Movie Review: Ender's Game

Ender's Game is the quintessential classic military sci-fi book. It ranks near the top of virtually every list of good sci-fi novels. When Hollywood decided to finally go forward with a movie adaptation, the initial reaction from most fans was one of skepticism. (After all, we saw what they did to I, Robot.) But there was reason to hope, as well, because Ender's Game is more action-friendly than many sci-fi stories, and the filmmakers had a big budget with which to make it. The movie was finally released last week; read on for our review. In short: the film tries too hard to straddle the line between assuming viewers are familiar with the details and bringing new viewers up to speed. The cuts to the story were both too much and not enough. It left us with only brief glimpses at too many characters, and introduced themes without fleshing them out enough to be interesting.

Note: in the lead-up to this film's release, a boycott was organized in response to Orson Scott Card's efforts as an anti-gay-marriage activist. If you find your desire to see one of your favorite stories clashing with a desire not to support Card's political views, an organization called the Equality Initiative has offered an alternative. They suggest going to see the movie, if you want, and then simply donating the ticket price to any of several related charities.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way: they cut a lot from the novel. Really, quite a lot. As a book, Ender's Game is not terribly long, and it's a very quick read. That makes it sound ideal for a movie interpretation at first blush. But part of the reason it's such a quick read is that it's dense with plot, character development, and internal narratives. The movie is dense as well, but mostly with events. What makes the book great is not so much what the characters do, but why they do it and how. So while the movie conveys the majority of what happened in the book, it fails to convey the reasons behind the facts. I don't know that they could have done any better within a two-hour time limit, but it leaves us with a question: is this film for people who have read the book, or for people who haven't?

Since the book has been out since 1985, I'm going to assume most of you are familiar with the story. I won't reveal the major plot twists, but minor and intermediate spoilers may follow. If you aren't familiar with it, then here's the bottom line: go read the book! It's good.

Right from the beginning we see how deep the cuts go. Central to Ender's time at home is the whirlwind of conflicting emotions running through him about his monitor, his family, and his status as a Third. The film rushes through these, hitting each only briefly enough to show the viewer that there exists something deeper. Ender mentions being a Third, but doesn't explain what a Third is, or why it's a point of shame and embarrassment. They introduce Peter, but fail to show that their relationship is more complex than your typical sibling rivalry. In the book, Peter is brilliant, sadistic, intuitive, and a hell of an actor when adults are around. In the movie, he's just a jerk for a few seconds before Ender rockets off toward the plot.

Even Ender's early fight with Stilson loses much of its impact. In the book, it really isn't much of a fight; Ender immediately has Stilson at his mercy. The point of the scene was to show Ender's deliberate use of brutality and intimidation to secure safety from the larger group of enemies. He's reluctant, but not hesitant. In the movie, this is distilled down to a command for Stilson to "stay down" before the fight has concluded and a shaky warning to the others.

So, even just 10 minutes into the film, we see the film is not taking the time to illustrate these characters to a new audience. That trend continues: most of the minor characters are cardboard cutouts of their literary counterparts. Bean is somehow in the same initial launch group as Ender, and simply serves as an ally. Peter and Valentine just serve as occasional spurs for Ender's development. (Yes, that means the entire secondary plot was scrapped. I'm not too sad about that; there's no way they could have given it enough time to do it justice. And it was always the least believable thing, for me, in a novel about space battles and insectoid aliens.) Alai makes mention of peace, but he doesn't have a role as a peacemaker. The contrast between his connection with Ender and the constant violence surrounding them is lost. Petra has more interaction with Ender than most, but it has some bizarre romantic overtones.

Well, then, what about the scenery? If the movie is for fans of the book, it should at least be awesome to see expensive CGI of the scenes we imagined in our heads when reading it, right? And it is.. sometimes. The space battle sequences are impressive, and seeing the students fly around in zero-g was neat. But it was also jarring, at times. Take the Battleroom at the school, for example. In my head, it was an approximation of space, with a dark background interrupted only by the simple "stars" and the gates. In the movie, there's an awful lot going on, visually. The walls are windows dominated by a view of Earth. Everything's polished and shiny. The light pistols shoot bright, Star-Wars-like laser bolts that flash dramatically when they hit something. All the ships in the battlefleet look fancy and brand new, instead of hastily constructed and out of date. Ender's interface in command school is far more graphical and pretty than is sensible. It's cool to see, and I suspect viewers who are unfamiliar with the book won't think twice about it. But it's clear that this interpretation is not straining to be as faithful to the book as possible, which is mildly disappointing.

The movie's acting was decent. There won't be any Oscar nominations, but they didn't have a whole lot to work with. As I mentioned earlier, most characters had their subtleties stripped away. Asa Butterfield does a respectable job with Ender, using glances and body language to supplement some of the situations where the story was simplified from an internal narrative. The casting director definitely made the right decision going with kids in their early teens rather than the much-younger ages from the book. Harrison Ford played Graff well enough, but it'd be more accurate to say he played Harrison Ford. If you tend to like his characters, you'll enjoy the role. If not, you might like Viola Davis, who played a surprisingly good Major Anderson. Those two characters were tweaked a bit in order to separate out their conflicting emotions about training Ender, and they pull it off. Ben Kingsley does a fine job in his abbreviated role as Ender's adversarial mentor.

A few other random notes:

• They gave up the biggest plot twist ahead of time; there were at least two obvious references to what was going to happen. Ender is kept in the dark, but the audience is not, which is too bad for new viewers.
• The fantasy game was represented pretty well. Like most other plot elements, it was stripped down to its essentials, but I was surprised by how well they integrated it into the story. I was expecting it to be cut altogether.
• Due to the trimming and simplifying of the story, the movie's dialogue was largely original. It mostly paraphrased the book. However, they occasionally threw in direct quotes from some of the more stylized lines. It happened infrequently enough that it broke immersion.

It's inevitable that a successful book won't fit within the confines of a movie script. We knew this going in. Nevertheless, some adaptations have succeeded by being as faithful as possible to the ideas behind the book. Ender's Game doesn't manage this. Other adaptations have been successful by reimagining the work for a new medium, thus drawing in new fans. Ender's Game doesn't quite manage this, either. It straddles the line, and in doing so, leaves us with a sequence of events that seems entirely arbitrary, when it should instead seem inevitable. If you're thrilled about the possibility of seeing expensive CGI for one of your favorite stories, go see it. Otherwise, give it a pass.

Comments

Orson Scott Card

[Hatta]

Enders Game could be the best movie ever, Orson Scott Card is not getting a dime of my money.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[dpidcoe]

Famous entertainer holds opinions some people disagree with, more news at 11.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[Sarten-X]

From what I've been told, Card will not get a dime of your money regardless of whether you see the movie or not.

Unless you've been living in a vacuum, you know that there are people boycotting the film in protest of Orson Scott Card's very public political positions. There are also people seeing it as a show of support. It's been pointed out that Card is not in for producer money--he got paid when the option was exercised, and won't see more money regardless of how well the film does. On the other hand, judging by Ender's Game's position on The New York Times Bestseller list (#1 on November 10th for mass-market paperback) this movie has sold some books, and those will cut Card some royalty checks.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[Hatta]

Rewarding those who rewarded OSC is bad enough. The less money this movie makes, the less likely OSC will get movie deals in the future.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[occasional_dabbler]

And yet, in and of itself, "I Robot" was not a bad movie. It just didn't have much to do with the book. A movie can only really hold a short story with any fidelity - the great successes being "Minority Report" and of course, "Blade Runner" both Phiip K Dick stories that you can read in a couple of hours...

Re:Orson Scott Card

[reve_etrange]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, aka Blade Runner, is a whole novel.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[crashcy]

Yeah, that was a hastily thrown together argument. I blended Woody being creepy with Polanski raping a 13 year into one charge of child molestation. Point is, no one seems to have a problem with 90% of the creepy/illegal shit entertainers do, but one campaigns against gay marriage and they start a boycott. It's just a weird hypocrisy. There are probably much worse people than Orson Scott Card who have received plenty of Hatta's money. But whatever, way to take a stand on something.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[__aarzwb9394]

There is a different between acting immorally yourself and campaigning to increase the incidence of acts seen by some as immoral.
That is why this author's statements managed to get traction among campaigner types.
They probably see it as an eye for an eye; "We will raise our troops against you since that's what you try to do to us."

Re:Orson Scott Card

[xevioso]

My uncle is a horrible racist. The other day he asked for 100$ so he could get his car fixed. I gave him 100$, not to support his racism, but so he could get his car fixed.

OSC is a horrible homophobe. The other day he asked for a few pennies from my movie ticket so he could get more movies made, amd maybe even write more books. I gave him a few pennies, not to support his homophobia, but to support him getting more movies made.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[MobyDisk]

The Will Smith "I, Robot" has almost nothing to do with Asimov's stories.

I keep reading that, but I don't get it. Could someone explain the hate?

The "I, Robot" book was a series of short stories describing what a world might be like if we had intelligent robots. He created the 3 laws of robotics, then introduced various what-if scenarios where the rules all failed. It plays with these about humanity, religion, and morality. The take away is that you can't code morality using a few simple rules. It is complex and nuanced, and perhaps there is something special about "life" that can't quite be described.

The "I, Robot" movie was a single story, describing what a world might be like if we had intelligent robots. It included the 3 laws of robotics, then introduced a what-if scenario where the rules failed. It juxtaposes a with a "heart" but does not follow the 3 laws, against robots that cold and logical but are subject to the 3 laws. The twist, where the robots "evil" actions are actually a logical consequence of the 3 laws is just the kind of thing Asimov was trying to demonstrate.

So I conclude that it has a lot to do with Asimov's stories. The real question is, would Asimov have preferred that the movie tell the exact same stories as the book? Or would he have preferred a novel story that explores his themes further?

Re:Orson Scott Card

[femtobyte]

Here's the difference: it sounds like your uncle needed the money. Someone who can't afford their own $100 to fix their car is in a tough spot, and it's a decent human thing to help them out even if they're a pretty lousy person. Card does not need the money. He already has way too much money, demonstrated by the way he throws it around to harm the lives and freedoms of others. Your uncle needed a hand up; folks like Card need to be knocked down from their lofty arrogance.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[Jiro]

Your uncle may be a horrible homophobe, but he probably didn't do anything about it other than maybe avoid gay people in his personal life or vote for an anti-gay politician. In other words, your uncle isn't *actively* anti-gay. Giving him money to fix his car may support anti-gay activity in a very roundabout way (he needs the car to keep his job, he needs his job to eat, and if he starves to death he can't vote for any anti-gay politicians), but giving money to Card funds anti-gay activity in a much more direct manner since he uses his money, and the prestige he gets selling his works, for anti-gay purposes.

Your uncle probably also didn't give 10% of the car-fixing money to an anti-gay church, either.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[Hatta]

Is he going to use his car to drive around town with a megaphone ranting about niggers and jews? If so, and you knew about it, then you were wrong to support him.

Re:Orson Scott Card

[radtea]

then introduced a what-if scenario where the rules failed.

...and thus turned the movie into yet another remake of RUR, the primordial "robots go nuts and kill people" story that is precisely what Asimov was reacting against and trying to avoid when he created the 'three laws", whose whole purpose was to write off the very possibility of such a plot from the word "go", so he could concentrate on the interesting questions.

So yeah, they took the title and slapped in on something that was antithetical to the original in every respect. Other than that it was a good movie (except that RUR is a fairly pedestrian play, and doesn't need any more remakes, even though every single movie about robots ends up as a remake of it.)

It's as if someone took "Starship Troopers" and made a film where humans settle their differences with aliens by peaceful negotiation. It might be a good film (it probably would be better than the film that was made of that name) but it would be diametrically opposed to the theme of the original book, just like the movie "I, Robot" is.

It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[metrix007]

Firstly, homophobic is a ridiculous word -- inaccurate as hell. You can be against homosexuality (generally due to religious beliefs) and not have a phobia about it.

Secondly, it's a shame so many people will reject this movie because the author doesn't share their views or beliefs. Separating art from the creator is all too often a very important skill, that too many people lack.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[paiute]

it's a shame so many people will reject this movie because the author doesn't share their views or beliefs.

I "reject" this movie - in that I won't go see it - because I read the book and thought it was not very good.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, what term would you use? Gay hating? And what about his racist views?

And as far as rejecting this movie, this is a wise move. If this movie fails, then he won't get additional money from film rights on the sequels. This will reduce the amount of money that he has to donate to organizations that are designed to deprive citizens of their civil rights.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[intermodal]

The true irony is that they are being intolerant in the name of tolerance.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not Card's beliefs, it's his desire to force them on others that's offensive. Anyone should be free to practice their religion, as long as its not destructive or doesn't interfere with the freedom of others to live as they see fit.

I've read the series and found it quite entertaining and provocative (especially Speaker for the Dead), but I'm not inclined to feed the coffers that will facilitate an anti-gay agenda of the sort Card promotes.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

And you just made the grandmother off all stupid, derpy ass arguments.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[swimboy]

First off, why be so pedantic about the word homophobia?I don't see you or anyone else complaining that the word hydrophobia doesn't mean that someone has a phobia about water, it just means that their throat is becoming paralyzed and it's becoming difficult to drink. There are lots of words in the English language that don't mean exactly what you'd think they mean by comparing them to other words.

Second off, the people boycotting this movie don't just think that OSC doesn't share their views or beliefs. He's gone on the record saying some outrageous things about LGBT people, not the least of which is claiming that homosexuality should be made a felony, and concentration camps should be set up to imprison them. Even the National Organization for Marriage, an extremely anti-gay organization, has tried to distance themselves from him, and he used to be a prominent member of their board of directors.

I have no difficulty separating art from the creator. I *loved* reading Ender's Game, it was a brilliant book. But I can't abide putting one cent into OSC's pocket no matter how much I may want to see it, and if I had known at the time what kind of person OSC was, I never would have purchased any of his books either.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[mjwx]

Firstly, homophobic is a ridiculous word -- inaccurate as hell. You can be against homosexuality (generally due to religious beliefs) and not have a phobia about it.

You're right, but not for the reason you stated.

Homophobia is a ridiculous word simply because it's not a phobia. It's just someone being an arrogant jerk because of something they dont like.

If you're a straight male (such as me) how does homosexuality or homosexual people actually affect you? Well they dont, if you're straight and dont like gays it's extremely easy to avoid them.

Personally I cant give two shits about whether someone is gay or not, the more sensitive ones have confused this with homophobia but the reality is I couldn't care less and dont see why they need to be treated any differently.

Secondly, it's a shame so many people will reject this movie because the author doesn't share their views or beliefs. Separating art from the creator is all too often a very important skill, that too many people lack.

You're also very wrong here.

I will boycott this movie because I cannot in good conscience support the authors beliefs, even if he's only being a complete jerk I still don't want to be party to that and that is a good enough reason as any to avoid this film.

BTW, you shouldn't separate the art from the creator because to do so removes a lot of the meaning from the work. Its like saying we should never consider why an artist painted what they did and only accept that they did paint it.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[smooth wombat]

but also told sinners to stop doing so.

Then maybe God shouldn't have given us free will or made us so fallible that one of our sexes succumb to eating forbidden fruit and screwed all her offspring to eternal damnation.

If we have free will, then God can't complain about the outcome. If we don't, then it screwed up in our creation. Which is it?

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[h4rr4r]

How hard is it for you to grasp that I don't want to support a bigot?

I will be happy to separate the artist from the art when he is not being paid for it.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[GameboyRMH]

Oh jeez not this shit again *facepalm*

The political definition of tolerance is not the same as the mechanical one, synonymous with "allowance." It means being against discrimination, this is why you can't make the idea collapse on itself with this childish attempt at a logic trick.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[geekoid]

" it's a shame so many people will reject this movie because the author doesn't share their views or beliefs."
He wants gay people to be stripped of their rights, We wants the US military to attack and kill Muslims. He want to dictate how you can have sex.

Those are pretty important views and worth talking a stand. It's not like people aren't going to see it because OSC likes to play Civ II

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[geekoid]

Simple:
Most people read it when they are young tweens, early teens. SO that book they read was great becasue they don't have cliche or experience reading good stories.
Then they grow up and the still have their impression of the book from their 13 year old self.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[LordLucless]

First off, why be so pedantic about the word homophobia?I don't see you or anyone else complaining that the word hydrophobia doesn't mean that someone has a phobia about water, it just means that their throat is becoming paralyzed and it's becoming difficult to drink. There are lots of words in the English language that don't mean exactly what you'd think they mean by comparing them to other words.

Because the word isn't an innocuous curiosity of linguistic evolution; it's a deliberate construction of language to intended to manipulate people by controlling the words they use to communicate. Same as the current shifting of the word "terrorist" to mean "someone the government doesn't like", and a whole bunch of other examples.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[jeff4747]

Except that Christ also taught his followers to let God deal with the sinners. Card and his fellow travelers insist on attacking sinners themselves.

There's also the little problem that Christ also never said homosexuality was a sin. Only comments on that subject in the New Testiment come from one of his apostles.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[HeckRuler]

The millions of women burned at the stake "in his name". An uncountable number of wars perpetrated "in his name". A litany of transgressions that "He" is going to smite us for.

Listen, your idealized mystical god can do whatever the hell you want him to do. But here in reality "god" is an aspect of "religions" filled with "real actual people" doing "real actual things". And a lot of them hate the gays. Including Orson Scott Card.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[Yosho]

Why does hate for others have to enter into it?

The "hate the sinner, not the sin" mentality is one of the biggest pieces of cognitive dissonance affecting modern Christianity. A person's sexuality is an integral part of their self; it is as much a part of them as the color of their skin. When you tell somebody "homosexuality is a sin," what you are actually saying to them is, "You are fundamentally wrong and deserve to be tortured eternally because of who you fall in love with. I believe society should oppress you and not allow you to have the same freedoms as heterosexual people."

You may say it with a smiling face, but it's still hatred.

Re:It's a shame homophobephobes won't see it

[righteousness]

This writer seems like a very productive human being. Kudos to him. I wish there are more people like him in the world that help to rid the world of the scourge of homosexuality.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

Send $15 to a homeless gay teen charity and torrent Ender's Game in a couple of months.

Don't give assholes like OSC money.

Re:no

[Sarten-X]

what does a "homeless gay teen" charity do that a "homeless teen" charity wouldn't?

Have counselors on staff who won't try to "cure" his orientation, and other teens around that not only accept him for who he is, but actually share the trait that too often alienates him.

I know your question wasn't serious, but it is actually a serious problem. A significant number of homeless teenagers are on the streets because their families rejected their sexual orientation. Homeless shelters generally try to be comforting and understanding, but with tight budgets they don't always end up with the most sensitive staff, or even enough staff to protect the guests from each other if there's a conflict.

No way to make a good movie out of that book

[js3]

Ender's Game is all about being in Ender's world, you are in his head you experience things the way he see and experiences it. That's why the ending of the book was shockingly good.

However this is difficult to translate into a movie especially with the Captain American/Iron Man style they chose to make it in.

Re:No way to make a good movie out of that book

[Mitreya]

However this is difficult to translate into a movie especially with the Captain American/Iron Man style they chose to make it in.

"Translate" into a movie?
They usually just buy the rights to the title of the book/the names of the character and then make their own movie ("I, Robot" is certainly a prime example of that).

Quintessential classic military sci-fi book?

[invid]

Ender's Game is the quintessential classic military sci-fi book.

I have to disagree with that quote. Ender's Game is an anti-war book. If you want the quintessential classic military sci-fi book, read Starship Troopers.

Re:Quintessential classic military sci-fi book?

[Valdrax]

I have to disagree with that quote. Ender's Game is an anti-war book.

Since when do you have to think war is awesome for something to be quintessential classic military science fiction? "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman is widely considered one of the greatest military science fiction books ever written and (outside of those who sneer reflexively as science fiction) one of the best antiwar novels ever written. If you haven't read it, then you really must. It well deserves its impressive list of awards.

(There's also the newer (and excellent) "Old Man's War" series by John Scalzi. As the series progresses, it can hardly be considered pro-war, but it is still excellent military science fiction.)

"Ender's Game" is very much about the hard choices that governments have to make in a time of existential crisis and how they frequently push off the responsibility for those choices on those executing them. It's about what kind person makes the best warrior when a society decides to clinically set out and create one from birth. It's about the cost of war. It's about diplomacy and the inevitability of conflict when two sides cannot understand the others. It's about the tension between necessity and morality.

If you don't think that's classically military fiction, then you must only have a shallow, spectator's mentality about war. War is hell, not a Sunday outing. I respect authors who show the costs along with the victories far more than the Teddy Roosevelt-esque rose-tinted take.

Re:Quintessential classic military sci-fi book?

[invid]

Ender's Game is a fanciful allegory, a forced, fictional situation someone would come up with in a classroom in order to made some sort of philosophical point about ethics. I personally wasn't in the military, but a good friend of mine was in Special Forces, and everyone in his unit read Starship Troopers and would quote from it and even use its terminology in the performance of their profession. Ender's Game is as much about war as Swordfish is about hacking.

Re:overrated, anyway

[flogger]

So you were the type of student in school that "read" the assignment but failed to "understand" what he read. Never once did Ender seek "revenge." Never did Ender want to make them "Sorry" for beating him up. He wanted them to stop, and he was willing to hurt them enough so they would never hurt him again. This is very different than revenge.

I really don't understand where you come from in thinking that this is a revenge novel. In the Ender makes sacrifices because he is going through is for the betterment of humanity.

Survival is a large theme in this novel. not revenge. There is a huge difference.

I'm glad I was not your teacher for a literature class.

It's OK, but not great.

[Animats]

First off, they paid for Harrison Ford, so they had to let him talk too much. In the book, Col. Graff doesn't say much. Also, Graff with his little aluminum thingie on his hand pulling in the kids in the battle room ("Use the force, Ford!") doesn't fit with the rest of the movie. Nowhere else do they have gravity control or tractor beams. Or magic.

We don't see much of Ender's development as a tactician. Ender is presented more as the Chosen One than the one who claws his way up to be the best. There's a flavor of M. Night Shyamalan ("The Last Airbender" and other overproduced turkeys) here.

As is typical of space battle scenes in movies today, the CG effects are great and the tactics are wrong. Battles are in way too tight a space, and everything is turning too tight and going too slowly. It's the George Lucas WWII biplane school of space battle. Big tactical idea: line up all the little ships as armor around the big unarmored ones. That dates back to the Roman legions, and went out when machine guns were developed.

Re:overrated, anyway

[khasim]

So you were the type of student in school that "read" the assignment but failed to "understand" what he read.

Just because someone does not agree with your opinion does not make their opinion wrong. Or that they did not "understand" something.

Never did Ender want to make them "Sorry" for beating him up. He wanted them to stop, and he was willing to hurt them enough so they would never hurt him again.

I think you're arguing semantics there.

I really don't understand where you come from in thinking that this is a revenge novel.

Because the kid that all the bullies pick on ... and the adults either are too stupid to see it or actively promote it ... but he is The One who will Save Humanity.

Survival is a large theme in this novel. not revenge. There is a huge difference.

Except that it is not about survival. It is about Ender being The One who will Save Humanity. And some mean people try to hurt Ender. And so Ender has to hurt the mean people so that Ender can get on with the business of being The One to Save Humanity.

Yay Ender!
Boo anyone who hurt ender!

I'm serious here. Did anyone feel any compassion for the people that Ender killed? No. They were cardboard cutouts of evil that existed solely so that Ender could overcome them as part of his character development. But not KNOW that he had killed them. Because Ender has to be innocent.

Enders Game was ok

[Charliemopps]

I've read Enders Game, and it was an "ok" sci-fi book. It's more about Drama and human relationships than sci-fi really. Think "deep space 9"... basically a soap opera with space ships. The ending is very predictable, I saw it coming by about the 3rd chapter. Even his name is a dead giveaway to his inevitable fate. But the books that came later... are horrible. I mean some of the worst stuff I've ever read. It turns into this magical fantasy land where trees and computers have telepathy and God knows what else.

I've yet to see what I'd consider a "Great" scifi novel turned into a movie. I'm not even sure if it's possible. Though I thought the same of the Lord of the Rings and they seem to have pulled that off with some success. Granted my threshold for a good movie is much lower than my threshold for a good book as a movie only wastes a couple hours of my time.

Spoilerific Comment - He did *what* at the end?

[unfortunateson]

The movie suffers from the compression of the novel -- the audience deserved more of the battle room, if nothing else, and a better idea of how grueling the schedule there and in Command School really was -- it looks like a couple days at most.

But the biggest issue with compression is moving command school to near the Formic homeworld. I couldn't figure out why, especially as they kept with the concept of instantaneous control with the ansible (FTL communication). But it was mainly so that they didn't have to break from Ender's shame at his destruction of his enemy to the hope of restoration by finding the last queen's egg.

Ok, I can see how that helps streamline things, until you realize that, uh, he just stepped off a military base, brought something alien back with him, and now he's going to traipse across the galaxy to find a place to put it? Um, no. That can't happen until he's already been out of the military.

They should have split it in two: Battle school, maybe up until the first victory of Dragon Army (going any further leaves too little for a second movie), then the rest. That would have let the characters breathe, let them have a decent epilogue reuniting Ender and Valentine, and the Hive Queen, and maybe even some way of bringing in Locke and Demosthenes.

There's no "in the name of" - ergo, no irony...

[denzacar]

Nobody is being honored or praised here.
Anti-Card activists are simply practicing intolerance towards intolerance.

And even that is done merely through them calling for a boycott. I.e. Passively.
They are not going around spreading anti-Card propaganda and making shit up about him, calling him a pedophile and mentally ill, nor are they joining political movements aimed against him personally.
You know... like he does from his bully's pulpit.

As for the movie... could have used half an hour more.
But not of the Peter and Violet subplot. Which would be ridiculous today.

Re:overrated, anyway

[LordLucless]

Did anyone feel any compassion for the people that Ender killed?

Ender did.

Re:overrated, anyway

[MobyDisk]

Where in the book do you see Ender striving to succeed? That wasn't his motivation. He never wanted to be the leader. He was just trying to get everyone off his back, and to like him enough to stop bullying him.

In Ender's physical fights, he was always defending himself against a superior opponent. Not trying to prove something. In the battle school showers, he would have been killed. It wasn't about success.

In the final test at battle school, and in the final battle against the Formics, Ender had given up and didn't care. It was Bean that won out in both cases while Ender was pretty much using a crazy suicide tactic.

So no, Ender was not driven to succeed. In the subsequent books, his only drive is repentance. Much like his drive for acceptance in the first book.

Re:Hitchhiker's Guide

[westlake]

Ok, I've got to stop you there. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy basically had nothing to do with the books, there's no way it could.

The story has never been cast in stone.

Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, later it was adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon. Adaptations have included stage shows, a "trilogy" of five books published between 1979 and 1992, a sixth novel penned by Eoin Colfer in 2009, a 1981 TV series, a 1984 computer game, and three series of three-part comic book adaptations of the first three novels published by DC Comics between 1993 and 1996. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Re:overrated, anyway

[szquirrel]

I'm serious here. Did anyone feel any compassion for the people that Ender killed? No. They were cardboard cutouts of evil that existed solely so that Ender could overcome them as part of his character development. But not KNOW that he had killed them. Because Ender has to be innocent.

Yes, and the innocent boy wipes out an entire sentient species. Meanwhile his psychotic, megalomaniac brother brings about world peace but only as a means to seizing supreme world power for himself.

It's not about survival or teen nerd wish fulfillment, it's about how our much our intentions matter as compared to our actions.

Re:Hitchhiker's Guide

[DaveAtFraud]

If you hadn't pointed this out, I was going to. Actually, I think HHGG did a great job of optimally hitting each media it was released in. The radio show was a good radio show but had to do things differently than the TV show which ws a good TV show but did things differently than the print version which was a hilarious read but did things differently than the movie which wasn't bad considering all of the legacy media versions that were released before the movie. Each presentation followed the same basic plot but added or subtracted depending on the limitations and capabilities of the media.

Bottom line: different media require different approaches to telling the same story. I prefer books because the only limitations to what is coveyed are the author's ability to tell the story and the reader's ability to imagine it. Visual media tries to make up for this with spectactular special effects and is usually found wanting for real substance. I'd much rather know what's going on in the protagonist's head then see yet another CGI explosion. Oddly, radio seemed to recognize the limitations of audio only and not attempt to overcompensate.

Cheers,
Dave