descended from Puritans vs descended from convicts, I guess :)
  • Expect two more books in the Alvin Maker series: Crystal City and Master Alvin

    Very cool--just finished Heartfire before the holidays and was wondering what was next.

    "And if you don't know that Alvin is really Joseph Smith and Arthur Steward is really Brigham Young and that they're going to...(forget the whole quote), then You Haven't Been Paying Attention!" (I never noticed the parallels between the two, personally... :-) )

    I knew that Card grew up as a Mormon, and that had some influence in the Alvin Maker series--but I wouldn't have known enough about the Book of Mormon to make the connection either :)

    Warning: Topic Drift
    Occasionally I see someone mention the Alvin Maker series here on Slashdot, but not so often as books that are "more sci-fi-ish." I stumbled on Seventh Son by accident--almost literally. I found the book lying under a pile of computer junk in my apartment and have no idea where it came from. I read the whole series so far within the last 3 months--and I definately see a message for the open source community. There are tons of parallels; Alvin, Verily, the crystal city, the golden plow...RMS, ESR, the Internet, the GPL. Hmm, GPL, Golden PLow. Just noticed that... My point is this: if you like Orson Card but don't like to stray to far from sci-fi, you still may want to give this series a chance. If you read fantasy, then you'll probably like it anyway.

    numb
  • Simply, the training room scenes described in the book just won't work on film. Besides the technical challenges,

    Hey, if Hollywood can do THE MATRIX, I'm sure they can do a reasonable job on ENDER'S GAME.

    Experience tells us that explosions and fighters and war make noise. It'll look odd without it, technically correct or not. These are the sorts of concessions you make for a decent film.

    I disagree. Given the concessions above, you will come up with something that conforms neatly to the expectations of the audience, but conforming to that expectation (as, say, Wing Commander did) does not guarantee a decent film.

    Consider the closing scene of the first act of Earth 2, the scene where the Earth colony ship tumbles into the atmosphere with its outer surface boiling away and pieces breaking off -- in all, a scene of great visual violence -- took place in *complete silence.*

    I thought that was pretty stunning, especially when they cut from the panicky-people-getting-on-lifepods-scene, with all the screaming and klaxons and other sound, to the absolute quiet of space.

    (I hate citing Earth 2 in arguments of this nature, but they did get this one thing right, even if they got nothing else right except casting the way-way-hot Rebecca Gayheart.)

    Screaming space fighters, faux-cool Euro-bridgecrew, (weep for Jürgen Prochnow -- from Das Boot to Wing Commander? poor dude) and valiant charges under fire -- it sure sounds to me like you're describing Wing Commander.

    zo.

  • Keep in mind that later on Card mentioned that the main roles would have to be played by child actors around the age of 12. I'm willing to bet that by the time casting comes around both Lloyd and the 6th sense kid will be too old.

    -dvorsd

  • "Formics" did not occur in Ender's Game. But as I sat with Lynn Hendee, one of the producing partners on Ender's Game, watching Starship Troopers in order to see how much damage that film was going to do to Ender's Game, we realized that it had the potential to hurt us in only one way: If we used the term "buggers," someone might think of "bugs" and remember the ludicrous "brain bug" scene in S-Troop and start laughing uncontrollably at an inappropriate moment in Ender's Game. So we changed the name in the script, and I "previewed" the name change in Ender's Shadow. The look of the buggers will also be changed - insectoid in general body structure, but radically different from the aliens in S-Troop.

    Apart from that, the only thing we discovered in watching S-Troop is how deeply dumb Hollywood filmmakers can sometimes be. Here you have a film whose storyline is so lame that only a twelve-year-old could like it enough to see it twice - and then you put in a couple of gratuitous breast shots so the film has an R and those twelve-year-olds can't see it in the theaters! Needless to say, those of us making Ender's Game will make very sure that it has a rating that will allow its ENTIRE audience to attend ...

    - Orson Scott Card

  • The reason I refused to consider animation was that, despite the passions of those who love animation, until recently I had never seen animation that could express human emotion at all. Stories that are event-driven work well in animation, but character-driven stories don't - a fact well known in the industry, even if animation fans often don't understand it.

    However, there recently has been one animated film that finally broke the "character barrier": Iron Giant. Genuinely witty writing was joined with art that actually made the faces expressive and brought animation to a point where at least a few nuances of expression could be shown. Maybe this was achievable all along, but the point is, few tried. So, with the right team, an animated Ender's Game might be do-able.

    Right now, though, we remain committed to the live-action version.

    - Orson Scott Card

  • Man ... if only you had been around to teach me when I was learning how to write. Twenty stage plays, a hundred-plus audioplays, and a half-dozen screenplays into my career, and only NOW does someone tell me that I can't write dialogue.

    I'm so bummed ...

    - Orson Scott Card

  • Buggers and Formics (Score:3)

    by copito ( 1846 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @07:56AM (#1410087)
    "Formics" is the formal name for the aliens, "bugger" is common slang. This is clear in Ender's Shadow (worth reading BTW) but I can't remember if it is in Ender's Game.
    --

  • Old old OLD (Score:3)

    by Wonko42 ( 29194 ) <ryan+slashdot@noSpam.wonko.com> on Monday January 03, 2000 @08:05AM (#1410088) Homepage
    The partial script has been online at this site for at least four months now, perhaps even more. This is not news.

    --

  • Bugger == Pedicator (Score:3)

    by Tom Christiansen ( 54829 ) <tchrist@perl.com> on Monday January 03, 2000 @08:37AM (#1410089) Homepage
    I imagine they've stricken "bugger" from the script because of its obvious interpretation as "pedicator". The people who say "you dirty old bugger" are much more apt to be offended than those who say "what a cute little bugger he is!" So in the interests of avoiding a non-kid-viewable rating, they might have dodged the word. Perhaps it's even on the unapproved list; I don't know.

    Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if pedication weren't precisely the connotation that Card intended. You were not supposed to identify with or in any way like the Buggers.

  • Books into Movies (Score:3)

    by Tom Christiansen ( 54829 ) <tchrist@perl.com> on Monday January 03, 2000 @10:02AM (#1410090) Homepage
    There seems to be a lot of mistrust that the Ender movie can accurately portray the Card's book. But is this really necessary? Is it okay to have a somewhat different story? Have you read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Did you enjoy Blade Runner? I think they were different, but both good.

    Aren't the two media of books and film fundamentaly different? Do you think there's something about Ender that specifically does not lend itself to a movie format? Or do you just not trust the production team? I think Ender is feasible, although don't know how it will work out. Certainly having Card write the screenplay means that no one will be able to say that it was contrary to the author's wishes. But has Card any screenplay experience?

    Which books have successfully translated into movies? Which have failed? What do you think the cause was? I believe that no single cause exists. Consider Dune as movie and book. I don't think many people were very happy with the movie. I don't think it was the actors, but the time allotment. Can Ender be told in the 2½ hours allotted? Is there too much internal dialogue for it to work out, or is there enough action?

    A more important movie coming up for next Christmas (or the following one) is the first of three installments to The Lord of the Rings. Details are at the The Lord of the Rings movie page [lordoftheringsmovie.com], with casting photos and FAQs/gossip [xenite.org] available as well, plus an IMDB [imdb.com] entry. In this case, it's not going to be too short the way Dune was, since it's going to be three movies. I don't know that even Card dreams of doing the whole Ender quartet as movies. I hope not.

  • Re:Oh no. (Score:3)

    by UncleOrson ( 132798 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @09:51AM (#1410091)
    "That little brat"? I've met Jake, and he's an exuberant, decent, unspoiled, extremely bright, very talented young man. I wonder why you would make such a personal comment about a child you haven't met.

    Maybe the reason you didn't enjoy his performance in Fantum Mennis was that the writing was so awful. There IS no actor who could have made those lines good. Given the right script and the right director, Jake can be astonishingly good.

    However, no one has been cast because there is no director in place and no studio yet funding the film. By the time that happens, Jake will probably be too old to play the part. The kid from Sixth Sense already is too old.

    But however the casting turns out, Jake Lloyd is a human being who has done nothing to harm you and does not deserve to be attacked personally in a public place where it is quite possible that he or his friends or family might see your message. The messages posted here might be electronic, but the people who read them aren't.

    - Orson Scott Card

  • Re:Length forced cuts... (Score:3)

    by UncleOrson ( 132798 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @10:06AM (#1410092)
    All full-length novels are too long for the screen, unless they've been seriously padded with extraneous writing. However, while length forced me to cut SOMETHING, I chose to cut the Peter&ValentineTakeOverTheWorld subplot because it is completely unfilmable - just a couple of kids typing - and hard to make believable without being able to use the novelist's tool of getting inside the characters' heads.

    As to Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, they are all unfilmable in that they absolutely depend on knowing what characters and thinking and feeling from the inside. Most of what matters can't be visualized. So a film version of Speaker, for instance, would be a bunch of talking heads interrupted occasionally by unwatchable cruelty. Who wants a movie of that? Not me!

    Most of my novels are unfilmable, except those written with film in mind (Homebody, Treasure Box, Ender's Shadow, Enchantment). A few older works would do well on screen (Treason, Wyrms, Hart's Hope) and we're exploring a film version of the Alvin Maker books. We're even attempting a version of Pastwatch - though fitting THAT into two hours is pretty hard, especially given how much has to be explained.

    Print science fiction, at its best, is rarely translatable to film. Which is why film science fiction is rarely as "good" as the best print science fiction, and why sci-fi films so often focus on action. The costs of science fiction filming are so high that sci-fi films must appeal to a large audience in order to recoup the investment. When a sci-fi film can be done for much less - check out the astonishingly creative and clever "Being John Malkovich" for an example - then it can explore the much greater possibilities that are routinely exploited in written science fiction.

    - Orson Scott Card

  • Not the same script (Score:3)

    by UncleOrson ( 132798 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @10:11AM (#1410093)
    The script that I wrote this past summer and posted early this fall is a complete rewrite - the old script was thrown out and I went back to the book and started from scratch. The first script was from the adult point of view, trying to make it more fundable by not relying so heavily on child actors. That was a mistake, because the emotional heart of the story is the relationships among the children. So the first strategy was tossed, and this script is absolutely from the children's point of view. Works a lot better now.

    I wish I could post the whole thing, because there are some cool surprises that I wish I could have included in a new edition of Ender's Game. But what the new script definitely is NOT is "essentially the same" as the previous one. And the reaction of Hollywood makes that clear - this script is working, and it's now only a matter of time, I think, before we get the package put together and the film under way.

    - Orson Scott Card

  • Re:What really annoys me about Card (Score:4)

    by Hrunting ( 2191 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @09:39AM (#1410094) Homepage
    Many good authors have done that. It's not just a symptom of Card. It isn't completely about making money, either. Most of the time, short stories become longer stories as the original idea becomes fleshed out and takes on several subplots that make it a true story, and not just a tale.

    Essentially, you are criticizing Card for being a good author, one who recognizes how works can change, improve, and develop. I would rather have Card take a short story and rework it three times in different ways to show the different interpretations of a common idea than to have someone like John Grisham or Danielle Steele give me a book they just 'whipped out' solely to sell paperback.

    And as per this movie, I see Card taking on a formidable challenge, adapting the story to show another view of the idea. This time, we get a real third-person view, rather than an interior shot. I'm kind of disappointed that we won't get to see the adult viewpoint, because with Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, that's what we're really kind of missing, but I'm certainly not unhappy with the snippet of the script that I've read.

    Quit complaining. Development, especially in writing, is a sorely needed (pardon the pun) development.

  • True to form (Score:4)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @07:52AM (#1410095)
    I loved Ender's Game, if not because in some way it reminded me of myself and alot of my friends. The movie will never be as good as the book, simply because the movie lacks the imagery you create in your mind, it lacks the subtleties in the book.

    But, I am looking forward to it nevertheless. I hope it remains true to form. They *must* do the war room properly. Most of the game plot hinges on it. I don't know how they're going to make it look Zero G'ish realistically, but I'd like to see! Either way, I suggest reading the book... it took me 8 hours to wax it off - 6 hours more is very little to pay for books instead of movies. Just my advice...

  • Hollywood doesn't have the balls (Score:4)

    by Wag ( 102501 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @09:12AM (#1410096)
    Ender's Game is about the cruelty of humanity, (specifically children on children). Make no mistake, this is no children's movie, Ender is a murderer. Taking that out of the movie will be changing the whole nature of the story, making it less than what it is. What Hollywood studio would have the balls to show one 7yr old murdering another? Unfortunately none of them, and thus the whole story is ruined. I generally am not a big fan of violence in movies (can't stand the bang-bang shoot 'em ups anymore), but in this case the violence is necessary; intregal to the story. Mr. Card puts up an excellent case against violence by showing just how brutal real violence can be. What a shame the full extent of it won't be preserved for the big screen.

  • OSC Book Signing Notes (Score:5)

    by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <davidNO@SPAMdasnet.org> on Monday January 03, 2000 @09:59AM (#1410097)
    Since this is such OLD news, I figured I'd post something that was at least new to most people (even if it is old in itself).

    Back in September, my wife and I attended a book signing for Orson Scott Card in Virginia, and I took copious notes on my Pilot, but never posted them. He spent about an hour talking about the movie, his books, etc.

    Rather than trying to re-write my notes, I'm just going to paste them in here and do some quick abbrev expansions, etc.. Hopefully, they'll still make sense. :-)

    Ender's Game Movie

    • "jake lloyd 'is' ender, in every way that matters to me" -- Said that Lloyd really enjoyed the book, and could do a great job with the part, and that we shouldn't judge his acting skills based on SW:TPM
    • Movie should have some cool stuff, surprises
    • OSC wanted to do new version of Enders Game with new stuff (like a movie novellization) - tom doherty (publisher? editor?) said no
    • Hasn't watched 6th Sense, and won't, because he feels that his story Lost Boys will never filmed because it's too similar to 6th sense (which I disagreed with, later, and he said that the "catch" ("he's dead!") was too similar to Lost Boys' catch. I still think Hollywood wouldn't care.)
    • He also said that the 6th sense boy (don't remember the actor's name) is to old to play Ender convincingly
    • Keep in mind that there are too many variables, jake lloyd still completely uncertain - he could be 15 by the time the movie gets off the ground
    • His ultimate dream - film both Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow at once, same cast, etc.
    • Working on integrating the flash suit gun into glove (he described this, and I remember it sounding cool)


    Some other stuff

    • Working on a tv pilot called bordertown, filmed in mexico
    • Another book after Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, about Bean as the right-hand-man, general, shadow, of Peter the Hegemon (was going to do a book about Peter, but publisher didn't like it, and later, neither did OSC -- too dark a character, not enough room for development, etc.)
    • Following that, would like to do a book about Petra
    • Expect two more books in the Alvin Maker series: Crystal City and Master Alvin
    • "And if you don't know that Alvin is really Joseph Smith and Arthur Steward is really Brigham Young and that they're going to...(forget the whole quote), then You Haven't Been Paying Attention!" (I never noticed the parallels between the two, personally... :-) )
    • Will be doing Pastwatch books on Adam & Eve, and the Flood (don't remember if that was Noah's flood, or Atlantis. There's a Pastwatch Atlantis short story on OSC's web site, http://www.hatrack.com/osc/storie s/atlantis.shtml [hatrack.com].
    • Expect three books about biblical women: sarah, rebecca, and rachel, presumably in same vein as Stone Tables or Saints
    • Working on a 6-part ANIMATED TV series based on Treason (!)
    • Let on that the Homecoming series is detailed retelling of Book of Mormon (never noticed this, either, and there's a great essay about the shit he took from other Mormons about his "plagiarizing" of this on his web site: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/art icles/openletter.shtml [hatrack.com].


    That's about all I have...if you ever get a chance to see him, I recommend it highly -- he was a funny, intelligent, engaging speaker and answered all questions fully (and sometimes got on a soapbox, but he put pretty clear disclaimers around those self-described diatribes...)

    -david.


  • Re:Hollywood doesn't have the balls (Score:5)

    by UncleOrson ( 132798 ) on Monday January 03, 2000 @10:18AM (#1410098)
    While I'm not sure that extreme violence is quite as essential to the story as the post at the beginning of this thread seems to feel. Nor would I call Ender a "murderer," since his violence is only invoked in life-threatening situations. However, I share the concern that the film not "wimp out." I shudder at the thought of the Spielberg version, in which Ender finds out the truth Just In Time - the way Schindler repents at the end of Spielberg's magnum opus, while the REAL Schindler got away with a box full of diamonds.

    The reason the Stilson scene was cut is because movies both magnify and compress. To begin with such an act of violence, when we can't get inside Ender's head to understand his reasoning, would overpower the rest of the story and make it impossible for many viewers to get into the film at all. Film magnifies violence because you can see it and remember it; what I could do to good effect in the book doesn't work at all in the movie. Instead, I replaced it with much milder violence directed at Peter.

    However, the crucial scene with Bonzo is intact (though it will be filmed very carefully to avoid nudity), and the double-surprise ending will be preserved, so that the moral implications of Ender's actions remain as in the book. Since these are precisely the issues that matter most to me, you will know that if they are NOT intact, it meant that I lost control of the film after all. Up to now, however, I have managed to hold onto the integrity of the story, at least as I understand it, and am working with producers who are committed to doing the same.

    - Orson Scott Card

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