sometimes you read a book at exactly the right time in your life and it’s so wonderful when that happens
So I just got back from Ender’s Game.
Me, a fan of the book for years, liked it.
Awesome Roommate, who has never read the books, liked it
further thoughts under the cut with some spoilers for the book and movie.
They simply dropped the whole Peter/Valentine subplot. I can understand that, since kids writing forum posts on the internet posing as adults wouldn’t have been that interesting on film. You still had a sense of what Peter and Valentine mean to Ender.
The mind game looked pretty good, actually.
Of course, yes, the actors are all older then the characters in the book, but you still get a sense of their youth.
Yes they left out large swaths of battle school and battle room, but hey it’s a 2 hour movie, what they did show was great and kept the plot moving along.
So was it perfect, no, but did it keep the spirit of the book intact? I think so. The acting was great, it looked pretty amazing and similar to what imanaged. So I’d recommend this movie.
Yes, I will be seeing Ender’s Game this weekend. Yes I realize Orson Scott Card is a homophobic bag of dicks.
He’s not getting a dime from the movie box office.
Of course he’ll make money as book sales are going up. But, it’s one of my probably two favorite books of all time (The Other being Canticle for Leibowitz). It’s a book I reread maybe once a decade and that I give some credit for helping me survive being a teen. It’s a book I unreservedly recommend to anyone.
You can be an asshole and still write great books.
I’ve been looking forward to this movie for years. I didn’t think it would ever be made, honestly.
And if this movie tanks, Orson Scott Card will still be in more or less the same position as he was at the start. Others might not be, though. Asa Butterfield is still up and coming as far as Hollywood is concerned. If the movie does poorly that might stall his career. And there are a helluva lot more people involved with this movie.
Card had no creative control. So that means Gavin Hood (who directed and wrote the screenplay) put up Ender’s Game the way he saw it.
Frankly I was shocked when I found out how much of a raging homophobe Card is; most of his books don’t show that. I think as he’s gotten older he’s gotten more rigid and curmudgeonly.
You can send me hate if you want, call me wrong. You’re entitled to your opinion as well as anyone else. Still seeing the movie this weekend.
So, I picked up the Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview that’s out this week, because I love movies. (Still weird to see a mainstream publication talking about Doctor Who, but I digress).
Among the films coming out later this year, I’m looking forward to Ender’s Game. It’s probably my single favorite book (even if Orson Scott Card is a douchebag) and one that I’ve been hoping to see even though it’s been caught in development hell forever.
But then there was this quote, from the director:
“In the book the battle room is a big black box, but I decided it would be more visually exciting to make it a huge glass orb so you could be looking down at earth and up at stars”
OMG NO
If you’ve read the book at all, you’ll know the Battle Room is a huge part of the story, and part of what makes it important is that it is supposed to be disorienting. That’s why “The enemy gate is down" is such a key moment. If you make the battle room clear, then you immediately give the players a frame of reference and that utterly defeats the purpose!
This is probably just a bit of nerd rage, but seriously this is nearly enough to make me not want to see it after all. I know there will be changes in any adaption, but this just might be too much.