Ender's Game: How Does It Stack Up?
WARNING: SPOILERS! Read on at your own
risk!
Okay, so I will admit that I was one of
the great unwashed. I didn't pick up, and read, Ender's Game
until a month or so before the movie came out. Of course, I had a
copy – it was a classic, right? - but I hadn't actually read
it.
Then
I did, finally. And it was good. The development of Ender, the
progression from game to game with higher and higher stakes, was
well-presented and logical.
Of
course, being a political junkie, I also enjoyed the subplot with Val
and Peter and their web alter-egos – and wasn't Card prescient in
his imagining of the internet and the anonymity it would bring?
I
admit, too, that when it was revealed that the final games were
actual battles I was quite surprised. Okay, okay, I hadn't seen it
coming, I get it. I probably should have, yeah, but I didn't. That
speaks to the skill with which Card drew me into his universe.
Moving
on, I had the opportunity to go see the movie tonight, at one of the
eight o'clock showings. First time I had ever gone to an 'opening' –
I usually avoid them like the plague – but this one called to me.
I'm
not going to critique the movie, minute by minute; there are many
more qualified than I who will be jumping in to do that. Instead, I'm
going to just make a few observations.
First,
there were only a dozen or so of us in the theatre. Disappointing, to
say the least, but given that it was cold, raining, and Halloween
night, not entirely surprising.
Second,
while the bulk of the book takes place over about a six year period
(yes
yes, I know, the book continues for many decades after the climactic
battle scenes, but most of the meat of the book is Ender's training
on Earth, in Battle School and then in Command School), the movie
gives the impression that it was about a six-month period. Yes, I get
it, it would difficult, even in this CGI era, to start with a
six-year-old and progress through to a near-teenager. But by
compressing the action to the shorter period much of the depth of the
book is lost. Enough is conveyed that my partner stated that she was
'totally carried along with the movie', but by comparison the movie
lacked a bit.
Third,
the punch of
the plot
was actually stronger in the movie. Being
able to see and hear, instead of reading and imagining, adds so much
to the power of the story.
A
potent
message the movie conveys is summed up neatly by Ender after wiping
out the enemy:
How
you make war is as important as why you make war.
(No,
I'm NOT going to go into this. If it resonates with you, then you
understand and don't need me to elaborate; if it doesn't resonate,
then nothing I say will make a difference. No flame wars here!)
I
did appreciate in both the book and the movie the homage to
Heinlein's classic Stranger
In A Strange Land,
that to understand your enemy means you have to know them and in
knowing them you will come to love them as they love themselves –
and it is only in that moment that you can defeat them.
A
wholly worthwhile movie. Thoughtful, but with enough action and
motion through the plot to satisfy most.
