11.05.2013
Ender's Game
Official Site | IMDb
Adapted from the first book in the Ender's Game series
Overall Grade: A-
In the recent past, Earth was invaded by an alien species, the Formics (or more derisively, the Buggers), which humanity managed to miraculously and mysteriously fend off. Since that day, the International Fleet has been selecting the brightest children from around the world and training them as military leaders for the day humanity must fight the Formics again.
I think this is a pretty fair adaptation of the original novel. A number of changes are present, of course. The children in battle/command school are older than in the book, and not naked. The pacing is much faster. There is also quite a paucity of Peter and, less so, Valentine - the whole Locke/Demosthenes storyline is completely absent, but it's not hard to see why that would be hard to fit in to an "action scifi" movie. Bean is present but Julian Delfinki is not even cast in a non-speaking role. There is also a noticeable proto-romance being pushed between Petra and Ender (can you please not Hollywood?). The location of the Command School also differs, but necessarily I think, in order to facilitate a tighter ending than the denouement of the novel. These are the most noticeable and significant changes, in my opinion. There are some subtle touches that readers the whole series will hopefully enjoy - look for references to 'First Meetings' and 'Speaker for the Dead'. And I think Harrison Ford also makes a pretty good Hyrum Graff.
Labels: genre: scifi, media: movie, series: Ender's Game
