posted
I just hope this doesn't mean OSC has lost creative control, since one of the things he refused to allow was the aging of Ender past 12 (and giving him a love interest).
Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I don't think they can tell the story without some time compression. One of the problems I see is that the actor rumored to be cast is 14 but look like 11 or 12. But, at that age kids can be very volatile, and a growth spurt could occur at any time.
Another problem is that by the time we see any promising actor on the screen, he is already two or three years older than his screen presence. Casting an actor that is 14 for a movie that will take two years to make, means he will be 16 or 17 by the time the film in 'in the can'. That seems dangerous.
I suspect that it will take a year to pull the script together and assemble the rest of the cast, then a year to do the filming. That means you really need to case an actor that is around 10 year old, so they when the movie is made, he will be around 12. Even then, he will have to look young but at the same time have a certain powerful leadership presence. That's not an easy casing task.
I see many actors who were stunning in their roles as little kids, but we need to consider how they are going to look and act two years from now.
To find an actor to play Ender, we need to look at kid actors in existing new films who were perhaps 6 to 8 years old when the film was made, because they will certainly be 12 to 14 years older by the time the Ender film is shooting.
It is always difficult to take a novel and convert it into a movie. You have to find the central story line and cut out all extraneous material, but in doing that, you have to make sure you don't cut it so thin that the story is lost.
That is essentially what happened to the Eragon Movie. It was cut so thin that there was nothing left; no story development, no character development, which means no reason to care.
The same is somewhat true of the Harry Potter films, though most who saw the movies already knew the stories and characters well enough to forgive how thinly the movies were cut.
I don't remember which Harry Potter book it was, but one of them in the Audio CD version is 25 hours long. That gives you some idea of how much story is there. The movies have to cut a 25 hour story down to 2.5 hours. That is cutting thin.
So, as well as time compression, there is going to have to be a lot of story compression in Ender's Game to make it fit on the screen within the time allotted to the typical movie.
Does anyone have Ender's Game in Audio Book form and can you tell us what the play time is on the CDs?
Actually a long search on the Internet indicates that the Ender's Game Audio Book has a play time of 10 hours 30 minutes, which means that the story will have to be cut down to about 20% of what it is in the books in order to fit standard movie run times. That is a lot of cutting.
Posts: 803 | Registered: May 2006
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quote:Originally posted by BlueWizard: That is essentially what happened to the Eragon Movie. It was cut so thin that there was nothing left; no story development, no character development, which means no reason to care.
Yeah, that was the problem with the Eragon movie.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
harrison ford should be mazer and jeff bridges should be graff ford does not look at all like graff and if he is cast as graff i will be pissed. mazer is a erfectly good part as well because the whole end of the book mazer is a huge part in
Posts: 12 | Registered: Apr 2011
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No, Ford should definitely not be Mazer. Because Mazer needs to have some kind of southeast Asian ethnic mix.
I think Ford would be perfect for Graff, though a bit old to strictly match the book. Bridges doesn't have the blend of ruthlessness and tenderness that I've seen in Ford.
Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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I just think that ford is too skinny for graff and I just meant ford would be a better mazer than graff
Posts: 12 | Registered: Apr 2011
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Ford should be Anderson. Bridges is perfect for Graff. I still hold out hope for Clooney though- either for Anderson or Graff. This floating Ford's name is just a hollywood ploy anyway, to raise the profile of the movie so that they can get a feel for who might take the part, and how much it will cost them.
But with Steinfeld cast as Petra, casting the adult roles will be a lot easier- she's going to attract a lot of talent.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
How... did this end up with the kids as teenagers? (Asa Butterfield doesn't look 12, he definitely looks at least 13). I thought that was one of the major things holding up the movie until now, but then... here it is, they are teens instead of kids.
Posts: 5 | Registered: Nov 2011
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Ender's Game in audio book form comes in at 11 hours and 5 minutes. As far as audio books I've listened to that's on the short end of the bulk of books I've listened to. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series averages around 30-35 with the longer ones coming in at 40 or so hours.
In my personal library of audio books Brandon Sanderson wins the length contest with Way of Kings at 45 hours 37 mins. That was quite the road trip...
Posts: 362 | Registered: Nov 2008
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I think that it will be extremely difficult to find someone that is 10 years old (or younger) capable of becoming Ender. Someone that young that can also make Ender's story believable can't be common. The casting director may not have any choice but to use an older kid and hope that they can make him look young enough and act mature enough for the part.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Nov 2011
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quote:Originally posted by DocFG: I think that it will be extremely difficult to find someone that is 10 years old (or younger) capable of becoming Ender. Someone that young that can also make Ender's story believable can't be common. The casting director may not have any choice but to use an older kid and hope that they can make him look young enough and act mature enough for the part.
Not only casting Ender, but then you got to cast all the others to match ages. I would be willing to give way to making the actors a little older for a quality movie.
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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I agree. When I read Ender's Game, I do not hear the voices as children but as adults, as OSC intended. If I have to sit through an hour and a half of squeaky little kids with dumbed-down lines on the screen, I will be sorely disappointed. By all means, cast older actors!
Posts: 9 | Registered: Sep 2011
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As long as they don't add some kind of stupid Ender-Petra romance, which seems to be one of the big reasons OSC didn't approve a movie so far.
Posts: 428 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Yeah I agree...do not go trying to turn it into some tween movie by putting in a unneeded sexual encounter in the back of the barracks!
Posts: 176 | Registered: Jun 2008
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A 17 year old is playing Stilson. Asa Butterfield's already 5'7, who knows how tall he'll be by the end of filming, no one in this movie is going to look like a kid and my guess is that's exactly what the studio & director want. No kids killing kids. Take out everything that makes it Ender's Game until it's your run of the mill movie.
Asa Butterfield would have been perfect for Ender after he filmed Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and casting directors would have known then he had the chops to play Ender- he just didn't have the name recognition for a studio to cast him to lead a tent pole blockbuster movie. That's why we're getting teenagers cast in Ender's Game, it's not that they can't find decent enough 10 year old actor, it's that the studio doesn't think an unknown 10 year old actor will sell enough tickets.
I just don't see the ending working if Ender isn't a kid. Ender won't be an innocent child tricked but practically an adult. Why not just cast some A list 25 year old actor? They're casting this for the fanboys so all they need to do is have some nifty effects and who cares who plays Ender or if it's faithful to the book.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Dec 2011
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And really, those kids do look like kids. It's ok to me that they are 13 rather than 5. It would be near impossible to do this with 7 year old actors anyway.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2011
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So is Ben Kingsley confirmed as Mazer? Last month it was a rumor but now everything I see is listing him in the role.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2011
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quote: I suspect that it will take a year to pull the script together and assemble the rest of the cast, then a year to do the filming. That means you really need to case an actor that is around 10 year old, so they when the movie is made, he will be around 12. Even then, he will have to look young but at the same time have a certain powerful leadership presence. That's not an easy casing task.
I'm actually really impressed with MOST of the cast I'm not liking Moises Arias as Bonzo...because Bonzo is supposed to be beautiful and a large boy. Moises Arias is neither. But I love Ender, Graff, Mazer, Petra, and Valnetine. Great choices.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jan 2012
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