All I Wanted Was To Make Fun Of Transformers

Last week, I heard from a friend about the upcoming film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s famous novel, “Ender’s Game.” This should have been exciting news, the sort of that makes my scrawny little muppet arms flail with glee. Unfortunately, the comment came at the end of a conversation about a nightmare short film this friend was forced to direct. Whatever unhappy association he’d made between working with an idiotic, amateur actor/writer on this disaster project and the soon-to-be-produced classic sci-fi novel, it did not bode well for my enjoyment of the final film product. Turns out that one of the producers signed on for “Ender’s Game” is responsible for such Hollywood classics as “Transformers” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” And the director? Well, his last directorial feat was a little gem called “Wolverine.”

Now, I set out to do a blog post on why this was such a travesty. I planned to discuss how “Ender’s Game” possesses what I considered “serious themes.” It’s a story about genius children enlisted to participate in war games. Spoiler alert, at the end of the novel the title character, Ender, realizes that after winning the final “game,” he’s actually devastated a whole race and vows to aid the remaining foes in starting anew on a different planet. “Transformers” and “Wolverine” are campy action films with cheesy one liners, where the difference between good and evil is as obvious as the morals in a Berenstain Bear book. This book had substance and required filmmakers who would recognize that!

Oh, with what outrage I intended to slam these films! How my intellectual superiority would be displayed in the way I analyzed the grand philosophies of “Ender’s Game,” suggesting for such filmmakers to adapt it would be the equivalent of Michael Bay adapting the works of Plato into an action film. I’d follow up with some snarky jokes about what other book-to-film massacres might take place next. How about a version of “Fahrenheit 451” starring Taylor Lautner as the sexy book-burning fireman with Kes$ha composing the original score.

And then, since it was his vision that was spurring me on to such vehemence, I began to do a little research on Orson Scott Card. I always like to throw in a few tidbits to flesh out my posts and show how good I am at typing names into google. The usual basic factoids popped up, but a little further down the page, I saw a heading that read something like “I’ll never read Orson Scott Card again!” Curious. I scrounged deeper and found that Card has quite the controversial political history. One article discussed how he opposes gay marriage. Another mentioned his views on global warming, mostly how he believes that research disproving it is being suppressed. Not to mention his feelings about Darwinism.

So….

After all that I was kind of having a hard time berating the Transformers dude for messing up Card’s vision.

First, let me say I am not using this space to argue for or against any of these views. A nerd blog is not the best forum to discuss political issues of any kind. I merely wish to examine the effect it had on me to find out an author I enjoyed possessed such drastically contrary political views to my own. To be honest, my first reaction was to literally ball up my notes and throw them in my trash can in a refusal to praise the book of a man I disagreed with. But after a little time had passed, and I couldn’t think up any other blog ideas for the week, I went looking for my balled-up notes. Thankfully I have absolutely no hand eye coordination and instead of tossing it into the trash, the crumpled paper had merely plopped onto my night stand.

I suppose that if I looked up the political and religious views of all my favorite authors or filmmakers, I might be unpleasantly surprised by what I found. Not every artist is a nice old man who sits in his New England cottage and spins tales of whimsy for the pleasure of mankind. Even his majesty, Stephen King, used to be addicted to cocaine. Does that make me a drug addict for loving his books? If you read my last post, you’d know the answer is most certainly a negative. And it doesn’t change the fact that I really did love “Ender’s Game” when I read it. The whole experience leaves me wondering, where do we draw the line of standing up for our beliefs? I would never give money to a politician whose platforms I opposed. If you replace politician with entertainer, should that change my answer? It’s certainly something to think about.