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  1. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    Ender's Game

    Discussion in 'Entertainment' started by rhduke, May 11, 2013.

    What does everyone think of the trailer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP0cUBi4hwE

    Love or hate the book, are you planning on seeing it in theaters?

    The way the kids fly in the games and the technology are pretty spot on with how I imagined it. The only thing that bothered me was how many spoilers they put in the trailer. They could have maintained a level intrigue without revealing any of that..
     
  2. reviloennik

    reviloennik New Member

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    I'm definitely going to see it. I read the book a long time ago, and I seem to recall less actual fighting than the trailer suggests, but that's probably just my memory. Should be good either way though. I wonder if it's going to focus on the action or the moral background of the original story?
     
  3. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    I think it'll focus on the action, which is the wrong direction imo. They show a scene where the buggers are attacking - I think they are going to use this as an opening to the movie showing how the first 2 invasions played out.

    In the book, the current threat of the buggers was never concrete. Some kids in battle school believed that it was all just a lie to train soldiers for some other reason. I really liked how the book forced the reader to think and not believe everything the "teachers" were saying. The reader actually never encounters real buggers until the very end, and it's just one alien. But the movie will probably not do this to the same degree, which will be disappointing but understandable. They want to attract the action going audience.
     
  4. Thomas Kitchen

    Thomas Kitchen Proofreader in the Making Contributor

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    I'm going to get a lot of "boos" from other members now when I say I've never read the book, as school never really talked about it and I had other things to read. Nevertheless I will be reading it shortly, after seeing this trailer. I thought Asa Butterfield was great in Hugo, and having him and Kingsley reunite is good.

    Thanks for giving me another book to put on my never-ending shelf of 'To Read'! :p
     
  5. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    ^ You won't be disappointed!
     
  6. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I'm not a big fan of the book, but my girlfriend loves it, so most likely I'll end up watching the movie with her.
     
  7. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    ^ did she make you read it? :p
     
  8. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    Ha. No, I read it long before I met her. I used to read quite a bit of sci-fi in my teens.
     
  9. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    There aren't many books in science fiction that I hate, but Ender's Game is one of them. I won't be seeing the movie. I loved Asa Butterfield in Hugo, but he's way too old to play Ender as he is in the book (the book begins when Ender is about six or so).

    My problem with Ender's Game is mostly that I don't buy the premise. I think it's stupid. I've read a TON of science fiction, and I'm used to suspending my disbelief if the scenario is even remotely plausible. Ender's Game isn't plausible. It's also kind of offensive. I don't think I've ever read a book I dislike as much as Ender's Game.

    This is actually kind of weird, because in the early 1970s I had a subscription to Analog magazine, and the original short-story version of Ender's Game was published there. I enjoyed it at the time, but I was a teenager then, and the concepts were more innovative. When Card blew it up into a novel, and I grew up, he ruined his work, and I recognized the ruination.

    It will be crap. Asa Butterfield, though he is a good actor, is too old for the role. Harrison Ford had better have a clause in his contract that he has to be awake during his scenes, otherwise we'll wind up with the typical Harrison Ford non-performance.

    I predict disaster.
     
  10. blackstar21595

    blackstar21595 New Member

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    awww that warms my dark heart. And I was encouraged to read Ender's Game,but I never did it. Maybe someone(Looking at you Rhduke) could send me a digital copy :D
     
  11. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    I can understand that. Did you have trouble believing it because of their age? Or just the scenarios Ender was put through? All of the above?

    I too have doubts about the movie. I really don't think Ford is good for Graff. He's probably going play the typical hard-ass old guy, saying his lines the same way he always does because he knows it's passable to audiences.

    Haha, wish I could.. I can't stand reading things on a screen let alone a whole novel. I like to feel the pages in my hands and stuff. I recommend you go out and buy/borrow it. I expect to be reading this baby more than once.
     
  12. rodney adams

    rodney adams Member

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    I loved the book, and also read Ender's Shadow. They're great IMO, so I'll definitely see the movie. I don't like how they're focusing on the action a lot more than the actual moral story, like reviloennik said. Also, I pictured the battle room to be a hollow cube with walls... not a glass sphere. I am disappointed.
     
  13. idle

    idle Active Member

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    Ender's Game is one of my favourite books, so I'll definitely go and see it. The trailer looks so trailery, hard to guess what it'll be like in the end, it might be that it shows most of the action there is, it might not.

    I don't think people who haven't read it will realize these are spoilers, or remember them enough to spoil the story for them - untill someone helpful comes along to point it out. :)

    They changed this for the script. The kids will be older and the battle school will take just a few years. I think it's for the better - more believable and of course much easier to shoot with the child actors.

    I pictured it as a cube too - weren't there corners mentioned somewhere? Glass makes sense, though. The teachers definitely have to watch them somehow.
     
  14. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    I know, but it still spoils it for me because I didn't want to see that climactic part until I went to see the movie. It kind of ruined my anticipation.
     
  15. reviloennik

    reviloennik New Member

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    Well, Ender's Game does split people... like Marmite... some love it, others hate it. I am not sure the writing is brilliant and the setup is a bit hard to believe or long-winded, but the whole moral dilemma is what makes the story so interesting. I remember getting fed up with the book half-way through because it all seemed to take such a long time, but I am glad I persevered.

    I reckon the film will be an action spectacle, like everyone else here seems to think too, which should be good. :)
     
  16. Anthony Martin

    Anthony Martin Active Member

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    I am a fan of Ender's Game, along with some of the other books in the Ender saga (namely Speaker for the Dead). I'm a cynic when it comes to the book-to-movie-made-in-Hollywood thing, so I don't expect much as it is. In this trailer, though, it seems to me that Ender is cognizant of his role as ... ahem ... and that this is being actively communicated to him throughout the narrative. Am I remembering correctly that
    actually, Ender wasn't aware of his role until he wins the final battle and saves his people from complete annihilation?

    Given the tendency toward trilomilionologies, I can see this going down a disappointing, oh-man-not-another-one road if the first film is successful at the box office.
     
  17. idle

    idle Active Member

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    If I remember right,
    he knew exactly what he was studying for, only he thought that he was still studying untill the end, even though the battles were real from some point on.
     
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  18. rodney adams

    rodney adams Member

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    This is correct.
    He knew that he was training himself to kill the buggers, and that the IF wanted him to be the one to destroy them. It wasn't until after the final battle at the bugger's home world, when everyone was ecstatic, that he found out the simulations had been real all along. All of the simulations with the buggers were real when Anderson (if I remember correctly) takes him to do them.
     
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  19. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Hate the book. Trailer looks well made but the casting is terrible. Just big names for the sake of it. I mean, Harrison Ford, really? No chance in hell I'll see it.
     
  20. Anthony Martin

    Anthony Martin Active Member

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    That's right! It's coming back to me now. Thank you everyone for clarifying.
     
  21. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    It was Mazer who takes him through the final simulations that were actually real, not Anderson.
     
  22. JJ_Maxx

    JJ_Maxx Banned

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    Well, I personally LOVED this book. I've read it at least six times cover-to-cover. I think Card does an amazing job showing the mental anguish this little boy goes through. It is so deep and has so many levels that every time I read it I notice something different.

    I'm a little upset with Ford as Graff. I wanted somebody a little more pudgy and stuffy. We'll see.

    Also, Anderson is a woman? Now that I think about it, I don't recall there being any female adult roles in the book, so I guess they had to add the diversity. I dunno.

    I love this and will definitely go see it. It has to be better than the Hitchhikers Guide movie. (Don't get me started.)
     
  23. rhduke

    rhduke Member Reviewer

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    I also thought Anderson was a guy. There's only like 2 or 3 times when Card actually refers to her as a woman, but my mind seemed to just gloss over them lol

    I thought the HGTTG movie had some funny parts (don't get mad I didn't read the book!), and some really dumb parts. The way I hear it, a lot of the humour just didn't translate properly. I plan to read it in the future though.
     
  24. ECKS

    ECKS New Member

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    I will probably see this. I still have my middle school copy at home that will never be returned. Hahaha!
     
  25. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Card has been noted as anachronistic regarding gender roles. I won't even go into his views on LGBT issues.
     
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