Ender's Game, the Movie

[Olgar Shiverstone]

So, what did you think?

As we walked out, my wife turned to me and said "I don't think that would have made sense to me if I hadn't read the book first." Since I can't unread the book, I'm particularly interested in the impressions of folks who have not read the book.

Overall, I have to say I'm kind of lukewarm at best about the movie. It was pretty visually, but emotionally flat.

Details (spoilers):

Spoiler

OK, I admit you can't expect to get the depth in a 2-hour film that you'd get from a novel. While they made some smart decisions to shorten the film, like cutting most of the Peter-Valentine story line, even with the remaining material they can't do enough justice to the characters. Since so much of the book takes place in Ender's head, they need to increase his interactions with the other characters to demonstrate character and personality, and for most of the film's characters that doesn't happen. Admittedly, even the majority of characters in the book are cardboard cutouts, but still, losing the Ender-Bean relationship was a significant loss. The actor playing Ender comes across as pretty Vulcan; we need more insight into his soul to sympathize.

Given that the best part of the film are the Battle Room scenes, it's unfortunate that we didn't actually see many examples of Ender using superior tactics to win battles. We fail to see his superiority anywhere but on the scoreboard, and the sense of tiredness, despair, and intense hatred of the adults that builds as the rules are changed against him multiple times fails to come through.

Also, I think the filmmakers made decisions to soften the emotional impact that weaken the film. Not revealing that Ender killed the boys he fought with is once decision, but the largest one is telegraphing the real situation throughout the film. The reveal of what is actually going on would in my opinion have been stronger had we learned it with Ender (and also had the Command School battles been real battles like in the book, and not just the final battle).

Also, I think the denouement was short-shrifted. We don't get to dwell enough on events before Ender runs off to redeem himself. Nor do we get the insight into Bugger (excuse me, Formic -- frankly, keeping the epithets would have been more powerful. Enemies in existential wars learn to hate) psychology -- their lack of understanding of humans as uniquely sentient is just as important a point of view as the human's view of the hive mind, and not revealing it actually weakens the message of "if you understand your enemy you might not fight" that the ending conveys.

Ender's Game is a good but not (in my personal view) great science fiction novel, but the film lets it down.

[I also have some issues with Card's promoted morality system, but that has been explored better by other critics and needs no discussion here.]

 

[Kramodlog]

I'll be seeing it later. Never read the book, but I plan to.

 

[trappedslider]

I thought it was good, but a very Pragmatic Adaptation and here's why

Spoiler

They rewrote the character dynamic of Bernard, Ali and Ender and Petra, dropped the subplot of Peter and Valentine, Dropped Ender's time in Rat army, along with introducing a plot hole in the form of "Where did they get the rope the used in the two army fight?". Along with introducing Bean a lot sooner and that's just off the top of my head

But I love how they did the battle room stuff,sadly not enough battles IMO lol

 

[Kramodlog]

Meh, nothing special. Sexism and the end justifies the means philosophy, the usual stuff.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It was immediately apparant that the book must have been cut pretty heavily to fit it into a standard length movie, and also that there were almost certainly a lot of scenes left on the cutting room floor (which we'll probably see in a Special Edition or Directors Cut DVD release) even after the screenplay had shaved and compressed. No Oscars for adapted screenplay here to be sure.

I thought the main character was adequately written and performed but the climax of the movie wasn't handled as well as it should have been. It definitely needed more of an emotional payoff and just didn't have it - the result of either screenplay or editing room cuts in all likelihood. The denouement held no emotional impact for me at all because the climax actually played too much like a non-event.

Spoiler

Going into the final battle we are given too few clues that it's a real battle and NOT just a test. This severely diminishes the impact of the twist that it was really happening and that he had just orchestrated a genocide. That's just the trap of so many adaptations - in movies you have to SHOW on screen what a book would be able to spend entire chapters on internal doubts and struggles and set you up properly for the big reveal.

It was an okay movie. Not great, but it made sense to me and basically worked as it should.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I haven't read the books, ad I don't intend to. Also, nothing in the movie previews makes me ant to see the movie. It seems to have a pretty good cast, but for some reason it just doesn't interest me.

 

[bone_naga]

I thought they did a reasonably good job. I think they should have shown more of the continued stacking of the deck against Ender and how close they came to breaking him, especially how he started breaking down during his series of "final tests". I think it definitely suffered for the lack of the Ender-Bean relationship.

I don't think it was too hard to understand. My daughter never read the book but she seemed to get it.

On a side note, I decided to pick up a PS3 game I haven't played in a while: Endwar. It's a RTS where you control units through voice commands. When I explained it to my kid she got excited and said "Like in Ender's Game?" And now she appears to be hooked.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

I thought they did a reasonably good job. I think they should have shown more of the continued stacking of the deck against Ender and how close they came to breaking him, especially how he started breaking down during his series of "final tests". I think it definitely suffered for the lack of the Ender-Bean relationship.

Well thanks for giving away the ending. Now I really have no interest in seeing it. Had to be BN. :shakefist:

 

[Hand of Evil]

Predictable.

 

[tomBitonti]

Spoiler

I thought the main character was adequately written and performed but the climax of the movie wasn't handled as well as it should have been. It definitely needed more of an emotional payoff and just didn't have it - the result of either screenplay or editing room cuts in all likelihood. The denouement held no emotional impact for me at all because the climax actually played too much like a non-event.

Spoiler

Going into the final battle we are given too few clues that it's a real battle and NOT just a test. This severely diminishes the impact of the twist that it was really happening and that he had just orchestrated a genocide. That's just the trap of so many adaptations - in movies you have to SHOW on screen what a book would be able to spend entire chapters on internal doubts and struggles and set you up properly for the big reveal.

It was an okay movie. Not great, but it made sense to me and basically worked as it should.

Totally agreed. They rather botched the scene after the final battle. The team "hurrah" felt terribly out of place. The presence of the observers (some clapping, some crying) was almost entirely missing. The moment of miscomprehension was only slightly realized.

At that point, Ender just wanted the whole situation to be over. If I understand the book correctly, he was trying to fail, and had been manipulated to find a reason to destroy the bugger planet. He was using the virtual xenocide of the buggers to destroy his relationship with command school. The terrible realization of what had been done and that the xenocide was real destroyed him, and caused him to withdraw for a couple of weeks while the political balance around him shattered.

The switchover to discovering the queen was rather too quick. That's not in the novella, anyways, and really seems to be backing away from a point (the question of whether the Xenocide was necessary and correct, despite being horrific) which gives the story depth. I always thought that was (politely euphemistically) not very courageous -- "oh wait, I don't really mean Xenocide; see here, a queen survived."

Thx!

TomB