by Black, Jake
“Investment Counselor” (Short Story)
Year published: 1999
SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERS: Jane, Ender Wiggin, Valentine Wiggin
SPECIAL NOTES: Story first published in Far Horizons, an anthology of science fiction stories and novellas; republished in First Meetings in the Enderverse.
SYNOPSIS: Arriving at the planet Sorelledolce, Ender Wiggin, now an adult, wonders about his financial status. He tries to find his money through the bank on the planet but is denied. He discovers, however, that a sentient computer program named Jane has been managing his finances. With Jane’s help, Ender is able to stump an annoying tax collector and gain access to his money. This begins a relationship between Ender and Jane that will grow deeply intimate over the next several centuries of relativisitic space travel.
Speaker for the Dead (Novel)
Year published: 1986
SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERS: Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Jane, Human, Pipo, Libo
SPECIAL NOTES: Won presitigous Hugo and Nebula awards, making Orson Scott Card the only author to ever win both awards in back-to-back years, having won the previous year for Ender’s Game.
SYNOPSIS: Three thousand years after his defeat of the Formics, Ender Wiggin receives a call for a Speaker to the distant planet Lusitania. He travels there to Speak the death of a loved one of a little girl named Novinha. Though it feels like a matter of weeks to Ender, nearly thirty years pass for Novinha. She marries and has children by another man (her secret lover Libo), who also is killed. Her husband also died in this period. Novinha’s children had become the top scientists on the planet and worked very closely with the native life-forms, the pequeninos, who had killed a few humans (including Libo) over the years. Ender’s arrival sent the planet’s entire culture into chaos. He Spoke the deaths he’d come to Speak and began to believe this planet might make a suitable home for the last Formic Hive Queen, whom he’d carried with him for three millennia. Though she initially hated him, Novinha fell in love with Ender and the two were married. Ender worked with her children and the pequeninos, hopeful that new relationships between species could be achieved. It was Ender’s prayer that the pequeninos would stop killing humans and the Hive Queen could finally find sanctuary.
Xenocide (Novel)
Year published: 1991
SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERS: Ender Wiggin, Novinha, Miro, Jane, Han Qing jao, Si Wang-mu
SPECIAL NOTES: Created term “xenocide,” which is defined as an act of genocide toward an alien species.
SYNOPSIS: Ender Wiggin has lived on the planet Lusitania with his wife and her children for several years. The children are grown and are the top scientists on the planet, experts in the deadly virus the Descolada that threatens the world’s very existence. They have continued to work with the planet’s native life-forms, the pequeninos, to solve the mystery of the virus. Ender has also deposited the Formic Hive Queen, whom he carried for three millennia looking for a suitable home, with the hope that she and her race would again flourish. But when death and chaos ensue between the pequeninos and humans, the governing body of the galaxy, the Starways Congress, dispatches a fleet of ships to destroy Lusitania and to contain the virus. Ender’s wise sister, Valentine, with her husband and children, travels to Lusitania to help stop the invasion. Meanwhile, half a galaxy away, a girl on the Chinese planet Path, Qing-jao, believing she is a vessel for the gods, helps the fleet in their mission. Thanks to exposure from Ender’s sentient computer program, Jane, Qing-jao is stopped, and the source of her “gods” exposed. Qing-jao remains dogmatically faithful to her religious beliefs, ultimately dying and becoming a god herself.
Powered by thought, Jane and her colleagues experiment using Outspace to find a world where the people and pequeninos and Formics of Lusitania could go as the fleet approached. In Outspace, Ender creates new versions of his siblings, Peter and Valentine. They are young, and soulfully connected to Ender. They have adult wisdom, but teenaged bodies.
Ender’s wife Novinha wants to leave him, jealous of his relationship with Jane. The young versions of his siblings have a difficult time becoming a part of Lusitanian society, and the fleet is still coming.
Using Jane and the travel of Outspace, young Peter Wiggin crosses the galaxy, taking with him Si Wang-mu, a slave girl from Path, desperate to stop the destruction of Lusitania.
Children of the Mind (Novel)
Year published: 1996
SIGNIFICANT CHARACTERS: Ender Wiggin, Valentine Wiggin, Novinha, Plikt, Miro, Jane, Peter Wiggin II, Valentine Wiggin II, Si Wang-mu
SPECIAL NOTES: This book is notable for Ender’s death.
SYNOPSIS: Starways Congress, the galactic governing body, is going to destroy the planet Lusitania and all its inhabitants unless Ender Wiggin’s “son” Peter and his friend Si Wang-mu can convince the leaders otherwise. But they have already begun disassembling Jane, the sentient computer on whom their causes depend. Ender, meanwhile, is facing a crisis of his own. His wife Novinha has left him to join a monastery. Ender joins her, but his health is failing. He soon dies, leaving parts of his soul in his “children,” Peter and young Valentine. Jane is able to transfer herself into young Valentine’s body, with the pieces of Ender’s soul going to his son Peter entirely. Peter and Si Wang-mu are successful in changing Congress’s mind and protecting Lusitania. However, the fleet commander ignores the order to stand down. With Jane’s help, Peter and Si Wang-mu stop the fleet.
While this is all happening, Ender’s stepchildren discover the source of the deadly virus, the Descolada, and are able to eradicate it from Lusitania. However, they also visit the virus’s home planet and learn that it is actually a chemical weapon. They do not know if they will be able to free the galaxy from the Descolada, but they plan to try.
Peter and Si Wang-mu, as well as Jane/Valentine and Miro (Ender’s stepson), marry. They go off on their honeymoons, leaving Ender’s sister Valentine and his widow to reflect on all he gave the galaxy in his three thousand years of life.
ENDER’S TIME LINE
Time line created by Adam Spieckerman and Nathan Taylor for the Philotic Web website, www.philoticweb.net. Additional references courtesy of Philotic Web staffers Ami Chopine, David Tayman, Ethan Hurdus, and Stephen Sywak.
DESIGN: ANDREW LINDSAY
GETTING ENDER RIGHT
A Look at the Ender’s Game Screenplay Development
—BY AARON JOHNSTON
I once heard a story about Frank Capra, the renowned film director of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life, and other Hollywood classics. In an interview, a journalist asked Capra, How do you do it, Mr. Capra? What’s the secret to your success? Why are your films so moving? Why do people connect so deeply with them?
Capra’s response was long and eloquent. He described in great detail some of his many directorial tactics, including how to place the camera, direct actors, and so forth. No mention was given to the stories themselves or the writers who had written them.
The next day Capra found a large stack of blank papers bound like a screenplay sitting outside his office. A small note was attached to the pages written by one of Capra’s writers. It simply read: “Dear Frank, make something moving out of this!”
The point is obvious: Everything begins with the screenplay. The story is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Even the most talented of directors and actors can’t pull a moving performance from nothing. The script dictates all.
Sure, there are some actors who are so talented they can pull off poorly written dialogue and make it seem almost believable. But a screenplay is more than mere dialogue. A screenplay, like the movie born from it, is a story. And if the reader doesn’t care about the story, or worse, if the reader doesn’t care about the hero of the story, then the film does more than merely bore you—it annoys you.
Think about the last movie you watched in which the hero did something so stupid and so out of character that you lost all interest in the film. Or maybe the plo
t took such an unexpected and ridiculous turn, that you suddenly stopped caring about what happens next. Did you merely shrug your shoulders and leave the theater indifferently? No. If you’re like me, you got angry, and not solely because you just blew ten bucks on the movie ticket. No, you’re angry at the characters. You’re angry with the story.
And why?
Because when we go to the movies, we make a silent agreement with filmmakers. When the lights dim, we say, “Hey, I’m going to suspend disbelief for the next two hours, and I’m going to invest myself in this story. I’m going to offer up my emotions. I’m going to laugh when it’s funny, and I’m going to feel hurt and possibly even cry when it’s sad. I’m giving you a little bit of me, Mr. (or Mrs.) Filmmaker. And in return, I ask that you merely be true to the story, that if you establish rules, you abide by them. You don’t have to follow conventions. Good doesn’t always have to vanquish evil, so long as you’re being true to the story.”
The best filmmakers understand this. They keep their end of the bargain; they remain true to the story and don’t play tricks on us or jerk us around. They tell the story they promised to tell.
Think about The Princess Bride. How would you have reacted to the film if at the end, after investing yourself so emotionally into the story, the dashing Wesley dumped Buttercup for some barmaid and the two rode off into the sunset?
Or what about Rocky? How ticked off would you have been if, right before the final bout, Rocky decides he doesn’t want to box after all and would much rather study eighteenth-century Russian literature?
Extreme examples, yes, but you see my point. When we commit ourselves to a story, we expect the story and its characters to remain true to themselves.
In the case of Ender’s Game, or any other story that has a large fan base, the filmmaker has an even greater responsibility. He need not be exact in his adaptation, of course. Some changes must be made. No novel can appear exactly onscreen as it does on the page. But there does exist this level of expectation that the story be true to itself.
How would the world have reacted if Chris Columbus (the film director, not the explorer) had cast a twenty-something-year-old hunk to play Harry Potter in the first film instead of the adorably cute young Daniel Radcliffe? Or what if Columbus had made Harry out to be a selfish brat? Or a conceited little punk?
Well, I’ll tell you what would have happened: a massive global mob of preadolescents would have assembled and Chris Columbus would have been tortured into making a weepy painful apology.
No, we moviegoers expect the story to be true to itself. It need not be identical to the novel. We’re not looking for a carbon copy. But we are looking for the same story, the same hero, the same emotional experience we had when we read the story.
All of us have heard it said, “The movie isn’t as good as the book.” And that’s probably true in many cases. But inherent in that statement is the understanding that the two tell the same story, that one established an expectation for the other.
For Ender’s Game, the expectation is very high. Since its first publication in 1977, Ender’s Game has captured the imagination of millions of readers the world over. If you’re reading this book, I can only assume that you, like me, are one of them, a fan devoted to Ender’s Game. Which is to say you’ve probably read it more than once, recommended it to countless friends and family, and felt a touch of affection whenever you’ve spotted it in the bookstore, library, or hands of a stranger. In short, you love Ender’s Game. It holds a special place on your bookshelf as well as in your heart, and nothing would make you happier than to see its title projected onto a movie screen.
Your excitement would wane rather quickly, however, if after the opening credits rolled, the character of Ender appeared onscreen, not as the self-effacing genius commander you remembered him to be, but instead as a cocky bully who beats up Peter and Valentine for their lunch money. In fact, I’d wager that if that did happen, there would be riots in the theaters and once the fires broke out, everyone would be forced to use the emergency exits.
What was critical to the Ender’s Game movie development, therefore, was Ender himself. He was the story—his pain, his perseverance, his innocence, his understanding of command, his courage, his love for Valentine and his jeesh. All of that made Ender the endearing, memorable character he is. And it was clear to everyone involved in the initial film-development agreement that the Ender portrayed onscreen had to be the same character readers had fallen in love with in the novel. In short, the film would only work if Ender worked. The screenwriter had to nail Ender. Everything revolved around getting Ender right.
THE INFAMOUS OUTLINE
It was early 2003, and Orson Scott Card and I were sitting in the cramped Santa Monica offices of one of Hollywood’s more successful directors. We were there to discuss the first official draft of the Ender’s Game screenplay, which Scott Card had written and submitted for review. I was new to the project—having just joined Scott Card’s production company—and was thrilled with the prospect of seeing Ender’s Game come to life firsthand. The director, who was overseas scouting locations for his next big-budget film, had left the meeting in the hands of his young producing partner, Joe (names have been changed).
Joe had read the screenplay, but it was clear from the start of the meeting that he wasn’t pleased with the draft. From behind his desk he had asked Scott Card, “Why didn’t you follow the outline?”
The outline for the screen adaptation of Ender’s Game actually included two novels: Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. The executives at Warner Brothers, who had optioned all the Ender novels, had supposedly seen the outline and given their thumbs-up of approval. I would learn later from Scott that the producer (who we’ll still call Joe) had written the outline himself, even though he called it a collaboration with Orson Scott Card.
Scott was surprised by the producer’s question. He thought he had followed the outline—or at least as well as he thought was necessary. It was a process Scott had followed many times before as a novelist: you submit an outline to the publisher for a proposed novel; the publisher approves it; then you write the novel using the outline as a guide, not as a set-in-stone plan of action. To handcuff yourself to the outline would impede you from all the revelations and new ideas that are born during the writing process.
Take Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series, for example. Arthur Stuart, arguably the second most important character in the series, was never even part of the original outline. Scott created him on a whim while writing the novel, long after the publisher had seen and approved the outline. Had Scott been a strict adherent to the outline, ideas such as Arthur Stuart—and the, no doubt, thousands of other ideas like him that are now a part of the Scott Card universe—would have been promptly ignored and left off the page.
So it was with great confusion that Scott Card sat and listened to the producer’s mild reprimand. In Hollywood, Scott and I were learning, the world was a little different. When a producer asks you to follow his outline, he means to the letter.
What made this experience especially disappointing was that Joe was the gatekeeper to the studio. He was the one who, with the director’s approval, would carry the script to the studio executives at Warner Brothers to get financing and the coveted green light. So if Joe didn’t think the script was ready, Warner Brothers wouldn’t see the draft. They would have to wait for a rewrite.
Personally, I didn’t think the differences between Joe’s outline and Scott’s script were all that drastic. These were not huge deviations from the story or major shifts in plot or action. Scott was the original author, after all. It wasn’t like he was reinventing the novels; this was Ender’s Game as it had been originally told.
Yet from Joe’s perspective, the differences were major shifts. Scott had taken leaps of creative license that Joe hadn’t intended him to take.
When the meeting was over and Scott had agreed to do a rewrite, everyone’s stress level had tripled or more. We all pa
rted ways civilly, but the mood was somewhat tense.
I mention this experience, not to diminish your hopes that the Ender’s Game movie will ever be made, but rather to give you a glimpse of how difficult and delicate the process of moviemaking really is, particularly in the early stages of a film’s development when everyone is still trying to figure out how best to tell the story.
Too often when we think of filmmaking, we dwell on those activities that happen on set during production: managing the extras, moving the camera, coordinating a stunt, yelling “action,” all the fun stuff. Those are all critical pieces of the overall puzzle, yes, but much of moviemaking—perhaps the most difficult part of moviemaking—happens in meetings such as the one just described, behind closed doors, long before a single actor is cast or a single camera rolls.
Script development is especially dicey in the case of a big-budget film because so much money is on the line. Nowadays it’s not uncommon for summer or end-of-year movies to cost as much as 150 million dollars or more to produce. And in a studio’s mind, every one of these films is a huge financial risk; if moviegoers don’t come out in droves, studios could lose their shirts.
Take Carolco Studios, for instance. The name probably doesn’t ring a bell because their big-budget pirate movie Cutthroat Island sank at the box office back in the nineties, losing 82 million dollars when all was said and done and taking Carolco Studios down with it.