quote:But Whedon's original casting – Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye...
Johansson and Renner come from Iron Man and Thor respectively. Did Whedon have anything to do with casting them? It sounds like OSC saw Iron Man 2 (and hated it), so I wonder why he doesn't remember that.
quote:The scene does not come from the book – very few of the scenes in this movie do – so it was amusing when others asked me how it felt to have my book brought to life.
posted
I'm not sure I really even understand his critique of The Avengers. He spends so much time calling it stupid, from the plot to the very premise, and yet commends it at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I'm familiar with the awesomely bad concept, but this wasn't it. It sounds like he's just applying the wrong criteria, and then he's shocked that even without his criteria, it still managed to be enjoyable.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
The scene he describes in the article sounds suspiciously like the scene in the book in which Graff and Ender are on their way to command school and Graff makes an affectionate gesture. Ender is shocked at first, but then cynically dismisses it as yet more manipulation.
I suppose it's possible that Mr. Card himself forgot about that scene?
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Xavier, what OSC said in the article actually makes me look forward to the movie more. We knew they were going to have to cut and trim and compress and age up the film to do it right, so most scenes won't be carbon-copied from the book. But all the little details he mentioned, about the actors, the sets, how they are doing zero g, all sounds great. Looking past his "It's not really MY movie" defense mechanism snark, of course.
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The one thing OSC and I used to agree on, movie reviews, he's also gone sideways on in recent years.
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1) The actors, especially Asa and Harrison, know how to act together, and can deliver their lines and actions with subtlety and nuance.
2) The Battle Room scenes are going to be convincing.
3) The movie takes some liberties in adapting the original novel (OSC ranted in a previous column about "hack-adapters" trying to shoehorn a story into a "three-act structure," which may or may not be a hint at his opinion of the direction of the Ender's Game movie), but the people on board seem to have utmost respect for the novel.
Keep in mind that OSC has always maintained that every book-to-movie adaptation is and should be the artwork of the adapter (i.e. the directors/writers/actors/etc.), and not a strict pantomime of the action from the book. The Ender's Game movie is not Orson Scott Card's artwork – it's Gavin Hood's et al. In the past, OSC has cited good movies that were adapted from bad books, and vice-versa. His quip that there are very few scenes in the movie from the book tells me that they're not trying to make a 100% faithful adaptation, but at the same time, the congruity between the scene that OSC describes and the one BandoCommando pointed out from the book hints that they haven't changed so much that the story will be completely unfamiliar.
I am a little apprehensive about this "three-act structure" business, though. It might turn out to be a good, if not the best, way to adapt Ender's Game, but so much of the latter part of Ender's Game will have to be changed to fit that structure that the core of the book's power will be compromised, at least by my understanding of how the three-act structure is supposed to work.
Then again, OSC may not have been talking about Ender's Game when he was ranting about hack writers conforming to the Hollywood standard story structure. Or just not this rendition. Time will tell.
Either way, I've learned that there will be enough good things in this movie to merit at least seeing it once: the zero-G Battle Room scenes done not with CGI, but with the actual suspended actors using gynmastic techniques to make it look like there's no gravity? I'm really interested in seeing how they pull that off.
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I actually pretty much agree with his review of the Avengers - something is allowed to be stupid but also be masterfully good along other axis.
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quote:Looking past his "It's not really MY movie" defense mechanism snark, of course.
I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to emphasize from someone in his position.
They're going to take his work and rebuild it from the bottom up to tell it in an entirely new and different way. It won't really be just his any more, it will be someone else's. In the same way I think it was fair for the creators of the Last Airbender to say "Hey, that's Shyamalan's movie, not ours," I think it's fair for him to say it's not his. I don't think he's being catty about it, he gets how adaptations work. He's just saying not to blame him if it goes wrong, and I think that's fair.
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I havent' seen Avengers so I can't comment on that. But I'll say I lovedHot Tub Time Machine and yet if I tell anyone that I feel the need to add a series of qualifications. If I were writing a review all the moreso. I mean if he spent the whole time praising the writing and wit of the screenplay it'd be perfectly reasonable to walk out of it and say: "It was a bunch of absurd charecters punching each other for two hours, I was expecting to see My Dinner with Andre in superhero form". That's the way I read his review: "I liked it, but it's not emotional or powerful, it's escapist fun."
In other news, I didn't realize they were so far along on Ender's Game; very exciting.
quote:They're going to take his work and rebuild it from the bottom up to tell it in an entirely new and different way. It won't really be just his any more, it will be someone else's. In the same way I think it was fair for the creators of the Last Airbender to say "Hey, that's Shyamalan's movie, not ours," I think it's fair for him to say it's not his. I don't think he's being catty about it, he gets how adaptations work. He's just saying not to blame him if it goes wrong, and I think that's fair.
I'm pretty sure he's also honest enough to say: "I'm glad you liked it, it was the work of these people, not me."
quote:Looking past his "It's not really MY movie" defense mechanism snark, of course.
I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to emphasize from someone in his position.
They're going to take his work and rebuild it from the bottom up to tell it in an entirely new and different way. It won't really be just his any more, it will be someone else's. In the same way I think it was fair for the creators of the Last Airbender to say "Hey, that's Shyamalan's movie, not ours," I think it's fair for him to say it's not his. I don't think he's being catty about it, he gets how adaptations work. He's just saying not to blame him if it goes wrong, and I think that's fair.
It read to me more as though he was generously giving credit where it was due.
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"The fundamental situation in the movie is so utterly unbelievable that it boggles the mind."
Yeah, see, it's a COMIC BOOK movie. Aliens invading from outer space being fought by super heroes isn't supposed to be realistic.
And yeah, the flying aircraft carrier was ridiculous, but not because of its power source. Remember we're living in a world where a teeny tiny device in Stark's chest can power his entire super suit without apparently ever being recharged. Why can't there be a larger arc reactor powering the entire ship?
And he's questioning the fundamental nature of the Hulk and Thor existing together?
Come on. It's the Avengers! It's the Marvel Comic book world! That's like saying vampire movies are stupid because vampires don't exist.
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posted
I am not the jake who wrote that first comment, by the way. I thought that the airborn aircraft carrier was kind of stupid too.
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quote:That's like saying vampire movies are stupid because vampires don't exist.
No. It's like saying that one of the flaws of Buffy is that that the idea of vampires is stupid.
And that's only true if the idea of vampires and their abilities is as stupid as The Hulk's. Which it isn't.
I've got to say, the flying aircraft carrier really did rip me out of the movie when I watched it. "It really happened that way" is no excuse for unbelievability. "It was that way in a comic book" is no better.
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If you are not going to use the original material, don't bother paying to be allowed to use the original material, just make up your own action movie with super powers in it.
Otherwise, read those comics like it is the script and follow it. If it weren't for stories found in comic books Christopher Nolin's Dark Knight would have looked a lot like Batman Forever. It doesn't matter that it is kinda silly, the fat rebel pilot in Star Wars is silly, but you just look past it and enjoy the fiction.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Dudes, its called the Anthropic Principle, you have to accept as the price of entry that superheroes will fight aliens, that there is a secret flying carrier SHIELD uses etc. If you cant accept it, too effing bad you are wrong; and your opinion is wrong.
This is at its heart what a comic book movie is. Taking out the helicarrier is like adding midiclorians to Star Wars.
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Master Bradley sir... I heard you talking earlier about "mediclorians?" What are... "mediclorians?"
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Hmmm... one could instead of compare midiclorains to altering the state of the helicarrier, like making it a fleet of smaller aircraft.
Taking it completely out would more like just breaking the fouth wall and having Obi-Wan saying "the force is mitochondria, Lucas couldn't come up with a space word so we are just calling it mitochondria, because midiclorians don't exist."
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I must say, if the flying aircraft carrier was what bothered you in the movie where rockets come out of Iron Man's back that *could not possibly have fit between the top of his armor and his skin*, then I think you really are missing the point.
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I only saw the film because some friends wanted to see it in IMAX 3d. I am personally constitutionally unable to enjoy Iron Man because of the laws of thermodynamics.
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Do your personal constitutions restrict you from enjoying My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? because I hear that show completely ignores the laws of physics.
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AH, if you're trying to insinuate that friendship isn't magic I'm going to have to have stern words with you outside.
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Specifically the fact that Iron Man's suit relies on ejects that has no source of replenishment. Also the third law of motion: were it observed, Stark would be a stew of bone and muscle matter.
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Regarding Ender's Game... I love that an actor named Han Soto play's Colonel Graff's aide (Colonel Graff being played by Harrison Ford who was, of course Han Solo).
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread derail.
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My Beloved just went to urgent care there ( he had a cut on his foot he was afraid was getting infected) and saw the name "Sir Ben Kingsley" written on the sign-in sheet ahead of him.
At first he thought it was a joke, but it was actually Ben Kingsley. My Beloved was not aware that he was in Ender's Game, though I think he was vaguely aware of it being filmed around town.
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Not as long as people bowed to acknowledge my presence. Just a tiny bow, nothing ostentatious.
Probably a medical clerk/etc or a personal aide wrote the sign-in. Some physicians get very snarky when less-than-close-friends address them without the 'Doctor' in front of their last name. I can see a medical clerk/etc assuming the same about those with knighthoods, and extending the same courtesy. And personal aides exist to remind others of their employer's bona fides, whether or not their employer approves. Reflected glory and all that stuff.
Personally, I wouldn't begrudge a Kingsley or a McCartney their earned right to use an honorific bestowed to denote privilege. But then Americans don't have a history in which aristocratic titles convey much more than a sense of romanticism/fantasy. The Brits/etc have had to put up with the (too often grim) reality goin' way way back. So ya get weirdities such as Americans being fonder of, more admiring of the Monarchy than the Brits, the Aussies, the Canucks, the...
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Um....It's certainly A principle, but it's not the Anthropic Principle.
Maybe it spelt it wrong but it's similar sounding, but it's an actual thing. You can't criticise a work for say, having magic in the setting because the work takes it as a given that magic exists for the purpose of the narrative.
So it isn't valid to criticise say Harry Potter for having wizards and magic even if wizards and magic don't make sense in real life. We presume that in the work they exist, it's a part of the whole willing suspension of disbelief.
quote: This trope is surprisingly often defied by critics reviewing Comic Book film adaptations and Fantasy, when they dismiss an entire genre in its opening paragraph by pointing out that the very premise of the story is realistically impossible and rests upon childlike simplifications — and anyone who takes such stories seriously must by definition be irresponsible and childish themselves; see Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.
quote: My Beloved just went to urgent care there ( he had a cut on his foot he was afraid was getting infected) and saw the name "Sir Ben Kingsley" written on the sign-in sheet ahead of him.
At first he thought it was a joke, but it was actually Ben Kingsley. My Beloved was not aware that he was in Ender's Game, though I think he was vaguely aware of it being filmed around town.
posted
They said that a lot of the people in town for movies use that particular after-hours clinic, and they just sign in and sit the waiting room along with everybody else. I had thought they might have some special arrangement, but they don't.
Posts: 79 | Registered: Dec 2011
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posted
Blayne, the Anthropic Principle is a well known philosophical term that has nothing to do with works of fiction.
Just because there is a trope page that uses the same name does not mean that you can use the term in a non-TV-Trope context and expect people to not think you are referring to the well known principle.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Blayne, the Anthropic Principle is a well known philosophical term that has nothing to do with works of fiction.
Just because there is a trope page that uses the same name does not mean that you can use the term in a non-TV-Trope context and expect people to not think you are referring to the well known principle.
Except in that you are only half right and that it can be applied to fiction, I am aware of its etymoligical origins but they are not entirely relevant.*
*Or rather it is relevant that it can be applied to fiction and seems to be some amount of consensus to this fact, whats not relevant is whether you think it isn't just because of its origin. People able to be confused about something isnt new, Im certain plenty of Spanish people look at anime fans strangely when they mention "Laputa".
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Blayne, which is more important to you: that you get to use TV tropes without explanation as part of incredibly smug posts, or that people stop making fun of you? Cause you seriously do not get to have both.
Serious question. There are things I do that I get made fun of for and I accept those consequences happily. Some things are worth being made fun of for. Just be aware of what you actually value.
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I think the only problem I have with TV Tropes abusing that word to come up with a new term, Blayne, is that the word "anthropic" means something specific. It is an actual philosophical principle already, so reusing the name to apply it more broadly -- and somewhat metaphorically -- seems obnoxious to me. I'd be perfectly okay with calling it something like the Diagetic Principle.
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