ENDER'S GAME (Gavin Hood, 2013)

[tabuno]

Both a cerebral and emotively deep sci fi action adventure about a boy who is selected to train for leadership over our world’s space fleet to invade an alien planet that seemingly threatens it. A powerfully captivating movie with a few technical weaknesses in terms of initial special effects, a short segment of plot discontinuity and unpersuasive character motivation.

Curiously enough Starship Troopers (1997) and Star Trek (2009) have similar parallels in plot outline and action sequences, yet with a huge difference. The dichotomy between even younger cadet students, the focus on younger, more pliable, but creative, out of the box minds and the older, aging generation of warriors offers a fascinating psychological and moralistic interplay. The emotive and deeper substantive emotive and philosophical, humanistic issues at play here provide a much more solid and meaningful foundation making this movie pertinent and relevant to a mass audience.

Three minor weaknesses appear in this movie that don't really diminish the overall impact of the quality of this movie: Below average set designs and special effects especially at the beginning of the movie, the less than convincing training of the Dragon Team, and less than emotionally compelling and appealing huge change of Ender's mind in the movie. However, there is a wonderfully interesting and strangely emotionally riveting shot of a world in transformation at the end of the movie that speaks powerfully, much more than a transformative planet scene from an earlier Star Trek movie.

Ender's persona is one of the most fascinating to be presented on screen and depending one's perspective this maudlin and politically correct movie or perceptively astute middle way movie that contains an especially sharp edge to both its violence and compassion, usually lacking in most action, adventure movies and reserved for theatrical dramas for the screen. When Orson Scott Card wrote the original novel upon which this movie was based in 1985, it was among the leading edge of sci fi and the fusion of creative ideas of space warfare and alien communication (or perhaps the “apparent” lack of it) taken from this book and incorporated into this movie remain fresh and excitingly potent.

There is a unique sci fi bench mark set in this movie in terms of sci fi psychology and the human psyche as The Matrix (1999) set in terms of virtual reality and Avatar (2009) and Inception (2010) in terms of visual effects or even Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) in terms of a revealing hard core sci fi alien plot element. Ender’s Game might be compared to the youthful version of Gerard Butler’s Gamers (2009), a hard-edged futuristic, high-tech, new wave sci fi movie, some resemblance to a less hard-hitting 2002 sci fi movie adapted from the classic juvenile book A Wrinkle In Time or a sci fi version of the parallel fantasy movies The Chronicles of Naria: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005) and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) which is also based on C.S. Lewis books which focus on deeper humanistic issues.

[cinemabon]

I appreciate your review, but I've no interest in seeing anything written by or connected to Orson Scott Card, and I believe the reasons are obvious to many in the sci-fi community and elsewhere who have turned their back on this homophobe. While he had tried to recant his previous ravings, he is still teaching at his Mormon-supported teaching post (Southern Virginia University is owned by the Mormon Church) and from what I understand is still promoting the extermination of homosexuals from American society. So I am not supporting this bigot or his work in any way, shape or form. And it doesn't matter what argument you present, my sources here in North Carolina who know the man also know he has not changed his views or his feelings toward the LGBT community.

You wrote a good review, Tab. But I'll have nothing to do with this or anything connected to Orson Scott Card.

[Chris Knipp]

It's good you brought this up, cinemabon, but I am not wholly in agreement with you. Of course I'm not keen on homophobia, but I oppose condemning any film, book, or other work sight unseen because of rumored or actual beliefs of its creator. .

I was going to note that he is a Mormon. Mormonism is by its nature homophobic. Not that there are not gay Mormons and I have known some. They are usually ex-Mormons. I note the often shrewd AV Club give this a B- and I would not eschew something merely because its author is a bigot (though of course I would not ignore that fact either), but at the moment I have other priorities.

Should one boycott ENDER'S GAME because the author of the source novel is homophobic? See this from The Verge: (http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/31/5051696/call-off-the-boycott-homophobic-author-orson-scott-card-isnt-making-money-enders-game)
Homophobic author Orson Scott Card won't be making money off Ender's Game ticket sales, reports The Wrap, meaning planned boycotts of the movie may be misguided.

Gay and lesbian activist groups angered by the author's public remarks against same-sex marriage have been calling for a boycott of the upcoming film. But the author's payout was arranged ten years ago, sources told the entertainment blog, and includes no "escalators," or bonuses tied to box office sales.

See the AV Club article (http://www.avclub.com/articles/enders-game-author-orson-scott-card-issues-plea-fo,99915/) "Ender's Game author Orson Scott Card issues plea for tolerance of his intolerance of gays"

Also see this item reported on Huffington Post: (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-mcgonnigal/enders-game-superman-and-anti-gay-bigotry_b_2672107.html)
DC Comics has hired one of the most openly homophobic science fiction writers out there to pen the new Superman digital comic. Orson Scott Card, author of the soon-to-be-released blockbuster movie Ender's Game, is not only anti-gay but unapologetically so.

Reviews as summarized by Metacritic (rating: 51) suggest this isn't a movie to rush out to see, in any case.

Wasn't Robert A. Heinlein pretty right-wing? That was one reason why my enthusiasm for reading science fiction faded as I got into my mid-teans. I loved Heinlein for a while.

[cinemabon]

Of all people, Chris, I would have never thought you'd feel this way. I'm actually shocked and surprised. You're not actually defending him, are you? I'd be speechless if you were. I have all the respect in the world for you, Chris - your art, your mastery of words, your keen perceptions into the art of cinema. But please don't justify the words of a known unapologetic bigot because he made a contribution to film. I wrote a scathing review of "Triumph of the Will" on this site because (part on its propaganda nature) of Leni Riefenstahl's anti-Semitic remarks made both at the time and after the war. She wholeheartedly supported the extermination of Jewish people. And, Card is on record for making some of the most damning statements I've ever read against gay men in particular.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course I abhor homophobia but I am also a supporter of the First Amendment. So I am compelled to defend Card's right to make homophobic statements, as the ACLU famously defended the Skokie Nazis. And speaking of Nazis, The Triumph of the Will is a masterpiece. Too bad, but it is. I'm not saying Ender's Game is, either in book or film form. That is highly doubtful. While you are certainly under no obligation to go and see this movie, I see no justification in boycotting it myself simply because the author of the book it's based on is a homophobe. But you have a right to express your opinion and boycott this movie. I have not heard that the movie contains homophobic ideas. There is some kind of guilt by association here that feels wrong to me. I don't think boycotting ENDER'S GAME will advance the cause of opposing homophobia, though you are not the only one who does. Personally though I think boycotting a movie one has not seen has an element of bigotry in it, in itself. This like boycotting a movie by Mel Gibson, or by William Friiedkin, whose movies people picketed against without having seen them. Would you boycott the music of Richard Wagner? They play it in Israel, despite Wagner's proto-Nazi sympathies, because Wagner is a great composer. The Met is having a big retrospective of the paintings of Balthus, even though he may have been a pedophile, because he was a great painter.

[tabuno]

All this talk about boycotts and pre-censorship of this movie, even though I live in Utah as a non-Mormon, is disconcerting because the substantive and rather finely crafted portrayal of the lead young boy character in this movie is being obscured and overlooked by this reverse bias and prejudice. I hadn't originally thought I'd be going to this movie, but due to money issues and the timely early Thursday preview release, I just decided to see what I remember vaguely reading the original book when it came out years ago. I'm glad I did see this movie, even with its few cinematic weaknesses. Wiggins character really shines in the behavioral approach to life issues. The movie really raises some important questions about prejudice and bias that the older generation carry over and how deceit and lies perpetrated by the establishment can psychologically traumatize young people.

[cinemabon]

Chris, you're not a lawyer, you're a film critic, so stop trying to talk like one. You don't have to try suicide to know its a bad thing. I'm not condemning a work of art without seeing it. I feel I am boycotting a work of art by an artist who is a bigot. Accusing me of bigotry is an outright lie and I am appalled you would do such a thing. I demand you retract that statement. (based on the email I received)

[Chris Knipp]

Cinemabon, I have great respect for your experience, knowledge, and views about film. I would never have called you a bigot. I am sure you are not one. My words were:
Personally though I think boycotting a movie one has not seen has an element of bigotry in it, in itself. But as I said, you have the right to do so. And I have a right to talk about rights without being a lawyer. Everyone does, not just lawyers.

As tabuno says, "All this talk about boycotts and pre-censorship of this movie" is irrelevant to it. I object to pre-censorship of anything - even a movie based on the work of a bigot. I'd have to see it first to know if it is in itself objectionable. tabuno does not think so.

[cinemabon]

Thank you. I agree. We are off topic. I don't support bigotry in any form, nor do I support the artists that expound those beliefs. Hate speech is a terrible thing. Whether a society is free or not is not supported by its endorsement of those who would justify their hatred through any outlet. Freedom of Speech is laudable. Freedom to call people names filled with vitriol and hatred is not one I support. You can't cry fire in a crowded theater, or so the Supreme Court ruled. And the freedom to harass, the freedom to belittle, the freedom to verbally abuse is not guaranteed.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes but you do not define what that means. See the ACLU-Skokie, IL Nazi Supreme Court appeal case where the state was denied the right to isssue an injunction against the National Socialist Party to march in a Jewish community, all except the right to brandish a swastika.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_ Skokie

[tabuno]

Chris was careful about not labeling a person and he didn't call anybody a bigot.

Cinemabon lives and practices his principles while many people only talk but don't live by them.

As for Mormons in Utah many seem to be Jack Mormons, living on the border of their professed faith, though I wonder if many of other faiths don't also.

[Johann]

Boycotting a movie without seeing it does have an element of bigotry to it.
I do it myself.
The question is whether or not the reason for the boycott is truly bigoted or "verbally abusive". It depends on the accused's intent, as always.
If you're not seeing a movie because you feel the creator(s) are an affront to your principles, then I can accept that.
But your principles had better have a backbone. Your principles shouldn't be ignorant of anything.
If they are, you will be called on it.

[cinemabon]

Please don't even imply that here, Johann, because that doesn't make sense - boycotting the film of a bigot makes you a bigot? Really?

[Johann]

No. Because it is not the film of a bigot. Chris already explained that.
Scott Card doesn't get a dime from this film and had nothing to do with it's creation, aside from the source material, which he doesn't own anymore.

[Johann]

You were open to Django Unchained cinemabon, when you made it VERY clear that you do not like Tarantino's brand of violence.
Why not be open to seeing Ender's Game? You may be surprised and like it. Or, you may have your suspicions confirmed and then you can let fly with vitriol. Delicious, well-deserved anti-homophobe vitriol.

That's the stuff writers are made.
:)