a5c7b9f00b Young Ender Wiggin is recruited by the International Military to lead the fight against the Formics, a genocidal alien race which nearly annihilated the human race in a previous invasion. In the near future, a hostile alien race has attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander Mazer Rackham, all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Hyrum Graff and the International Military are training only the best young minds to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin, a shy but strategically brilliant young leader, is recruited to join the elite. Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult challenges and simulations, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military's next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he's trained by Mazer Rackham himself to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race. Just watched Ender's Game. It was almost a great film. Almost. Here's why: The director (who also wrote the screenplay) obviously didn't read the book. Or if he did, he didn't understand it. It's been a long time since I read the book, but from memory here's the main problem with the film.<br/><br/>At some point in the original story, Ender is told that the Buggers are a hive mind. They attacked earth, thinking that humans were non-sentient. When they realised that the humans were actually individual sentient creatures, it was too late to reverse their mistake. That's why the Buggers never returned to earth again to fight. The film hints at this a couple of times, but it never says why.<br/><br/>This is a glaring omission from the film. Why is it so important? Because it makes everything Ender achieved worthless. The Buggers were never going to return to attack Earth, so the human pursuit to the Bugger homeworld was unnecessary. Ender, though thinking his part of the war was just a simulation, is responsible for the death of what was ultimately a peaceful civilisation. That is the great tragedy of Ender's game; all that death was unnecessary, and Ender was the unwitting architect of it.<br/><br/>By completely failing to understand this, the director made a film that is largely pointless. Yes, Ender was tricked into thinking the "command school" battles were just a simulation, but the full extent of the horror he inflicted on the Buggers is unsaid, and that demeans the whole story.<br/><br/>Poor, poor effort, Gavin Hood. I just saw Ender's Game tonight. I loved the book, and the movie did not disappoint. It is easily one of the best sci-fi movies I've seen. Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford are excellent, with a very good supporting cast. The special effects were well done. The story was very faithfully adapted from the book, with differences of course, but without any obnoxiously unnecessary perversions. This is a very clean family-friendly movie, which I would have rated PG, not PG-13. I hope they do a sequel, although if you've read Card's sequels, especially the ones that feature Ender, they are much more philosophical with less action, so they would probably be harder to make into a movie. It admirably avoids many of the pitfalls of adapting this book, but seems to have lost some of the life and pace as well. Some elements we'll be seeing in the movie, like the 2nd Alien Invasion, were only briefly mentioned in 'Ender's Game', yet 'Ender's Shadow' covers them in greater detail. Orson Scott Card says that 'Enders Game' is an unfilmable book, not because of too much violence, but because everything takes place in Ender's head. 'Ender's Shadow' sounds like a logical choice to improve and enhance viewers' perspective on the events at the Battle School. Per the audiobook of 'Ender's Shadow' the afterword by Orson Scott Card mentions very clearly that this film is technically an amalgam of both books to create a tellable story since the story does take place largely in Ender's head. Obviously there is significant license taken but this does not damage the overall story. Although it is not a direct contribution to battle, the zero gravity training surely augments the cadets capabilities of reflex, quick thinking, reaction, decision making and strategy developing, and, as such, is really important to the whole training process.<br/><br/>The point of the zero g training is to simulate ship to ship combat on 3 dimensions, you can see the tactics & formations Ender uses in training in the final battle.<br/><br/>It's also worth mentioning that the conditions for victory in the zero-g training are the same as in graduation. As long as one team member makes it to the opponents goal uninjured, then they will have won regardless of what happens to the rest of the team. The outcome of the final game is similar to that of graduation in that Ender sacrifices every member other than the VIP so that they can win. The designers probably had the 'Little Doctor' in mind when deciding the rules for the game.