Here
is a small preview of the Q&A:
Ford
talked about the changes in special effects over the years:
“In
the olden days – and I was there, we had sort of horse-drawn effects. You know,
you put bits together and then you made a physical prop and you photographed
it. Now you can create it in a computer and that’s basically the difference –
and both methods work. Computer graphic perhaps allow you a little bit more
latitude. But it also allows you the potential to exceed human scale, to get
beyond and overpopulate the screen in a way that confuses the eye and the
emotions. And I am convinced by what I’ve seen that we have not done that here.
It’s a great aid to imagination and one of the best things about science
fiction is the bandwidth of imagination that you can use. I mean, a realistic
film on earth only has a certain visual, a certain potential. When you get into
the future it broadens – you can imagine things. And this book did imagine, 28
years ago. Things like the internet, touch-screen technology, drone warfare,
all of which is now a part of our lives – for better or worse. There’s a lot of
wisdom and understanding in the book, potentially – and we’ve captured quite a
bit of it.”
Orci
remembering when he first read Ender’s Game:
“I
read it in seventh grade when I was twelve years old, and I loved that it
didn’t talk down to me, I loved that it celebrated intelligence. I loved that
it had complicated themes, I loved that it was, you know, it was a good
adventure.”
Pritzker
on how her 13 year old nephew introduced her to the book:
“I
read it as an adult and I loved that a thirteen-year-old boy and his aunt could
sit and talk about those themes and those issues and dig into something. The
fact that a book could inspire conversations among generations was terrific to
me.”
Sir
Kingsley on why make this film:
“I
wasn’t aware of it at all until I met Gavin and he came to me at the Four
Seasons Hotel and he had his wonderful laptop with him and showed me all the
beautiful graphics and talked me through what he intended for the film. I
realised that I wasn’t looking at the graphics, I wasn’t listening to what he
saw saying – I just thought this is a really unique guy –strong, he’s passionate, he’s a great leader and he has a
very broad intelligence and imagination. So his map of the book is what I took
as my map of the character and the world that we inhabit. I know Gavin
struggled to adapt the book to screen because the novel, by definition, is an
internal process and what we had to do is massively externalise what’s going on
in people’s minds and imaginations and what they’re struggling with. So my
first impression of it – and my lasting impression – will be Gavin’s
interpretation of this clearly wonderful book.”
Steinfled
on her character and relationship with Ender:
“When
you meet my character, Petra, you meet her at a time when you know she’s been
at the Battle School for quite a while and when you meet Ender, he’s instantly
shut down. He’s instantly doubted by everybody else at the Battle School
because you look at somebody at that point and it’s – ‘how are they going to
catch up with us? How’s he nearly going to be as good as us? We’ve been here
forever, we’ve worked so hard.’ Especially when he’s coming in, and our mentors
are already telling us that he’s the best of the best. And you can assume that
my character, being one of very few girls in the Battle School and being the
only girl in the Salamander Army – you get quite a bit of that doubt in her too
– from all the people around her. So when they meet each other they’re really
not looking for anything but a friend. They’re placed into this world where
they don’t know who they can trust and who they can’t trust or they don’t
really have anybody to look to. So when they meet each other they find that
within each other – and it’s a really special friendship.”
Butterfield
on what attracted him to the project and working with all the special effects:
“It
was really exciting, neither of us had done a film with this level of special
effects and this level of CGI. When you’re hanging there twenty feet off the
ground, surrounded by green screen, and all you’ve got is the other actor and
the wonderful Gavin Hood shouting instructions at you as to what’s going on,
it’s a really unique experience. We honestly couldn’t do it without all of
those instructions being shouted out. We had a lot of fun experimenting. Gavin
had his ‘pre-vis’ which is what his idea was, about what the film would look
like, but nothing could compare to the final image.
I
read it just after I got the script and I’m a massive fan of science fiction,
so it was right up my street and I loved it as much as I loved the story. For
me, not just the character of Ender, but the whole world is so beautifully
crafted in the novel that I wasn’t sure how it could be brought to the screen –
but Gavin has done it justice and he’s done it amazingly.”
Hood
on the difficulties of adapting the book:
“In
terms of adapting the book to the screen –
it is a very internal journey but also it’s a fantastic sort of
spectacle. The Battle Room, which is just a beautiful vision to create
something about – the final simulation battle – they were challenging those
environments because when you’re sitting there with the book and you read the
book, you know that – I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way – but it’s a black box room. It reads
brilliantly in all the battles but suddenly I’ve taken on this job and I was
keen, and I got there, and I, oh, boy…now I have to actually decide what it’s
going to look like. If it’s a black box – why am I up in space? So you know,
inspiration comes from crazy places but I remember thinking, okay, well it’s a
huge glass sphere. I hope you guys will forgive me, and embrace this because
here’s the thinking – I’m in space, I need a huge glass sphere so that when you
jump out you really feel like you’re in space – you look up and the sun’s there
and the earth down below And I took this idea to Gigi and Bob and I was so
enthusiastic, and they go – ‘budget, budget, budget. How are we going to do
this?’ But they immediately jumped on board and we developed it, with the
wonderful concept artists and wonderful production designers – Ben Proctor and
Sean Haworth – just built this thing and then we took it out into the world as
a 45-second teaser piece. Because the battle room was the first thing we
developed – and we took it to Cannes and you know, it wasn’t made by a big
studio. Big studios were, I don’t know, afraid to make this film for many
years. They tried, gave up. And so we had to raise the money from places like
England, and France and Germany and all over the world.”
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