Review: Ender's Game

Directed by  Gavin Hood

Partial cast list
Asa Butterfield as Andrew "Ender" Wiggin -  Jimmy Pinchak as Peter Wiggin -
Abigail Breslin as Valentine Wiggin -  Harrison Ford as Colonel Hyrum Graff  -
Ben Kingsley as Mazer Rackham

Even if you are just lightly interested in Science Fiction it is likely that you have in passing heard the name Orson Scott Card or at the very least the movie based on the first book in his Ender series called Ender's Game.   Well the movie is out on DVD/Blu-Ray so I thought I would give it a go.

Taking on this project, the producers HAD to know that Ender's Game and the Ender Series is one of those Sci-Fi sacred cows you hear about.  But it did not seem the final product was in any way.  So we headed into the experience and ultimately felt that the effort worthwhile.

You see, Ender's Game is devilishly convoluted without seeming to be.  50 years ago an alien race called Formics (because of their resemblance to ants) attempted to set up a colony on Earth.  We managed to chase them off at great cost and they have never returned.  However the space military think it prudent to train and equip a standing fleet in the event of a recurrence .     Andrew Wiggins is the youngest of the family's children and like the others before him, he applies to battle school  and is accepted, but unlike his older siblings, he continues to advance. 

But as in a lot of movies not everything is as it seems.

So what did I think?  Well there was piles of stuff left out...Most only touched on.  This meant they took what could have easily been a three hour movie and managed to cram it into less than two.  Most of the sets are claustrophobic.  I do think that the cast was spot on for the most part....and overall I think that the film followed the book well enough, there were no glaring discrepancies which I was worried about.  They didn't do very good at setting up the second in the series and from what I hear is not a shoe in......damn.

So how would I rate it?  Well if you are into sci-fi and you know the series its a clear ehhhhhhhhhh n n n nine...?  Maybe 8.5.   However because the voice over really doesn't  do a great job of explaining anything, and if you had never heard of Orson Scott Card your going to be in the dark then and that/s an 8 and that.s a shame.

Fan Made Ender's Game Trailer

Wow! fans of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game will enjoy this fan made Ender's Game movie trailer. IO9 blog writes: Steven Davis mashed together clips from some of our favorite science fiction films.
You can see some of the clips from previous films and TV shows but it's pretty seamless. I would definitely go for this one.

Ender's Game movie still a possibility?

Have you noticed that there seems to be some pretty steady news about O.S.Card's Ender's Game lately?

Last April we reported that Wolfgang Peterson was off the Ender's Game live action project.
A short while ago I found out that Card was rewriting the ending of his novel Ender's Game.

Well the news just keeps on perculating. Along with it some spicy speculation as well. According to a new article in IO9, Card, according to one of the films producers, in an LA Times interview this week regarding the film said:

• “[Card] was not interested in a ‘tough-hero action film’ and refuses to condescend to green-screen Hollywood. Card imagines a ‘film where the human relationships are absolutely essential — an honest presentation of the story.’”

Producer Lynn Hendee insists that the "project is not dead."

Ender's End Gets Rewritten

Hey O.S. Card Ender fans - just got a news flash from IO9!: Orson Scott Card has written another novel starring Ender Wiggin, telling what happened to the character after Ender's Game...

The new novel, Ender In Exile isn't just a sequel to Card's classic novel, according to the author:

Actually, Ender in Exile replaces the final chapter of Ender's Game. The story as it was told in EG was exactly right in its tone and speed. It was denouement, winding down the story and setting up Speaker for the Dead. In fact, it was for that chapter that I rewrote the short story "Ender's Game" in novel form in the first place—so I could show Ender's first personal contact with the hive queen. But that's all that the novel Ender's Game required. Since then, I've grown older and came to feel the need for a new story—the story of the soldiers who survive the war yet could never come home... I finally realized that I wanted to explore Ender's post-war story in far more detail than was possible or appropriate in that last chapter of Ender's Game.

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Wolfgang Peterson Off Ender's Game

Well it seems, not all is going smoothly in the pre-production universe of the live action movie based on the award winning novel by author Orson Scott Card, "Ender's Game". Director Wolfgang Peterson, previously attached to the project, has moved on, producers told io9 blog personnel. Chartoff Productions is busy meeting with potential directors with the hope that they will be able to start filming by early 2009. Producer Lynn Hendee has reveiled though that author Card has finished a draft of the script and is well into rewrites already.

Ender's Game is set in Earth's future where mankind has barely survived two invasions by the "buggers", an insectoid alien race, and the International Fleet is preparing for war. In order to find and train the eventual commander for the anticipated third invasion, the world's most talented children, including the extraordinary Ender Wiggin, are taken into Battle School at a very young age.

What's The Game In Ender's Game?

In IO9 I read that Chair Entertainment Group is planning on developing a series of games based on Orson Scott Card's novel. It is unclear yet if they intend to emulate the games played by "Ender" or that they will tell the story contained in the novel in game form. The company does say that the first game will be based on one of the games that Ender plays during his training.

Humm, sounds interesting, I would be interested in trying something like that out, just to see their take on that portion of Ender's "training"