Ender's Game movie - anyone seen it? (open spoilers)

[Malthus]

@buddha_david

They did need to maneuver close enough to the planet to destroy it, hence the need for the “drone shield” tactic Ender uses.
The main reason for selecting Ender is that he not only displays Machiavellian-style brutality when threatened by enemies (the whole “win all future battles at once” thing) but he also has very strong empathy towards his enemies, including the [del]buggers[/del] Formics. The generals counted on this extra empathy to give a leg up in the final invasion – someone who could be ruthless like his brother Peter, but also sensitive like his sister Valentine. (And technically, even that doesn’t work – in the book, at least, Ender intentionally blows his “final exam” by destroying the Formic home planet, believing the generals will never accept someone who would do something like that. Which, of course, is precisely what they wanted him to think!)

Yes, but in addition, they don’t want him to hesitate, because of that very empathy, to sacrifice his own people. That’s part of why they keep the whole thing secret from him. They know that the very thing that they valued about him - that is, that he was not a sociopath like his brother - could be a liability: he would never knowingly use real lives like video-game characters.

I don’t think the generals were exactly planning on him committing genocide - in the book at least, they were simply at a loss as to what to do. When he destroys the Formic planet, in hindsight, they realize that was the only way to win.

[LibrarySpy]

@Irishman

First off, Stilson doesn’t die. He does end up in the hospital with busted ribs and a busted nose. But he’s not dead.

What? It’s clear to me in the movie that he’s in a coma and likely to die and that Ender understands that. There’s even a shot of him at Stilson’s bedside.

I liked that in the movie, it took skills and tactics to get the weapon close enough to the planet to destroy it, thus showing Ender’s advantages to another commander. In the book it felt like he just said hey let’s destroy the planet.

[Irishman]

Okay, so I completed the book.

Yes, they did mention that Stilson died. I think the reason it wasn’t addressed in the movie is that the point was essentially made by Bonzo dying, and since Ender wasn’t told anyway, it wasn’t crucial to the story.

Second, in the book they didn’t just pop up and make the planet go boom. There was, in fact, a similar effort of using the fighters as shields and making the tunnel formation, just like that battle in the Battle Room against the three armies. He in fact did use his superior tactical skills to accomplish the objective - taking time to maneuver closer to the planet while appearing random, using the formation tactic to create an opening through a large swath of the defending force, before finally engaging the planet with the Dr. Death.

As pointed out, though, they did gloss over the reason Ender went with that strategy was he felt the adults were cheating with their simulation by giving him an impossible task - a tiny, antiquated assault fleet against a bazillion enemy ships. Thus he felt justified in cheating himself, going for the planet itself, and hopefully they would then disqualify him and he wouldn’t have to continue. He was physically, mentally, and psychologically exhausted.

Before the battle begins and Ender mentions attacking the planet, Mazer reacts pretty hesitantly, suggesting Ender should really consider if he wants to escalating the attack against civilian populations. But when all the adults see the situation and the number of defenders, it looks pretty hopeless, and they realize that Ender’s solution is the only one.

The other thing that stood out was I do not recall reading any of the material after that. I don’t recall reading about the wrap up on the Earth revolt, or Ender going on the colony mission, or any of that. In fact, that was what I came out of the movie wondering about, because I don’t remember it from when I read it before.

I see why they put the stuff about the queen pupa on the asteroid for the movie instead of drawing out the story with the colony ship and discovering the planet. They successfully captured the essence of that, finding the reason the asteroid ruins looked like the castle ruins in the game, and the interior looking the same, leading to the prize. It was a bit weird having the living queen there. I guess that was an element of trying to make sense of how the queen could be communicating with Ender via his dreams to pass along information and yet he only finds an “egg”. Instead of the queen in the pupa being the one contacting him in his thoughts, it’s the old queen who is ready to die. Maybe they felt that would make more sense for the movie audience.

[Mahaloth]

Saw it tonight and I have to say, I liked it quite a bit. My wife liked it too and she has not read the book.

I thought they hit the main plot points that I cared about very well. I even liked how they handled the ending.

Excellent movie and considering how long we waited for a movie for this book, I’d say it was very well done.

[buddha_david]

I’ve preordered the movie on DVD, but Amazon doesn’t list any special features. Does anyone know if there’s an Extended Edition in the works? I’d love to see some extra Battle Room footage, etc.

[Boogly]

They can make the Hobbit a trilogy but can’t extend this movie? Some of the most interesting aspects were cut in my opinion…

[emarkp]

@Boogly

They can make the Hobbit a trilogy but can’t extend this movie? Some of the most interesting aspects were cut in my opinion…

Keep in mind the Hobbit was riding on the $1.5 Billion made from LoTR.

I heard in an interview with some of the producers that if it did well, they were thinking of doing the Shadow books as a TV series. I’d love that, as they could take the time to develop the character issues, the rise of the Hegemon, etc.

[Mister_Rik]

@Irishman

Chalk this up to Orson Scott Card. He isn’t an engineer or techie. If this were written by David Webber, then the technology used would play a prominent role in why the tactics chosen work or don’t work. But this is Card, so he doesn’t know enough about that, so he just projects a basic concept of a space vehicle with big laser-type weapons. And then the one supergun. To Card, the technology doesn’t interact or affect the tactics for using them. The Battle Room game has their bodies as space ships, their gun operates like the gun on their vessel. That’s as close as the tech comes to affecting the way they do combat.

This is one of the reasons I liked Asimov so much better than someone like, say, Tom Clancy (different genres, I know, but my point stands). I had to put down The Hunt for Red October because I just grew weary of Clancy’s need to describe, in detail, the purpose and function of every single switch, lever, dial, and gauge controlling the submarine. Asimov realized that the story was the most important thing, and so all of the advanced tech in his stories was basically, “The tech exists, and it works. Let’s get on with the story.”

@Malthus

A successful general should of course look after the welfare of his troops and save them if he or she can - but he or she can’t hesitate for even a second to order some of them to certain death, if the needs of battle absolutely require that.

I can’t remember the name of the episode, but Star Trek: TNG covered this when Counsellor Troi decided to take the tests to qualify for Command. She failed the test over and over until she finally realized she had to order Geordi to his death in order to save the ship.

[Grrr]

I felt this movie was way over rushed. some of the scenes were so bad they were comical.

My favorite scene was the shout out to “Officer and a Gentleman” when Ender is made to do push ups from his commanding officer, complete with officer guy telling Ender what a piece of crap he is and that he will NEVER salute him.

And the exactly two scenes latter, he salutes him.

[sparky_1]

I rented this last week.

The movie felt very rushed, which seems to be a common complaint.

Sadly, even though it felt rushed, it also felt too long (a terrible combination for a movie). I found myself pausing it too many times to do other things.

Frankly, it just wasn’t very good. I’m starting to think that any movie Harrison Ford gets involved in these days turns out bad. I wish he’d go back to roles where he is the center of attention and the driving force.

[Irishman]

@Mister_Rik

This is one of the reasons I liked Asimov so much better than someone like, say, Tom Clancy (different genres, I know, but my point stands). I had to put down The Hunt for Red October because I just grew weary of Clancy’s need to describe, in detail, the purpose and function of every single switch, lever, dial, and gauge controlling the submarine. Asimov realized that the story was the most important thing, and so all of the advanced tech in his stories was basically, “The tech exists, and it works. Let’s get on with the story.”

Going back and reading the book again, perhaps I wasn’t quite fair to Card. He does discuss the tech a bit and its ramifications. He talks about the discovery of FTL comms and other tech taken from the buggers, and he talks about the Little Doctor and how it works. The gaming scenario with the zero g booth and the way the guns work actually ties in nicely - it takes time to make them work, and the farther away the longer it takes. But overall the tech is not what Card wished to focus on, he was much more interested in the psychology and politics.

[buddha_david]

@sparky_1

I rented this last week.

The movie felt very rushed, which seems to be a common complaint.

There’s a few deleted scenes on the DVD, including some Battle School scenes which really really really really should’ve been in the movie. Esp. the conversation between Ender and Dink, which is my favorite chapter from the novel itself, even though it was done differently.

[elfkin477]

I saw this today…yikes.

Can someone who has read the book more recently than me remind me if any of Mazor Rakem’s “simulations” really were games, or if they were all real battles? The movie makes no attempt to say, but I thought I recalled book-Ender being more upset because not only did he kill off a whole species, he killed a ton of humans in maneuvers he wouldn’t have attempted if he knew there would be real casualties. His feelings about the people only get a couple of sentences in the movie

[buddha_david]

@elfkin477

Can someone who has read the book more recently than me remind me if any of Mazor Rakem’s “simulations” really were games, or if they were all real battles?

In the book, it’s indeed revealed that every battle Ender fought against Mazer was real, not a sim.

@elfkin477

The movie makes no attempt to say, but I thought I recalled book-Ender being more upset because not only did he kill off a whole species, he killed a ton of humans in maneuvers he wouldn’t have attempted if he knew there would be real casualties. His feelings about the people only get a couple of sentences in the movie

Much of the novel involves a lot of internal dialogue inside Ender’s mind, so there’s not so many histrionic speeches as there are in the movie. In fact, I think the movie dedicated more time to Ender’s complaints about leading soldiers to their doom without him knowing about it. The post-war book narrative mostly focused on the civil war back on planet earth (where crisis was averted by his brother Peter as “Locke” – a side plot excised from the movie) as well as Ender’s discovery of the Hive Queen’s cocoon and his quest to find it a new home (which the movie handled very differently.)

[AncientHumanoid]

Netflixed it last week…

Visually, a very nice attempt. Even to the actors chosen (for the most part).

Story as portrayed in the film, weak. Just like Dune, you can’t adequately portray some ideas or sequences in a Hollywood movie.

Sticking to the book, fair. Wife never read book, asked Qs to fill in what were very obvious gaps to her. For me, who has read all of the stories, even the Bean ones, fair. But, I give it a little of a pass because of the Hollywood factor.

Overall: gentle fail. Virgin viewers won’t pick up on the undercurrents which made the original story so good, because the movie either didn’t go there or barely did. Ender fans will wish they had just done a SyFy miniseries, so at least we can get some important bits in the mix.

[Atomic_Alex]

Watched this movie last night after having read the book for the first time a couple of years ago. I thought it was pretty good actually but suffered from the usual problem that books and movies are different mediums and its hard to transfer ideas and detail from the written word to the big screen.

My main question though is why did they make such a big deal about hiding how Mazer Rackham defeated the aliens during the invasion of Earth? Also they didn’t do a particularly good job of showing that the aliens were an existential threat, they were obviously not invulnerable and from what was shown on-screen a nuke in the middle of their invasion fleet would have done as good a job at defeating them than conventional weapons. Though I’m kind of glad they didn’t depicted the usual unstoppable aliens which are such a hollywood trope.

Speaking of Hollywood there were a couple of silly lines, such as Napoleon conquering the known world, I think that’s usually said about Alexander, if it was a mistake on the characters part and not the writers its a rather odd one for him to make. Also when Ender asks Rackham why the aliens invaded Earth and he replies, ‘Water’. Then in the very next scene the aliens are shown collecting water from the ice-rings of a gas-giant planet! I suspect I may have missed/misinterpreted something there though.

The main problem I found was the pacing of the movie, they really should have thrown in a montage somewhere showing that Ender’s training was taking months of increasingly complex and difficult training scenarios, as it was he seemed to be leaping up the ranks after only one or two battles.

But overall I liked it, big pluses were the acting which were generally excellent all round especially considering the age of the actors, I particularly liked the depiction of Ender himself, he came across as vulnerable, sensitive, independent and ruthless all at the same time. The depiction of the battle-room was pretty excellent as well.