Enders Game..

[StevOz]

Been a while since I read the book(s), though I have got to say the film really nailed it, just the best book to film movie I have ever seen, tears in the eyes at the ending, just brilliant!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

the first book was a cracking enjoyable read for me... kind of threw me how different the next couple were.

'boot camp, responding to a dire threat' movies have always been a guilty pleasure, like full metal jacket, starship troopers, and millions of hong kong kung fu movies.

enders game the movie, added to my watch list. :)

 

[Shockman]

I saw the movie twice already. I'll watch it again.

I did not read the books.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

tried to watch it, tonight. made it through 55 minutes before jumping in the escape pod. i love the book, and i guess that's the problem...

sowee!

 

[sleepy]

The only thing I know about Enders Game is that Harrison Ford is in it.
As for movie version, it happens all the time with me, and anymore I actually expect to be disappointed by the movie version, tv version, etc.

Like 1984. The film version with John Hurt was austere, lacking humor and the quality of the subtle humanities in the book. I read the book seeing in my mind The Transamerica Building in San Francisco on a sunny orange day broken by the presence of surveillance copters and wall-sized television monitors, and cloudy, sooty red brick alleyways where the incinerators were in the book, like the alleyways where the homeless take a crap, wiping themselves on The Daily News, near the St. Martin Hotel in the low rent district, like the center of Downtown Los Angeles.

If I made "1984", it would look more like the Dennis Hopper film, "The Hot Spot", but with adherence to the book.

I haven't even bothered looking at the current tv series, "Dracula", having lived with the book for 20+ years as a personal exercise in scripting a difficult book to film, just in case I end up there due to family. I don't like what I've read about the series, with Prof. Van Helsing using time machines and other tools of hack script writers.

 

[StevOz]

Well it is a story that no film could ever do justice to, that said, the fact that I read the book over 30 years ago, most likely helps and it does get much better toward the end game.

 

[sleepy]

Now you've peaked my interest, when you say a film can't do justice to a book.
I think mostly it is the fault of the filmmakers who are only interested in conventional techniques. They went to film school to learn their craft, or they are under the gun of studios that insist on cost controls by rendering time-tested conventional output under the illusion that it is guaranteed to sell to the general public and the casual viewer in the majority.

Me, I like, "Fight Club" and films that try new things, but they can't be arty. They have to serve the purposes of telling a story and connecting emotionally to the audience without pushing mechanical buttons.
There is quality, and then there is crass manipulation and tricky styles of film making that have no validity to the story itself.

 

[StevOz]

I tend to think you just can't include several hundred pages of text into any movie, it would not work and be at least 6 hours long, that is not feasible.

It's all about extracting that essence of the story, though either way if you've read the book I doubt any book or comic to movie can ever measure up to the personal experience of your own reading and interpretation of that story.

I feel you really have to keep your personal expectations aside, not try to compare them too much, both are a different art and should be considered as such.

 

[sleepy]

It's always about the interpreters and their committees, which is why I sometimes suspect a certain disconnect by those responsible because they do live differently from the rest of us.

If text be dialog, then absolutely, though faces and places and ambiance can be covered by the narrative visual content.

 

[faralos]

like the way Hollywood trashed Enemy Mine
a brilliant book only to be downgraded to a ho hum movie
but then again there's stuff like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
which pretty much stayed within the books parameters
but then there's Dune which got chopped up so much to fit it into a flick
that most of its story was mishmashed to the point that no one could follow it
and the parts that you could were shortened so much as to make watching it painful
ah well ya' wins some ya' loses some

 

[Shooby Doo]

Ender's Game was the first book that I actually read for the sake of reading and what got me hooked on reading forever. When I think of favorite books, that one's very special to me.

Saying that, I recently saw the movie, and I really liked it. At the beginning, I felt things were rushed and had to be changed from the book for the pacing, but once it got into the heart of the story, I felt they really nailed it. They got all the right themes and tone of the book, and the ship and battles were almost exactly the way I pictured them in my mind when I read the book.

Overall, considering how books-to-movies can turn out, I think they did a nice job with it and conveyed the same story the book did. I think I could have even watched a 3-hour extended version with more of Peter & Valentine in it.

 

[Shockman]

To compare a movie and a book? Do people really do that. OK. The book is worse. The movies sound track was much better. Generally the self narration does not work in movies. You generally in a movie don't see a man standing still and telling you he is throwing a rock, nor do you see him throw a rock while hearing him say he is throwing a rock.

My dog is with me. He was attacked by a cat. I threw a rock at the cat, but I missed and hit my dog.

This could be shown faster, than read, certainly told, and it can be read pretty fast.

The Hunger Games is a good example of a self narration book. Many are. But the point is the same self narration, or story telling about the subject. What's the movie to do? tell you what she says she is thinking and doing (a page and a half) or show you in 7 seconds? The movie makers job is to show it, and showing and telling is often redundant.

Anyone that reads books and watches movies should have caught that the movie is basically a short story based on the book. The book is not material in any way other than being the story. It certainly is not the script.

I like to read 6 hour stories, but I don't like 6 hour movies.

With a attitude like Ikes' there is no point in watching movies based on books you have read, and expecting all the elements of the book.

Enders Game is a story of a dilemma, a point, and a moral. It covered all those elements completely. It could do so in a short story book, or a half hour episode of Tales From The Darkside or the like.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

hehe shockman, i can understand why you would want me to think that way, but in actual fact...


to kill a mockingbird
blade runner
willy wonka (1970's version)
of mice and men
jaws
jurassic park
lord of the flies
one flew over the cuckoo's nest
2001
planet of the apes (original)
the jungle book
casino royale (recent version)
joy luck club


...were all very good or great movies based on books that i read. and here's a durftastic newsflash for you: expecting a hollywood movie to replicate the content of the book is a fool's mission. that is all.

 

[Shockman]

newsflash for you: expecting a hollywood movie to replicate the content of the book is a fool's mission. that is all.

That's a newsflash for me? I don't understand, that was MY point, that I perhaps mistakenly gathered that You did not get, when YOU said your loving the book was your problem with the movie.

Blade Runner was a very good example, though it would not be expected on your list. The book and movie was QUITE different.
Blade Runner had a mood that the book did not. I don't know if it is even possible in a book. Blade Runner is also the only movie I know of where the directors' cut nearly exclusively takes stuff out instead of adding cut scenes. All it added was a very brief dream image, and it took out the self narration. Ridley Scott gets it.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

yea, i loved the book, but i was being a bit charitable in terms of the influence of that factor because i didn't see any particular reason to offend steve's (or anyone else's) enjoyment of the movie at the time.

if someone likes something and i don't, i'd prefer not to belabor the point. unless my dandruff is up, of course.

"newsflash," because i've been going on about this stuff (movies, art, books, etc) since the VPF days in the early aughts. i mean, i'm an artist - writer. OF COURSE i'm not going to evaluate the book - movie dynamic in the insipid way which you suggested.

 

[Shockman]

Your evaluation of the movie was insipid.

Unless you think a good book is reason enough to not like it. I'm not suggesting you do like it. I'm just saying I don't believe in a book - movie dynamic.

So, Why don't you like this most excellent movie Ike? And TRY to leave the book out of it!!!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

oh, fuck off, shockman. if you liked the movie, then good for you.

go to rotten tomatoes if you want to get in to details. the critics gave it a 61% IIRC. there's your trail of breadcrumbs, dude.

 

[Shockman]

Woke up on the wrong side of the bed? The last sentence in my post was of course and I believe an obvious joke.

So now you have two reasons to not like the movie. You loved the book and rotten tomatoes gave it only 61%.

 

[GSGregg]

I like to read 6 hour stories, but I don't like 6 hour movies.

That would indeed entail ingesting an excess of 'buttered' popcorn.

Although fellow 'avid readers' recommended the book back in the day, I never got around to it, and I'm glad; Ender's closing "...a promise to keep" was just a tad more (adjective here) being unanticipated.

Non sequitur (but a long-term itch for me, nonetheless):

MOVIEMAKERS!!! When are you going to tackle The Mote In God's Eye???
I ain't gettin' any younger, and it's been almost forty years already!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

no, that's two mostly imaginary reasons for you to say that i don't like the movie, since you didn't understand what i had tried to explain in the previous posts.

but let's see... do i want to go back to watching a movie which added absolutely nothing to the original book, had the standard hollywood green screen bonanza of bullshit eye candy, cringe-worthy acting by absolutely everyone involved except maybe kingsley, and a mediocre grab-bag of insights on the human condition which haven't gotten any fresher with time...

OR do i want to move down my list and conduct the next movie experiment?

yea, haha... you're a fucking pinball comedian extraordinaire. keep up the good work, dude.

 

[Shockman]

Added nothing to the original book? Of course it didn't. I thought you did understand, then you go and say that.

Look, the only problem I had was with expectation of movies having the content details of a 100,000+ word book.

Some of the acting may not have been as good as some of the best seasoned actors that played in your list, but the cast was mostly young kids, and though none of it made me cringe, had it done so, I would not have liked it either, so I accept that as a non insipid explanation.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

"added to the original book" does not necessarily have anything to do with adding content. can't you imagine any other way in which that could be intended?


meh, sorry. seems an angrified night, as you said. but, two things--

1) unlike with most people in this scene, because of all the past mutual squabbling, i feel zero debt or courtesy owed you. therefore, if you attempt to critique something i said, i don't necessarily feel any reason to be gracious and good-natured in response. just the way it is.

2) i had the first super-breakthrough week in many months and as a result, indeed have a little steam to blow off here and there.


in conclusion, bah ram ewe, phil.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

My girlfriend recommended the book to me, but I didn't get around to reading it before Orson came out as a raging homophobe. That pretty much erased any desire I had to read it. So... well! I guess that pretty much wraps up my part in this lively critique! Exit, stage left!

 

[Shockman]

I want to give you the last word, but,

2) I don't know what you are talking about, but if it is about improvement in health then I am glad about it.

in conclusion, That'll do, Pig.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Well, now you can no longer claim ignorance, Shocky!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/15/orson-scott-card-racist-obama_n_3762891.html

Ha! What a diseased clown! End of the game, indeed! Or, as Bill Paxton would say, "Game over, man!"
Game Over Man, GAME OVER! - YouTube



I guess I should be completely honest and state that it would be untrue for me to claim that I have never read, nor ever would read, a sci-fi book written by a paranoid psychopath. I got through about 50 pages of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth before I chucked it in the trash.