Some thoughts about the movie

by DragonArmy Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:13 pm

I posted a comment on a blog article about Ender's Game (which I will not link to in case that's considered spam) and felt that I would share it here, mostly because I like how it was written and want to be able to refer back to it later and may not be able to find it again somewhere else. Yes that was a long run-on sentence. Very Happy

Here it is quoted:

I must say that this book (and its companion novel, Ender's Shadow) is probably one of my all time favorite novels. Like... top 5 favorite.

So while I'm stoked that this is going to be made into a movie, I'm slightly apprehensive at the idea of it being made into a movie. To explain: books are often significantly better than their film adaptations, for lots of reasons (some exceptions are Lord of the Rings and the first of the Chronicles of Narnia movies, although those books are awesome too!)

One, is that so much more can be put into a book than into a movie; the film makers have to decide what is and is not going to make it into the movie, or if they want to split it up (as they are doing with The Hobbit).

Two, some of the things that are okay in print are not always acceptable for on-screen, depending on the audience/rating. Ender's Game contains lots of violence and (many would say) bad language, and while it is really geared toward middle/high-schoolers, parents are often less likely to allow their kids to watch movies with excessive violence and language.
Three, when I read a book, I get these mental visualizations of what is happening. When a film comes along, it is often at least slightly (if not drastically) different that I had imagined, partly due to the previous two points, but also due to the fact that different people have different ideas of what something should look like/sound like/etc.

Those three points, among others, make me a little nervous about how things might turn out. That being said, I am confident that with the cast and director (lots of big names there) it can't be TOO bad. I doubt Ford and Kingsley would have accepted a role if the script and such were really that bad.

However, I am excited that this is happening, and I really cannot wait to see the movie, even if it does end up being a complete train wreck (hey, a train wreck in nullo-gravity would be pretty awesome to see, don't you think?). I'm busy re-reading it now, but I'm not sure if I should read it again closer to the movie since I'm not sure how close the film will be to it.

Also, I'd like to stir up some conversation, so does anyone have any comments on this?