Ender’s Game is in many ways a movie for which I’ve been waiting my whole life. I read the book in a college literature class, and was compelled to read all four books, then the other four when the author started writing the Bean series. I only just learned that Orson Scott Card kept writing, but I will only check the subsequent books out of the library rather than purchasing them, for personal reasons. I always thought Ender’s Game, more so than the rest of the series, would make a great movie, and was excited when Wolfgang Petersen was originally slated to do it. But now the Ender’s Game that made it to the screen is everything I could have hoped for.
In the aftermath of a war with the Formics, Earth is now training children to lead the future battles. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is enlisted to Battle School by Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) because of his strategic genius, and Ender earns his stripes leading fellow teens in battle simulations. The film explains all of this, by the way, in a fast prologue that’s completely clear.
All of the strategy and philosophy of Ender’s Game is there in the movie, and that’s what I was worried about. Anyone could have just made it a battle movie, and Gavin Hood’s screenplay focuses more on the intellectual and emotional component than I could have dreamed. In some ways, he includes more tactical and theoretical conversations than physical battles.
The analytical aspect of Ender’s Game is important because a literal portrayal of the battles would just be a lame sci-fi movie. CGI is just CGI, and the CGI in Ender’s Game just looks like more space CGI. It’s what the battles are about as a demonstration of Ender’s character that matters.
Butterfield is perfect. He has both the inner and outer strength that Ender needs. I never really imagined a six-year-old child when I read the book so aging him up doesn’t bother me. The point remains he is wise beyond his years, my years, and all the grown-ups’ years in the story. As an intellect, Ender can be diplomatic and Machiavellian. He spins passive-aggressive attacks his way, like when his squad leaves him the least favorable bunk and he owns it. Physically, Ender is not to be F’ed with. It ends badly for everyone who tries. You’d think after the first bully, all the bullies would hear about how Ender humiliates bullies, but I guess the nature of bullying is the desperation to prove outward strength.
By the way, just knowing that the bully started it doesn’t make Ender feel any better for ending it, and that is an important message. Gandhi knew that if you attacked your oppressors, you would only become an oppressor yourself. So you have to love your oppressors, because lack of love is what makes them oppress. Incidentally, Sir Ben Kingley played Gandhi in a movie and now he also plays Ender’s mentor Mazer Rackham. Ender’s quote from the beginning of the movie says that in understanding your enemy, you learn to love them. That is a conundrum. In order to defeat someone, you have to love them, and once you love them, how could you destroy them?
I always thought Ender’s Game was the ultimate youth empowerment story. More than Harry Potter, where kids inherit magic powers, Ender’s Game is about kids being geniuses. They can have all the space gadgets they want, but it’s their mental faculties that make them powerful. Hood’s film keeps that in the forefront of all the character interactions, and even has some fun with it in lines like, “It’s just basic rocket science, explain it.” I really hope kids see this and feel like their brain is their greatest asset.
There’s plenty of military technobabble that I didn’t understand, which is great. These kids are smarter than me and I like that. I get the gist of it, and the book was like that too. Interestingly, they always refer to the aliens as Formics. In the book, the slang term was Buggers, which admittedly sounds a bit silly for a serious movie.
I said a lot about Hood’s screenplay adaptation, but he directs Ender’s Game well too. Screen orientation is a huge factor in the space physics and zero gravity, and I also liked when he puts Dap’s face right in the full 2.35:1 frame.
The Blu-ray presentation is perfect. Sharp, textured images come to life. The CGI even looks better in the HD format than on the big screen, perhaps scaled down to a reasonable depiction. Or maybe my 54” Panasonic TV is better than AMC Theaters’ screens. The zero gravity sequences are palpable with the high definition images floating through formations, but I think the close-ups of the actors are really vital in this movie. Ender’s Game is about adults manipulating children, so seeing the faces of Ford, Kingsley and even Viola Davis, some of whom are fully grizzled but all of whom have at least lived some life, compared to the fresh-faced young actors is noteworthy in HD detail.
The 49-minute “making of” begins with this iteration initiated by Gigi Pritzker. They don’t mention the Wolfgang Petersen iteration specifically, only that it’s been through other writers and directors. They do say the rights were expiring at Warner Brothers, so that’s specific, and they say they began courting the author. They only ever refer to “the author,” never naming Orson Scott Card. Way to distance yourself!
It’s more interesting that the usual behind the scenes piece because the themes of Ender’s Game are so interesting, so it’s always interesting to hear the cast and filmmakers discuss them. The technical side shows that there was a lot more to it than just hanging kids in front of green screens, but doesn’t overdo the technical minutiae either. A separate feature called “Inside the Mind Game” is a pretty straight animation breakdown of the Mind Game sequence from storyboards to final animation and motion capture.
10 minutes of deleted scenes don’t really elaborate on any scenes or subplots from the book. There’s some redundant Battle School posturing and a number of scenes that totally telegraph the ending, so it’s good they were deleted. One extended scene of Ender in exile has a few cool visual effects, though incomplete, but that’s all.
Commentary-wise, Gavin Hood is surprisingly technical given his strong grasp of the thematics displayed his interview. Both his and the producer’s track with Roberto Orci and Pritzker covers a lot of different aspects of the adaptation and behind the scenes. Specific changes from the book are discussed for those interested, and Hood identifies visual effects that had to be scrapped and started over when Digital Domain went under. I kind of dig that gossip.
Ender’s Game is a conundrum for Franchise Fred. Even if the film were definitively successful enough to continue (and the verdict is still out), the subsequent books are not battle movies, and they pick up when the characters have grown up. My ideal scenario would be to do Speaker for the Dead and Ender’s Shadow simultaneously, then continue both film series parallel with grown-up actors for the Speaker series. Then if I read the newer books and decide they’re worth it, time travel back to when Butterfield and Steinfeld were this age and complete the series. But hey, there’s plenty of time for Speaker for the Dead, so if they keep making them according to Butterfield’s actual age, I’ll welcome the linear approach to a nonlinear series.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
