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Anakin Actor to Star in Ender's Game 118

Posted by Hemos from the good-book-please-don't-spoil-it dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "An article on Sci Fi Wire reports: Orson Scott Card said he is rewriting the script for the film adaptation of his best-selling novel Ender's Game now that Star Wars: Episode I star Jake Lloyd is interested in the project. " Ya know, that's one of those books which you had better do a good job making into a movie, because you can so easily fail. Still, I'd pay the ticket price to see it, unlike other movies.
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Anakin to Star in Ender's Game More

Anakin to Star in Ender's Game

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  • Thank the gods! Finally a *DECENT* novel will have a movie! For those of you who haven't read Ender's Game, GO READ IT. Damn fine book. Orson Scott Card is a spectacular author, and Ender's Game is a true classic. Let's just hope they don't screw up the movie. :)
    -RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
  • Ender's game is near the top of my worst books of all time list. I saw the end coming when the operation of the ansible was described. There is way too much focus on childhood internals (although, I do like psycological perspectives, I thought Ender's Game was over the top). I also think that at least 20% of the story was useless.
  • That change will also allow Card to include material from the book that was going to be cut out, such as the "surprise" ending, the fantasy game sequence and the intense relationships among the children enrolled at the Battle School.

    All I can say is "What the heck were they thinking?" A movie without those aspects of the book wouldn't be _Ender's Game_ at all, but rather a cheap, Hollywood version inspired by the book. At least now there is some hope of putting out a fairly decent movie.

    ian.

  • Good link, thanks. There was one line I liked particularly: So when I met Jake Lloyd and realized that Ender might be played by a child actor who would not culkinize the character, I was able to rethink the entire project. [emphasis added]
  • Although, to give Card credit, I loved Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. I disagree with some of the character's ideas though, but still a fine book. One of Cards' books I consider worth reading. Don't waste your time with Ender's Game.
  • NEWS FOR NERDS!!!
    STUFF THAT MATTERS!!!
    NEWS FOR NERDS!!!
    STUFF THAT MATTERS!!!
    TASTES GREAT!!!
    LESS FILLING!!!
    TASTES GREAT!!!
    LESS FILLING!!!
  • 1. The slogan is: Slashdot - News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
    If you tell me that a discussion whether anakin skywalker or some freaky little punk kid who sees ghosts is the right guy for an upcomming movie is as important as whether BSD is being released for the dreamcast you are wrong. You belong at Ziff-Davis.net or whatever. This has no bearing on anything technically related. Discussions on movies belong somewhere else, like alt.fan.orson.scott.card(?) or any discussion group at CNet, ZiffDavis or AOL...

    If the userbase of slashdot has decided to focus on less technical issues and follow in the trend of previously mentioned companies then I am truly bummed. Maybe the Linux user base does really want to be as trendy as the cool kid Bill out in Redmond. I mean, people _pay_ to be his friend.

    I beg the Moderators, if you insist on displaying stuff like this - please put them on a sub page for entertainment news...articles like this are not late breaking news.

    *as a side note: and many of you will view this as hipocritical - the health related news (reguarding internet addiction) does have bearing here... (though also possibly in a seperate category) While I think it is a silly attempt at cash for shrinks for the most part. It is at lease directly related to the computing industry...its real, its *fact* (whether I like it or agree with it)... it is not *science fiction.*
  • There is a transcript of a chat with Orson Scott Card on the CNN web site link [cnn.com] He touches on the Jake Lloyd thing, OSC says that Lloyd has much more talent than has been able to display in his previous movies. I haven't seen Sixth Sense yet, but the only young actor that is capable of carrying a movie by themselves that I have seen is Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun Of course hes an adult now.

    This is news for nerd IMO, and in any case its nice to see something other than yet another Isn't Linux Cool story or another OSS Will Take Over The Universe (NOT) story.
  • Now THAT was an awesome movie, made awesome by a very good actor. You could feel that kid's pain. And that is, of course, what Ender's Game needs.

    Interestingly, I have seen both Jake Lloyd and the Sixth Sense kid as guests on the Tonight show. They both came across as pretty sharp people to me. Lloyd was a little cocky, like he's letting Hollywood get to his head.
    The other kid (I forget his name) seems like a better actor and when he was on Leno it became immediately obvious that he was in the smartest 1% of the people in the room.
  • Actually he's re-written the script umpteen times, trying to ease the burden off a child actor. But after talking to Jake Lloyd and hearing of his interest in the part, he recently rewrote the script with more Ender (and thus truer to the book) focus. On the production company's site, they have the first 15 pages or so of the script...

    -Bok

  • From the reponse to your post, it would seem more people are interested in "Ender's Game" than in your opinion of what constitutes "News for Nerds".

    Adam
  • are there any other fans of this book alarmed after reading that article. cutting out the "suprise" ending, the fantasy game, and the emotional tension between the students and letting all the adults be emotional. I mean thats not the story i remember reading. I fear this will become another starship troopers (which IMHO was not heinleins starship troopers, and just stole the title).
    --
  • Are you braindead?

    I might kill him because
    he would be so insanely dangerous,
    but pity is an emotion that crops
    up long before hate to anyone with
    either 2 brain cells or a heart.
  • I thought Ender's Game was OK, but the series degraded as it progressed. The whole virus deal proved that OSC knew nothing about biology and I really dislike it when an author starts suddenly inventing plot devices to get a character out of a sticky situation. It's too much like Star Trek where Geordi invents a Zed Transmorgifier to save the ship from Zarquon radiation or some such. I've noticed the same thing with OSC's other series as well. His first book is usually quite good, unfortunately it goes down hill from there.
  • Star Wars and Ender's Game are waaaaay too similar already to have the same actor. Here are all the similarities I can think of - note that I haven't seen the movies or read the books recently, so this may not all be accurate:
    • They start with one story, and then there is a gap, and then three more stories.
    • There's a {sequel|retelling} of the first story in the works.
    • Anakin starts out good and turns evil. Ender starts out evil (unknowingly) and turns good. The legend of "Ender the Xenocide" starts out good and turns evil.
    • {Anakin|Ender} is a {slave|Third}, making him an outcast from normal society.
    • {Luke|Ender}, I am your {father|brother}
    • There's something funny going on between {Luke|Ender} and his sister.
    • {Death Star|M.D. Device}
    • The last 3 {movies|books} are about a rebellion against {the Empire|Starways Congress}
    • {The Force|Jane, the mind of the ansibles} is within {Luke|Ender}.
    • {The Force|the ansible network} is made up of little tiny things that are inside everything.
    • The bad guys can use {the Force|the ansible network} too.
    • Cool space battles.

    If I missed an obvious comparison, or if I'm just dead wrong about something, suggest what you would have put on this list.
    --
  • The problem with Xenocide is that the first half of the book made no sense without knowledge from the second half of the book. I liked the end of Xenocide, I also thought Children of the Mind was pretty good, but it wasn't really the same without Ender.

    I guess this is comparable to Arthur C. Clarke's Rama series - good overall, but the books are so different that you're bound to hate at least one of them. (Now watch as I go off on a tangent.) I went and bought the computer game Rama because I liked the series - it's too bad that the game was mostly based on the one book I hated (Rama II). Oh, that and the fact that the non-playable demo was more fun than the game itself.
    --
  • Now THAT was an awesome movie, made awesome by a very good actor. You could feel that kid's pain. And that is, of course, what Ender's Game needs.

    Are you on crack? Anakin was the most wooden, unconvincing character in the movie. I could not feel the kid's pain. I felt my pain. Yuck. Casting him as Ender will be a royal mistake-- he messed up the prequel, which didn't even ask for him to act much (watch his scene with Padme again and check that acting!) But Ender is a role difficult for the most accomplished actor, and the decision on the lead should not be made with respect to "star-power."

    Trust me, that signals a lean toward traditional hollywood movie-making, which sucks.

  • re. Lord of Ring, it's being film in Australia by an aussie director.

    Um, NO! The Lord of the Rings is being filmed in New Zealand by a Kiwi (New Zealand) director, Peter Jackson [imdb.com]. For those who don't know the man he has done Bad Taste [imdb.com], Meet the Feebles [imdb.com], Braindead [imdb.com], Heavenly Creatures [imdb.com] and The Frighteners [imdb.com], plus some bits and bobs [imdb.com]. If you want to see how good Jackson is with drawing out human emotion and the characters in a film see Heavenly Creatures. If you want to see how good he is with special effects see The Frighteners (they had CGI effects in the movie that had never been able to be done before), or Heavenly Creatures again (which also shows how well he can integrate them with the rest of the movie, enhancing rather than replacing plot and character development).

    Think Dark City with better FX.

    Um, NO! LOTR is NOTHING like Dark City. LOTR is as similar to Dark City as, say, Star Wars is to Titanic. If you do not know what LOTR is like, well I will not be presumptious enough to describe it. Suffice it to say that it is one of the few stories that has invented an entire genre (and is still the finest example within it).

    It's got very high expectation and rightfully so.

    Now that I'll agree with!

    Cheers,
    Duane.
  • ..., where censors have a more sensible attitude towards sex.

    Ask yourself why did they have to get the NC17 rating? They could have brought it out as is with an X rating. Don't blame the censors. They didn't actually censor it; the marketers did. All the "censors" do is give a movie a rating.
  • Companies & corporations have "clients", slashdot has users & visitors and things.
    More to the point, slashdot *is* its userbase.
    S'there :)
    ~Tim
    --
  • There are already sequels.

    2. Speaker for the Dead.
    3. Xenocide
  • Children of the Mind?

    Well, I learn something new every day... I'll have to go buy this.. Been a while since I looked at anything from Mr. Card.
  • Ok, I know I shouldn't reply to this flamebait, but _Ender's Game_ was, and is, one of my favorite Sci-Fi books of all time. It's a classic, and seeing as how Science Fiction falls under both "News for Nerds" and "Stuff that Matters", I didn't for a moment think this was inappropriate for this forum. Perhaps if you don't agree with the values this site holds, this isn't the place for you. Stop trying to mold someone elses creation to your ideals. Start one of your own and mold that if you wish. Or just run around searching for the news yourself. After all, /. doesn't really have all that much original content. It's just a clearinghouse and filter for the news that a certain group may find interesting. Note that "may" there. Because this is not an exact science (unless you wish to write a book on exact filtering and send CmdrTaco a free copy) the filter naturally has to err on the site of permissiveness and include some things you don't care about, so that the borderline things you _DO_ care about will get through. See? Doesn't it make you feel good that this is designed with the user in mind?

    Wow, that's a long rant, but I think I will cut and paste it for all the comments I've seen recently that say "X-story doesn't belong on /.!"...fine, just find another forum that more closely caters to your "special needs".

    Mycroft
  • Children of the mind was weak??? Did you have the awesome foresight to skip over Xenocide? I'm actually kind of frightened of Card being involved... The last two books of the series BLEW. (Whereas Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead were incredible.) What's next? Rudy Rucker's Software, Wetware and Freeware? THAT would be cool to see. By the by, if any of you are fans of that series, he's coming out with a fourth book, which hopefully won't suck like Hollow Earth (GAG!) or Card's Xenocide/Children.
  • Slashdot is moderated by it's own readers. I don't really pay attention to the ads. As far as the content, it hasn't changed at all, still the same Linux this and Linux that, and other news for nerds squeezed in between Linux news.

  • All the publicity I've been seeing on Ender's Game (eg imdb Entry [imdb.com] say it's being based on the novel.
  • I agree. I had some fears about this movie (and the Anakin choice) but after reading that new screenplay I really have hope for this. And strangely enough, the way this one is set up, Anakin could probably pull this off.
  • Hollow-wood feels (fears) that 'relationships' won't sell big plastic collectible cups at McDonald's, thus relationships (let alone 'intense' one's) are the first to go when paring down a script for Maximum Return on Investments.

  • The fight with Stilson is gone? Howabout the fight with Bonso?

    Those fights are crucial for the underlying current of manipulation of Ender. They were breeding for someone incredibly smart, but also incredibly ruthless.

    When Ender is forced into a fight he will win, and he makes sure he wins for good.

    Oh well, I'll go see it, but if they butcher it as much as Starship Troopers, I'm going to be depressed for months.

    Doug
  • You seem to labor under some misperceptions. Moderators do not pick stories, CmdrTaco and those he delegates to do. As to CmdrTaco's method, there is an interview in which he states he simply picks stories that interest him and it usually works out ok. Here's a URL:

    http://www.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/06/15feat ure.html

    You're not an AC, so its within your power to click on preferences and block stories about movies and TV. Its also pretty easy to tell from the icon attached to a story if its about entertainment. Why should those interested in Ender's Game miss a story they like if you can simply block it?

    Your last paragraph really sums it up. We all like some stories better than others. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on which.

    Jim


  • For the record, his name is Haley Joel Osment (why do child actors all have 3 word names?) and already has a notable career [imdb.com].
  • "I am pleased to see Orson Card get into the screen writing business."

    He already has, go find Abyss. This is one case where the book and the movie compliment each other really well. They work so well together because Orson wrote the book at the same time the movie was being made. The way the movie was being made helped shape the book while the book defined the movie. (did that make any sense? read the book and it will :)

    Anyway, because of Abyss, I think Ender's Game stands a good chance of coming out really well as a movie, as long as Orson can maintain a decent level of involvement and influence.

    -matt

  • ... so I'm very hopeful. (You can download some of the script. See OSC's news update about the movie [frescopictures.com].


    BTW, I had a chance to meet Card in Chicago for a book signing a while back. He's a great guy, and this movie has an excellent chance to be a great one.
  • makes sense. I read sftd first and it blew me away. Only later did I track down Ender's Game and Xenocide; the latter was very sad in comparison to the opening salvos.

    J
  • this always comes up, and though i haven't read the article i can tell you that he presents a far different view in his books. he has written a bunch of homosexual characters in a very UN-bigot-like manner.

    i don't really know how to reconcile these two views -- i suppose he has either changed his mind or (more likely) in the type of magazine in which the article was printed (conservative mormon, right?), the standardview is actually even more bigotted. he couldn't present a directly contrary view to his faith i suppose.

  • I heard George Lucas kept the script under such wraps that the actors weren't able to read it until they shot the scene. It was difficult for them to develop the characters since they didn't know what was happening next, etc...
  • Un-hen, thank you for correction DuaneGriffin. I guess I make an ass of out myself big time...
  • I was talking about Sixth Sense, not Phantom Menace. My WHOLE COMMENT was about how the Sixth Sense kid is a much better choice than Jake Lloyd.
  • Not at all, sorry if I sounded a bit harsh, we Kiwis tend to get a bit annoyed when people mistake us for Aussies :) Kinda like Canadians and Americans, I think.

    Cheers,
    Duane.
  • First post!
    Instead of anakin I would use the kid from The Sixth Sense. He is a much better actor.
  • Uhhh... that's not a movie that I'm eager to see done. The book was too good, and they'll probably make it into yet-another-commercial-picture like so many times before.

    Of course, Kubrick was the exception, but there's nobody left...

  • If you explore around the Sci-Fi site, it seems other readers of the site share your opinion :-)
  • Here is another site which has some info on the Ender's Game movie.
    http://www.frescopictures.com/movies/ender/ender sgame_update.html
    I have high hopes for this movie since Card himself is working on it. It would be unfortunate to have it go the way of Wing Commander but I'm going to see it.
  • Yipee!! (for any reason)

    May the Force be with you.

    Meesa ...

    ..., or ANYTHING about sensing much fear, turning to the dark side, or completing his training.



    My point? Let the movie stand on it's own merits, and that of Jake Lloyd (who I do think is a good actor), and not stoop to the cheap Star Wars references.

    At this point, this is probably a movie that I will want to see, lets hope they keep it that way.

  • I am pleased to see Orson Card get into the screen writing business. He continues to be my favorite author, though "Children of the Mind" struck me as being a little weak.

    After viewing the last year's films, I can't really say that the film industry is creating anything I want to see. Some of the upcoming movies, "Lord of the Rings", look to be interesting, but it seems that the movie companies are spending far to much on special effects and not concerned with developing a story.

    I know Mr. Card is a fantastic storyteller. Note that a story teller is much more than a mere writer. It will be interesting to see if he can manage to have a good film made without the American film industry "commercializing" the film and basically destroying it.

    Lando
  • I must say that after watching the 6th sense I was amazed at that kid's acting ability. How old is he anyway?
  • Mewonders how well Ender's Game will translate to the screen. Well, I suppose that's what rewriting means, isn't it? Still, I'm afraid they'll have to remove a lot of the mindplay and replace it with a lot of Starship Troopers-like scenes to appeal to today's attention deficit moviegoers.

    I also wonder about Anakin (is it Jake Reed) as Ender: First, I'm worried that everyone will be like "hey, it's Darth Vader" the whole time. Second, I thought he was only a marginally good actor, while the kid from The Sixth Sense was the best I've seen in a long time.

    ----

  • That kid can not act! Jarjar had more talent! :

    Jón
  • Give the kid a break. I think he does fine for his age; people should just chill.

    If you want to rag on someone for Phantom Menace, it should be Lucas.
  • First MTV hacker, now this? Slashdot's movie secssion is not doing very well my friend. Who give a **** about Jake Lloyd.

    What you guys should do is help out that bacon in aint-it-cool-news ;)(or darkhorizon if you prefer) to write a rdf channel like slashbox or mynetscapeBox. Have you check out the AICN code lately, these people writes the WOrST code I ever seen, going there with java enable is kiss of depth. (So much so I had to write a perl script just to change its talkback form html to txt)


    BTW that kid in Sixth Sense is a big time actor, the film is too gimmicky to me though.


    CY
  • When I was younger, Ender's Game was one of my favorite books. Yet even then I doubted that the book could be turned into a good movie. Although now that sci-fi effects have really improved (yes, we could have weightless battle scenes) I still dobut that a movie would capture what I liked about Ender's Game. And the thought of Anakin playing Ender is even worse. He was one of the major reasons I didn't like Star Wars---he couldn't act, but then, how many little kids can? How many 6-10 year-olds can play a serious (i.e. not adorable) role? The problem with making Ender's Game a movie is, frankly, having a little play the part. Having a little kid play it will only alienate the core audience--adult/teenaage sci-fi buffs like us
  • So when I met Jake Lloyd and realized that Ender might be played by a child actor who would not
    culkinize the character, I was able to rethink the entire project.


    Now that's a good word. I like that.


    --
  • Or "Mr. qui-gon sir, I heard yoda talking about midichlorians and i was wondering, what are midichlorians?" I don't know what to think of Jake's acting abilities because his character was awful from the start. I don't think anyone could have done a decent job with that part, mainly because the lines were unbelievable and plain stupid. A good example of how writing is more important than acting is matrix. It was, IMHO, an excellent film, even though keanu(sp?) hasn't had a believable performance since Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, and I'm willing to bet he wasn't even acting in that movie.
  • I read the article, and the comments and I agree I think the kid from 6th sense would do a much better job (He'd have been a better Anakin too).

    What kinda disturbed me was the things listed in the article that they were thinking of changing.

    The main one was the suprise ending, where Ender has been fighting the buggers, thinking it was only a game.

    And the fantasy game, which gives the conduit the Buggers need to contact Ender.

    Also Valentine and Peter taking over the world, a very important subplot if not "visual interesting".

    I understand its hard to put a whole book in a hour and half movie, but don't change so much you change the story.

  • re. Lord of Ring, it's being film in Australia by an aussie director. Think Dark City with better FX. It's got very high expectation and rightfully so.


    CY
  • Xenocide was tolerable, and I haven't read Children. But Ender's Game was/is by far the best book in that series. The rest of them just seemed to lack something. Ender's Game could have stood on its own.

    Kintanon
  • Screw this hour and a half crap!!
    They made Titanic (One of the shittiest movies I've ever seen, but a GREAT make out film!) 3 hours long! They can make Ender's Game 3 hours long! Every one of us would pay to see it, probably twice!

    Kintanon
  • Galactica was crap! I can't believe anyone would want to make a movie based on it (well, there was the movie "version" of the pilot, but I don't like to remember painful things like that).

    Batlestar Galactica was a textbook lesson in how to make crap Sci-Fi and how much Sci-Fi junkies will delude themselves into thinking it's cool (kinda like the first three years of Star Trek : The Next Generation).
  • SF Novels just don't adapt well to films. Dune, Starship Troopers, Puppet Masters, 1984, Contact etc etc etc. If you want to make a good SF film, the trick seems to be to use a short story. With a novel you either have to make the film incredibly complex & long, or loose much of the story (Sometimes both, eg Dune).
  • The longer Ender's Game is, the more times I'll pay to go see it =)

  • They seemed to have changed the name of the aliens from 'buggers' to 'formics' (http://www.frescopictures.com/movies/ender/enders game_update.html)

    Also, any idea how they will be doing the video game scenes? I hope it's computer graphics :-)

    Thomas Kerwin
    --Knowledge is Power
  • ... so I'm very hopeful. (You can download some of the script. See OSC's news update about the movie [frescopictures.com].

    BTW, I had a chance to meet Card in Chicago for a book signing a while back. He's a great guy, and this movie has an excellent chance to be a great one.
  • Actually, the only thing they are now cutting is Peter/Val... They can always add it in the sequel, and OSC is right, it won't translate well to film to see a couple of kids typing at a computer, and voice-overs would be cheesy, imho.

    He WAS going to remove the Fantasy Game, but if you read the script excerpt, it's back in. Also the 'surprise' ending is only a surprise ending once, and yet I continue to reread the book, and still find it great. And anyways, THAT'S back in the movie as well, I believe.

    But relax, only Peter/Val are gone (and the fight with Stilson :) -Bokonon

  • From all the comments I see here - I see that it's almost unanimous that Harley Joel Osment would be a better choice than Jake Lloyd.

    Is there a single person out there who can say that they did not like 6th Sense, or Osment's performance? I'd like to hear from them.

    I originally read a bad review about this movie, but the trailers were too compelling, especially the cuts with Osment. I went and saw the movie and loved it. I was told there would be a suprise ending, but not what the suprise would be. This was awesome storytelling. I grew quite bored in the middle of the film, and had lots of questions about things that didn't make sense, and then the very end explained it all, and put everything into place. The reviewer complained that it was boring, and was not phased by the suprise ending.

    If we all agree, then maybe a few of us (not all of us) ought to drop this obvious suggestion into Mr. Card's mailbox. I suspect this is the proper place to submit requests of this kind: oscinfo@hatrack.com (or maybe not)
    Perhaps fish around on the www.hatrack.com site too.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Never liked those books, the Ender character was very irritating...
  • That would make him Speaker for the Dead. Coincidence?
  • That's not true. If they were looking for smart and ruthless, they would have taken Peter. They were looking for someone empathic, yet strong-willed enough, and smart.

    Also a good comment made on the frescopix site was that if the Stilson fight was put in, without the ability to read ender's mind (like we can in the book), people would be turned off too early to Ender as a character, thinking he was too ruthless.

    The Bonzo scene is still in, but it may not be quite as graphic. OSC wants the movie to be rated PG-13.

    -Bok

  • Actually I do a 80%/20% NT/Linux workday. Painful, but true.

    There is much more in life than linux...and there are other sites specifically for entertainment news...that's one of (what I consider) my major points of contention.

    Eliminating "Entertainment" from my user profile - while it would eliminate this article, would also eliminate other things which I am interested in which are specifically related to at least the computing industry. For example some of the earlier game porting articles I found extreemely interesting...I think that the Barney protocol was under there, etc...

    I (side note: can't belive I have to say this) am not a "linux hacker dude" nor would I want to be, I'll severly disappoint you in that respect. I recognize linux as probably a perferred tool of mine, but no more. I am, in fact, in complete agreement with you with everything except the inclusion of this article as "/.-worthy."

    Sci-Fi has more than plenty of sites where they post news of upcoming films etc. I think that this is a great article for those places, but (and I include myself in this pile...shesh it generated 3 messages from me.) all that this has done is chew up bandwitdh which could be better suited discussing other topics...that's kind of my point.

    Yes Sci-Fi nerds exist...I enjoy Sci-Fi...I just think that hey...placing this article at slashdot is kind of like if the nightly news inlcuded the culinary five minutes to be the same priority as a bombing in Sudan...

    "...And this just in from the kitchen, try Bob's greatest brownie recipie ever "

    This is just an article that I don't think serves to pre-empt television...

    as far as freaks go...I would hardly say I am an "all linux and only linux" freak (see statistic at start), but with the exception of this 3 post series for the most part I try to stick to (what I believe) what is the theme of the Website...after all I bet you there are a lot of nerds (myself included) who brew their own beer. I don't waste your time with sending CmdrTaco (or any other etc...) any news on realy good beers I've made...or any "BeerNews." I guess I just expect the same courtesy from everyone.

  • Total agreement here. I read the book first, and the movie was not a disappointment at all. I'm still trying to figure out what Starship Troopers had to do with the book. Oh well, at least it was more amusing than "Destination Moon".

  • I thought that too. Had a great deal of respect for him. That is until "Eyes Wide Shut". The epitome of commercial. Two talentless hollywood wankers in a movie cut to ribbons so that it would escape an NC17 rating. Still, I undersatnd it may be released intact in Europe, where censors have a more sensible attitude towards sex.

    It's a shame that that had to be his last movie. Still, I'll allways remember him for 2001 and Clockwork Orange.

  • Um, I kinda zoned out halfway through your poorly formatted post, but I must say you should at least consider giving South Park another chance. It really is quite good.
    --
    "HORSE."
  • Or, from another failed book-gone-movie:
    "I WANT ROOM SERVICE!"
  • Even if the movie sucks, it may be enough publicity to warrant a sequel to the book!
  • See the 6th sense. The kid in that movie is one of the best actors I've ever seen child or adult. He was truely believable and didn't say "yipee" once the entire movie.
  • Sixth Sense kid definitely. Introspection, not an extrovert. That's what we need.
  • who hates "Ender's Game". After I read it, I wanted to kill Ender, that 3133Tist little dipsmack.

    waiting for the deluge of geek wrath...

    adr

  • Somewhat off topic... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Click on the "Moyer, Hatch continue Galactica plans" link [scifi.com]. Man, I can't believe they expect to make a big franchise out of Battlestar Galactica. I thought the show was really cool when I was a kid, but whenever I catch a rerun these days, I think to myself, "That show really stunk". I'm 27 - is there anyone under 20 or so who even remembers that show?

    BTW, I don't think Jake Lloyd would be too bad a choice for Ender. He will have grown up a good bit by the time shooting starts, and will have presumably taken some acting lessons. Also, Card is no idiot - if he likes Lloyd, there must be more to him than what we saw in TPM.
  • I agree here -- there's many possible problems that can occur from this movie.

    First, I doubt that with OSC's involvement, the movie will succum to the summer-blockbuster problems (with tons of special effects and no character development). He'll do his darnest to keep the book true to the movie.

    However, Ender's Game suffers from the problem that to be done properly, it's got to be done with special effects (the war room *HAS* to be in the movie, and that ABSOLUTELY requires the anti-grav special effects), but it's also got to be cerebrial; Ender's suffering in the Battle School has to be felt, as well as setting up for the big mindfsck at the end. These two attitudes in Hollywood don't mix well, IMO. The Matrix has been the closest to mixing the two but the character development in that was a bit weak. (Keanu? HHAHAHAHAHAH :-). I would also argue about Contact being a decent mix, although the characters are a bit cardboard-ish there as well, from Sagan's original text. The question is, will OSC and gang be able to convince the marketers to keep their hands off the final product, and actually put out a quality SF movie that doesn't need the SFX to get ravings.

  • I'm with you! Manakin is a terrible actor!

    D
  • According to posts 3-4 yrs ago, The Fantasy Game would be a 3D hologrophic type thing, sorta like a Toy Story-esque animation... I don't know how it will be now. -Bok

  • Lloyd vs. Osment (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Um, "that Sixth Sense kid" is Haley Joel Osment. Just so you know. He's also been in Forest Gump, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, and others -- about twice as many shows/films as Jake Lloyd has been in.

    I'd rather see Osment in the Ender role, as well... but jeez, stop picking on Lloyd for his portrayl of Anakin. "Yippee!" was in the script, after all; actors get paid to say the damn line in the script. And which character in Episode 1 wasn't a cardboard cutout?
  • Notice that it says "News for Nerds," not "News for Linux/BSD/OSS/whatever Nerds." From the comments I've seen posted, I think that there's a lot of people interested in it. I'd have probably never known about it if it wasn't on /. and I'm a big fan of Ender's Game.
  • Haley Joel Osment is his name. Per IMDB (http://www.imdb.com [imdb.com]) he was born April 10, 1988, so that makes him 11.

    He was also in "Forrest Gump" FYI.

    --
  • Even if the movie sucks, it may be enough publicity to warrant a sequel to the book!

    There are three sequels -- "Children of the Mind", "Xenocide" and "Speaker For The Dead" (I don't know the order, though) -- and a new "parallel book" called "Ender's Shadow"; I don't know anything about it except that it takes place at the same time as "Ender's Game" but doesn't involve Ender (maybe about his siblings?)

    You can find info for the movie (including an excerpt from one of Card's scripts [frescopictures.com]) at the Fresco Pictures Ender's Game [frescopictures.com] site.

    Jay (=
    (Who just discovered this site yesterday -- gotta love synchronicity...)
  • 3 Sequels:

    Speaker(Awesome, but different than EG), Xenocide (weakest of the 3 imo), Children of the Mind (A fitting ending for the series)

    1 Parallel:

    Ender's Shadow -- Ender's Game from Bean's (a character in EG) perspective. Possibly filmed at the same time as EG (although I hope not, it seems silly to have the same movie filmed twice :)

    -Bok

  • That Anakin kid (Jake Lloyd) as you said, pales next to the kid from the 6th Sense.

    Or you could film it in italian and use the kid from My Life is Beautiful. He was amazing.
  • Ender's game was an excellent short story long before it was an excellent novel. So consider this - "Ender's Game: the Movie. Based on Ender's Game, the short story, with ideas from Ender's Game, the novel."
  • Of course, Jake Lloyd's acting ability (or lack thereof) if TPM could be the fault of the director as much as the fault of the actor...

    Honestly, there are a lot of actors who suck in one film and are good in the next -- sometimes it has to do with script and direction as well as acting ability.

  • SF Novels just don't adapt well to films. .... If you want to make a good SF film, the trick seems to be to use a short story.

    Don't forget that Ender's Game was orginally a short story (or novella or novellette or something). Mostly from the Battle Rooms through to the final battle. I seem to recall it opens with "Remember: The enemy's gate is DOWN." What a great opening line!

    I haven't read the latest script yet, but it's entirely possible that OSC will concentrate more on the short-version of the novel than the full-out novel as most of us know it. (for the original version, check out the hardcover edition of Maps In A Mirror).

    Also, note that I don't think OSC has specifically said he wants Jake Lloyd over all others, I think he's said more that he was suitably convinced by Lloyd that a child really could pull off the real Ender role that he is re-doing the film to change the focus...And I'm quite happy about that (since the original script excerpt gave away some surprises up front...)

  • Although I'm not convinced that Jake Lloyd will make the perfect Ender, his potential involvement has given Card a new enthusiasm for the project. It's also allowed Card to return to an Ender-centred view of the movie. If you saw the first draft of his screenplay, Mazer Rackham played a much larger role. That may have been interesting, but it wouldn't be *Ender's* Game, now would it?

    You can find some sample script pages here [frescopix.com].

    Card has done a good job of condensing Ender's young violence into a single already-key scene with Peter and Val, and the pacing seems right.

    He still has some awful expository dialogue in there as well as a novelist's tendency to over-describe. I mean, do we really need to know how many Battle School students are left-handed?

    I have trouble imagining the computer world with Ender the Bear. This is probably the movie's greatest risk.

    As for the Peter and Val subplot, I think Card is right to cut it. Adapting a novel for the screen is all about knowing what to cut. That section lifts out so cleanly that regardless of how enjoyable it is on paper, it would be foolish to leave it in.

    This draft is miles better than the early one that drew enough criticism to make Card pull it from the net out of frustration. It's worth the read.
  • Ender's Game could have stood on its own.

    Actually, no. Ender's Game existed because OSC wanted to write Speaker for the Dead. He had the idea to write about someone who spoke the truth about the dead, and though it would be cool if the character who did this was Ender, from his short store "Ender's Game." He tried to work this into a single novel and realized that he'd need a separate novel to set it up. That, in my mind, is the reason why BOTH novels rocked. They were conceived together, they were written with each other in mind. It wasn't a case of "Oh, people liked this book, let's see what happened next" or "Gosh, I've got to write three books; I guess I'll take my 300-page story and stretch it into 900 pages"

  • Re:No good (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The people to be mad at are the ones who have no mind of their own. You can blame it
    on the media for making them blind to good taste but I'm not sure I buy into that. This
    didn't happen over night. In a country where wrestling, South Park, and top 40 "music"
    are popular how can we even blame Hollywood and the media for this severe lack of taste
    and keep a straight face? We had a choice and we blew it. We watched Friends instead of
    MST3K. We bought the latest Band Of The Moment(TM) album instead of finding our own
    music that we enjoyed.

    Over the last 25-30 years there have been many truly great movies, music and TV shows.
    What happened to them? In general they lacked any serious interest by the public. Given
    the choice between something good and crap they wanted crap. I say let them have it.

    Hollywood will crank out another Adam Sandler movie and NBC will come up with a
    new show about 20-somethings bitching about stuff. Rolling Stone will proclaim that
    Band Of The Moment(TM) are really great musicians. Just remember. We asked for it.

    Think about that next time you think South Park is a great show because they say "dirty"
    words and fart at each other. Think about that the next time you rush out to see Mega-
    Box-Office SuperHit(TM) part 10,000 or download some new MP3's from Band Of The
    Moment(TM)

    The film industry only spews out shit because they know that is what everyone wants.
    We're a nation of closet shit eaters. We love to bitch about how bad the media is but does
    it stop us from doing our part to feed the beast we claim to hate? The truth is the only
    beast here is us.

    I stopped bashing the media the minute I realized people want to be stupid. Let them have
    their crap, the few of us left with good tastes will mange to get by like we have for the
    last 20 years.



  • That was my thought EXACTLY, Anakin kid just isn't Dark enough to play Ender. Ender was a 6 yr old that acted like he had the life experience of a 60 year old. He had that great cynical, desperate, raw, something that made him great. Anakinlet just doesn't cut it.

    Kintanon
  • Over the past few weeks I've noticed a unique trend at Slashdot...it is less and about penguin gear and more about movies, protohype and mass media...maybe this is the direction which slashdot wants to take, but I doubt it is the direction most of its clients want to... If I want entertainment news I'll go to e online... Hey can I get an offtopic or maybe a troll for this?
  • The big-screen adaptation of the best-selling SF game Doom has met its own demise, according to the IGN Sci-Fi site. TriStar has reportedly let its option on the project drop, and no other studio appears to be interested.

    Whew. We'll be spared from another Craptacular movie adaptation. I guess some good DID come out of WC...
    ---

  • On the contrary, I think that most people who visit /. are interested in a good mixture of tech news and pop culture news... Remember, the motto of /. is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matter" Frankly, I think an update on "Ender's Game" qualifies as news for nerds.

    Adam
  • Slashdot is supposed to be "news for nerds". Sometimes it seems like a Linux advocacy site, but Linux is definately "news for nerds" but it does get old.

    Ender's Game, in the opinion of alot of readers here, is probably one of the best science fiction (any category for that matter) books ever. It is definately "news for nerds". It DOES belong here.

  • Although you can see I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ender's Game...

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