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Ender's Game Movie

I

ichy

Diamond Member
It looks like they're serious about finally making a movie out of one of my favorite sci-fi books. I was really surprised to see that Harrison Ford is being cast as Col. Graff and Ben Kingsley (!) as Mazer Rackham. The director is Gavin Hood which leaves me feeling wary, although hopefully Orson Scott Card will make sure they don't turn his book into an abomination of a movie. If they water down the ending I'll be horrified. Thoughts?
 
Starship Troopers is a funny movie (at least if you're drunk), I just wish they hadn't pretended it was in any way related to Heinlein's novel. A proper movie adaptation of Starship Troopers would've been amazing.
 
Hmm...I guess I can see Kingsley in that role, and he can obviously play people of color, but an itch in the back of my mind tells me there's a massively better choice. Hmm...half-Maori barely sane supergenius...will ponder. I suppose they need a name for such an important role...a more ethnically true choice would be unknown in the states. I guess I'm just glad they didn't pick Liam Neeson.

Ford, though? Naw. Love the guy, but...naw. Russell Crowe would be much better. You know who would actually have been perfect in that role ten years ago? Mel Gibson. He'd be a distraction now, though...too bad.
 
Oi...Whoever they cast as Ender better be god damn amazing. The entire movie depends on the actor being able to sell Ender's genius.
 
Malcolm McDowell would have been great as Col. Graff if he hadn't been totally typecast by this point.
 
I hated the book, but based on recent experience this means I will love the movie. I didn't enjoy A Game of Thrones as a book but LOVED it as a TV show. The same is true of A Scanner Darkly.
 
Can't see it working unless they make it at least 3 hours long. It's a journey of the mind and you just can't rush that.

Ford is pretty chummy. I can easily see him ruining Graff by showing Ender sympathy.

My prediction is that it'll start with a hyped alien threat, Ender will be shipped off to school, the Battle Room will just be, "Oh look, we were right, Ender is slightly better than the other kids," whereupon he'll be trained by Mazer and then win the war.
Basically, nothing like Ender's Game.
 
I fear that they'll change how Ender beats the buggers in the end to make it more PC. And yeah, Harrison Ford isn't cold enough for the role of Graff.
 
Ender's Game was all about the characters and their interactions, the battles were about 15% of the story. I just can't see the movie accomplishing anything resembling the book.
 
FallenHero said:
Whoever they cast as Ender better be god damn amazing. The entire movie depends on the actor being able to sell Ender's genius.
Click to expand...

The American mainstream is too stupid to understand "smart." You'll get what they can understand, which will be:

35bcci.jpg
 
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it is going to be impossible to portray Ender as it was written. he was 6 in the story and had a highly complex thought process. i'm guessing that he will get dumbed down, sadly.

i looked at the wikipedia page on the movie. the cast looks interesting. i've never heard of the kid that is playing Ender, but he is supposedly a great upcoming actor. i would have been happy if they could have gotten the kid that played voldemort.

not too happy with harrison ford. he is too set in his acting to really bring this character out. to be honest, i'd like to see a dark brendan fraser. grizzle him up, have him play nice with Ender, and then tear it all down. it would definitely be a stretch, but it could work.

mazer rackham should be played by someone a little younger, IMHO. if they could bulk joseph gordon-levitt up, get him mean, and age him a little that would be my choice. they guy is supposed to go back in time basically to train Ender. not excited about ben kingsley.

the other actors seem fine. abigail breslin as val is a good choice.

overall, i'm pretty wary about the movie.
 
Hopefully Orson Scott Card will keep an active hand in the project and prevent it from being dumbed down too much. It's my understanding that he's scuttled previous movie scripts because he thought they were crap.
 
it's been a while but the book goes like this:
abuse
dullness
abuse
dullness
abuse
dullness
ender becomes child hitler
ender's abusers are rewarded

that about right?
 
I agree that Crowe could portray Graff the best. As an actor he's always played a bit of a darker character and a combination of Gladiator/Master & Commander/American Gangster would be perfect. Ford is a bit chummy and I also don't think that he could go from friendly to drill-instructor convincingly enough.

I think Kingsley is a good choice for Rackham. Remember that Mazer is pretty old when Ender finally meets him and if Kingsley can pull off cold and calculating (which he can) he should do fine.

The issues I foresee them having is:

-Having the actress portraying Petra do a convincing enough job of selling herself as a hardass mofo. She can't seem girlish in even the slightest way.
-Incorporating the game with the Giant & Fairyland into it.
-Successfully integrating the subplot of Valentine & Peter's eventual rise to power as Locke & Demosthenes

In order to make it viewable to the idiots, I think they'll eliminate:

-the Giant's Drink & Fairyland
-Peter & Valentine sub-plot
-Ender's internal struggle and subsequent growth
-The entire post-victory struggle. After he destroys the buggers, the last scene will be him & Valentine boarding a ship and setting off.
-The downtime in NC before he goes to Command School

In order to make it live up to the novel, the movie is going to have to be rated R. If it's anything less than that, I don't see it working out because it will mean that Stilson's death is out, Bonzo's death is out, the scene showing how Ender destroyed the buggers was modified, they eliminated most of the cursing that was EVERYWHERE in the novel, and more.

I'm hopeful, but we'll see.
 
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