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Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 11:48 am
by TPRJones
Ender's version of "doing it all himself" frequently involved turning a significant portion of his troops into fodder. He couldn't do shit without human shields.
That's the point, they knew that sort of thing would be necessary. They had too few ships that were too old to do the job that had to be done. How do you tell a nine-year-old that it's okay to get all these people killed because what they are doing is important enough to be worth it?
You don't. You pretend it's still training.
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 11:53 am
by Malcolm
How do you tell a nine-year-old that it's okay to get all these people killed because what they are doing is important enough to be worth it?
You don't. You pretend it's still training.
Even at the age of 9, I'd prefer to be given the full story and a choice. I would've pointed the DD right back at Earth and\or the Battle School.
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 2:44 pm
by GORDON
And if the Formics hadn't realized their mistake, or if they just hadn't given a shit, there would have been no home to return to. Those attacks fleets were a one-way trip due to relativity, the idea being that in a worst-case scenario, Formic Invasion Wave 3 and the International Fleet would unknowingly pass each other in interstellar space and wipe out each others' homeworlds. At least then the remote IF forces would have had captured Formic worlds to colonize. Actually, that isn't even worst case... that is the worst case that still leaves a few humans in the universe.
FYI, this isn't speculation, this is discussed in the books.
Point being, a 9-year-old you would probably turn back the fleet. I probably would have too, at 9. And it could have been a mistake that ended humanity.
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 2:59 pm
by Malcolm
I question humanity's worth.
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 3:06 pm
by GORDON
That's fine. But you don't get to make those kinds of decisions, fortunately, and they weren't going to leave the moral decisions in the hands of a child. They made the decision, and got a child to carry out the deed.
Edited By GORDON on 1368126479
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 3:15 pm
by Malcolm
Sounds like a group of completely ball-less individuals.
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 3:19 pm
by GORDON
Malcolm wrote:Sounds like a group of completely ball-less individuals.
That wasn't it at all. They knew that none of them were brilliant enough to pull it off, so they invented the Battle School to find someone brilliant enough.
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:51 pm
by GORDON
The commercial I just saw:
Graff: "We are fighting this war so we can end all future wars."
Graff: "We are going to their home planet."
The entire way through the book, there were very subtle hints, but everyone thought we were training because we thought the 3rd Bugger attack was incoming, and "We don't have much time." At the end, the big surprise was that we didn't have much time because our fleet launched 70 years ago, we were about to hit their home planets, and we ourselves were the "3rd Invasion." None of this was revealed until the last 30 pages, or so. It is a huge reveal.
And there are 2 lines right in the commercial that act like none of that reveal is even part of the story.
Ugh.
Edited By GORDON on 1382565112
Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 6:01 pm
by GORDON
I don't think "We are going to their home planet" was actually in the movie, even though it was in the commercial. Unless it was it was during a time when I was thinking about how badly I needed to pee.
They rushed through a lot. Battleschool, and Ender's rise, for one. Launchie for 4 minutes/Salamander Army for 5 minutes/commander of dragon/won 2 battles now off to "Command School." Again, I get they don't have time to fit it all in to a 114 minute movie... even what they did felt fast paced.
"Command School" is now on some faraway planet, and not in the asteroid belt? Major mistake. Val would have been 20-40 years old by the time he got there. And then Graff said, "We have to have you close to the fighters so you can communicate with them instantly by ansible." When, of course, the ansible allows for instantaneous communication no matter how far away you are with the other party. Just the speed of light and relativity issues with that change should have been obvious.... though I understand they wanted an entire planet, now, for Ender to find the new Queen. Adding all that came after would have added a lot more exposition and minutes to the runtime.
And, finally, Ender heading out without Val.... that will take away a lot from the sequels, if they have them. Val's writings moved the galaxy, and she could only do that if she were traveling with Ender for thousands of relative years.
All in all, good movie... I will be getting the blu ray.... but it could have been 20% less dumb.
Edited By GORDON on 1383536883
Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:37 pm
by Vince
Yeah, I thought they did a pretty good job with the film. Some of the changes I understand (the age thing and the time compression). Oddly, the one that bothered me the most was their faster than light travel getting to Command School. Even though it didn't make too big of a difference in the plot for this movie, the fact that we can't travel faster than light plays a huge role in the latter Ender stories.
Followed the book close enough, and other than the FTL travel had enough nods to the other books and the back story.
Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:20 pm
by GORDON
As far as I am concerned, the major mistakes are:
1. In the movie, we are the second invasion of their homeworld. In the book, Earth got hit twice, we thought the kids were training for the 3rd invasion, and in fact they were but then WE were the 3rd invasion on their systems. Making us get hit twice, first, removes some of the moral ambiguity hinted at in the movie... the book made no allusions to "maybe we can negotiate a peace" they hinted at in the movie. The book version makes it all the more tragic in that we just could not communicate with each other in time, and instead it makes it look like humans were being somewhat quick to vengeance, impetuous and warlike. Sometimes decisions can be made for all the right reasons and have terrible outcomes, the movie didn't need to dumb that down and simplify it.
2. No reason to not have "Command School" on Eros, in the Sol asteroid belt. They would only need another 90 seconds of exposition to later have Ender on the first colony world (Shakespeare) where he finds the Hive Queen. Also, this would have allowed for Valentine to meet him near Earth and begin traveling with him.
3. Valentine is not traveling with him, for whatever reason. I guess in sequels they can cheat and have Graff send Val after Ender a few months after he leaves, unbeknownst to Ender. That puts them in the same place at the same age. Graff certainly keeps his fingers in the pie for a few decades after the events of this movie.
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Addressing what TPR said about Peter in the other thread, I didn't feel like he had any kind of humanity in the (first) book that they skipped in the movie (he gets fleshed out in the Bean books). His humanity may have been there, just not from Ender's, and our, perspective. Even (in the book) when Peter came in the night and whispered to Ender that he loved him, even then we don't know if we can trust his sincerity. A deleted scene gives Peter another line that helps his character, but I guess that doesn't count.
Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:56 pm
by TPRJones
There is no single particular in which the movie is like the book. Every detail was completely changed. And I'm not trying to be nitpicky, the changes completely altered the tone and the meaning and the characters and their motivations. This bears as much resemblance to the book as the Star Trek reboot movies do to the original Star Trek TV series. Which is pretty much nothing but the names, and on those few occasions when it does have something similar come up it's twisted like it's been put through a funhouse mirror.
I could spend many pages going into details, but I won't. It's just too much.
That having been said I did enjoy it once I gave up on it being Ender's Game. It's a good movie. And as wrong as it was for the title, it wasn't a self-parodying tragedy shitstorm like Starship Troopers was.
I expect the general movie-going public was as confused as hell by the ending, though. 
+++
The thing about Peter is I don't recall him being wrathful in the book. His monstrosities were cold and calculating. He didn't rant and rave and carry on, he coldly dissected living squirrels in the woods and treated his little brother much the same. My main problem with his family, though, was that in the book Ender was the less intelligent of the bunch, like Sherlock being the less intelligent of the Holmes brothers. Even Ender's parents were smarter than him, although the kids never got to know about that because they hid it well. In the movie he was the smart one and the rest were - at best - slightly above average. Not that it mattered to the movie, but it's just one of the many many many ways in which the book was more nuanced and had a better story to tell.
Edited By TPRJones on 1392609491
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:13 pm
by Vince
Heh... I'm probably one of the only people on the planet that thought Starship Troopers was better as is than it would have been if they'd taken the book as written and put it on the screen. A good read as far as an awesome concept for a social structure. But it seemed like Heimlein wanted to come up with a story as a vehicle to get the social structure theory out there and did at best a mediocre job at that. The idea of his envisioned society was more interesting than the story.
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:19 pm
by TheCatt
Vince wrote:Heh... I'm probably one of the only people on the planet that thought Starship Troopers was better as is than it would have been if they'd taken the book as written and put it on the screen. A good read as far as an awesome concept for a social structure. But it seemed like Heimlein wanted to come up with a story as a vehicle to get the social structure theory out there and did at best a mediocre job at that. The idea of his envisioned society was more interesting than the story.
Agree on the book comments (have not seen the movie). There was not much to the plot of that book. It may as well have just cut out the story and been a treatise of some kind.
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 2:26 pm
by TPRJones
Well, yes, it was written by Heinlein.