Ender's Game: Reviews Are Out!

[gorcorps]

I thought the movie was pretty good. With that said, I do feel like the story of Ender loses quite a bit of impact when he is supposed to be ~6 years old at the start of battle school, ~10-11 during the final battle, yet the actor playing the part is 16 years old.

Yeah, which is odd because IIRC the author had nixed previous movie attempts for exactly this reason. He supposedly wouldn't budge on the age of Ender, but it could have been other stuff as well.

 

[silverpig]

No, that's not true at all in the movie. Where did you hear that? The movie stuck to the book pretty well, although the delivery wasn't always great.

When I first saw the trailer, it seemed like they gave up the ending so there would be no surprise. I went last night with my wife who hadn't read the book (I have) and it was a total surprise to her.

 

[blankslate]

Based on the timing of this release, I guess that puts a movie treatment of Snow Crash about 5 years from now.

A Snow Crash movie that didn't suck would be all kinds of awesome.

but then people would compare it to the Matrix.

 

[lord_emperor]

Pre-ordered IMAX seats and watched yesterday.

Exceeded all my expectations. I knew before watching it would be impossible to convey the emotional and physical abuse Ender went through in a single movie - and would probably be a bad idea anyway.

Seeing the battle room and simulations brought to life was just stunning, this is the first movie I've been visually impressed by in a long time.

Story was covered as faithfully as could be expected. Yes it felt rushed and could have benefited from another 60+ minutes portraying

Spoiler

the additional games at Battle School and sims at Command School showing us the ways in which Ender was brilliant (not just "oh he went undefeated and his team is #1 now") as well as providing some delepopment to the other characters.

But people can't sit through 3 hour movies anymore.

My only gripe was

Spoiler

Ender's fights with Stilson and Bonzo, their deaths were strongly portrayed as accidental or instinctual while Ender's thought process in the book was clearly to put them down for good.

 

[isekii]

I had low expectations from all the reviews. But it was above average. Definitely exceeded my expectations.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Lord, I had the same problems... plus the fact that Ender was freaking taller than Bonzo and basically everyone else. He was supposed to be 5 years old.

 

[Aikouka]

I thought the movie was pretty good. With that said, I do feel like the story of Ender loses quite a bit of impact when he is supposed to be ~6 years old at the start of battle school, ~10-11 during the final battle, yet the actor playing the part is 16 years old.

I thought some of the lines seemed a little awkward given how they aged the characters. The one that stood out to me the most was when Ender first arrives at Battle School and confronts Graff, "You made them hate me." It just seemed like something I would expect more from six-year-old Ender... not twelve-year-old Ender. I mean... they did pull that line directly from the book, which explains why it sounded awkward.

 

[BladeVenom]

I figure you can safely add ~20% to the RT score, just because OSC is disliked so much by the Hollywood elite, and that spills over to a lot of reviewers.

That's why I didn't bother reading any critic's reviews of the movie. Many of them have it out for the guy and his movie since he's not politically correct enough.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I enjoyed the movie but thought the actors, Ender especially were way too old. They also did an extremely poor job of portraying any of them as geniuses or even above average intelligence-wise. The movie was decent but almost all of what made the book so good was left out, which is understandable since most of that was internal dialogue. They also had very few conversations between Graff and Anderson (or anyone really) to better explain things or fill in gaps.

For the most part the movie was all of the action from the books with almost none of the important story elements that made the book so good.

Still, it was a decent (and pretty) action flick. They seemed to set it up for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, but I can't imagine they could make that into an enjoyable movie for most people without radical changes from the book. Ender's Shadow would be a good follow-up but if they were going that route I thought they would have played up Bean more and he was barely mentioned.

I was surprised the showing I went to was as empty as it was. 6:30 on a Saturday on opening weekend for a Sci-fi action movie is usually packed here.

 

[Ruptga]

I just saw it. It was thrilling, disturbing, and enlightening.

They did cut some stuff out, but they still used their two hours very well. I think the most important place it deviated from the original was when Ender blew up the planet and treated it as a victory in a game. He originally did that as a way to win an unwinnable virtual match, but more importantly he committed genocide to force Graff to wash him out of the program; he absolutely didn't want to go to war. The movie still basically covered that, which is to say that the biggest difference really didn't have that much of an effect on the story.

Yeah, I guess the acting sucked a little, but most of the cast is underage... so meh. I care a lot more about a movie's story than its acting, personally.

 

[jaedaliu]

I saw it yesterday. It was a steaming pile of vile hair ball cat vomit. Predictable, over simplified, the military were pussified and the acting and story in general was rushed and fucking horrible. I assume book was better. Other than that it was great.

Interesting. My wife (who hadn't read the book) loved it. The book was better, but I felt the movie was pretty good. Maybe because I knew what was coming.

 

[Possessed Freak]

They seemed to set it up for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead

Stayed through the whole credits hoping they would preview Speaker... but nothing. Of course, if they made that movie, it would be up there for the most boring film ever.

 

[Tweak155]

I went Friday to a 730 showing... theater was empty. Poor film makers.

I never read the book, thought the movie was OK. The ending was kind of out of left field and really didn't seem to fit the movie, but it is what it is.

 

[jaedaliu]

I went Friday to a 730 showing... theater was empty. Poor film makers.

I never read the book, thought the movie was OK. The ending was kind of out of left field and really didn't seem to fit the movie, but it is what it is.

I saw a Friday 7:15 showing. Theater was at max capacity (reserved seating theater with lounge seats. smaller crowd size.)

Spoiler

The movie hints at his compassion for the ones he learns about as he prepares to fight them and subsequently destroys them. I think it's up to the viewer to extrapolate that to the love he feels for the aliens as he just destroyed them.

In the novel, you see the gradual process of Ender understanding the alien flight patterns and learning to think the way they do, and in the process loving them. In the movie, it's a 4 second sequence where he suddenly sees the center of a still image.

 

[JTsyo]

Dune needs to be a mini series, not another movie.

Been done already.

Wonder why they didn't do Ender's game as a CGI movie instead of live action. It could have got around a lot of the restrictions with the movie and allowed for cooler effects (ie Giant's game).

 

[Ruptga]

I saw a Friday 7:15 showing. Theater was at max capacity (reserved seating theater with lounge seats. smaller crowd size.)

Spoiler

The movie hints at his compassion for the ones he learns about as he prepares to fight them and subsequently destroys them. I think it's up to the viewer to extrapolate that to the love he feels for the aliens as he just destroyed them.

In the novel, you see the gradual process of Ender understanding the alien flight patterns and learning to think the way they do, and in the process loving them. In the movie, it's a 4 second sequence where he suddenly sees the center of a still image.

Yeah, having thought about it some more, I realized the same thing. The movie is accurate in how it tells his story, but that's just it, it TELLS us his story, it doesn't show us. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

 

[silverpig]

Yeah, having thought about it some more, I realized the same thing. The movie is accurate in how it tells his story, but that's just it, it TELLS us his story, it doesn't show us. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

Yeah, I generally agree. However they only had so much time to get everything in. I think they did a good job with the time they had so while it's easy to say they should have added more, it's much more difficult to say what they should have taken out in order to make room.

 

[HumblePie]

So I read the book several times and finally got to see the movie. Overall, it was an average flick. I think the movie was geared more towards those that have read the book. However, there were problems with the overall execution of the book. I'll explain. It will be spoiler blocked.

Spoiler

The strength of the book is based upon solely the character depth given to Ender. This was lacking massively in the movie. The book focused on the struggles of a 5 year old boy. That's right 5 years old. The movie used a 12 year old boy that lost a lot of meaning in the translation. There were several things the movie tried to point towards with denigeration towards Ender that ended up not being so in the movie like they were in the book. For example. The movie keeps calling Ender a third. There is zero explanation why anyone would care. But in the book there is great detail around that derogatory term. Basically in the book the Earth was so overpopulated that families could only have 2 children. Third children were a great shame upon a family. Ender's family was given permission for a third because they were part of a breeding program to make exceptionally smart children. Peter was exceptionally smart but sadistically aggressive. Valentine was also just as smart but way to passive to be a soldier of any sort. Ender's birth was barely given permission as it was thought even if he met the criteria he may be born too late. As there weren't one battle over Earth with the Formics but many at various colonies Earth had. And Earth with it's colonies were losing to the Formics. That was lack of pressure the movie had that the book had on WHY humans were behaving so different than we are today. That different political, war, and population pressure were causing problems we can only imagine today. The basic premise of this book is about pressures and the human response to them. What made Ender's Game a great book was seeing through the mind of a 5 year child, that is mentally much farther along obviously, than most modern teenagers in terms of aptitude and how he deals with pressures. They needed the best and they needed it fast. The whole story revolved around trying to make Ender stronger or to break him. Something the movie fell completely flat on. There was no real tension to Ender's strife in the movie. The vast majority of the book revolved also around the Battle game simulations. Something the movie felt like it skimmed over. It was Ender constantly fighting against both adults and other children much older and stronger than him.

Also although I knew the "game" in the command school was not a game but real due to reading the books, my wife who never read the books never thought it was a "game" the kids were playing. The movie didn't do a good job of making the "simulation" that Ender and his cadre were "playing" was anything but the real deal. I can go into various reasons of how the book went about that, mainly by making everything seem disjointed from the sleep deprived and overworked mind of Ender during the entire command school sequence in the book.

That last part the movie fell flat on was the TRUE game Ender was playing. The actual video game. In the book, the game was a crappy game made by the school to teach the kids the frustration of losing. Think Kobyashi Maru simulation from Star Trek. It was also designed to be "hacked" or reprogrammed to an extent by the children to sort of cheat to get to the next level of the game. Ender, with the help of the dormant queen on the planet, ends up doing more than just hacking to cheat the game. He develops his own AI algorithm to help him break the game. That AI is a major character in the next two books. Something that was basically skimmed over in the movie.

Overall the movie was OK at getting some of the major points of the book across to the audience. I do feel it fell flat on execution and gutted to much from the book overall. I personally do not mind sitting in a 3 hour movie if the story is worth sitting through. Ender's story would have been well worth it if the movie studios has stayed a bit more true to the book in some sequences. I think the current average to slightly above average score for the movie is spot on. It's a decent flick. Fans of the book will feel a bit disappointed and those that didn't read the book will feel a little lost on some references left in the movie, but overall those references will be forgotten by the average movie goer.

 

[maziwanka]

i really don't know what to make of the movie. saw it yesterday and it was cool seeing somethings in real life (like the battle room), but there was just so much left out that I wonder what ppl who haven't read the book thought. all the build up with the various battles and things showing ender's brilliance was gone and the nature of peter/val were gone - all of this was covered by previous posters. i suppose i understand though since it would have been a long movie otherwise

i also thought the acting was subpar

 

[HumblePie]

Yeah, having thought about it some more, I realized the same thing. The movie is accurate in how it tells his story, but that's just it, it TELLS us his story, it doesn't show us. You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

Read my review. The movie just fell flat. Ender's Game the book is more a character development about Ender than anything else. The movie is about sci fi effects than about Ender really.

 

[silverpig]

Read my review. The movie just fell flat. Ender's Game the book is more a character development about Ender than anything else. The movie is about sci fi effects than about Ender really.

Well it sounds like you are giving it the old "the movie wasn't as good as the book" treatment.

Sure, the book was about Ender's development and struggle, but I don't think they could have done that accurately in even a 3 hour movie. Maybe, but probably not.

When you accept that, then it's obvious that the movie has to focus on

Spoiler

building up to the final battle in the game and then the old switcheroo

.

There were tons of cool details that the movie left out, but if you include them, you have to cut something else out in order to make time.

Other things I missed:

Spoiler

They mentioned the word 'ancible" but didn't explain it or why they were important. I also don't think they ever explained that all the simulations at command school were real. The "game". The whole Peter/Valentine arc at home. The full depth at battle school with all the teams and practicing and the ladders etc.

I just don't think they could have fit all of that in a 3 hour movie. Sure, maybe some of it, but that stuff wouldn't add too much to the movie experience. It just doesn't add anything when the point of the movie is what it was.

That said, I really liked the exchange between Graff and Ender:

Spoiler

Graff: We won. That's all that matters.
Ender: No. HOW you win matters.

 

[Tweak155]

I saw a Friday 7:15 showing. Theater was at max capacity (reserved seating theater with lounge seats. smaller crowd size.)

No exaggerting, I was in a multiple hundred seat theater with maybe 10-15 people. There were 6 people in my group alone.

 

[lupi]

Book was mostly about character development because the scifi effects kinda difficult to explain in a text only medium along with the theme about these "simulations" becoming control of real people. Would want that expanded in the movie version.

 

[glenn1]

I just saw it. It was thrilling, disturbing, and enlightening.

They did cut some stuff out, but they still used their two hours very well. I think the most important place it deviated from the original was when Ender blew up the planet and treated it as a victory in a game. He originally did that as a way to win an unwinnable virtual match, but more importantly he committed genocide to force Graff to wash him out of the program; he absolutely didn't want to go to war. The movie still basically covered that, which is to say that the biggest difference really didn't have that much of an effect on the story.

Yeah, I guess the acting sucked a little, but most of the cast is underage... so meh. I care a lot more about a movie's story than its acting, personally.

Another difference from the book was that after he nukes the ah heck planet, the audience (including the attending Stategos and generals) breaks out into cheers in the book. Cheering that Ender just ended the war by killing the entire Formics species. In the movie, it's the kids who break out into cheers while the audience gallery is silent, the Strategos and most of the crowd realized the gravity of what was done and only Graff seemed to think the genocide was something good. That change IMHO was a good one and puts an entirely different spin on the story than how it was originally told in the book.

 

[Ruptga]

Another difference from the book was that after he nukes the ah heck planet, the audience (including the attending Stategos and generals) breaks out into cheers in the book. Cheering that Ender just ended the war by killing the entire Formics species. In the movie, it's the kids who break out into cheers while the audience gallery is silent, the Strategos and most of the crowd realized the gravity of what was done and only Graff seemed to think the genocide was something good. That change IMHO was a good one and puts an entirely different spin on the story than how it was originally told in the book.

There was that and other differences, but IMO the entire story has always revolved around Ender and his reactions to his crapsack world, so I think what others do is secondary.