http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=84702

From Variety, so use your salt pinchers. Still, I'd like to see Ford in a film other than Indiana Jones where he's not just out to save his family from *random bad guy here*.




The Jedi Master

I've never heard of the book but the premise seems interesting. Enough in fact for me to see it in the theatre. I guess we'll see what happens!

They will never find enough good child actors to make this work and if you up the age then you loose the entire meaning of the book.

Hes gonna have to wear a fat suit.

How come? He's not playing the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen!

If you like reading science fiction that is done well (ie. the science provides an interesting setting for the more interesting part, which is the human relationships/actions/reactions), then Ender's Game, and the books that follow it in the series are definitely worth your time.

I hope the movie does it justice!

+1

Beside this, there is so much violence between kids, that they will dumb it down for sure. It may sound weird, but I'd love to see Ender's Game as a Japanese Anime. That would work.

I'm not a big fan of Orson Scott Card, but Ender series (well, at least two first books) are one of my favorites.

Ok, who are you and what have you done with PanzerMeyer?

Like many stories, the children's ages I'm sure will be upped to find actors capable of doing this. After all, there aren't many genetically-engineered pre-teen genius actors out there.

The other solution is to make it animated and use older children actors as the voice talent for younger-appearing kids.

I like the talk of Elle Fanning playing his sister, though.




The Jedi Master

Yeah, she was great in Super 8 and I was impressed with her performance.

She was impressed with her own performance?



The Jedi Master

Oops, left out the "I". It's fixed now.

Im pretty sure he is a fat guy, or gets fatter as the book progresses.

How important is that? For the Baron, it was a major part of the character and the story. In other stories, whether a character is heavy or not has little bearing.



The Jedi Master

Fat Lee!

Ah yes, his return to Galactica after he brilliantly saved it from destruction by sacrificing the Pegasus and taking out three cylon basestars. One of THE best episodes of BSG ever.

Well yes, but the Porkins was a little overdone for a supposed top-line fighter pilot and leader of men

Of course, the only truly hefty character on the show, Tyrol, lost weight over the years.




The Jedi Master

Sure they will need quite a few child actors for the military academy, but not too many of them will have heavy roles like Ender. I would guess that after a convincing Valentine (I also like Elle Fanning for that one), a cruel Peter will be the next priority because of his initial importance in forming Ender and then the continued shadowing emotional influence. By contrast, most of the remaining child characters can appear somewhat less than genius because of Ender's extreme mental prowess. I think in the rights hands, this movie is very doable. "Sellable," on the other hand . . . ?

Maybe it will be a cartoon, Beowulf- or Tintin style. I've read the book recently and loved it.

The problem is that will automatically limit the film's possible returns. Animated kids' films can do great, those that aren't tend to be little niche things. Final Fantasy? Titan A.E? I think they would have done better and been more respected as live action, although it might have driven the costs up to the point that the increased money it made would fail to offset it.

Still, I don't doubt it can be done. LOTR was seen as undoable until Jackson did it.
Dune has been tried twice but still seems out of reach for that "justice" it deserves. The Foundation Trilogy deserves it, but may never make it to the screen.

It all depends on whether the ones behind it have the vision and talent to adapt it properly.



The Jedi Master

I think CGI would be the best route. If they can sell it as an adult movie (kid on kid violence tends to get the rating board up in arms) then it wont have a problem selling.

Perhaps, but my gut says most of the "children" will be teenagers or 20-somethings-playing-teens, with perhaps just a couple of key players actually pre-teen.



The Jedi Master

Isn't Ender 6-7 when the story begins? This will be a hard movie to write and shoot hopefully they don't completely ruin the greater aspects of the book. Ford is a good decision, I think they have him down the play the war hero though, not the Col. from the battle school so no fat suit needed.

I always pictured James Woods as Colonel Graff (I think it was his role in General's Daughter that stuck with me) - but I don't know if he could pull it off now.

As much as I'd love to see Ender's Game as a movie, I know my expectations are extremely high. Not only would the child actors (Ender, Peter, and Valentine) have to be spot on, but the Giant in the fantasy game has significant importance to the movie and the follow-on stories, too.

And if the Battleroom is depicted as a bunch of kids at recess flying around a tennis court in jet packs I swear I'll throw something heavy and sharp at the theater screen.

Sometimes expectations must be tempered.



The Jedi Master

Don't take your anger out on the movie screen its just the messenger! I don't think Ender's game can be made into a successful movie while staying true to the book.

Then again look at the quality of child acting in "Game of Thrones" and that's just a TV show.

The truth is that if Ender's game goes to movie, the die-hard book fans will more than likely be disappointed: it's very difficult to keep a movie true to a book - but I think the story is strong and should be popular for many folks. I will, admittedly, be one of the folks who goes in with expectations unreasonably high, but I still hope they make the movie and capture the critical points.

Not to go OT, but another one of Orson's books that I think could make a great movie is the Worthing Saga.

I'm not familiar with the director but Ben Kingsley is on the cast. That's definitely a good thing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/fullcredits#cast

LOL, that's him! That's the director I told you about a few days ago! The one who was a guest star on an episode of Stargate that also directed Wolverine and won an Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2005 (the year after his SG-1 appearance) for Tsotsi. He's South African, and so was that film.



The Jedi Master

Ben Kingsley is a great actor, but his presence is not a universal indicator of a good movie (most recently, see Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time). And I just saw that the director, Gavin Hood, is responsible for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Edit: Ninja'd by Jedi Master by 4 seconds!

Ok, I wasn't going to go there, but since JMark brought it up, here's a list of some of Kingsley's "accomplishments":

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
The Love Guru
BloodRayne
A Sound of Thunder

So, like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing before him, his presence in a film is not an indicator of the film's quality.




The Jedi Master

I hadn't had my coffee yet so my short term memory was inoperable.

No Harrison on that particular list.
Kingsley is the war hero . . . I can buy that.
I haven't seen the Butterfield kid in anything, but his credentials look good.

I wonder what they are holding out in IMDB PRO.

Just one question who takes the arrow to the knee?

Well, Ender . . . he leads the long defunct Dragon Army . . . so I guess you could call him Dragonborn.