The Movie Begins...Total darkness, then, the logo of the produces flashes in... Darkness once more, suddenly pointed with two specks of light. They dance, hypnotically, then are joined by sereral more. These whirl and twirl and carry on in the heavy blackness. Very softly, but building to a crescendo we hear a collage of panicked men's voices, saying things that thar would say in battle.
Then, POW Snap Zoom in to one ship, lying idly. Another ship zooms up beside and latches on, performing a boarding maneuver. Camera Panns and we see saturn in the background. Caption. 2070. 2nd Bugger invasion. Mazer Rackhams Fleet. Snap Zoom again. Marines storm into ship, swat team style, to be confronted with dead buggers. Horror scene like shots, with close up's of greusome (of course) bugger bodies. Soldier: They're all dead sir, ship is cleared.
We Pan to Mazer, who has flashback of the battle. His ships being massacred, then his suicidal dive to the center ship, blowing it up, then screaming off. Shots of bugger ships losing control. But why....., he says. And we get the title. ENDER'S, GAME.
Then Something really innocent like a schoolroom, and the story kicks off, definitely with the losing the "birdie, thirdy!" Monitor,to engage the audience in the story.
Basically, whatever company does this is going to have to spend a fortune on special effects, but then again, lord of the rings was very good, and there is a huge market for epics...
Posts: 1 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Or perhaps the first Invasion, marines being slauthered by the Buggers. Blink. Flash and a close view of Bugger's face. Blink. Peter's enmasked face while tormenting his little bro? Posts: 723 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Oddly, OSC himself considered starting the film in the manner described. I personally think it's a terrible idea; I'd rather start with the Stilson murder, but that's only because I'd de-emphasize the science-fiction elements of the story.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I read somewhere that OSC doesn't plan to even include the Stilson fight (Here. 2nd Q&A, 4th paragraph). I could see that working, but it makes me curious as to how they would film that without making it apparent from the outset that he can be dangerous. Maybe if they dramatized the fight with Bernard, but that could easily dull Ender's early relationship with Val and Peter that we read about in the second chapter.
Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:I'd rather start with the Stilson murder, but that's only because I'd de-emphasize the science-fiction elements of the story.
That might not be a good idea. Unlike in the book, the viewers probably won't know what's going on in Ender's head. It'll just look like a bully picks on him and Ender casually beats him to death. Ender should be shown as being caring and innocent at first. And why would you want to de-emphasize the sci-fi? It's a sci-fi story, after all. I hope you don't think that a movie can't work on a dramatic, emotional level just because it's science fiction. That's like saying that fantasy films can't win Oscars.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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"I read somewhere that OSC doesn't plan to even include the Stilson fight."
He doesn't. But, then, he would take the book in a different direction than I would.
After all, as we see here, someone argues that we shouldn't show the Stilson fight because we can't get into Ender's head to understand why he did it. But, to me, that's GREAT; we as the audience don't HAVE to sympathize with Ender at this point, because we'll start sympathizing with him once he's ostracized. By establishing him as ruthlessly intelligent and more than slightly scary -- but then presenting his brother Peter as someone MORE ruthless and scary -- we can set him up as a believable military mind AND a manipulated victim. OSC did the same thing with the novel, but I think the recent decision to market the Ender books to children has led to a re-evaluation of the tone of Ender's Game.
It's not about flashy sci-fi and a dashing boy hero; it's not Tom Swift.
A while back, I and Thor both posted our "opening scenes" for the film. His was a dark room full of television screens, and Graff and Anderson talking in the background; mine opened with kids fighting in a schoolyard, ending with a fatal, feral, and brutal kicking sequence that, as Stilson's perspective faded to black, faded in on adult conversation assessing Ender's "value." IMO, the murder of Stilson is a vitally important element of Ender's character -- and subsequent redemption.
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By the way, LoTR isn't a that great movie. They cut my favorite parts, there was nothing in the movie about Saruman's fall neither about Radgast the brown.
Imagine one thing- everyone of us have our own, unbrakeable image of Ender, Val, Peter etc. in our minds. It's be... bizzare to see them on the screen Posts: 723 | Registered: Dec 2004
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The LotR movies ARE great. Just because they left out a few parts doesn't mean the movies are bad. It's not the book you're watching, it's the movie. They can't fit everything from the books into the movies.
//maybe some spoilers for ROTK extended edition Even though you're probably talking about the whole hobbit fight at the end of the book, I figured I'd mention that Sarumon actually does die in the extended edition of ROTK, although he dies in a different place and different time than in the book, pretty much the same death though.
quote: Imagine one thing- everyone of us have our own, unbrakeable image of Ender, Val, Peter etc. in our minds. It's be... bizzare to see them on the screen [Wink]
That's not entirely true. I don't really visualize characters with much detail when I read, so I'll be fine with just about anything so long as it's not completely wrong (ie. Ender's played by Vin Diesel)
On a side note, it's not really fair to say that the Lord of the Rings films aren't good movies just because they don't follow the books word for word. In fact, they would have been far worse movies if that had. What works in a book doesn't always work so will on film. For example, the Scouring of the Shire would have been completely out of place in the film, regardless of how many fans wanted to see it.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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"For example, the Scouring of the Shire would have been completely out of place in the film..."
I agree it would have been completely out of place in THIS film, which was largely about Aragorn and man's triumph over evil. They would not have been out of place in a film that took a different approach.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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