UKC

Oh God. I saw an ad for this film on the side of a bus today - first I'd heard about it. Inside I cried.

If you have not done so already read the book now before it's too late!

In reply to Bobling:
it might be ok? maybe?

In reply to Bobling:
I read it years ago and thought 'this would make a helluva movie....providing people dont know the twist'

Are you saying that you feel they may have made a balls-up of it?

In reply to Bobling:
ps please tell me they changed the name of the aliens....please!

In reply to Bobling:

I saw a poster at the weekend and had exactly, exactly this thought.

In reply to Kimono:

Oh no, I have absolute faith in Hollywood to produce an appropriate film version!

I confess my wife and I have now watched the trailer, I'm not feeling any more positive about the situation despite Harrison Ford's weighty presence. Looks like the makers have put lots of shiny CGI BSGesque space combat in. Does look pretty but my experience with World War Z has left me scarred - It took a while for me to realise how much the screwed that one up and I'm still trying to get over it.

In reply to Bobling: oh dear, doesnt sound like they got the book at all. moral ambivalence and cultural misunderstanding, nah all way too complicated, lets just have a shoot em up

In reply to Bobling:

Trailers can often be misrepresentative. There may be 5 minutes of shiny CGI BSGesque combat in the film itself, and they may have heavily weighted the trailer that way because it is hard to sell a potential blockbuster in any other way.

In reply to Bobling:

Look at the director's filmography. Personally I have seen only Rendition which I thought hugely underrated. I saw a bit of Wolverine which looked interesting but I can't judge Hood's influence on that film.

But based on Rendition alone I will say that Hood's name on Ender's Game really makes it a more interesting prospect for me than the scenario in which a "hack" director had been put onto it (Hood also adapted the screenplay)

This is no guarantee that it will be good. But for the sake of 2 hours, watch "Rendition" before slating this trailer.

In reply to Bobling:

I don't care, will be looking forward to this sooooo much. If it's terrible I'll just read the book again, and the set.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Bobling:
Am also looking forward to it.
I notice that we are getting it a week before our American cousins....that's not normal is it?

In reply to Kimono:

No but it's not all that ABNORMAL. Sometimes non-US territories are used to gauge the feeling toward a film and the final week of marketing in the US will be adjusted accordingly. I imagine that by that stage, the decision on how many screens to book the film into for the first week will have been made so it'll be too late to change that, but varying the final week's marketing will run into the millions one way or another.

In reply to Blue Straggler: I did wonder if the studios are concerned it might be a turkey when I saw the release schedule on the wiki page

In reply to toad:

Yep. There may be other good reasons though. It's not always a signifier of studio concern. Recently there was some American film that was in cinemas worldwide more than TWO YEARS before its US release! I can't remember which film. There was a reason that made sense, and it was not censorship. Maybe some licencing of footage within the film? I can't remember.
I never understood why the film of Never Let Me Go, a very British affair even if directed by an American, took 7 months to cross the Atlantic (in the UK direction!)

In reply to Blue Straggler:


Might have been for the best if it had taken even longer imo

In reply to pebbles:

This is interesting, from Wikipedia. See Card's second decision, below, for his earlier script

In a 1998 interview, Orson Scott Card discussed the process of adapting the novel into a screenplay. "The first decision I made was not to pursue the Peter/Valentine subplot with the Internet, because that's just watching people type things into the computer. The second decision I made was to give that information about the surprise at the end from the start. In my script we know who Mazer Rackham really is and we know what is at stake as Ender plays his games. But Ender doesn't know, so I think the suspense is actually increased because the audience knows we're about the business of saving the world and that everything depends on this child not understanding that. We care all the more about whether he wins – and we worry that he might not want to. As we watch the adults struggle to get control of Ender, we pity him because of what's happening to him, but we want the adults to succeed. I think it makes for a much more complex and fascinating film than it would have been if I had tried to keep secrets."

Card submitted a screenplay to Warner Bros. in 2003, at which time David Benioff and D. B. Weiss were hired to collaborate a new script in consulation with the then-designated director Wolfgang Petersen. Four years later, Card wrote a new script not based on any previous ones, including his own.]

So who have been to see the movie?
I liked it, but was rather rushed, getting the whole book into 2 hours was always going to be hard.
Dap was downright annoying though.

In reply to Mikkel:
Yeh, i really enjoyed it too. surprisingly so. I do wish battle school was a bit longer. we only got to see him fight once for each time.

In reply to Bobling:
Im glad i saw it but really not very memorable

and yes, Dap was bloody irritating

now onto Gravity...

In reply to Mikkel:

Wasn't bad exactly, just a lot of clunkiness trying fit everything in. Would probably have needed to be 3 odd hours long and a 15 certificate to appease anyone who's read the book.

In reply to due:

yea the fight with Bonzo was a bit disapointing the way it ended.