Anyone else seen Ender's Game? (Spoilers inside)

Post Reply New Topic

What did you guys think if you did? I ALWAYS thought a live-action movie was the wrong format. I would have much rather seen an animated TV series (say 13 or so episodes long) that does it justice. But less money to be made there... so whatever. With that being said however:

My main problems:

I felt it could have been longer to add some of the relationships. For example the Dink Meeker relationship pretty much done away with, another 10 minutes with Rat Army could have done that quite nicely, but we never do hear someone say "The teachers are the enemy" (which practically could have been the motto of the book) until after the Bonzo fight, which Dink certainly believed in and was the first to point it out to Ender.

Another problem was the whole age thing, it all goes by too quickly. Ender gets promoted all the way up in less than a year... which ironically makes the situation seem far more normal than the couple years it takes in the books.

The ending while not bad... was even sadder really... He was supposed to go search the stars with Valentine... or even Petra... not alone.

No sequel possibility... I recently became more of a fan of SotD, so that is sort of disappointing.

15 man armies... hardly anyone in the mess hall... a bit of a nitpick, it would have been hard to find 100s of kids to do it... but it didn't feel like Battle School



Now the good parts:

The acting was suburb by everyone but Dap (who came on screen a bit too much and was way too... big (not as in his size just his personality) and I thought Valentine could have been far better (which it is Little Miss Sunshine... we know she can act! why was she so... lifeless here)

Special effects were some of the best I have ever seen, I really wondered how they would pull this off

Everything is well realized, from the sets, to the uniforms, to the schools (I even liked the difference in command school)

The story, while different, I still believe was good, but it is hard not to compare and it wasn't as good



Overall it was just a bit too compact for my liking, mostly due to the limitations of live-action movies. I still would have preferred more time and a better format for aging and the like. Overall I would give it about a 7 out of 10, worth watching, but not the best movie ever.

I liked it a lot! I just saw it on the weekend and apart from it being TOO short I thought it was pretty well done. I expect that they would change things (as they usually do with films) but I thought it was good enough.

I've seen it. I totally understood Ender's outrage at Harrison Ford towards the end. I don't like being lied to or being manipulated. Not to mention Ender turned out to be right and Ford never bothered to find out.

Have you read the novel, Kyle? Ender is outraged for much more than was portrayed in the movie.

No, I never even heard of the franchise until I saw the movie.

It sounds like if you are at all friends or sympathetic to people have a different sexual persuasion than straight the other books are not for you.

You definitely should check the books out. I read them in the 90s and I had a HUGE Aspie obsession with Ender's Game for a long time. I haven't read the Ender's Shadow series but I am going to.

I liked the Pastwatch Redemption of CC, and a few others he's written.

PW is about a scenario where the earth is on the verge of ecological doom, and some scientists use it as an opportunity to prevent the indian genocides in north america. How they go about doing it, makes sense.

Some of OSC's political views are not great, though. But, usually they don't have a lot of impact on his fiction.

Last edited by Stannis on 25 Feb 2014, 12:20 pm, edited 5 times in total.

I saw it in theaters it was great but I felt that the story was short and a little hastened.

I thought it had a strong beginning, but quickly fell in the middle. The ending was just awful and too hurried.
Note: I've never read the book.