# Ender's Game (2013)



## MontyCircus (Nov 5, 2013)

Nobody in the whole of the Chrons saw *Ender's Game* opening weekend?  

Saw this opening night in IMAX.  I've only read the first book in the series which I liked but wasn't overly impressed with.  The movie sort of rushes through the story I felt, its strong point being the effects which were really well done.  Adjectives I would use to describe the movie overall would be "competent" and "serviceable".

@@@ out of @@@@@


----------



## Juliana (Nov 5, 2013)

I watched it on Saturday with my 10 year old. I had a rough idea of what the story was about; I wanted to read the book but decided to wait and see the movie first, to watch it with 'fresh eyes'.

I really enjoyed it. I thought Asa was amazing, he absolutely outshone the grown-up actors. The battle game scenes were excellent, only the end was, quite frankly, odd. As if they tried to fit an entire extra story into the last sequence.

Of course, as soon as I got home I downloaded the e-book and spent the rest of the day reading it!  

After reading the book, I have to say that I think the director made a wise choice in condensing the training story into a year of Ender's life. I read online that they considered using different aged actors, but decided it would be too confusing for spectators. I have to say, I agree (having watched without reading).

The end makes a lot more sense if you've read the book! I did get it, in the movie, just felt rushed and stuck in haphazardly. My son, however, didn't get it at all. He liked most of the movie but once Ender moved to Command, he got bored.


----------



## TheDustyZebra (Nov 7, 2013)

I took my 11-year-old son to it on Saturday. I made him read the book over the last couple months (he kept getting sidetracked), knowing the movie was coming, and I had told him he would NOT get to see the movie until he had read the book. He grumbled a lot, but he was glad afterward that he had read it first. He was bothered when they left things out, so we had to have the "book-to-screenplay" discussion, and he was pleased that he knows stuff that happened that he didn't get to see -- kind of like a secret movie. 

I thought it was done well, though necessarily shortened. The kid was fantastic in the part, and Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley are two of my favorite actors. The Aussie thing was a bit odd, but I may have missed something in the book (?). I do that, even books I've read a dozen times like this one. Or maybe Ben just wanted to paint his face.

I did find it strange that they waited all these years to make the movie and then didn't do it in 3D. I thought they had decided to make it now because 3D was available.

My son says it is the only movie he knows that is deserving of a sequel. High praise, for him.    Unfortunately, even if they did do a sequel (which I don't think box office will inspire), it wouldn't be Speaker for the Dead.

But all in all, well worth seeing -- quite enjoyable.


----------



## Montero (Nov 7, 2013)

Glad to hear it. Saw the trailers and thought "wow".  Will see when it is on TV......


----------



## TheDustyZebra (Nov 7, 2013)

Yeah, without 3D, there wasn't much that I would say tags it as a "theater movie". I don't go to the movies much, so a "theater movie" to me is something that just absolutely requires a big screen. Which is not to say that I won't watch those on TV, but they are things I am willing to pay that much money to see large.

Truthfully, I haven't even seen any of those lately, the ones I should have, like Gravity, or Star Trek. I only go to kids' movies these days (read: Pixar).

But anyway, you won't lose anything by waiting for TV. There are a few "large" scenes, but nothing critical.


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Nov 7, 2013)

We're going on Saturday with the Spring-lets and am looking forward to it immensely. Well, Mummy Springs is.


----------



## Montero (Nov 8, 2013)

Thanks TDZ, good to know.  (I am very fond of my really comfortable armchair and also the pause button when watching stuff....  )


----------



## clovis-man (Nov 9, 2013)

Saw it today. Glad I got the chance to re-read the book before going. I have to say they did a creditable job of incorporating the key characters from the book to the film. The major departure was the physical move to a destroyed alien planet. But that facilitated the ending which dips a tentative toe into the *Speaker For The Dead* pool (no pun intended). All in all, a good job. Well acted. Good action scenes. Just the right amount of tension. I won't be clamoring for a sequel, but I wouldn't mind one either. It would have to be a completely differently visioned project.


----------



## Jo Zebedee (Nov 11, 2013)

I saw it yesterday. I thought it was a reasonable adaptation with good graphics and well above most sci fi films that kids can watch. I was glad they avoided going down the love interest route with Petra, I was briefly worried that they would. The end worked for me but I knew the trilogy well and the relevance for it, although I did think not having guards on Ender was a bit of a plot hole.


----------



## K. Riehl (Nov 19, 2013)

I thought it was ok. I understand the compression of the story but it didn't payoff. 

It could have been edited better to make more tension building up to the final battle. Maybe more emphasis on the kids being smarter than the adults. 

I had to explain 4 different things about the movie to a friend who is not a SciFi person. If it required that much explanation then it was not succesfull in being widely appreciated


----------



## kythe (Dec 29, 2013)

I just saw Ender's Game, after reading the book first.  I had a strong reaction to the book, but was so-so on the movie.

I think the movie was a very good adaptation of the book.  It stuck fairly closely to the book story, which I really appreciate.  But I didn't feel "drawn in" to the movie the way I did to the book.  Also, I think the significance of parts of the story would have been hard to grasp if you don't already know the story.

I noticed a couple of you mentioned taking your children.  How did they like it?  I thought about showing it to my 13 year old, but I'm not sure what she would get out of it.


----------



## Scorpiuscat (Dec 29, 2013)

The movie served as a "best they could do" under the circumstances IMHO.


The really weak parts of the move was developing Enders brother and what Ender really went thru in training.


----------



## SleepyDormouse (Mar 10, 2014)

We watched this last night as my son had pre-ordered the DVD. 
We haven't read the books so can not compare them, but we really enjoyed the film. 

I did find the end a bit strange, a bit of a cheat that we had very little build up to the final battle.


----------



## clovis-man (Mar 10, 2014)

SleepyDormouse said:


> We watched this last night as my son had pre-ordered the DVD.
> We haven't read the books so can not compare them, but we really enjoyed the film.
> 
> I did find the end a bit strange, a bit of a cheat that we had very little build up to the final battle.


 
It would help if you read the book. The abruptness of the final scenes fits just fine that way. I guess they could have tweaked the script in order to offer an explanation via some pithy dialogue, but it's fine with me that they didn't. Although for those not reading Card, I can see why it might have seemed like a short-change job.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Mar 15, 2014)

Watched this just now - thought it was a pretty brilliant film. 

I remember reasonably enjoying the book, with a few reservations - the link between Ender's dreams and the bugs I never picked up on properly in the novel, but it worked really well in the film.

The whole family enjoyed it a lot - even the kids stayed till the end, inside of drifting upstairs to play on their latest app games - which is quite an achievement.


----------



## Toby Frost (Mar 15, 2014)

To quote the original post, "Competent" seems a good word description. Ender was irritating, but then I tend to find children in films pretty odious, especially the more precocious ones. That said, overall, I felt that the film suffered from a serious lack of likeable characters. Perhaps the book is different. After all the hoo-rah about toughening up and producing super leaders the turnaround seemed too hurried and forced. The trick involving the final simulation was pretty predictable. It passed the time, but it didn't make me want to read the book.


----------



## Brian G Turner (Mar 15, 2014)

I just also wanted to add that I thought Harrison Ford played his character really well.


----------



## kythe (Mar 15, 2014)

Toby Frost said:


> To quote the original post, "Competent" seems a good word description. Ender was irritating, but then I tend to find children in films pretty odious, especially the more precocious ones. That said, overall, I felt that the film suffered from a serious lack of likeable characters. Perhaps the book is different. After all the hoo-rah about toughening up and producing super leaders the turnaround seemed too hurried and forced. The trick involving the final simulation was pretty predictable. It passed the time, but it didn't make me want to read the book.



Yes, the movie did feel hurried at times.  The book takes place over several years, when Ender was 6-11 years old.  The movie featured only one actor playing Ender, so since you don't see him age, it seems like everything happened very quickly.  The book has much more character and story development for all of them.


----------



## biodroid (Mar 16, 2014)

I likedthe movie it was pretty much what I imagined while reading the book.


----------



## Dave (Apr 18, 2014)

It must be years since I read the book and could not remember it. I also read _Speaker for the Dead_ which I also can't remember now, though I do remember liking more. So, I come to the film having only a vague outline of the plot and unable to make a comparison.


kythe said:


> Yes, the movie did feel hurried at times.  The book takes place over several years, when Ender was 6-11 years old.  The movie featured only one actor playing Ender, so since you don't see him age, it seems like everything happened very quickly.  The book has much more character and story development for all of them.


I agree but isn't that always the way with films versus books? As others have mentioned, best that they kept the same actor throughout.


MontyCircus said:


> Adjectives I would use to describe the movie overall would be "competent" and "serviceable".
> @@@ out of @@@@@


The might be a little harsh but I think the fact that I didn't rush to the cinema is telling. I also waited to see _Gravity_ on the small screen too. While I didn't expect to like _Gravity_ I find myself liking that better.


----------



## Anthony G Williams (Feb 14, 2015)

From my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/

I read Orson Scott Card's *Ender's Game* shortly after it first came onto the market some thirty years ago but I didn't rate it highly enough to keep on my shelves, so I haven't read it since. I could recall the broad outline of the story but remembered few details, so I watched the film with an open mind.

For any readers unfamiliar with the story, it is set in a future in which Earth is at war with Formics – aliens resembling giant ants – who had been beaten off after trying to invade some decades before but were now perceived as posing a renewed threat. The International Fleet defending Earth had discovered that children, intensively schooled in computer games, were faster at understanding and solving tactical situations in battle, so instituted a programme of training and selection to find the best. Their choice was Ender Wiggin, a boy who exhibited the right combination of intelligence, tactical control, and ruthlessness in battle. The story follows Ender through his training, climaxing in a final battle with the Formics.

I can't comment on similarities and differences compared with the book, as I read it too long ago. However, I formed the impression right at the start that the film was "the book on screen" type of adaptation, rather than a freer interpretation of the concept; the fact that the author was involved in the production might have had something to do with that. So the film starts with a rather clumsy voice-over infodump to explain the background to the story, about the aliens and the programme to train children, before the drama begins. It's the kind of thing that you might expect in a sequel, just to remind viewers what happened in Part 1. Once it gets going, the direction, acting and CGI are all handled competently enough, and the zero-gravity combat training scenes are convincing and entertaining. Despite this, I found that the film lacked a certain tension until the climactic battle; it had a rather routine, by-the-numbers, box-ticking air which left me feeling uninvolved. Good to have a conclusion which challenges the morality of an all-out interspecies war, though. It was just about worth watching, but rather forgettable, with the most memorable image being the Maori tattoo on the face of one of the characters!


----------



## BAYLOR (Mar 8, 2015)

Overall, the film was a pretty impressive rendering of the book.  Yes there were  few changes,  kids in the film were older but so what?  Translating a book to film format is not easy to do.


----------



## Cli-Fi (Jun 12, 2015)

I have never read the book. I went in completely blind not expecting a thing. Especially after my recent batch of so-so films I've watched. I must say this goes to the top of the list. I thought it was a great film! Though, at times it seemed to be a mashup of the starship troppers and tron legacy movie. Stealing various ideas from both. I'm not sure if the book is a different style. The bugs/queens and underground tunnels definitely fall into the starship troppers style. And the training exercises reminded me so much of the grid from Tron and the disc wars. I was generally surprised that this did not bother me, and though somewhat predictable throughout. Harrison Ford blew my mind at the end.

I could definitely tell where 3D effects would have been perfect, if I saw it in theaters and the relationships between the child actors were a bit rough. But I understand and forgive them for not making it possibly more complicated for people by using different child actors to play ender throughout. So while, it was kind of silly how he moved up the ranks so fast. It's fine by me now.


----------

