but thats just me. I only liked in the line of fire, but even that had his trademark crapness in it.

Yeah, put me down for that.

Same goes for Kingdom of Heaven which is obviously a million ties better than Troy but was still a bit Meh after the all conquering Return of The King.

And please, shut the fuck up about the new version of Troy. No one cares.

I imagine it playing out EXACTLY as 24 has. The alien plot to kill a presidential candidate unfolds to be a single rogue alien, played by Dennis Hopper. In season two we lose our way slightly and have an alien cougar for an episode.

People are pissed off.

But we pull it back and have the resistance stop a plot to start world war, get us to wipe ourselves out.

come season three, we'll set a human undercover on the alien world. this will cleverly tie to plot on earth where the aliens try using some brat kid to spread a virus through drug suggling. when we fuck that up on a reveal that just doesn't quite work, we'll just cut our losses and move to the coolest fucking alien bad guy we've ever seen. he actually has good reason for doing what he's doing. the audience like him. he'll blackmail our governments then we'll just get loaded for a couple of months and get to the end without having an ending. school shootout; maybe we'll cut a cheeky arm off. wife of way back dead dude kills coolest bad guy alien ever in cold blood in meh scene. but we're wrapped and loaded.

season four, we're still getting loaded. ..we can't really be fucked this year.. no aliens. stereotypical muslim bad guy. lots of gunplay and explosions. people like gunplay and explosions. they like EMP's too. put an EMP in there.

season five. sober. lets plan out the entire story before we start, shall we? - hmm, i don't know. sounds risky - lets give it a go this one time. pull off one of the best seasons of television ever aired when an alien plot to destroy major cities uncovers a far greater conspiracy. one of the aliens has infultrated the highest level of government! heroes take down. we are fucking LOVED.

season six. loaded. while tripping balls we come up with some of the best stories we ever have. resistance tied to aliens through family. BROTHER vs. BROTHER (why oh why didn't you run the entire season bauer vs. bauer? fucking douches) the triumphant return of the alien who infultrated presidency! we get loaded. write him out after an episode without giving him any point what-so-ever. 2/3 point. people are pissed again. far more than last time. gunplay. people love gunplay. and yakuza-like terrorists. put some alien yakuza-like terrorists in there.

we pull it back in the closing minuts. result. bring it back home. forget the alien overloards for a second. this is about the resistance. they've had to do what they're doing. all very emotional. when in doubt, make em cry.

season seven; could we? - fuck it, why not? we'll bring back a dead character from the past of our protagonist. alien convert...???

yeah. that'll be good.

Imagine a studio trying to greenlight a story about kids, some as young as 6 years old, for christ's sake, killing eachother with their bare hands. Imagine a studio trying to find a dozen or so kids that age that can act, imagine a studio trying to sell the concept of an almost exculsvely child cast, and don't forget, the fact that it's a sci fi space movie with kids is going to confuse the shit out of them when they realize it's not "Unaccompanied Minors" in orbit.

I don't know if you remember the remake of Lord of the Flies, but when that film came out it was hugely controversial, even though the kids were twice Ender's age, and some of the shenaningans Ender gets up to in the book would translate way more brutally on screen, if done faithfully. There are other issues at play as well, subtle, nuanced elements of the story that have to do with childhood interrupted, the emancipation of children, emotional violence, corruption, abuse and war as experienced by children, none of which are easily digested by sunday matinee crowds. This is a kind of 'darkness' much deeper than what the ending has going for it, and I would argue that in a post 9-11 world, regular folks are less inclined, not more, to see little kids brutalizing eachother.

Don't get me wrong, I love the book, I'm just not holding my breath for a faithful adaptation. We might get a teenage Ender, or we might get a Golden Compass effect, with everything interesting, compelling and good about the story castrated for mainstream audiences. We won't see a true Ender's Game on the big screen any time soon, if ever. Sorry.