Waiting for the Ender

Via Slashdot, IGN is reporting more delays in the terminally gestating development of an adaptation of Orson Scott Card's science fiction classic, Ender's Game. Despite the new plan to (once again) use a script written by Card himself, I'm deeply suspicious of this film. Even with Card's guidance, this threatens to go horribly awry and become a Narnia sized mediocrity -- or worse.

Card's writing has remained good over the years, but not great, and certainly not the standard he set with the first three Ender books. And he doesn't always show the greatest cinematic judgement either. The movie was, for a long time, set to be directed by German epic-meister, Wolfgang Petersen, whose films continue to descend into bloviated pompousness. It's not widely disputed that Petersen's last film, Troy, was an ill-formed wreck, but when it was released, Card defended it.

Card has since shown better judgement, trumpeting Serenity as the example of what he felt Ender's Game should live up to. Serenity is a wonderful, spry little movie, but it worries me that Ender's Game should be thought of as "living up" to Serenity. Ender is a real classic, one of the best books about the struggles of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood I've ever read as well as one of the most thoughtful, human sf novels in the history of the genre. Matching Serenity would be acceptable, but it would be a step down from the novel.

Were Card and Warner Brothers -- the folks with the power over this film -- to read this, I suspect they would probably disagree. Philip K. Dick, in his bizarre meta-novel Valis, offers some useful words for matters such as these. Describing one of protagonist Horselover Fat's revelations, he writes:

1) Those who agree with you are insane.
2) Those who do not agree with you are in power.

True enough, I think.

Of course, Dick also claimed to have achieved a theophany via a pink laser beaming information into his head from space. So take his words as you will.