Speculating about movies is kind of stupid. I find it more than just boring and relatively useless, but often it affects expectations so profoundly that the movie in question is no longer able to be taken in on its own terms, but on the terms of its marketing efforts as well as the breadth of anticipatory opinion and hope displayed throughout the internets.
It’s not something I find productive, although I see the appeal of generating momentum in viewers’ hearts and minds toward the release of a project that tons of people have worked really hard on. I do think, though, that the months, sometimes years of buildup to big movie events leads to the “best movie ever!” or “worst movie ever!” reactions that are more prominent and voiceable today. Big movies either live up to insane hype or disappoint high hopes.
Coming up in the next few months are movies like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Thor: The Dark World, big franchises serving up their latest installments. The appeal of franchises is that we more or less know what to expect from each offering, or at least are meant to think that we do. One of this fall’s wild card movies, though, seems to be Ender’s Game. I don’t know what to make of it, to be honest. For every promising aspect I see there’s something else that gives me pause. I try not to think about it, but I can’t help it.
Rather than speculate about what it’s going to be like, which would be unfruitful because (somewhat deliberately) I know so little, here are 10 questions that capture the conflicted feelings I have about Ender’s Game.
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