I had a rare opportunity to watch a movie on its opening weekend. This adaptation of one of the best known science fiction novels/series had its successes and misses. I'm deliberately not saying "failures" because I think many were understandable. I'll start with some differences from the book and then mention some other spoilers further down.
If I was going to question something in the book it would be regarding the battle (in the spoilers below).
Overall, the movie did what was intended - it entertained. However, I don't see a sequel as a huge probability.
BOOK
The book had a more detailed side-story where Ender's siblings played a key role by creating fictional characters who debated the war. This set them up for gaining power back on Earth, which was Peter's goal all along. While it was interesting and led to Orson Scott Card branching off the Ender brand through them, including that could have overcomplicated the plot for this movie. It would have needed at least another hour.
This may be a bit of a spoiler but everybody knows there was an epic space battle in this movie. In the novel, when Ender was working through various final battle simulations it was interesting how in come battles, the human ships were decades old while in others, they were the latest technology. They didn't go into an explanation of the ships in the movie but they all looked same era.
Although it didn't have a lot of coverage, I liked the use of the game in the book.
As I recall from the book, there was a bit more character development with Bean also. He had more strategic importance than Petra, but I guess for a movie it was better to develop the female character. But in the book series, this story was retold from Bean's POV in Ender's Shadow. Petra's role in the movie battles was very different from what I remember in the book - see the spoilers for more on that.
One other interesting component for the novel was that Ender was groomed to be a hero, he was going to be a hero everyone feared. When the battle was over and humanity no longer had a common enemy, factions would fight for all of the battle school children, but none more than Ender.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
First. My reference to the varying ages of the ships. That was a clever way to show how humanity has actually been sending waves of ships to the alien's outposts and home world for years. By going near the speed of light, months seemed to pass for crews when years or decades passed.
Another clever, and subtle component was when Harrison Ford turns to the display that gives a warning of an approaching invasion fleet. They don't go back to it, but I thought it was odd (knowing that there was never an enemy fleet approaching). Then in the battle scene I realized that it was estimated time for the human fleet to reach the enemy world and fleets.
Bean and Petra. The movie didn't really do enough to develop Bean. In the books, he was being groomed to potentially take over if Ender couldn't finish. Bean was important enough to have a spinoff of the series.
Petra seemed to be developed in the movie as Ender's right hand person, but when they went to the actual battle, she ran one ship. Didn't it have a crew? She had enough importance to be transferred to Dragon Army and be part of Ender's final team, but then she just ran one ship that only had one chance to fight or shoot? It seems like the had her on the team just because she was Ender's girl friend. Seems a bit sexist and condescending to the character. Oh well. It was entertaining. I'm glad Ender found the queen at the end even though I'm not itching for a sequel.
Showing posts with label Book vs Movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book vs Movie. Show all posts
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Monday, July 4, 2011
Not Your Typical Transformers 3 Review. (I Hope) WARNING - SPOILERS
This is a blog about writers/writing, so I thought I'd add a little about differences between the movie (which I saw last night) and the book (which I read last week).
First, I have to say that, as a Star Trek fan, I loved the casting of Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Sentinel Prime. Old-school Transformer fans might remember Mr. Nimoy was also cast as the voice of Galvatron (a rebuilt Megatron) in the 1986 animated Transformer movie. Those who weren't sure about the voice of Sentinel should have had all doubts removed during one scene in Chicago as the space bridge is being prepared when Sentinel uses a comment that Kirk and Spock used in several Star Trek movies starting with STII: The Wrath of Khan, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." I can't help but wonder if Mr. Nimoy came up with that idea or if it was the writers.
Anyway, back to the point of the post. First, I found the movie fun, fast, and entertaining, but in no way was it Oscar-worthy. That's fine. I've seen Oscar winning movies that I thought were highly over-rated. The turning of Sentinel Prime was an interesting twist. When I first saw Sentinel in a preview, I had to ask myself why make his face look like it has a mustache. It obviously highlights that he's older than Optimus Prime, but they're robots - they don't grow facial hair. Same with Jetfire in Transformers 2. Why do they have to sound older? Maybe give them deeper and slower voices like you'd get from a toy when the batteries are getting low [chuckle to myself].
Another problem. Why is Megatron so messed up? In Transformers 2, Optimus ripped Starscream's arm off, and Starscream put it back on with no tools. Why couldn't the Decepticons get parts to fix Megatron after part of his face/head was blown off in Transformers 2? That was a bit annoying to me in the book and movie.
One of the big differences in the book was that the book had the Autobot Twins (the annoying little Autobots from Transformers 2). In the book, when Sentinel turns and kills Ironhide, he then turns his weapon on Bumblebee, but one of the twins sacrifices himself, jumping in the way and takes the blast, saving Bumblebee. The other twin goes absolutely balistic and attacks Sentinel. While he doesn't last long, the sheer fury of his attack buys Bumblebee time to escape. I understand why that wasn't in the movie. Too many people would probably have watched that scene and labeled Sentinel as a cinematic hero for offing those two despite his evil turn and rooted for him to win the day.
Another difference, while not as big, is Que - the old-looking Autobot who helped design weapons (assumingly named/nicknamed after the James Bond weapon/techie Q). In the book, it's Wheeljack. Surprisingly when I looked up the credits to confirm the name, the voice credits all say "Que/Wheeljack." I never heard the name Wheeljack being used in the movie or the name Que in the book. While Que was just gunned down in cold blood/lubricant, Wheeljack went down fighting. When the bridges went up in Chicago, Wheeljack went in the drink and was ambushed. He took out one of his attackers, but was quickly overwhelmed. The book also smartly pointed out that separating Wheeljack from the others and Prime from his trailer was deliberate - separate Autobots and humans from their best weapons.
When the space bridge control pillar is destroyed in the movie, it looks like Cybertron may have been destroyed - the book implies otherwise, that it's just sent back. The movie effect looked like it was sucked into a black hole (not at all as it seemed to appear beyond Earth).
Finally (biggest spoiler below). And this was a big twist. After Carly (in her only purpose-related scene) pisses off Megatron to get him into the fight by calling him Sentinel's bitch (great line), Optimus and Megatron do destroy Sentinel together, but Optimus never kills Megatron. In fact, Megatron tells Optimus he's tired of fighting and just wants to find a way home, to rebuild Cybertron without a conqueror's mentality. Optimus is skeptical but lets Megatron go warning that he could become a target of other Decepticons. Megatron seems willing to accept this risk. This could lead to interesting future book storylines. Following the book, Megatron could come back to Earth and ask Optimus for help. Optimus would obviously go (eventually) but always wary of a trap. Following the movie ending, it would just be another Decepticon. I'd prefer a following of the book's ending.
Overall, I found both to be fun and fast. I usually take twice as long to finish a book and need at least one bathroom break in a 2+ hour movie, so I'd say both are worth the time.
First, I have to say that, as a Star Trek fan, I loved the casting of Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Sentinel Prime. Old-school Transformer fans might remember Mr. Nimoy was also cast as the voice of Galvatron (a rebuilt Megatron) in the 1986 animated Transformer movie. Those who weren't sure about the voice of Sentinel should have had all doubts removed during one scene in Chicago as the space bridge is being prepared when Sentinel uses a comment that Kirk and Spock used in several Star Trek movies starting with STII: The Wrath of Khan, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." I can't help but wonder if Mr. Nimoy came up with that idea or if it was the writers.
Anyway, back to the point of the post. First, I found the movie fun, fast, and entertaining, but in no way was it Oscar-worthy. That's fine. I've seen Oscar winning movies that I thought were highly over-rated. The turning of Sentinel Prime was an interesting twist. When I first saw Sentinel in a preview, I had to ask myself why make his face look like it has a mustache. It obviously highlights that he's older than Optimus Prime, but they're robots - they don't grow facial hair. Same with Jetfire in Transformers 2. Why do they have to sound older? Maybe give them deeper and slower voices like you'd get from a toy when the batteries are getting low [chuckle to myself].
Another problem. Why is Megatron so messed up? In Transformers 2, Optimus ripped Starscream's arm off, and Starscream put it back on with no tools. Why couldn't the Decepticons get parts to fix Megatron after part of his face/head was blown off in Transformers 2? That was a bit annoying to me in the book and movie.
One of the big differences in the book was that the book had the Autobot Twins (the annoying little Autobots from Transformers 2). In the book, when Sentinel turns and kills Ironhide, he then turns his weapon on Bumblebee, but one of the twins sacrifices himself, jumping in the way and takes the blast, saving Bumblebee. The other twin goes absolutely balistic and attacks Sentinel. While he doesn't last long, the sheer fury of his attack buys Bumblebee time to escape. I understand why that wasn't in the movie. Too many people would probably have watched that scene and labeled Sentinel as a cinematic hero for offing those two despite his evil turn and rooted for him to win the day.
Another difference, while not as big, is Que - the old-looking Autobot who helped design weapons (assumingly named/nicknamed after the James Bond weapon/techie Q). In the book, it's Wheeljack. Surprisingly when I looked up the credits to confirm the name, the voice credits all say "Que/Wheeljack." I never heard the name Wheeljack being used in the movie or the name Que in the book. While Que was just gunned down in cold blood/lubricant, Wheeljack went down fighting. When the bridges went up in Chicago, Wheeljack went in the drink and was ambushed. He took out one of his attackers, but was quickly overwhelmed. The book also smartly pointed out that separating Wheeljack from the others and Prime from his trailer was deliberate - separate Autobots and humans from their best weapons.
When the space bridge control pillar is destroyed in the movie, it looks like Cybertron may have been destroyed - the book implies otherwise, that it's just sent back. The movie effect looked like it was sucked into a black hole (not at all as it seemed to appear beyond Earth).
Finally (biggest spoiler below). And this was a big twist. After Carly (in her only purpose-related scene) pisses off Megatron to get him into the fight by calling him Sentinel's bitch (great line), Optimus and Megatron do destroy Sentinel together, but Optimus never kills Megatron. In fact, Megatron tells Optimus he's tired of fighting and just wants to find a way home, to rebuild Cybertron without a conqueror's mentality. Optimus is skeptical but lets Megatron go warning that he could become a target of other Decepticons. Megatron seems willing to accept this risk. This could lead to interesting future book storylines. Following the book, Megatron could come back to Earth and ask Optimus for help. Optimus would obviously go (eventually) but always wary of a trap. Following the movie ending, it would just be another Decepticon. I'd prefer a following of the book's ending.
Overall, I found both to be fun and fast. I usually take twice as long to finish a book and need at least one bathroom break in a 2+ hour movie, so I'd say both are worth the time.
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