The movie was fantastic. I read the book when I was young, and my sons have as well. We were not disappointed. We all enjoyed it a great deal.
Well acted, well directed, good casting, and awesome effects.
The story is solid. A good morality tale.
The ending of the conflict had an important dialog. Normally I’d agree with Harrison Ford’s Character that Winning was all that mattered. But Ender’s response that how they win is more important. This is true in any War based on Political Agenda. World Wars I and II were both Political Wars. The Civil War and our Revolutionary War were Political Wars. In these, “How You Win” is critical. Look at WWII specifically. Germany and Japan, who were our biter enemies, quickly became our allies. How You Win is what made the difference here. Look at WWI, how the Allied nations in that case is what set the ball in motion to start WWII. Many reasons for this, but allow me to oversimplify. The Allies were poor Winners in that conflict. Ender went the extreme route to Poor Winner, by the utter destruction and genocide of the enemy.
We see that pretty much as the goal of our Enemies now. The extremist Muslims who vow extermination of everyone that is not Muslim. As a result of these statements, a lot of guys I know have said the same thing in reverse… That we should exterminate the Muslims. This is the wrong tact. The wrong direction. And it’s counter to our beliefs as Americans. America is a Mixing Pot.
The talk of killing Muslims just because they are Muslims makes me ill and disappointed. We shall fight to defend, certainly. But only to defend. We kill only to protect. We do not engage because someone has a different belief system than our own. We do not shun someone because they come from a different corner of the world than our own ancestors who came here from a different corner of the world.
I enjoy Orson Scott Card’s works, and Ender’s Game was the first of his that I read.
I’ve had a few chances to meet OSC. Sat in on a lecture on writing once. Interesting fellow. While I do not agree with him in certain political areas, I do like his work.
I respectfully disagree. I’ve read the book multiple times, and couldn’t be more disappointed with the film. The film was clearly written to appeal to both fans of the book and people who’ve never read it, but unfortunately, it ends up only as an example of how not to be universally liked. Peter Jackson has shown how to faithfully stick to source material while culling enough of the more extraneous bits to keep it interesting to the uninitiated, this movie serves up only the meat, and poorly prepared meat, at that.
Consider Graf, in the books he had a sly, wicked and fatalistic sense of humor, in the film, he was merely desperate and self-important. Bean, a footnote, Alai, not even that. In the film, Ender arrives at Battle school fully formed, already hard, all-knowing and invulnerable. Movie Ender didn’t need Battle School, he had absolutely no uncertainty. His showdown with Graf about seeing his sister in the book showed how overwhelmed and diffident he was about his future, the movie turned it into a pissing contest he knew he’d win.
I read somewhere the stars in the battle room weighed literally 13,000 pounds each. Apparently that’s where they spent the screenwriting budget.
Good news on the movie! Enders Game is my all time favorite book. Can’t wait till my boy is old enough to read it too him.
I use to think how does a liberal anti-military weenie write a book that ends up on USMC commandants required reading listing for new officers?
Ran into this piece by OSC a few months back and did a little happy dance. Prepare to poop yourself.
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html
Meh. Wait for it on cable.
Reading Ender’s Game is pretty much a requirement to be a part of my family (I made my wife read it before we got married =0) I went to go see it with a number of friends, and was happily surprised by the faithfulness to the story aspect of the book.
That being said, everyone that had read the book agreed that it would have been well served by about 30 more minutes of time spent on the character building aspect of the book. As Kevin mentioned, many important characters were basically glossed over. Call the movie Ender’s Game from concentrate if you will. The absolute most important aspects of the book were retained, but the subtleties were left out… Important bits of Ender’s character, his relationship with his parents, with Peter, with his team. Those things were left out. So ultimately the story was still there, but there was a lot missing, and the movie could have been better with some of those character molding moments thrown in there.
In many ways it was better than I anticipated or imagined it could be.
Wrote a short spoiler-lite review over here:
http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=42121.0
One snippet:
“Mediocre as a movie and as adaptation from novel. Don’t go out of your way to see it, but no need to run screaming if a buddy loads it up…like you really ought to if he loads up, say, Liquid Sky or Encounter at Raven’s Gate…Relative to the book, the movie is shallow stuff. Even on its own, it was mid-grade Star Trek Movie quality and nothing to get excited about. Some of this is inevitable, some a failure of execution, but some was deliberate. The most egregious is that they blew the ending, robbing it of its power almost completely. It was a conscious decision to kill the profound and replace it with fluff & utter. Sad.”