Enders game and enders shadow movie

[wolfx]

Yes. After battle school, the kids start running simulations that they believe are preparing them for the next war. It's been a while since I read the book, but I think it was sometime before the definitive skirmish that Ender and his team figured it out. Of course, Ender was helped along in his understanding by the Hive Queen. These events caused Ender to leave Earth in disgrace and his brother Peter to become Hegemon. Or something like that...

To pull this off cinematically, I think the big reveal would be to the viewers way before it will be to Ender. They will show scenes of the actual battle that cuts with scenes with Ender in the simulator as it happens. There should be scenes of people in the fleet, moving, shooting, and dying, doubtfully but dutifully following the orders relayed to them from a hundred light years away, never knowing they were orders from 3 kids.

They never mentioned that angle in the book since Ender and the reader only knew the whole thing was actually real after the simulation was over, but I felt that for this scene to work in the movie, they will have to do it this way else it would be way boring.

[Lobizon]

[big F]

I'd never heard of it till the trailer I saw in the cinema. Looks like it will be an interesting thing to see.

[Knight26]

So I finally had a chance to see Ender's Game last night. Overall impression, go see it, it was fantastic. The visuals were stunning and they had the right cast to bring it to life. Beyond that, i twas too short, run time was supposed to be 114 minutes, but that must have included the end credits, as our movie start at 4:15 and we were out by 6:00, including trailers. There needed to be at least 1 or two more battle room sequences.

Most of the changes are forgivable for making the movie fit into the run time, cutting out almost all of Peter and Valentine was acceptable, and compressing several battle room battles into one or two was forgivable. How they showed Dragon army moving up the ranks was clever, but I would have settled even for a montage. Moving Command School from Eros was understandable, as it made the end easier to get to, but could have been handled better. Also why drop the second invasion, the Formics invaded twice in the book, the first one we turned away at Earth, the second in space, leaving us with Eros. Two major changes though that I found betrayed the story: 1) FTL travel, the movie makes it plain that they have FLT travel, where the book only has FTL comms, this is a major plot point and they just threw it out. 2) Screw newtonian physics. After reaching Command School the ships move like typical sci-fi ships, with little to no regard for Newtonian Physics. That invalidated everything the kids learned in battle school. There is some mention of physics at that point, but the fighters don't seem affected by it.

Still go see it whether you read the book or not. And if you haven't read the book go read it afterwards. Much better than ST: Into Darkness IMHO.

[technoblue]

Thanks for the review, Knight26. I'll wait to read the spoiler later.

I read the first book a few times and have read through the entire series (including the Ender's Shadow stuff) once. I was planning to see either this movie or Thor this weekend, but I might have opportunity to see both now. I think I'll take it.

[Knight26]

Definitely see it in IMAX if you can. I just hope they come out with an extended edition DVD with more in the battleroom.

[wolfx]

I also agree there should be more battle room scenes. Whole thing felt to short. Like Knight26 even a montage of Ender's brilliant strategies against the various armies would help.

No Locke and Demosthenes.

The MD Device became a beam weapon instead of a missile. Why? Using a buncha drones as shields on the firing ship was reminiscent of the sentinel swarm in the Matrix but too silly IMHO. Should've been like the book where a lone fighter made it through the swarm and planted the missile into the planet. Would've been more exciting i feel.

FTL travel.... i totally forgot about this in the books. The movie should've explained the significance of why children are being trained and how long it took for the fleet to get to the bugger's homeworld.

No mention of the derogatory term, "Bugger".

But overall a pretty good adaptation of the book. I liked it and i'm not sure if its a good thing but I know some twi-hards and hungry gamers swayed to the Ender universe. *shudders*

[technoblue]

I was able to sneak out to a late show of this. Around here, it is still drawing a good crowd, which is nice to see. I also thought it was a very good adaptation of the book. I think it is one of the better book to movie adaptations that I have seen in some time.

More battle room scenes would have been great! Ironically, I thought the pacing of the movie was good and any extra scenes would have just fleshed out the minor details, giving Ender more justification as a leader. The CGI updates to the final space battles didn't bother me much at all. However, seeing the Psi emblem on the terran ships was a bit remeniscent of Babylon 5.

I don't know if Locke and Demosthenes were necessary for this movie. I guess if the producers decide to follow some of the original story with Ender rather than jumping right into Bean's story, then they could introduce Peter and Valentine's psuedo- internet-personalities? They do help to protect him from the mess that follows on Earth.

[Chowser]

Having read all the Ender and Bean books, I still enjoyed the movie.

It told a story and kept me involved. I had to wonder how they made Bonzo look the way he did (size wise) but I guess that's his actual size.

Don't remember that being in the book, will have to dig it out and reread it. Planned on rereading it anyway with my 6 yr old.

[Kanedas Bike]

Just watched this on Blu-ray, after reading through this thread and some of the critique and comparisons with the book I'd have to agree with a lot of what's already been said (I haven't read the books, but good ole Wikipedia helped give me the rundown on the series).

I kept thinking there was something missing to add a much needed emotional punch, one dealing with having children fight a war (virtual or otherwise) and with humanity facing annihilation. The movie made it seem to me as if we could defeat the Formics with, or without, gifted children.

The ending was also very rushed, more time was needed to flesh out the reason for the Formic invasion of Earth and how Ender came to the major "reveal" would have really helped to round out the movie - IMHO.

The movie wasn't bad, if anything I'd recommend it to people as a rental since the acting, effects and music, etc. were pretty good. Just needed a longer running time to flesh out some pretty important pieces the story.

-b.

[big F]

Having just seen it over the weekend, I have to agree with Kanedas Bike. I may well read the book/s to fill in the gaps.

[GU-11]

Yet to watch the movie, but I've just read Ender's Game. Hope the movie lives up to the book. I wonder if the scenes where Ender deals with Stilson and Bonzo is shown in the movie, given the complaints come people made against the novel because of them.

Just as with Game of Thrones, I keep seeing the primary characters with the faces of the actors in the live action movie.