Ender's GameFollow

Mayweather by decision.

I read the book about a month ago, and was pleasantly surprised. As others have said here though, the trailer makes it seem like it may not be a completely faithful adaptation. Which normally I don't care as much about, but it's Spoilerkinda the whole point of the book that they don't show any of the actual ships fighting.

The goal of a trailer is to be a faithful sampling of the movie experience right?

The goal of the trailer is to make me want to see the movie. Which this one had pretty much the opposite effect. Your mileage may vary.

Not really. At least, I don't see it as a significant departure at all. In the book, the space battles were represented as holographic images transmitted back to the base (or displayed there as recordings from the earlier battles that took place near Earth). It's only a stylistic difference to show the ship battles themselves in a more graphic manner IMO. Doesn't detract from the story at all. We can just assume that they have a better view of the "virtual" battles going on, which is honestly more in keeping with computer technology advancing significantly since Card wrote the book. Think about how much more detail online games have today versus back in the early 80s. Now imagine how much more advanced they would be a hundred years or so in the future. It's not unreasonable to assume they'd be looking at a battle that would look completely real rather than one that just represented ships as blips on a screen.

I'm more interested in seeing how well they portray the development/manipulation of Ender along the way. I'm sure they'll have to leave some parts out (which unfortunately likely means the whole alien connection bit), but I've always felt that the asides at the beginning of each chapter where the various leaders more or less explain why they're doing these horrible things to him is key to understanding the book itself. Leave that out and it's just a basic "hero kid saves day" story. With it in place, it brings up the philosophical questions about how far is too far, and at what point do the ends justify the means.

I'm also interested to see how much of the siblings stuff they put in. It's not really necessary for the main story, but it does add to the "questioning what/why you're doing something" theme of the book. It's always hard to put in those extra details from a book into a film though, doubly so in this case since if you don't do it right and all the way, you're basically just wasting screen time. I have a feeling they'll gloss over that aspect of it as well.

The fact that all Ender ever sees are holographic projections that are part of a game is kind of the point. Ender never sees any of the combat. And Ender is the narrator, so he never sees it. It isn't even revealed that there was combat until after the fact.

Seeing a massive space battle is definitely a big deviation from that.

I see Gbaji's point, and there's some validity to it, but overall I agree with Joph's comment. At some point it's too realistic and detracts from what is supposed to be a simulation. At least that's how I feel.

Correct.



I don't see why this is a problem. The only difference between what's portrayed in the film (previews) and in the book is the level of detail of the holographic images he's working with. From an objective point of view, there's no more reason to assume that these images must be portraying "real battles" anymore than the blips on a screen that were portrayed in the book. It will work in the film just as it worked in the book. Because, as you just said, he is told it's just another simulated war game. And just as in the book, the film will have contained a long series of such things up to that point, allowing the audience to accept it as true.

I expect that for the typical person watching this film who's never read the book, they'll get to that point in the film and think "Oh. Those space battles I saw in the previews were just simulated training", then when the reveal occurs, they'll be like "OMG!". Because that's exactly as it happened in the book. Remember that Ender (and the reader) is never told anything but that Ender is training to be the next generation of leader defending Earth from the assumed third invasion. That's largely why the twist works. It has nothing to do with how much detail the holographic images contain.

Um... And let's be honest. Scenes of kids staring at moving dots on a screen wouldn't make for a very exciting film. So yeah... Hollywood. But I don't think it'll detract from the story one bit (assuming they don't ***** it up with too much foreshadowing or something. I never underestimate the ability of Hollywood to dumb things down for the dumbest rock in the theater). It's a tricky set up, but if they do it even mostly right, it'll work. Like I said earlier, my bigger concern is getting the psychological stuff right. That's far far trickier than fooling the average viewer with a plot twist.

Of all the things about that book that might not translate well to screen, IMO the least significant is whether the battles are portrayed as dots on a screen, or in full holographic detail. That's cosmetic at most.




Yeah. But two words: Hunger Games

I agree that there's no way they can impart the kind of impact the training had on Ender given the age restrictions involved, but I do think it's possible to replicate at least the basic theme with an older character. I think it'll end out being less psychopathy and more "teen angst", but that's the nature of the game. Until they're willing to cast a 6 year old boy, and then film him over 4 years in order to get it right (and they can find a 6 year old who can play that role in the first place), we'll kinda have to accept something close. I'd much rather they went with older actors who can at least emote the kind of conflicts and personality issues going on than have the equivalent of "spy kids in space" that you'd get casting age correct actors. So it's the better of two imperfect alternatives, I guess.

Never read it so I have no opinion.

Which goes back to my "by it's very nature, I don't think it translates well to film" remark. I personally wasn't looking for any film adaptation at all so I understand that they may change stuff but I don't have to "accept" it. Don't take that to mean that I have my fur up over this; I read the book ages ago and thought it was good enough but it's not beloved by me or anything. At the same time, I'm not inclined to see a movie sorta-kinda based on a book I once read.

Asa Butterfield (age 16) plays Ender, Abigail Breslin (age 17) plays Valentine, Jimmy Pinchak (age 17) plays Peter, Hailee Steinfeld (age 17) plays Petra, Moises Arias (age 19) plays Bonzo, etc. They could be playing "young" and that happens all the time but it's obvious that they shelved the "arguably sociopathic treatment of first graders in the name of global security" angle.

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 5:13pm by Jophiel

Again, it's been awhile since I read the book, but I seem to recall it was a school and had a range of ages. So like a militarized 1-12 boarding school. I don't recall how old the oldest kids were, but I got the impression that they were teens (high school age). Ender was exceptional in that he was even a contributor to the combat games at his age, let alone a leader within a short period of time. Most of the young kids were just fodder who played at the lower levels. Ender gets "advanced" up several levels of play, each level of which covers successively higher age ranges.

Part of the whole deal with him and Bonzo is that Bonzo is much older than Ender and bullys him around. Normally, they don't allow kids Enders age to interact with the older kids, but that's part of the training. They want Ender to always feel out of his element and threatened, so as to reinforce his innate "hit first, hit hard, make your opponent never think about coming after you again" attitude. It's part of the whole background conversation. Just how hard to push him so that he'll learn the tactical skills he'll need, while retaining his tendencies *and* teaching him to ignore arbitrary rules if they get in his way.

And yeah, I absolutely agree that this is harder to pull off if he's older, but depending on how young the character is portrayed as, it can still work. Think smallish high school freshman going against the senior class bully. It still works. You just don't get the full effect of him effectively growing up in this environment rather than being dropped into it already a young teen.

I'd have to re-read the book to be sure, but I thought that the shower fight occurs right before Ender is "graduated" to command school (after being talked into not quitting). Which happens when he's 10. I always got the impression that Bonzo was more like 15 or 16. At least it was pretty clear that Enders progression was ridiculously fast, skipping multiple years that normal students would take to advance to the top level (commanding his own army). So if he was 10 when he leaves, then the normal top tier students would have to be mid teens at least. I don't recall if Card ever specifically stated the ages though. Been awhile since I read the book.



But it's a point that can still be made with an older character. It's just not as powerful. What makes the manipulation of Ender so shocking is that it starts at such an early age. It's also what fueled quite a bit of criticism of the original work though. I think you can make the point of military indoctrination without having the subject be quite so young and still have it work. And if you can avoid offending people in the process, it'll probably result in a more successful film. It's a compromise, but I'd rather they up the age and keep the indoctrination angle in, then keep the young age and drop the indoctrination stuff.

If they up the age *and* drop the indoctrination/manipulation parts, that would be more of a problem for me. Cause yeah, then you'd have dropped what is more or less the theme of the book from the story and are left with just a "fight the bad guys with cool special effects" film.