TV/Movies Megathread

[Scipio]

Her sister is the real heavy weight. Hyuk.

That's big of you.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Goonies!

[DontSayBanana]

Also saw Ender's Game tonight.  It was good, and I think the comment attributed to Card about it "being the best good people could do with a story they care about" is pretty close.

Graff and Rackham were slightly disappointing: [spoiler]In the book, their own clearer struggles with their methods really helped the reader actually consider whether the ends did in fact justify the means.  In the movie, they're both aggressive blowhards who don't even seem to see that there might be a problem until Ender screams at them after realizing that he's just committed genocide.[/spoiler]

[Ideologue]

Point 1: are spoiler tags necessary for Ender's Game?  I think we all know what happened, even those of us like me who've never read the book.

Point 2:  Assuming that Point 1 is invalid.  I'm trying to write up Ender's Game, and I don't think I liked it.  I'm having difficulty articulating why.  I mean, sure, obviously elements of the production are flawed; and I can clearly see that Ender is a [spoiler]Mary Sue Murderchrist, that Card is disparaging air war, and that the science fiction allegory overlay of human laws and morality onto an alien biology doesn't quite work--as far as was explained, the Formics/homosexuals actually are all valid targets who never unambiguously attempt to surrender.

But what I really, really, really don't like or get is why Graff is tormenting Ender in the first place.  Describing him as an "aggressive blowhard" seems like an understatement.  It seems entirely counterproductive, especially the physical competition and abuse that serves no obvious pedagogical, indoctrination or sorting function.  What I am sympathetic to is an argument, which I happened upon in an essay about the book.  The basic idea is that the abuse is a smokescreen used to make us feel sorry for him; I'll add that, in the film at least, it's also padding.

It's certainly, too, a terrible analogue to the lives of bomber crews, ICBM officers, and drone pilots, because he is denied the two qualities, besides being given the power and duty to inflict mass casualties, that make those jobs weird and unique, namely--compared to other soldiers--physical comfort and--compared to his targets--physical safety.

That he is denied moral culpability also is just icing on the bad allegory cake.[/spoiler]

Hm, I think I've managed to understand why I didn't like it.

[The Brain]

4 or 5 more edits, please.

[Ideologue]

4 or 5 more edits, please.

Don't dare me.

[Eddie Teach]

He's asking nicely.

[garbon]

I actually no nothing whatsoever about Ender's game. Also this whole changing clocks thing, and heat turning on in my building has me up early.

[katmai]

I actually no nothing whatsoever about Ender's game. Also this whole changing clocks thing, and heat turning on in my building has me up early.

Ditto, well at least the clocks and knowing nothing about Ender's Game.

[Ideologue]

Huh, I thought its plot was extraordinarily well known.  Fair enough, guess I erred correctly.

[The Brain]

Why would I know anything about Ender's Game?

[Ideologue]

How shall I put this delicately?  It's because you're all a bunch of nerds.

[Admiral Yi]

I know nothing about Ender's Game.

[Eddie Teach]

It should have been Peter's Game. I have oodles of empathy. 

[CountDeMoney]

You people are all adults, for fuck's sake.  Stop reading teenybopper sci-fi like you're on the school bus, all jacked up for AD&D Club that afternoon.  Berg's new bio on Woodrow Wilson is out.  Go read that.