Topical!

[theweaselking]

Because "None Of It Was Hitler's Fault: In Space" is hitting theatres soon, and the professional bigot and open advocate of genocide who wrote it is screaming about how it's totally unfair to treat him the way he treats other people.

Comments

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

ALSO topical! Ow, that was so sharp that I think it could decapitate people.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

"...political issues that did not exist when the book was written in 1984."

I can't believe he said that. I actually followed the link to the non-Onion source, and I still cannot believe he said that.

(For the ever-bleeding love of... 1984 wasn't even before Before Stonewall, let alone before Stonewall, let alone... argh!)

(ETA: that said, my first thought on looking at the comic was "actually, I've seen it pointed out that when you abuse a kid enough, you can actually get them to behave in a very restrained fashion," and I am even less inclined to go see the movie now. Bleh.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Gay people didn't exist until Reagan spoke publicly about AIDS. That's a fact. REAGAN CAUSED GAY PEOPLE.

[fatpie42.livejournal.com]

Obviously the writer is a complete douchebag and boycotting the movie adaptation is completely fair.

That being said, I feel I need to point out that the fighter's were not receiving voice commands (if I remember correctly). The gist seemed to be that kids are really good at videogames, so perhaps they can win wars with them? Come to think of it, isn't "Ender's Game" basically a retelling of "The Last Starfighter" only with children?

[thornae.livejournal.com]

... so, a retelling of "The Last Starfighter," then?


(Okay, so Alex was technically no longer a child... but my gods, that film is pure loner geek childhood wish fulfillment. And I love every second of it.)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was ever made clear how things worked from the fighters' end of things; the gist was "we will get the kids to play the war as a 'videogame training simulation', but the commands they issue to their game units will be sent to real-life fighters in the real-life war through the magic of the instantaneous-communication that is the ansible." Voice, text, blinking HUD indicates new objective--among the many things that Ender doesn't know is that he's telling real people to do things that will get them killed, so we don't know how exactly the messages are being relayed.

(Which is why one of the 'trainers' was furious when one of the kids--I'm not sure if it was Ender--blew through a whole squad with sloppy tactics. Because the kid had been bored and wanted to get through the 'training' session faster, and so had just gotten dozens of valuable people killed who didn't need to die.)

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

You'd still have battle groups forming up into a "noob" or "TROLOLOL" formation every so often if the kids think they're fighting each other, and there's never mention of the "weird pathfinding AI" when some human error and disobedience related problem causes units and groups to ignore orders.

It also ignores that RTS play produces an effect where ALL units have "cost/benefit" usefulness for each battle (sort of like how in chess you can sacrifice the queen for an approach towards checkmate, in war you kinda need to finish battles with more than 3 pawns and a bishop surviving to be able to keep winning battles), whereas in warfare you always have to worry about winning the NEXT battle as well - a command style that abstracts out individual battles with the commander unaware that their performance in any given battle will have effects upon their unit composition in later battles would be a terrible way to fight a war.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ender's Game, at least, addresses that second point simply: No units are carried forward from battle to battle. All the forces available in a battle were dispatched to the point of that battle, sometime decades ago, and are arriving with their FTL communicators in reverse order: The oldest and slowest units were sent first, to the alien homeworld, and newer units arrive faster at nearer targets. Since it might take 5 years for the survivors of the first battle to reach the site of the last, there's no need to conserve units.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

...why would the kids ever be under the impression that they're fighting each other instead of imaginary space aliens or adult trainers?

(I stand by the comment that when a kid is sufficiently abused, then no, you don't get those jokes. In all the tellings of the anecdote of the Spartan boy having his gut eaten out by a fox, (1) no-one ever mentions how he used the blood to draw SOMEONE SUX graffiti on the wall, and (2) no-one finds this weird. Unrealistic that he didn't scream, yes. Unrealistic that he didn't make dumb jokes, no.)

There's never mention of the "weird bullet AI" when your own character or your NPC companion misses someone they're shooting at in a videogame, either, or when the NPC companion refuses to take an order. Go in with the understanding that this will happen, it's not a problem.