Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[pukunui]

Ender's game has a lot to talk about, and that I've seen.

But none of these come close in size to HP, which has (I think multiple?) theme parks. Rowling's recent actions have also motivated a revisitation and more "I never liked that anyway" analyses.

One point of difference is that the full HP series got translated into movies, which then had a spin-off prequel series and computer games and so on.

The Ender's Game series got one movie, which wasn't all that well-received, and its sequels are pretty much unfilmable,* so there wasn't really any way for it to get bigger.


*Speaker for the Dead maybe, but it's hugely tonally different to its predecessor. Xenocide is too esoteric and racist. Children of the Mind veers away from sci-fi into "speculative" fiction that's far too out there for a mainstream movie. I'm not sure anyone would want to rewatch Ender's Game but with Bean as the main character, which is what Ender's Shadow is. Part of the issue of the series is that it embraces time dilation and relativity, so the second book involves Ender and his siblings as adults. It also draws heavily on Card's experience as a Mormon missionary in Brazil or wherever. The third book involves a planet populated by people descended from Japanese colonists. It is stated that Japanese people have a genetic predisposition toward OCD behavior. The colonists were deliberately bred to increase this trait to the point that their OCD transformed into religious-like rituals that they can't cope without. I remember finding it pretty offensive when the book first came out.

 

[trappedslider]

Weird. I see all of those things get pulled apart (in amounts reflecting their cultural relenance). HP is a touchstone for an entire generation (or two, depending where you draw that line) so it is unsurprising that it gets talked about a lot. Plus, the author is a bad person,which means people want to explore those elects by way of the work.

Maybe it's because I only see HP get pulled apart here and not the others, but I believe that's due to the author's views and this board's members.

 

[Ryujin]

Maybe it's because I only see HP get pulled apart here and not the others, but I believe that's due to the author's views and this board's members.

I would say that you're not wrong, but finding out that sort of thing about an author/actor/musician/artist makes you look to see if there are any deeper things revealed in their work, that you might have missed on first pass.

 

[gnarlygninja]

HP was getting dissected for years before JK Rowling started tweeting about trans people, people were arguing about both the goblins and SPEW when I was in high school.

 

[payn]

Enders game is just recycled Heinlein.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Enders game is just recycled Heinlein.

Minus the "elderly men should totally have lots of sex with young women left, right and center" stuff, I assume.

 

[Reynard]

Enders game is just recycled Heinlein.

I think Ender's Game is a really good book and interesting story. I like its prescience about influencers manipulating public opinion.

The author is a monster, though, so folks who wish to read it should find ways to do so that don't give him money.

 

[trappedslider]

I would say that you're not wrong, but finding out that sort of thing about an author/actor/musician/artist makes you look to see if there are any deeper things revealed in their work, that you might have missed on first pass.

H.P lovecraft gets a pass apparently because he's dead and his stuff is in the public domain but his works get brought up on here often and no one bats an eye or objects. As Spock once said "all things being equal" it wouldn't get brought up at all, but it's an unequal world we live in.

I also fully understand i'm engaging in whataboutism on this.Anyway, i think we've drifted enough from the topic of this thread.

HP was getting dissected for years before JK Rowling started tweeting about trans people, people were arguing about both the goblins and SPEW when I was in high school.

I was in middle school when the first book came out and the reaction then was "ahh witchcraft, ban the book!"

 

[trappedslider]

Terminator: Dark Fate is the second-best feature film in the franchise, and is the natural ending of the "trilogy" on every level. If it had been produced and published before the last three sequels, we would still be talking about how brilliant it was today.


Every iteration of the Terminator franchise-- every feature film, every book or comic, the TV series-- represents a different (and not necessarily consecutive) iteration of the Connor/Skynet timeloop. Discontinuities between them might not be intentional on the part of the filmmakers, but some of them are deliberate signposts to indicate the story is taking place in a different timeline than the others. There are an infinite-infinite number of iterations of this loop, but the only stable endstate of the conflict is a post-Judgment armistice between the machines and the Resistance.

Argee and the netflix anime Terminator Zero out right states that each time skynet/the resistance engages in time travel it creates a new time line/branch. There's a comic series in which due to skynet shenanigans it calls a truce between itself and the resistance to fight a bigger/worse threat.

 

[Reynard]

H.P lovecraft gets a pass apparently because he's dead and his stuff is in the public domain but his works get brought up on here often and no one bats an eye or objects. As Spock once said "all things being equal" it wouldn't get brought up at all, but it's an unequal world we live in.

I also fully understand i'm engaging in whataboutism on this.Anyway, i think we've drifted enough from the topic of this thread.

I think your memory or perception is selective in this regard. People call out Lovecraft's racism all the time here.