Ender's Game

Just saw the movie tonight. Honestly, I liked it. I think they improved on some aspects of the book, and what they cut was cut for good reason.

For example, they took out the whole Locke/Demosthenes thing, and in the film they were preparing for the Second Invasion, rather than the Third, and made no secret that humanity was preparing to attack, rather than defend. Honestly that made Ender's decision in the end much more morally ambiguous. By having the Formics invade only once before our retaliation, it does leave open the question as to whether our counterattack was justified.

edited 18th Nov '13 7:34:02 PM by Lawyerdude

The film's downward trajectory continues, closing at number 8 in the latest weekend charts for which data is available in the United Kingdom.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&country=UK&id=endersgame.htm

Extenders Game.

If the box office numbers keep sliding then there won't be much revenue available to make that a reality.

And on that note, Ender's Game has slumped to 13 in the uk box office. Source here:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&country=UK&id=endersgame.htm

Not to sound accusatory, but I'm suspicious as to why you keep posting these updates about flagging box office.

Besides, Thor 2 and Hunger Games 2 just came out. Of course there's gonna be a drop.

edited 25th Nov '13 11:52:51 PM by Tuckerscreator

Informational purposes. Simples. And the film was already taking a kicking at the box office long before the two films you mentioned came out. Besides, Shirow did open the door in the post above mine so... Think what you like, I can't nerve staple you.

Honestly that's hardly surprising. People who were already fans of the book went out to see it shortly after opening and there's not a lot of reason to see it again. Personally I thought they glossed over the Battle School stuff far too quickly, but I understand why. There just isn't time to show how Ender develops new tactics and leads others. What really frustrated me was that they never got into the practical parts of why "The Enemy's Gate is Down". It gets one mention and then is discarded.

On Kermode And Mayo an interesting theory came up-

It's not finding it's audience because it's broad appeal and natural audience are put off by the fact that it looks like a kid's sci fi film. The marketing tries to sell it like a normal sci fi film but it has a young protagonist so it mentally gets puts in the category of sci fi aimed specifically at children ("like the live action Thunderbirds movie which Ben Kingsley was in") which is not of interest to older teenagers.

edited 26th Nov '13 3:24:29 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

Philistines, all of them.

As a book-only reader, there's something I never quite worked out - why was Mazer Rackham considered unsuitable for leading the Third Invasion? That point kept nagging at me after I finished reading the book, I don't think it was really explained.

A key theme of the story is that they needed the creative, unfettered mind of a child to come up with their brilliant battle strategy. Mazer got lucky, once, and was treated as a hero for it, but he was nowhere near Ender's level and knew it.

Also because he knew too many of pilots who would be spearheading the Third Invasion. He would be unable to order them all to their deaths despite knowing the final mission called for sacrifice.

Wasn't Mazer good enough to coach Ender, though? Even Ender's inner monologue says Mazer's mind is one he can admire. Though I suppose that might not mean he's better in an absolute sense.

Oh, that's interesting. I suppose it's a valid point, if not really obvious from the book itself.

You really want to know? Okay, it's this. Ender may have had a brilliant, creative mind, and Bean's was better than his, even, but what they needed wasn't just that. They needed someone who could love and hate at the same time. Someone who could be isolated psychologically, driven to mental exhaustion, tricked into not realizing the truth that what he was fighting were real battles.

They needed someone who would push the button to blow up the Buggers' homeworld.

Which kind of makes me wonder why the element of compassion was so vital, at least to the degree that Ender had it. I get that they don't want someone too gung-ho, but with the element of 'he needs to be able to love the enemy' it seems off putting with how ok they were with him then going ahead and committing genocide.

For that matter, I have to wonder what, after Ender had destroyed the planet in the simulated version, he expected to do when presented with the real thing.

He didn't. He destroyed the Bugger homeworld because he wanted to do something so horrible that it would disqualify him forever from actual combat command. That... backfired a bit.

edited 11th Jan '14 4:24:18 PM by Fighteer

The element of compassion was so his subordinates would love and trust him, and therefore fight harder for him. This is contrasted by Bean when he's shown leading briefly in Ender's Shadow, where he's great tactically but is too cold and distant to connect with his soldiers. As a result, the jeesh does worse than under Ender.

It is also made very explicit in the novel that Ender loves and destroys at the same time. He understands his enemies so completely that he knows precisely how to defeat them, and does exactly that. One of his major psychological issues is the inevitable scarring this leaves behind, since he can't help but love the people he kills.

His strategy at the Bugger homeworld is to play on the fact that, up until now, he's done everything in his power to preserve his own forces, so that a suicidal charge is completely unexpected and catches them by surprise. They could have overwhelmed him with sheer numbers but kept trying to lure him into a trap that he fully intended to spring. It was also inconceivable to the Buggers (as well as the adult humans) that he might actually destroy an entire planet. By the time they realized his intentions, it was too late.

There's also a minor retcon in Speaker for the Dead wherein the Buggers claimed to have recognized the inevitability of their defeat as soon as they touched Ender's mind for the first time. Thus, while they tried to stay alive out of species preservation, they accepted that they were going to die eventually. They also considered it a form of atonement for their murder of humans in the past.

edited 13th Jan '14 9:00:30 AM by Fighteer

So, I just watched the movie on DVD. Fantastic. I can see all the places where book fans might be annoyed at the adaptation changes, but to me the film presents itself as a marvelously executed whole. I admit that some of the individual elements could have been touched on more — we don't see Ender developing his brilliant Battle Room strategies, for example, we just see him winning. I also don't really like how they both ignored and revealed the ansible; concealing its existence was how they hid from Ender the fact that he was fighting real battles.

Overall, though, the emotional tone of the movie was perfect. Asa Butterfield was inspired as Ender and I agree wholeheartedly with those who said that Harrison Ford became Graff to the point where I stopped seeing the actor.

Glad you liked it! Agreed about Harrison Ford. I did worry at times that it'd be too hard to ignore his persona, but he really convinced me he was Graff around the aftermath of the Bonzo fight, where it becomes clear just how ruthless he is.

Prop Store has been putting up a bunch of authentic props from this film for auction. Most of them are closed now, but there's some pretty neat stuff to look at.

Interesting costumes. Quite neat to see that lot.

I'm still sad that I didn't watch Ender's Game in theaters; the movie deserved to make a lot more money. It was one of the best-done book to film adaptations I've seen in a long time.

Well, at least you liked it when you did see it. That's the main thing.