Moises Arias talked with The Hollywood Reporter about The Kings of Summer and Ender’s Game, which is out on a wider release today and briefly talked about how to portray a character from a book. “You read the book, you read the script, they’re two different art forms.”
He also had great things to say about his time on set. “That was probably one of the most memorable experiences for me. I do believe that I’m going to be very different from what people were predicting, but I think it’s going to be a different flavor to what Bonzo is. I’m just happy that I got the opportunity.”
AOL has posted a 30 minute interview with Moises Arias in which he talks briefly about Ender’s Game and Bonzo.
Right before this film, I was doing Ender’s Game and they shaved my head on the last day of shooting, which led to that weird haircut in the film [Kings of Summer] and previously the director was like, “Don’t cut it before you come to set.” and I showed up with that in between stage of it actually growing out and it just being buzz cut and it ended up working. I look very sexy.
So while it’s a small little tidbit, it is interesting that they’d shave his head on the last day of filming. It would mean that he’s got a full head of hair (which we’ve seen in set pictures) for basically the whole movie and then for whatever reason, they suddenly wanted him to have a buzz cut.
What do you guys think this could mean? Does Bonzo shave his head because Ender drives him over the edge? Does he do it just before his fight with Ender? Or does the Battle School do it after the fight as a result of the fight?
Moises also talks about his career and about how grateful he is to his parents and family for the support they’ve always given him in pursuing his dreams. He then talks to two fans about the evolution of his career.
Last week we got a great new image of Ender Wiggin in the Battle Room, presumably it’s his first time in the Battle Room because he’s wearing a yellow helmet, which we’ve all guessed is the official Launchie uniform color.
Now thanks to a hi-res version of the image, we get a better view of the look on Graff’s face as he watches Ender hang on to the handholds outside the gate. He’s clearly smiling, or at least looking at him with admiration.
I didn’t comment much on this last week, but looking at this closer up, I do love the statement this image makes about the “technology” of Ender’s Game because Ender floats just a few feet away from Graff, who is clearly standing in a hallway with gravity.
Whether or not this is possible at all, I’ll leave up to the people who know science. I still think it lends some cool factor to the world they live in.
It’s also easier to see the flash suit (click for larger size):
Moises Arias went to the Young Hollywood studio to talk about his upcoming projects and being called a young Dustin Hoffman. When the conversation switched to Ender’s Game, he said to expect “the doucheyest character ever” (yeah, I have no idea how to spell that either) and that there’s not one ounce of nice in Bonzo. He also mentions again how all the extras were scared of him on set.
It’s Friday and therefore time for some fan art! Check out this digital drawing of Bean and Petra by Zethia on Deviantart! Technically incorrect since Petra was never in Dragon, but still a great image regardless.
Since I’m reading Shadow of the Hegemon now, I can appreciate the meaning behind it a whole lot more than I would have last week.
Let this be a lesson to me that the next time I hit the snooze button on my phone alarm, I should check email first. Haha!
Empire Online has just released a new still from Ender’s Game showing Ender in the Battle Room with Graff watching nearby. We get a really amazing look at the gate from the inside along with a better idea at just how massive the Battle Room is.
Empire spoke with Asa about the Battle Room scenes. Some of it we’ve heard before, some of it we haven’t, including the Battle Room scene he’s most proud of.
During their training, Ender and his unit take on a lot of other teams in the Battle Room. Any stunts you’re particularly proud of pulling off?
There’s a really cool sequence where I’m sort of spinning over backwards and I let go of my guns. They’re floating by my side just going along. As I push myself through these two stars, I spin back over and grab the guns, then shoot the people around me. I loved doing that.
He also mentions that they spent a month and a half filming scenes in the harness, which should be comforting for fans that were concerned by something author Orson Scott Card said last year at a book signing that one scene in the Battle Room is too many.
Here’s a really cute digital painting of Valentine made by HashiMichaelis on Deviantart! In the back you can see a paper signed at the top as ‘Demosthenes’ in Greek along with a portrayal of a Demosthenes bust.
Today the official Ender’s Game Twitter and Facebook released a new promotional image from the Ender’s Game movie. This one features an image of Colonel Graff that we’ve seen on previous promo images, but also features a new shot of Ender Wiggin.
So far, the only imagery we’ve seen of Ender in his Dragon Army flash suit is from the official poster, but that is a view from the back. This image features a very cool front look at Ender wearing his Dragon Army flash suit.
The tagline posted with it was “Prepare for battle.”
Moises Arias, who plays Bonzo Madrid in Ender’s Game, talked with Backstage and revealed how he stayed in character all the time while doing Ender’s Game.
“I actually stayed in character the whole time I was on set. I heard the extras were scared of me. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, I was just trying to stay in the mindset. At the end they finally started talking to me and admitted to me that I had scared them.”
Fans of the book have noted the big height difference between Asa and Moises, asking why someone who is supposed to intimidate Ender is so much shorter. Moises addresses this as well.
“[W]ith ‘Ender’s Game,’ the character was described as dark-hair, light eyes, six foot tall, bigger than everyone. I’m 5’1”. I’m basically the opposite of that. But I guess it just depends on the vision of the director and how much heart you put into it.”
While I think a lot of us had assumed that his portrayal/audition had convinced director Gavin Hood about his Bonzo, it’s nice to hear it straight from him.
When Sir Ben Kingsley spoke recently to the Wall Street Journal’s Barbara Chai about his character the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, he also spoke briefly about his Ender’s Game role as Mazer Rackham and the facial tattoos, known in Maori tradition as “tā moko”.
He also mentions a bit of Mazer’s background story.
“I had the privilege of being advised and guided by a Maori who knows all about Ta Moko [Maori tattoo] and what each line and design means – its ancestry,” Kingsley said in an interview. “When it’s accurately and beautifully presented, it’s very empowering for the actor. To be able to put that on and allow it to tell its own story, and then you breathe life into it yourself.”
Kingsley said his key into Mazer was that the character loved his Maori father, a warrior whom he had lost in the Great Battle for the planet.
What do you guys think? Is it possible the pilot we’re seeing in the trailer isn’t Mazer, but Mazer’s father?
Boy, what a day. My head hurts, I still feel like I have earbuds jammed into my ears, and my back is killing me, but what a fantastic day it was anyway!
So now that we’ve all seen it and people are reacting, one of the most common complaints I’ve seen online is that Summit did that dastardly thing us moviegoers hate so much: they ruined the ending of the movie.
Match to the planet. Boom boom!
I’ll be honest, this was my initial kneejerk reaction too. Why did they reveal that? Why blow up the climax right now? And then I came to my senses.
The only reason anyone thinks this is a spoiler is because you’ve read the book. When you think about it, there’s really nothing in that scene to indicate that Ender knows exactly what he’s doing.
In the book, Ender is using what he is told is a very sophisticated simulator. He revels in its controls and excels in commanding his soldiers to do what he feels must be done to beat his enemy. And as we all know, to Ender, his enemies in these “simulations” aren’t the buggers on the screen. It’s Mazer. It’s Graff. It’s the teachers.
In the very first interview we got with Gavin Hood way back in December when the first still came out, he was asked about the ending by Grady Smith of Entertainment Weekly:
To that end, the director promises that the book’s dark ending (which I won’t spoil here) has remained fully in tact. “That ending — and the complex moral questions that it raises — is one of the reasons why I love the book, ” says Hood. “I promise you that it is very much there.”
I remain confident that the trailer is in fact spoiler free. The only reason it appears to be a spoiler is because we know what it really means.
That doesn’t mean that after that explosion, Ender doesn’t then turn to see a crowd of cheering military brass and then learns that his worst nightmares have come to pass.
As much as I love the character of Ender, I think we’ll still have to see see the pain he suffers as a result of that intense last command.
Anyone going around ranting to people about how the ending spoils the movie is… actually spoiling the movie. So stop it already!
I remain confident that the trailer is in fact spoiler free. The only reason it appears to be a spoiler is because we know what it really means.