Orson Scott Card Reviews Everything 552
H_Fisher writes "Orson Scott Card, author of sci-fi classic Ender's Game and many other novels and stories, has posted his review of the much-discussed Joss Whedon film Serenity (which opened at #2 in the US box office this past weekend). Among other things, Card has this to say about Serenity: 'Those of you who know my work at all know about Ender's Game. I jealously protected the movie rights to Ender's Game so that it would not be filmed until it could be done right ... I'll tell you this right now: If Ender's Game can't be this kind of movie, and this good a movie, then I want it never to be made.'" With praise for Full House, Friends, Being John Malkovich, and Lost to boot.
If you are wondering (Score:5, Funny)
Serenity: 7
Ender's Game: 6
So it really is more about Serenity.
This is like. Most lousy. Review. (Score:4, Funny)
I don't know about you.
But. Writing sentences like these.
Makes reading the review. Like.
Riding a really, really bumpy vehicle. You know, car.
It's so sad.
I have a caveat. I thought Ender's Game is boring.
I mean, really boring. The ending was so blatantly obvious.
I knew what was going to happen half way through the book.
Chill dude. Go see the moview anyway.
Not so well-respected outside sci-fi (Score:2, Interesting)
He may write sci-fi well, but he's a vocal homophobe [about.com] in his non-fiction rants.
OSC -- Just say No (Score:3, Funny)
The later Ender Wiggins books, as well has his whole Alvin Maker series have serious credibility problems due to the proselytizing. He found Jesus, I found other authors.
As for this "review" of Serenity, OSC writes:
Re:well respected author in my book (Score:2, Informative)
For good Card-bashing, I'll point you to: Orson Scott Card Has Always Been an Asshat [kuro5hin.org]. It's a great read.
bashing muslims? (Score:3, Interesting)
Read his political page here [ornery.org].
Re:bashing muslims? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may have little to do with it.
But when a religious person discusses another, competing religion, it's fair to say that his religion has something to do with his views.
Re:well respected author in my book (Score:4, Insightful)
Does the world you live in have the same effect on you? The vast majority of the world is religious or has religious beliefs, so discounting or ignoring religion in any piece of literature is to ignore a fundamental foundation of society.
While Card inserts religious themes into lots of his works, it's not usually the overriding message or story (with exceptions).
--trb
Re:If you are wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw the whole thing before seeing the movie, and yeah, there's much of the movie that I can't imagine had the same impact if you hadn't seen the series as if you had.
But since you liked the movie, you might enjoy going back and watching the entire series.
Glad he liked it. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly what I thought, to the word.
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, OSC may have quite different political ideas than you. You may think he's a crappy writer. You may think he has bad breath.
But you (and the GP) didn't say any of those things. You said *he's insane*.
Now, think for a moment. You know how sometimes you hear about how what's wrong with America is how we demonize people who don't agree with us? About how far political discourse has fallen, because instead of talking about ideas, all we do is call each other names? About how the few voices of reason get drowned out by all the voices shrieking hate?
Well, now consider this: I bet, when you do, it never occurs to you that they're talking about *you*.
OSC's views are, as far as I can tell, well within conservative mainstream. You may *disagree* with them, but that doesn't mean they're extreme, or that he's "batshit insane." Calling them "batshit insane" doesn't say anything about OSC -- if anything, it tells us about *you*, and how seriously we should take anything you say.
Understand? I think gun control advocates, for example, are wrong and misguided. But I don't think they're "batshit insane."
My second thought, to the moderators: I just wanted to point out that you took a post that said, essentially, "Me too," and modded it INFORMATIVE. Nice.
- Alaska Jack
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:2)
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I also disagree with his point of view on the whole "Gay" marriage thing. My opinion differs, it doesn't however make me detest him as a person and I still read and enjoy his books. He is a Religious Family man and his views of the world stage are tinted by that fact. He beleives it is the role of our government to uphold some of his ideals. I think its the role of the governemnt to uphold some of mine too, they in someways differ form his, but it is what it is.
We even have a few incommon, for instance he believes that he has the right to rip music to MP3 just like I do.
Many people on the site do not even dig that far into the man however. They respect him as the writer of Ender's Game one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever published. They do not need or want to know anything more than that about him. And thats fine too!
The writer of Ender's Game likes Serenity...and thats good enough for them. I don't think this in anyway contributes to or shows any decay of the site.
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as Stilson and the other jerk he killed in self defense, they got justice -- even if you think their punishment was too harsh, they're definitely the guilty parties. This isn't the questionable morality found in a drunk driver's excuse for killing a bicyclist. It's not a matter of Ender's intent being used as an excuse -- even though it's the only way he can justify it to himself. The truth is that they chose to enter a battle to the death with him, fully expecting to kill him, rather than to be killed by him.
Sorry, theorize all you want, but Ender fails to be eqivelant in any way to Hitler.
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ender's Game may not be your favorite novel; in fact, you may not even like it.
The themes expressed, however, are important and compelling. Forget the strawman Hitler argument. How plain can the differences between Ender and Hitler be made? Ender committed atrocious acts with no knowledge of their effects. For Hitler, the same cannot be said...
Did you know that Ender's Game is on the Marine Corps' recommended reading list for Junior elisted personnel? At first glance, you might think it is because of the various strategic approaches that Ender is forced to employ, but that's just the surface.
The reality is that the underlying theme of the book, that intent makes makes all the difference in measuring good and evil, that an otherwise "good" person may be obligated to commit horrible deeds in the name of the greater good... That's the message that matters, because that's the position that our people in uniform have routinely found themselves in throughout our history.
Pacifism is the default posture for most people. There's not a person in the service that would prefer to be at war, rather than at peace. None of you would rather fight with someone rather than peacefully co-exist. Still, in the face of aggression, there comes a point where action must be taken, and that aggression must be checked.
The morality of intent is what allows people to do the terrible things that sometimes must be done in all of our names, and live with themselves afterward.
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually find that very very scary.
The reality is that the underlying theme of the book, that intent makes makes all the difference in measuring good and evil, that an otherwise "good" person may be obligated to commit horrible deeds in the name of the greater good... That's the message that matters, because that's the position that our people in uniform have routinely found themselves in throughou
Indeed! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Glad he liked it. (Score:3, Insightful)
While the (strained) comparisons between Ender and Hitler might be quasi-justifiable within the strict context of book 1, the other three Ender books go a long way in further establishing Ender's (adult) character, and in differentiating him from a genocidal sociopath like Hitler.
As much as I disagree with many of Card's religious and political views, I can't shake the feeling that the Ender/Hitler comparison is propaganda put together by people who
reevers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:reevers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Re:reevers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Still not sure how they manage to cooperate well enough to run big ships, though.
Re:reevers (Score:3, Interesting)
We do know they have at least some code/traditions they follow. In the first episode of the show, Serenity comes across a Reaver ship in deep space, and they take a chance: if they run, the Reavers "will have to follow. It's their way." If they they hold their course, the Reavers might choose to ignore
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Possibly for the same reason sharks don't, or (as a rule) other top predators don't. Like sharks, they might well turn on their own if they detect weakness, but otherwise it may not be worth the risk. (In one of the TV episodes, Serenity avoided a chance Reaver encounter by just continuing on, ignoring the Reaver ship -- if they'd run it would have triggered a chase. Although as it turned out, the Reaver apparently followed them to their destination.)
Reavers may
Re:reevers (Score:2)
In the movie, they stated the Reavers have only been in existence for 12 years. Not a significant need to propagate in that time span - thus there isn't an immediate need for 'baby reavers'
Re:reevers (Score:5, Informative)
If i remember correctly, the reavers have only been around for about 12 years at the time of the movie and there were about 3000 of them at the start. The lack of a propagation path isnt a real problem because they havent had time to die out yet.
The answer to how they propagate is actually explained in the series, though. They sometimes choose victims on their raids and torture them and make them watch their acts and participate in their acts until their minds snap. Then they start teaching them to be reavers. They dont breed. They make more reavers out of selected captives.
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Re:reevers (Score:2)
Presumably the Reavers are a self-solving problem in a few more decades -- they'll all have died out. Assuming, that is, that no more get created.
Re:reevers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:reevers (Score:3, Insightful)
* Book's background: Mal clearly didn't know it at the time of the movie, so it's not likely to be resolved except possibly through external reference.
* Simon going from prim and proper coward to in-person rescuer
Re:reevers (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess some people might view the following as a spoiler, and thus are forewarned.
In Firefly, an individual who was the sole survivor of a Reaver attack starts b
Re:reevers (Score:2, Interesting)
Well from how it was explained in the movie I think i cant take a shot at this.
The gas that was released into the atmosphere was supposed to surpress aggressive urges but was too effective. As a result all urges to do anything were suppressed (most likely because our urges to preform basic functions are driven by our darker reptilian/id/whatever part of the mind). Then one tenth of one percent of the population had an opposite reaction... They became hyper aggressive and thus all of those 'dark' (primitive)
Re:reevers - an explanation (Score:2)
Reavers probably don't reproduce well or take care of their children. Remember it's only been about a decade since their planet was poisoned. I imagine they would die off in 50 years or so.
How do they organize? They don't!
Why don't they eat each other? They probably do... But killing regular humans has got to be easier than killing other reavers which is probably why they bothered to get ships working to go on raids (after
Re:reevers (Score:5, Funny)
At the risk of attracting OTFC flames (Score:2, Funny)
Card had me at hello but lost me when he threw in the plug for 'Full House'.
Of course, I'm kidding. Great review written by someone who got the movie just like I did.
Re:At the risk of attracting OTFC flames (Score:2)
Now that the movie is out (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me ask again. Can we pleeeeeeeaaaaeeeaaaze take the serenity poll down and replace it with something else?
You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
However as a writer I have alot of respect for his work and his ability to tell an interesting and complex story. Enders Game and The Tales of Alvin Maker are great stories and series in and of themselves and I think it's nice to see someone who sticks to their guns for a change and won't let their movie be utterly butchered... like ULG's Wizard of Earthsea, that was so sad.
That is about the absolute best review I've ever seen for any movie and it's enough to make me go see the movie several days sooner than I had planned... I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie now.
Hopefully OSC can get someone to make Ender's Game the right way, hell I'd even settle for the Tales of Alvin Maker... (speaking of which there is an MMORPG coming out based on that-- same people who did A Tale in the Desert.)
Re:You know... (Score:2)
Like maybe Joss Whedon?
Ender's game is not great SF (Score:5, Interesting)
ender's game might make an okay movie, but then modern movies - especially SF - are not particularly known for being cerebral masterpieces.
There's much better SF out there than enders game. For instance, any of the known space stuff by Niven. Greg Bear. Asimov. Herbert. Clarke. Those are great SF writers. OSC is a novice hack by comparison. He can write decently enough, but his stories are shallow, he telegraphs events light-years off, and story development is as subtle as being clubbed over the head with a baseball bat.
i'd really much rather see a larry niven or greg bear movie than an osc one.
Re:Ender's game is not great SF (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention, he and his siblings are such geniuses and so above the mass of humanity that his brother is able to easily conquer the world by the sheer power of his intellect. It's heady stuff for a scholastically over-average kid who fancies himself smarter than his peers. That's why Ender's Game is popular, not because it has any value as SF. I wouldn't trust kids to understand the difference between the twisted world of the book and reality.
See this article from John Kessel [ncsu.edu] for more extended criticism among these lines.
Re:Ender's game is not great SF (Score:5, Insightful)
Several years ago, Slashdot's conversations about OSC were generally quite positive. Now you can guarantee that any OSC discussion will contain the following elements:
1) Ender's Game is a Nazi-loving revenge saga. This is a recent argument based on a particular review from an OSC critic. Disciples of this "received" idea now push it as gospel truth.
2) OSC is a homophobe because he disagrees with the gay lifestyle and with gay marriage, even after science has proven that these things are perfectly normal.
3) I hate OSC, but I still think his books are pretty good.
4) I used to love Ender's Game, but now that I'm older and smarter, I find that I hate it because it's actually quite shallow. People who still like it are nostalgics.
5) OSC is a crazy mormon (followed by a list of crazy things about mormonism). Usually followed up by a post redirecting the interested and "uneducated" reader to any number of anti-mormon sites.
6) General fear and loathing of OSC and his "political" ideals. This is followed by a good dose of anti-right-wing hate talk.
7) Posts from OSC apologists (hi!) interspersed throughout the discussion.
8) OSC is trying to brainwash us with his books and I resent it.
Anyone can say that OSC is a novice hack. Well, I've read several of those other SF novelists mentioned in the parent post, whose books I also enjoy. I find that, lacking the anti-OSC bigotry, it is difficult for me to categorize OSC as a novice hack. Ender's Game is an award winning SF novel and was once quite well-regarded by those very deeply interested in the genre.
I find that OSC is quite outspoken, but nowhere near the bigot that his critics are.
Re:Ender's game is not great SF (Score:3, Insightful)
Links for the lazy like me (Score:4, Informative)
Personality critique at Kuro Five Hin [kuro5hin.org]
Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:5, Insightful)
One Word: (Score:2)
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:2)
Depending on how contracts were written, another network may be able to pick it up. Sci-Fi acquired SG1 at some point from Showtime. Sci-Fi has been hyping the movie by replaying the cancelled series, as well as extensive Serenity commercials throughout. I wouldn't be surprised if they were interested in it to some degree. You stick a reunited Firefly next to Battlestar Galactica on Friday nights and Sci-Fi network has a seriously strong evening
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Serenity is a movie with a $40 million budget (which means that its advertising budget was probably around $20-25 million) - this means that they spent $60-65 million on a film that earned $10 million its opening weekend.
Y
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:2)
You have a point, but it does seem that someone should be in trouble for obviously botching the promotion and scheduling of a show that has shown potential for a significant fanbase.
this means that they spent $60-65 million on a film that earned $10 million its opening weekend.
Opening at $10 million at the number two spot doesn't seem all that bad to me. Beat out Corpse Bride which I'm sure had a much bigger budget th
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefly had the misfortune of being released at a very odd time for TV, where shows were commonly cancelled after even a few episodes failed to attract mainstream attention. This was during the "reality TV" fad and was a common fate for shows at the time.
Studio execs have now realized that it takes time for a series to develop an audience, and a good show will do well in DVD sales even if the viewing audience is relatively small. As a result we are seeing more interesting and nuanced shows, with much less "reality TV" game shows.
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine if they showed Desperate Housewives or Lost in the order they showed Firefly.
Re:Whoa.. so when's it coming back to TV then? (Score:5, Informative)
Similar sentiments to Terry Pratchett (Score:3, Interesting)
I read Ender's Game about 10 years ago and thought it was brilliant and very dark. The political side of the story is the real meat and potatoes, but that's usually the first thing that gets cut when making a movie, as producers are more interested in what Ender Wiggin is doing, not why.
It was not a bad movie... (Score:3, Interesting)
The camera work, for instance, left a lot on the table. I think Joss Whedon does a pretty good job directing TV, giving it a somewhat cinematic feel, but those same techniques applied to the big screen seem to leave it with a TV feel.
Plus, all the backstory required to cover 12 episodes of a TV show is very tough to do in a movie, and impossible if you want to leave any room at all to tell a story with the rest of the movie. The movie suffers some from this.
It's still easily the best movie I've seen this year, but if the next two happen ($10 million at the box office doesn't make that look likely...) I hope they grab a different director, and fortunately the backstory won't be an issue.
-F
Re:It was not a bad movie... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It was not a bad movie... (Score:4, Insightful)
The main reason is that the camera wasn't afraid of holding a shot for a long time in a battle sequence. Since Gladiator, every big budget film has felt the need to feel 'gritty' by playing with framerates, shaking the hell out of the camera and flitting between viewpoints like mad. It has been making things all but unwatchable. I "watched" half of the Bourne Supremacy without looking at the screen simply because they wouldn't hold a shot long enough to let you get your bearings and would shake the hell out of it just to keep things edgy.
Sure Joss is a huge fan of the two-camera over-the-shoulder dialog sequences, but the simple camera work in that case is effective and does not distract from the dialog, which is his real strong suit.
Re:Just like Star Trek? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to make money, you cater to your audience who mostly didn't know much. I loved the movie and have never seen a Firefly episode in its entirety. My guess is it does OK but not great at the box office but sells DVD's like nobody's business.
So we wants Ender's Game to by like this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Although Wil Wheaton would be an amusing surprise. How 'bout it, CleverNickname?
Interesting story: in the mid-third-season climax of Babylon 5, arguably the high point of the entire series, Joe Straczynski needed to cast an XO to've taken command of the lead rebel cruiser after its captain was killed in action. It was really critical role, intensely pivotal to the way the whole series turned, and JMS wrote the part specifically for a certain actor fo whom he'd long been a fan. He told his casting
Re:So we wants Ender's Game to by like this. (Score:2)
Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the show? (Score:2)
OTOH most people were pre
Re:Anybody here has seen the movie but NOT the sho (Score:5, Interesting)
There were moments that I thought "Huh. I bet that's really a big deal if you're a fan of the series," but they didn't slow the movie down. You sympathized with characters in the movie because of their actions in the movie, not because of the series (which I haven't seen).
I will admit I walked out and put Firefly on my Netflix Queue as soon as I got home.
Card's Review was dead-On (Score:3, Insightful)
I loved Serenity, it was a great movie, its about the story, take it for what its the story and what the story is saying. Is it high cinema, NO it not goona win any awards for its camera work. Thats what card is saying too, its about the story and the characters in the story. I also agress if Ender's game can't be made at least this good, then its not worth making.
I am sure that one of the many K5 cross overs will undoubtedly meantion the "Card is an Asshat" Story overthere...Personally I like the guy who wrote it for is fiction, but take is review of Card with a pound of Salt if you like over there and read it....
Intriguing. (Score:2, Interesting)
I never saw Firefly, but Ender's Game is one of my all-time favorite books. The trailers for Serenity haven't done much to get me interested in seeing it, nor has the marketing blitz they've tried to shove down my Tivo. Either the marketroids who put together the trailers are totally incompetent (quite likely), or else I might just end up disagreeing with OSC on this one (also likely.)
Either way, now I'm interested enough to find out more.
Re:Intriguing. (Score:2)
So, do yourself a favour and watch the DVD set first.
2 episodes a day for a week, then see the movie.
I thought the series rather ho-key, but I had my tivo record episodes anyway when 'Space' channel ran them (Canadian channel, sci-fi theme). Thankfully they like to run them in-order, and the complete set, includin
We hear ya screaming (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a fairly good outlook. As a fan of a lot of various fiction that I see get butchered in film I cringe everytime something comes around that I truely love only to find that it's either watered down or that the director/writers seem to have lost the original vision of the writing.
Take Lovecraft for example. Being very fond of the old gents work (obviously), I hate the crap that has his name associated with that is rarely more than a slasher film. I can appreciate the humor of Yanza's Re-Animator but the number of people who I encounter who think that somehow HPLs original work is anywhere on the same level of this film makes me fear for the future of Lovecraft's standing in the horror community. The Resurrected (based on the case of charles dexter ward), on the other hand, is a fine adaptation but still the original work is vastly superior. I still think (hope?) the film retains enough of Lovecraft's original vision to spur interested viewers into the works of HPL without being disappointed.
With the adaptation of American McGee's Alice I am fearful of what will happen. I love the game, I love McGee's vision but I really do not see how this is going to translate into a film.
I swear to God I will have a stroke on the day that Niven's Dream Park (or any other Niven work really) gets turned into a film. There is far too much going on there to make it a workable movie.
Strange choice... (Score:5, Funny)
A reality check (Score:3, Insightful)
Just a warning but it only did $10.1 million of business against no real competition in a Hollywood dead period. So folks better fill the seats and get the word out or this franchise will pull a Hindenburg. The two major Hollywood seasons are Memorial Day to Labor Day (the Summer Blockbuster months) and Thanksgiving to the Oscars (where Academy Award winners and big holiday films are given a big push. Before Jaws this was the only money period in cinema). September just up to Thanksgiving is a dead period: Hollywood release B features, also rans and things that have been rotting on the shelves. Of course this lack of competition has lead to a surprise breakout every few years and if Serenity can get a good word of mouth campaign to keep up interest then it'll stay solvent.
Orson Scott Card, personal idol (Score:2)
He's also one of the few people who's opinion I trust pretty much emphatically, if he says something is "quality" I'm willing to try it out (of course factoring in his critism),
An experiment (Score:2)
But this movie didn't really have any marketing, it was depending mostly on word of mouth from fans for people to see it. The movie was a gift to the diehard fans from Joss, made possible by the movie studio on the hope that open a new type of moviemaking (AKA a new revenue stream). Having is do great in movie theaters would be an ackn
Ender's Game movie already in the works... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ender's Game [imdb.com] is slated for 2007, directed by Wolfgang Peterson [imdb.com] and with a screenplay by Michael Dougherty [imdb.com]. The IMDB report on the movie provides very little information, except that it was certainly in the works before the Serenity movie was publicized.
Dougherty doesn't have any high-quality screenplays under his belt (just X2, which was a fun movie, but not the greatest screenplay, and I would think Card agrees) ... does Card retain enough control to carry through with the above claim?
Full House? (Score:2, Insightful)
Plot and charaters over sci-fi... good! (Score:2)
But I have seen all of firefly and read all the Ender books (including the second set of books). What I noted as important in the interview is that the focus is not on the sci-fi, but on the characters/community.
When I first read Enders Game, many years ago, I really liked it because the sci-fi parts was just background to a really good plot encircling the character Ender. There are a lot of good sci-fi b
OSC doesn't really like Sci-Fi (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with sci-fi movies may be the lack of real drama and relationships, but that doesn't make movies which excel on those two points any more sci-fi.
Serenity is a failure (Score:3, Interesting)
I feel that some ideas were interesting, like the idea of "what happens if people are made ultra-docile?" and so on. However, this interesting idea took all of about 10-20 mins in the movie. The fights with the reavers (or whatever they're called) took 90% of the time, but content having to do with reaver's background took about 10% of the movie time. As a result, reavers are like stupid zombies that mindlessly attack things and I feel nothing, neither for them nor for the people they slay, simply because the situation is so absurd and nonsensical to me.
In short, Serenity may be a good movie-length feature for those who have seen Firefly, but it sucks badly as a stand-alone movie.
Serenity NOW! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why should you care for River? Well, I'm not sure you really should until later in the film. That uncertainty about whether she's a sympathetic person or an impersonal weapon carries the tension for the first part of the movie. The Reivers I thought were a great "force of nature" villain - impersonal, mysterious, and scary as hell.
I think most sci-fi fans will enjoy this mov
Hollywood's Attension Deficit Disorder (Score:3, Interesting)
Fox wanted not to just broadcast Firefly, they wanted to manipulate it to pander to their low perception of their audiences' values. Fox failed to appreciate what they really had and they canned it. So if something this good is unavailable on television, especially if it is not available on Fox; well, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Fans of the show assembled an absolutely unprecedented response, one greater than all of their predecessors, to raise the funds, take the ads out in Variety and they rook it to the web. Why did they do it? It's just like OSC said; they cared about the characters.
And who was the one person in all of Hollywood who didn't snooze through it? Chalk that one up to Mary Parent.
Now failure for this kind of project is always an option, don't get me wrong, but after all, this was and is a risky business.
So what actually did happen? Well they re-assembled cast & crew and conceived a fine, hand crafted and heart felt movie.
The decision to share the movie with friends and fans was also a huge risk. But the word of mouth was good and there were no spoilers. Because the fans 'Believed.' Belief's a funny thing. Maybe Hollywood should take a lesson from that one single point, as it alone will be responsible for the success of Serenity.
Orson Scott Card's Secret Plan (Score:3)
2. Put on secret magic underpants.
3. ????
4. Profit!
Read Maps in a Mirror (Score:5, Insightful)
diverse) get his short story anthology Maps in a Mirror.
It's also annotated, so it gives you a great peek into
his mind and how/why he writes certain stories. That
really shows off the brilliance of OSC as a writer.
Also, if you are or want to be a writer yourself (rather
than a typical
from OSC. His book on how to write SciFi is the best
on that topic. He also provides a lot of help for
writers on his website.
Really, what makes OSC great is perhaps not any particular
work, but rather his grasp of people, and that great
stories must be about the characters. Otherwise all you
have is a literary carchase and explosions, just special
effects with no meat.
Oh, and if the Full House thing at the end of the review
puzzles you, then you just haven't read enough of his
reviews to understand his sense of humor, or that he
is a devoted parent and thus sometimes cares about things
that may seem quite corny to adults.
I liked it, but not the others. (Score:2)
But then he got into FTL.
And an artificially intelligent (and emotional) Internet.
And living images of people only sustained by the thoughts of their creator.
Let's toss in some obsessive compulsive references.
And now we have instantanious travel.
Taken as itself, Ender's Game was a really good book.
Taken as a whole, the series is a good example of bad "Sci-Fi".
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:2)
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:2)
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:2)
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:2, Insightful)
However, a good portion of his work is exceptional. Ender's Game really is a must read, even if the man enjoyed Friends, or thinks the gays will destroy society, or whatever it is he's going on about now.
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:2)
Enders game is one of the best sci-fi books ever written. Most sci-fi is based on some fancy piece of tech, and rarely on a good story. This is not the case with Enders Game, here you have a really good story, that actually puts the sci-fi and tech parts into the background.
Of cause this is my opinion, but I have recomended this book to all my friends. And I do read a lot of sci-fi.
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like most, the first book of his I read was Ender's Game. It isn't a bad book. But it isn't great, either. Everything in it has been done before, by better writers. Its popularity is due mostly to the "heroic geeky kid beats the adults and saves the world" theme, much like Harry Potter. The other couple books of his I've read seem pretty much the same.
Like I said, it's not really bad. I've got dozens of science fiction books on my shelves churned out by various writers that may not be great literature, but are still a fun afternoon read. Ender's Game should be one of them.
However, in the introduction to Ender's Game, he pretty much claimed to have invented the idea of wargames in the future. This "review" is pretty much just an excuse to talk about how great his book could be if made into a movie. This kind of nonsense leaves me with something of a bad taste in my mouth.
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never met the man, so I can't address that specifically. However, any author whose first novel wins both the Hugo and Nebula awards -- and then goes on to do that again the very next year with the sequel (Speaker for the Dead), certainly has a right to at least some of that ego.
Re:Respect? nope gone.. (Score:4, Insightful)
1.) "Orson Scott Card is a great writer. Too bad he's such a nut."
2.) "I used to love Orson Scott Card until I read some of his political essays. Now I refuse to read anything he writes."
3.) "Orson Scott Card is overrated. I've never thought he was any good. No, really!"
Frankly, it's tiresome, and it's rare to find anyone who will take on his point of view with a real argument before dismissing him outright. The essay about "Innocent Genocide" that's floating around this discussion is an unusually intelligent exception, and even that spends its time trying to prove that Card is saying something specific without refuting it in any meaningful way. It's taken as a given that once Card's "true" meaning is known, the reader will automatically reject that meaning as false or dangerous.
Personally, I think Harlan Ellison is a horse's ass, but I don't pop up in
What, you say he's a Sci Fi Writer? (Score:4, Interesting)
For whatever reason I've had five or six personal run-ins with mid-tier science fiction and fantasy authors. They've all fit your description: okay writers with colossal egos.
One example sent in a bombastic resume for a position we were hiring for. He asked for roughly twice the going market rate on the long-term contract, and his cover letter was two-plus pages of wildly arrogant justification for that. We all sat around reading it aloud and laughing, which was kind of low-class, but it was that unintentionally funny. Perhaps as a consequence of the unvarnished ego represented, he had also failed to edit it with any especial care.
That same guy shows up around the city I work in giving flambuoyant courses on the handling of concealed weapons.
Maybe the trials of getting published just select for people with more-than-healthy egos... But you know, I worked in book stores for a while, and then in a small publishing house, and other genres of book did not seem to be exclusively written by maladjusted ego cases. (Other genres didn't seem to be written almost exclusively by far-right-wing types, either.)
Re:Author of Ender's Game. (Score:2)
That other stuff's cool, but lighting your genitals on fire is likely to be fairly nasty. Just use a blowtorch, it's probably quicker.
Re:Random question (Score:2)
Anyway, the reason that you get poor to average movies out of great books is because great books are great due to their complexity. You can't slip that into 110 minutes. I never realized how awful moview were until I started listening to books on tape (long commute...thankfully no longer necessary). Once you've realized that a 20 hour performance simply can't be compressed into a two hour flick, you un
Because it makes the authors scads of money (Score:2)
The movie rights for a book are by far the biggest source of money for any book that can sell them. Authors give up "creative control" and those rights get moved around quite a bit, usually, before anything is made. Meanwhile it's a nice source of income, and as the rights bounce from spot to spot they get sold and re-sold, and the author's intentions drift further from the minds of whoever owns the rights.
I believe my relation's bo
Re:How is "Being John Malkovich" scifi? (Score:2)
His overall point is well taken though, Kaufman is an amazing writer. If you haven't seen "Eternal Sunshine", watch it. His other major motion picture "Adaptation" is also excellent, although not sci-fi at all.
Re:I was with him... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are no aliens. (Score:4, Funny)
One of your crack-induced hallucinations.