Ender's Game

[tazelbain]

That's kinda the whole point sci-fi. Contrived bullshit to explore situations that otherwise can't be.

[Ironwood]

Graff was NEVER EVER surprised that Ender did it.  He knew Ender would do it.  He wanted Ender to do it.

This is Enders MO - He destroys opponents.  It's made very explicitly clear.  Whether he understands it or not (and that's another bit of bullshit for another day) that's what he does.

[Samwise]

But yes.  In the movie, the powers that be of humanity felt it was "us or them".  Humanity didn't know once the alien queens discovered that each human was a separate thinking creature, they resolved to never attack humanity again.

Interestingly, the later books suggested at one point that the individual buggers were a little more intelligent than the queens let on they were.  

Especially when we see that it's so fucking easy to have mind to mind contact as long as you're THE CHOSEN ONE.

Welllp.... they way he explained that, the queens started building that "bridge" when Ender first showed up and they realized he was a threat, and they didn't manage to get it working well enough to communicate with him until after it was too late.  It wasn't ever portrayed as being easy.

[Merusk]

Which also then does raise a question that's never answered precisely in the original book about how the control systems that Ender's group are using actually work--are they orders translated by ansible to military commanders who have choices about whether to obey or not, or are they actually in some sense controlling the fleet semi-directly? Card can't spill the details because we're supposed to believe, like Ender, that this is one more training exercise.

IIRC this is covered in the book.  Ender bitches at one point in time about what bullshit it is that sometimes he'd give orders that his "drones" would ignore or would flub or react too slowly.  So while he had full command of doctrine individual leaders could still go rogue or break and/or panic.  I always imagined the Little Doctor was purely at Ender's control, though. A remote device built in to the flagship under his total control. 

[Samwise]

I always imagined the Little Doctor was purely at Ender's control, though. A remote device built in to the flagship under his total control. 

The way the MD Device worked IIRC was that every individual ship in the fleet was equipped with it, and to make it "go" you needed to have two ships on opposite sides of a large mass activate it to start the chain reaction that would wipe out everything until there wasn't enough mass available to keep it going.

[Ironwood]

But yes.  In the movie, the powers that be of humanity felt it was "us or them".  Humanity didn't know once the alien queens discovered that each human was a separate thinking creature, they resolved to never attack humanity again.

Interestingly, the later books suggested at one point that the individual buggers were a little more intelligent than the queens let on they were.  

Especially when we see that it's so fucking easy to have mind to mind contact as long as you're THE CHOSEN ONE.

Welllp.... they way he explained that, the queens started building that "bridge" when Ender first showed up and they realized he was a threat, and they didn't manage to get it working well enough to communicate with him until after it was too late.  It wasn't ever portrayed as being easy.

Yeah, yeah and it created Jane and blah blah fucking blah.

I can't do this anymore, I'm not 12.  It's just shite.

[Samwise]

Aren't you still tuning in for Doctor Who?

[Khaldun]

Completely agree that Graff pushed Ender to be the guy who would do whatever whatever. But it's not clear that he knows what whatever whatever is going to be in the end, either he or Mazer--they're pointing Ender at the problem and saying, "we just need you to be the guy who does whatever whatever". But given that they know that the fleet is equipped with something that can kill a planet, it would be fairly stupid if it didn't occur to them in advance that whatever whatever could include killing the shit out of all the bugs. Which does raise questions about the crazy contrivances of the plot. It kind of takes someone watching a movie that is semi-loyal to the book to ask, "Wait, so why is all this shit happening?" And no, that's not all SF.

[Ironwood]

Aren't you still tuning in for Doctor Who?

 

Not so much.  I'll give Capaldi a try, since he's a local boy.  I usually just google Coleman and watch the gifs.

[Venkman]

Finally had a flight long enough for this to make my list.

I thought most of the acting sucked but otherwise the movie wasn't a travesty. I don't remember the first book well enough to nitpick what they changed. I do think they established well enough that Ender was different from everyone else, even if most of it was hamfisted by cutscenes of people talking about how different he was 

So my only issue was in the acting (which I assume was in direction, not in talent)