In the past few months I have spoken about my excitement for
some big movies this year with Enders Game clearly number one. I spoke of my love of the book in my last
blog and last weekend, with a little babysitting help from my sister in law, the
wife and I went to see it.
The movie, based on the 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card has
been in development for years. It has
been described as unfilmable due to a lot of the novel taking place in the
principle character Enders’ head as he analysis’s events and also due in some
part to the zero g combat classes of the Battle school.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine director Gavin Hood was given the
task of bringing it to the big screen with Asa Butterfiled was given the all
important role of Ender Wiggin.
Heavyweights Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley were both cast in all
important supporting roles.
During the build up to the release of the movie, a lot had
been made of Orson Scott Cards’ much reported political opinions, in particular
his views on gay marriage. Personally I
don’t agree with them, but as anybody who has the read the book will say, these
views don’t manifest in it as he has created a future world of many cultures
working together to save Earth from an alien threat. The calls to boycott the movie seemed a waste
of time when you realize the author won’t profit from the movie, so it would be
best to boycott his books!
Anyway, enough of the politics, and onto the movie.
The plot of the novel comes 70 years after Earth was nearly
destroyed in an invasion by an insect like alien race called the Formics, but
saved by the skills of a commander.
Fearing a final invasion, it is decided to train your children due to
become future commanders Ender is a 3rd
child (in a society where by families only have 2 children) and is the biggest
hope for mankind. He joins Battle
School
SPOLERS ahead
My biggest fear with the movie was how much was going to be
changed. The trailer had hinted at a Hollywood
style ending with a large scale battle – which in the book isn’t played
out. Had they decided to ignore the
twist that Ender and his team were not taking part in the final test at command
school and go for the big spectacular battle?
Luckily this was not the case and in fact the battle was an elaborate VR
sequence to the children s’ (and the audience) point of view.
Of course there were changes. There had to be to make it work on the big
screen. In the novel the passage of time
of a few years but in the movie it is a matter of months. I agree with the producers that this was
needed to keep the same actors in the parts and not confuse the audience by
having two or three children playing the same role at different ages of the
character.
One slight change I didn’t like was that in the novel we are
told they are training the children for a third invasion, with one of the
twists being that in fact we are invading them.
In the movie it is clear very early on that we have sent an invasion
fleet.
The dropping of the Valentine/Peter stort ark was a sad loss
as it predicted online political blogs influencing the world of politics,
however it would have made the movie too long and maybe bored the average movie
goer who wanted big action scenes.
The only issue I have is the moving of the command center
from Eros (an asteroid in the solar system) to an old colony of the Formics a
few light years away. This led to a
change at the end whereby Ender leaves on his own to become the speaker for the
dead, and not with Valentine. If there
is a sequel and they base it on the speaker for the dead this may course issues
as she is a vital character in those books.
If they go with the Enders Shadow sequence of the books for a sequel
then missing out the Peter/Valentine ark may course problems as well. But with it not being quite as successful
financially as they had hoped I suspect a sequel will be a long time coming.
The other minor difference is the downplaying of Bean and
the more prominent story for Petra
(she becomes his all important Lieutenant).
The character of Bean is a great one (especially in the shadow
sequence). But it is a movie and you
need a strong female character to be a foil to Ender on the big screen. At least they didn’t make her a love
interest!
But apart from these changes which are mainly subtle, I was
very pleased with the adaptation. Asa
was perfect as Ender, taking his almost phobia like fear for his brother Peter
and the love of his sister to new levels.
He brings out the initial loneliness of the character, whilst developing
the respect he has for his colleagues and friends over time. Some have said the two big scenes where he
“stops future fights” bullys is to PG when compared to the novel but I thought
they were done brilliantly and were very intense scenes. On a side note the kid
playing Bonzo made him someone you really hated!
The notion that parents can’t have more than two children
and the social implications if they do, are not explored in the movie enough.
But for the casual movie goer this is probably not an issue.
Visually the movie is excellent with battle school exactly
as I imagined it in my mind when reading the book. The zero G mock battles are kept to a minimum
in the movie when compared to the book, but it would have go very samey and
boring fast it this hadn't had been done.
I was also pleased with the way they handled the parts where Ender plays
the mind games as this was always going to be tricky to put onto film but it
conveys his fears very well.
In the end, my fears were null and void, as I came out of
the cinema very pleased. My wife who
hadn't read the book loved it too. I had
thought before the movie it would appeal more to those who haven’t read the
book, but am glad they managed to keep me as a fan of the book happy, whilst
simply making a good science fiction movie.
Would I say it is the greatest SF movie?
It is up there and is probably the best of the year – Oblivion is a
close second. But it may need repeated
viewing before I can compare it to the likes of Alien and Blade Runner.
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