Ender's Game {Movie Review}

I'm sorry the blog has been so silent lately! I am working on a life update post which should be up later today, or tomorrow morning.

First of all, this will have spoilers. I am going to make no effort to avoid spoilers. If you've read the book, there should be nothing to worry about, but if you haven't, this will definitely give away some things. If you haven't seen the movie, this post will mainly be focusing on the differences between the two, so continue at your own discretion.

Second, this isn't really going to be much of a review, but really more of a list of things I did and didn't like. I went and saw the movie last night with a bunch of friends, and some of these items were things that really came from them in the post movie discussion time in which we all stood in the lobby and blocked the walkway and got strange looks from the theater workers.


Things I DID Like

1. I felt like over all, it was a pretty good adaptation. They made changes that they needed to make in order to make it into a two hour movie, and for the most part, didn't cut any important things (see the exceptions below).

2. The actors/actresses. I thought that they chose really good people to play most of the characters. I especially liked how young many of the kids actually looked. They didn't have a bunch of older actors playing kids. Asa Butterfield (Ender) is actually 16 years old, though he looked a lot younger. Hailee Steinfeld (Petra) is 17, and she looked a little more her age, but still young. Also, Harrison Ford was fantastic.

3. The battle simulations. They looked really cool.

Things I Did NOT Like

1. The thing I disliked the most was how fast it all seemed to be. It felt like a week passed from the time that Ender was taken to battle school and the time that he was fighting his final battle. It would have been really nice if they would have at least had someone mention in passing some thing like "Wow, I can't believe we've already been here for two months," or something like that. Or, as a friend suggested, they could have done some training/battle montages.

2. At the very end, Ender walks out of the HQ, walks about fifty feet, and finds... the egg of the bugger queen. Fifty feet from command central. There is NO way that they would not have known that was there. It doesn't seem like it would have been to hard to make it more like the book (where he finds it on another planet).

3. There were very few characters (other than Ender) who were developed at all. Even Bean was introduced and then essentially forgotten. Petra got a little more screen time, but still very little character development. You know nothing about any of those characters.

4. Another thing that I disliked was the omission of the Valentine/Peter storyline back on Earth. I understand that they couldn't include a lot because of time constraints, but it would have been nice if they had least made some references to it.


Overall, I think it was pretty good, considering the time they had to work with. I think it could have been better, but I was pretty pleased. If you are a fan of the book, and are considering seeing it, I recommend it.