Since the publishing of Ender’s Game in 1985, author Orson Scott Card has been a favorite of intellectuals, sci-fi fans, and XKCD readers alike. When it was announced that the famed novel, noted among other things for its remarkably accurate prediction of the World Wide Web, would be getting its own movie after nearly 30 years, it came as pretty important news. A large portion of the film’s press was negative, though, after it was revealed that Card had used his payment for authorizing the movie to make donations to anti-homosexual hate groups. Many chose to avoid and even boycott Ender’s Game based on such revelations, but many others opted instead to follow the viewpoint that Card’s views were irrelevant and filled the theaters in support of the actors and production team who actually made the movie.
Controversies aside, Ender’s Game was overall a decent movie. The visual effects and cinematography were highly captivating. The acting cast was nothing to hate on, but certain characters could have definitely been played with more skill (looking at you, Bean). The majority of problems were minor discrepancies, things that seem practically inevitable with movies these days. But there were two fatal flaws to Ender’s Game, and together they managed to seriously detract from the amazing story that was being told.
The first big issue is the pacing of the movie. Yes, it’s understood by now that no full-length novel can be completely covered in a single film. There are just too many details that go into, say, an 80,000-word book; a movie completely covering something like that would take the better part of a day to watch. Ender’s Game, however, definitely fell flat on the amount of actual story content covered on screen. In fact, half the story isn’t even touched on at all!
In the book, while Ender is out in space learning to battle and command troops, his siblings Peter and Valentine are using their combined skills to gain popular and political power through online campaigning, and by the time the story ends, it could be argued that they’ve done as much to influence Earth as Ender has to influence space. But alas, the focus is on Ender, not Valentine and Peter, and so their movie presence becomes nothing if not minimal – all you see of Peter is his attempt to strangle Ender early in the film, and Valentine’s only really prominent scene involved a brief chat where she convinces her brother to go on with his training. Peter is completely characterized for his spite and wrath, while Valentine is just seen as a gentle encourager whose biggest purpose is to soothe the hero.
But the worst part in regard to pacing is that we never really get a sense of what makes Ender so great. He’s singled out as the genius hero from the very beginning, but all that’s seen in the movie to back that up are a handful of key moments. As old and tired a theme as it may be for the movie industry, it would have definitely helped to showcase Ender’s talent by including a montage of his various achievements at Battle School. But there is no montage, and there is no explanation. We only know two things: that he apparently becomes the greatest of the great overnight, and that Bonzo hates him for it.
The second issue is a bit more understandable, but still frankly disappointing. Ender’s Game is known for being a highly sophisticated novel, and one of the core points of the story is the statement made early on: in space, “there is no ‘up.’” So then, without giving too much away, why was the big “final battle” scene placed on a completely vertical field of action? In fact, why was so much of the movie dumbed down in general? It makes sense that the producers would have chosen to disregard some logical accuracy in order to make the film more understandable to the viewers, but there were many illogical things outside of any sensible simplifying that weren’t meant to be written off as science fiction fantasies at all. They were simply either laziness or incompetence on the part of the planning team.
So while Ender’s Game definitely isn’t a bad movie, it does fail to live up to the legacy created by the series that spawned it. The special effects and CGI animation are definitely admirable, but they’re about the only things that ever pass “above average.” People who enjoy films purely for action and visual presence will probably be quite satisfied with the result, but for those who like to pick out logic and intelligent construction in the movies they watch, Ender’s Game, while entertaining enough, will leave a lot to complain about.