18 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

I enjoyed the film but I hated the sympathetic ending. It ruined it for me. From Ender's perspective I would have been a little peeved knowing I orchestrated the annihilation of the enemy only it was disguised as a game (and caused the deaths of thousands of my own kind) but likewise, wrestled with that knowing that I had destroyed an enemy that had almost obliterated mankind.

Ender was portrayed as tough as nails yet he goes soft in the end. It doesn't add up. Great characters must be flawed to be realistic, but a radical paradigm shift like that? They happen... but it just well, it felt weak.

See, the problem is it completely overshadows the loss of human life and how expendable they were for the cause--in the movie at least; I have not read the book. But as a viewer, you're left thinking, "Hey, he's gonna save the alie--what?" instead of, "Man, what a doozy, all those folks are dead and he did it and had no idea he did."

Thus the humans were marginalized in the end.

[Mister Blastman]

Yeah. The ending seemed rushed. It was almost as if they spent their entire production budget on the first two thirds of the film, or three fourths and at the last minute said, "Oh, crap, we're outta cash and the studio won't give us any more!"

They could have done so much more with it which is sad because the rest of the film was great. It wasn't even a cutting room job, they just didn't have the money for more footage to shoot.

That is my theory, at least.

[Mister Blastman]

Ahhhh Event Horizon--I have seen that several times. Very few sci-fi films have that honor. I really like that movie for one reason or another. Waterworld was worth it just to see psycho Dennis Hopper in the end.

[Heffay]

Fantastic book. Haven't seen the movie. It's a shame Orson Scott Card turned out to be such a hateful loonie.

[Hex Pallett]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's pretty meh. Uninspired, to be more precise. I mean, kids saving the world (Neon Genesis Evangelion), hive-mind villain (pretty much a sci-fi trope now), plus the whole adolescence sci-fi power fantasy theme...it's not the worst out there, comparing to things like Divergent or Maze Runner which are just mass-market trash, but still, all just old bottle new wine to me.

The movie though specifically suffers from typical pacing problem that happens when they try to cram too much story into two hours.

[Bilbo]

If I hadn't read the books, the movie would have made no sense to me whatsoever. Even having read the books the movie was only so-so. It's one of those movies that, having seen it once, I'll never watch again.

[Hex Pallett]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2015 - 02:52 PM, said:

Either look and criticize the whole story in its entirety (which differs greatly from many other works except those that mooched off of it, like Evangelion), or just come out and say that every story ever is just uninspired mindlessness.

Okay, I got it the other way around and Ender's Game did a thing before everyone else, but still: child saving the world, protagonist being the little one in the family, some kind of motherly girlfriend-ish person, adolescence drama, not mentioning the over-arching theme of some kind of alien arch enemy looming over humanity and stuff...I've seen them all before and I don't like the mix of tropes, especially the adolescence drama part.

At this time it doesn't matter, at least to me, which writer did what first because having exposed in different degree on various sci-fi themes, Ender's Game no longer looks like anything new, just like how Brave New World or 1984 don't really have an effect on me. I can't root for the characters, I can't root for the premise...that's why I call it "uninspired".

On the other hand, I've just read the first two The Expanse books. The first one is noir and the second is more of a political thriller, and I like random elements thrown into a genre just for the **** of it. So that is fun.

[Mister Blastman]

Heffay, on 31 August 2015 - 02:03 PM, said:

Fantastic book. Haven't seen the movie. It's a shame Orson Scott Card turned out to be such a hateful loonie.

Hateful loonie?

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2015 - 04:37 PM, said:

It is far from uninspired. I think what you mean is: it requires a more specific audience. Uninspired is what Divergent is: a literal knock off of the Hunger Games... just without the games (so its purely just boring).

Hunger Games was a bad knockoff of Battle Royale.

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2015 - 04:39 PM, said:

Made some VERY offensive remarks about homosexuality and then he went on to borderline campaign against it.

Ah, didn't know that. Well he is Mormon and they have their beliefs. Don't really want to debate any of this here. It is a good way for us to find ourselves tossing nuclear weapons at one another.

Religions have a right to their beliefs, just like the atheists and agnostics to their own and I'll leave it at that. Next subject--back to the movie/book.

You really should watch Battle Royale.

[Hex Pallett]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2015 - 04:37 PM, said:

It is far from uninspired. I think what you mean is: it requires a more specific audience. Uninspired is what Divergent is: a literal knock off of the Hunger Games... just without the games (so its purely just boring).

Yup, I'm definitely not the target audience. I heard that apparently the bugger queen Ender acquires turns into some hot alien chick and I was like NOPE I'm off this boat. Btw I wouldn't even call Divergent "uninspired", it's just straight up trash. At least Hunger Games made some interesting twists from the Battle Royale template.

[Heffay]

Helmstif, on 31 August 2015 - 05:45 PM, said:

I heard that apparently the bugger queen Ender acquires turns into some hot alien chick and I was like NOPE I'm off this boat.

Nooo... that isn't at all what happens. Speaker for the Dead is also a fantastic book and worth stealing from a local bookstore to read. Or borrowing from the library, depending on the strength of your morals.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

The best scifi films I've seen recently are.

-Sunshine
-Interstellar
-Mad Max Fury Road
-Time Lapse
-The Maze Runner
-Justice League Flashpoint Paradox
-Guardians of the Galaxy
-Pacific Rim

I wish HBO, The CW Network or netflix had produced an Ender's Game mini series, rather than condensing everything into a single movie.

Edited by I Zeratul I, 31 August 2015 - 08:50 PM.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Marack Drock, on 31 August 2015 - 09:04 PM, said:

I couldn't stand Interstellar. So boring. Not enough plot for a movie that long... also it seemed to me in many cases they were ripping off 2001 a Space Odyssy.

I do think a miniseries for Ender's Game would have been awesome. They did that with Dune also on Syfy and that series was amazing.

I thought Interstellar was extremely good based on its themes. The concept of travelling in time and meeting people in an agebender way has been done a lot in Doctor Who. Cooper leaves when his daughter is a little girl and doesn't see her again until she's an old lady, much older than him. The idea of parents burying their sons/daughters is one old school moral argument to consequentialism made for war being unnatural. Interstellar kind of flips that in an interesting way.

Then there's the topic of faith. Dr. Mann pushes the button signaling he has found a planet suitable for human colonization because he lacks faith he will be saved. He tries to kill the crew that comes to rescue him because he lacks faith the human race can be saved. This seems to fly in the face of new age atheist perspectives, where they auto-assume faith is a bad thing and that having faith implies being deluded. In a way, Dr. Mann is like Richard Dawkins in space falling prey to irrationality due to himself lacking faith in things he can't prove. I love that the film seems to make an honest attempt to examine topics like faith, that type of honesty if becoming a rare thing.

The third theme that stuck with me is the question of whether or not people as a whole are responsible and intelligent enough to use modern technology without destroying ourselves in the process. Interstellar's perspective seems to be that unless humanity is helped by humans in the distant future who create a wormhole to save us from ourselves, we're pretty much screwed. We have a decent amount of science and knowledge. But the misuse of those things is the cause of global warming, acid rain, pollution and other negatives. It is possible we're not smart enough to use the technology or science that we have responsibly. That's another honest take on the subject that makes Interstellar awesome, that type of honesty is extremely rare.

The fourth theme that is cool involves time dilation and the sciency parts of the film. The giant wave on the first planet they travel to is supposed to be its tides pulled by the planet's close proxmity to the black hole's gravity. There actually could be decent explanations for everything that happens.

I like the David Lynch version of Dune the best. I know some people hate the sound weapons but I like it more than the canon genre's shield vs lasguns = nuclear explosions mechanics. Watching the movie feels like a journey or an adventure wheras the syfy version of Dune feels like a milder spacey version of game of thrones where things happen but there's no real theme or point to anything that happens.

[Mister Blastman]

Marack Drock, on 02 September 2015 - 04:59 AM, said:

And David Lynch's Dune was also my favorite and is actually what introduced me to the Dune series which as of today I now own complete. It's style was just perfect.

You should check out "Dune the Complete Saga." I watched it a month ago before it hit the major news sources. If you can still find it, it is worth a watch. It is a fan-made edit and splicing of all the versions of Dune done by David Lynch.

As far as Interstellar, I enjoyed it despite how many laws of physics it violated--not to mention time travel which I don't think is possible at all. Don't get me wrong, I love Doctor Who (I grew up watching Tom Baker), but Interstellar was marketed as more "hard science fiction" and when they screw up countless things like time dilation, propulsion (rocketry and then super anti-gravity motors?), time travel and more... well... I got frustrated.

As a writer, however, I can look beyond that because writers of fiction sometimes need to manipulate elements of the universe/story to tell a better tale. Nolan did this with his film, despite what I would consider Kip Thorne rolling over about (he was consulted).

What Interstellar did do was more important--it presented complex theoretical physics (and accepted physics) in a manner that most moviegoers could comprehend through hyperbole so it was perceptible. I liked that. I like seeing hard science fiction make it to the big screen, even if some artistic liberties are taken. I also like slow movies with drawn out plot and dialogue--so I had no issue sitting through the film.

But I enjoy art-house cinema. One of my favorites I saw this summer was a film called "Hardware." It is easily one of the greatest cyberpunk films ever made. Folks either love it or hate it--if you "get" it, it is a masterpiece.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 02 September 2015 - 07:58 AM.

[BigJimJack]

Mister Blastman, on 02 September 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

You should check out "Dune the Complete Saga." I watched it a month ago before it hit the major news sources. If you can still find it, it is worth a watch. It is a fan-made edit and splicing of all the versions of Dune done by David Lynch.

As far as Interstellar, I enjoyed it despite how many laws of physics it violated--not to mention time travel which I don't think is possible at all. Don't get me wrong, I love Doctor Who (I grew up watching Tom Baker), but Interstellar was marketed as more "hard science fiction" and when they screw up countless things like time dilation, propulsion (rocketry and then super anti-gravity motors?), time travel and more... well... I got frustrated.

As a writer, however, I can look beyond that because writers of fiction sometimes need to manipulate elements of the universe/story to tell a better tale. Nolan did this with his film, despite what I would consider Kip Thorne rolling over about (he was consulted).

What Interstellar did do was more important--it presented complex theoretical physics (and accepted physics) in a manner that most moviegoers could comprehend through hyperbole so it was perceptible. I liked that. I like seeing hard science fiction make it to the big screen, even if some artistic liberties are taken. I also like slow movies with drawn out plot and dialogue--so I had no issue sitting through the film.

But I enjoy art-house cinema. One of my favorites I saw this summer was a film called "Hardware." It is easily one of the greatest cyberpunk films ever made. Folks either love it or hate it--if you "get" it, it is a masterpiece.

Love me some Hardware!! Saw it in the theater when it first came out. I can't remember what works it was loosely based off of. Philip K. ****'s short story Second Variety maybe? M.A.R.K. 13 robot. Mark 13:20 "No flesh shall be spared" If you haven't seen it you must.

edit: wow so the author's last name was censored. nice.

Edited by BigJimJack, 09 September 2015 - 01:17 PM.

[topgun505]

I can see where you are coming from. But I would imagine the sudden realization you just committed genocide (for real, not just in a game) might cause just about anyone to question themselves and step out of their normal behavior. In his case he had the added doubt because the Formics (spelling?) were not even showing any indications that they were going to conduct another attack (even though they could have), so he wasn't as sure about their motives as his superiors were. Shrugs.

Mister Blastman, on 31 August 2015 - 11:40 AM, said:

I enjoyed the film but I hated the sympathetic ending. It ruined it for me. From Ender's perspective I would have been a little peeved knowing I orchestrated the annihilation of the enemy only it was disguised as a game (and caused the deaths of thousands of my own kind) but likewise, wrestled with that knowing that I had destroyed an enemy that had almost obliterated mankind.

Ender was portrayed as tough as nails yet he goes soft in the end. It doesn't add up. Great characters must be flawed to be realistic, but a radical paradigm shift like that? They happen... but it just well, it felt weak.

See, the problem is it completely overshadows the loss of human life and how expendable they were for the cause--in the movie at least; I have not read the book. But as a viewer, you're left thinking, "Hey, he's gonna save the alie--what?" instead of, "Man, what a doozy, all those folks are dead and he did it and had no idea he did."

Thus the humans were marginalized in the end.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

Mister Blastman, on 02 September 2015 - 07:58 AM, said:

As far as Interstellar, I enjoyed it despite how many laws of physics it violated

Neil deGrasse Tyson says Interstellar rates an "8 or 9 out of 10" in scientific authenticity.



Some of you need to explain to him how Insterstellar violates physics cuz he dont get it.

BigJimJack, on 09 September 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

Love me some Hardware!! Saw it in the theater when it first came out. I can't remember what works it was loosely based off of.

According to internet lore, Hardware was based loosely off of a Judge Dredd comic.

[Mister Blastman]

I Zeratul I, on 11 September 2015 - 03:55 PM, said:

Neil deGrasse Tyson says Interstellar rates an "8 or 9 out of 10" in scientific authenticity.



Some of you need to explain to him how Insterstellar violates physics cuz he dont get it.

Nah I've listened to what he has had to say about it. He's right and he proposes the general premise that Interstellar gets it right on "theme" and not numerical accuracy.

That's why Interstellar was a nice movie, regardless--because it exposes people to themes in physics and portrays them accurately with embellishment to illustrate the point--and that is okay in science fiction when used properly like in the movie in several instances.

That's Tyson's point--or at least, what I gathered from things I've read regarding the film and also how I see it.