For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate ... Read allFor generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker.For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker.
- Awards
- 6 nominations
Matt Ayleigh
- Joss
- (as Matt Jessup)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThere were so many sets built for this movie that some of them wound up never being used. They do sometimes feature prominently in the background, like the hairdressers, but they play no part in the story.
- Goofs(at around 34 mins) When the girl shows the piece of glass from the box to her friend, she says "it's so shiny", this does not suggest she has never seen glass before. When glass ages in the open it slowly turns an orange or brown color, like those in the city. However, this piece by virtue of being inside the strong box has stayed clear, and it isn't glass.
Featured review
City of Ember
Having just taken 129 eighth-graders who read the book to see the premiere, everyone left the theater disappointed with what director Kil Kenan and screenwriter Caroline Thompson have given us with this translation from the page to the screen. Thompson, an accomplished screenwriter, deserves more of the blame in their (and my) opinion.
Books rarely translate better to film and this one suffers for many reasons. Jeanne DuPrau's book is an amazing trove of metaphors (candles, the library, the seed, the Pipeworks, and the city itself). When works of literature work on multiple levels, the filmmakers should at least offer us more than one. In fact, this book could be a metaphor for metaphors -- there are things below the surface that exist whether we acknowledge them or not; it is our job to find the tools to excavate the "deeper" level of what exists for others only on the surface.
Having sacrificed the novel's intellectual depth, the film version does a great disservice to the dedicated reader: we are given special effects that defy logic and re-focus the story unnaturally and unnecessarily; there are included scenes of hyped-up action they are neither satisfying nor helpful with advancing the plot; we lose some of the intricate details of character development; there's an unnecessary inclusion of giant scary creatures that offer distracting (and bizarre) thrills; and the mystery of what Ember is is destroyed in the first minute of narration.
The design of the film is great, but as in design, the beauty is found in the details. I believe that the greatest details of the book are missing, hidden away like the people of Ember. Let them come into the light!
Books rarely translate better to film and this one suffers for many reasons. Jeanne DuPrau's book is an amazing trove of metaphors (candles, the library, the seed, the Pipeworks, and the city itself). When works of literature work on multiple levels, the filmmakers should at least offer us more than one. In fact, this book could be a metaphor for metaphors -- there are things below the surface that exist whether we acknowledge them or not; it is our job to find the tools to excavate the "deeper" level of what exists for others only on the surface.
Having sacrificed the novel's intellectual depth, the film version does a great disservice to the dedicated reader: we are given special effects that defy logic and re-focus the story unnaturally and unnecessarily; there are included scenes of hyped-up action they are neither satisfying nor helpful with advancing the plot; we lose some of the intricate details of character development; there's an unnecessary inclusion of giant scary creatures that offer distracting (and bizarre) thrills; and the mystery of what Ember is is destroyed in the first minute of narration.
The design of the film is great, but as in design, the beauty is found in the details. I believe that the greatest details of the book are missing, hidden away like the people of Ember. Let them come into the light!
helpful•17483
- ActOne
- Oct 9, 2008
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $55,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $7,873,007
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $3,129,473
- Oct 12, 2008
- Gross worldwide
- $17,929,684
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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