The movie adaptation for Orson Scott Card’s military science-fiction novel “Ender’s Game” has been in the works since the novel’s publication. Creative differences with Hollywood writers were the biggest issue in actually getting a script written, according to a 2009 article from the Los Angeles Times.
From that same article, Card stated that he wanted a “film where the human relationships are absolutely essential – an honest presentation of the story.”
An official announcement for a film adaptation was released in April 2011, and the next two years were spent creating the film that was released in theatres on Nov. 1.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie brought in $28 million opening weekend, despite the thousands of fans who said they would boycott the film because of Card’s openly anti-gay comments.
However, the film has nothing to do with Card’s view on same-sex marriage.
Even though Card was credited as a co-producer of the film, he had no say in the final script or any of the creative processes for the film, and he will not receive any of the proceeds from ticket sales, according to TheWrap.
However, the film did speak to the human aspects of his original story that he hoped would be included.
“Ender’s Game” follows the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, who is presumed to be six in the novel but is played by 16-year-old “Hugo” star Asa Butterfield in the movie, as he is recruited for training to become the International Fleet’s top commander against the Formics, an alien species who had attacked Earth 50 years earlier.
Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford, “Indiana Jones” series) of the International Fleet takes a special interest in Ender at Battle School, where he learns how to utilize different military techniques and strategies.
Graff’s plan is to get Ender to leadership status quickly, so he transfers him to the Salamander Army, then almost immediately gives him his own army to train, the Dragon Army.
Ender leads the Dragons to top ranking victory in the battle training games and then Graff sends him to Command School on a planet near the Formics’ home planet.
After Ender is sufficiently trained as a commander, his army from Battle School joins him, and they train some more, using a simulation game for real-life battle situations.
The relationship between Graff and the children he trained was portrayed well. Graff sees the children as soldiers instead of young, innocent humans.
The portrayal could have been improved if the actors were as young as the characters were in the book.
However, a few characters were young-looking enough that the audience could get the idea that there was a mixture of elementary school-age children and younger teens who were being forced to train for a war.
Society itself had a crucial relationship with the humans in this movie. Thousands of lives were lost in the first war with the Formics, so the government started to enlist genius children to train as commanding officers who would order soldiers into battle.
Card can be satisfied with the portrayals of the relationships from his books, but they might have been too subtle for someone who has never read the original novel to understand, especially concerning society’s role in manipulating adults to force young children to fight amongst themselves for more power.
Longwood student Amber Mattos agreed by stating, “I think they did a good job of trying to keep it similar to the book. However ... in my opinion, there were a couple of scenes from the book that should've been in the movie.”
While every book made into a film is going to have scenes left out and changed around, this is one of those adaptations that could have used more from the book to help the audience better understand the plot.
As an action film, though, the movie was visually appealing, the actors were incredible and the plot moved forward.
Senior Caroline Highland said, “The movie kept me on my toes the whole time!”
I give the movie four out of five stars.
