Ender’s Game

Ender’s Game (2013)

Image From IMDB

Training up a bunch of kids for an intergalactic war feels very eighties (when the book was written) but i’m not sure if that quite translated to modern day. While a decent movie I can’t help but wonder whether it took full advantage of its unique premise, and probably need to read Orson Scott Card’s book one day to find out.

Ender’s Game follows the story of Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) a gifted child who might just be humanities last hope against an invading alien force that almost destroyed Earth once before, and might be on their way again. The clock is ticking as Ender is trained through various games to be ready to lead the final battle against the evil invaders, and become humanities survivor.

There’s plenty of sci-fi to love within the movie from the Earth and space battles, to the training ships and drones. Everything feels slick and shiny in this future despite Earth potentially being on its knees. It has a real Starship Troopers or Wing Commander vibe to it… but you know…. with kids.

And this is where I'm undecided about the movie, and curious about the book. I get the idea of training kids from birth for war, that’s an old trope and one I enjoy, but i’m not sure whether the movie played on the fact that they were kids enough. It felt more like children cosplaying as adults than them being kids for a good reason. It was kind of like what Brick did for Noir, but this wasn’t meant to be a gimmick, and instead was part of the story.

If all the characters were ten, fifteen, twenty years older, would the story/film have changed in the slightest? Again, I really need to read the book at some point to see if their age plays a more crucial role, because I can’t help but think it was overlooked in the movie, which is a shame.

That aside, the film was decent. Everyone gave a good performance and the effects were fine for the movie it was. There was a few pacing issues with the video game stuff and Ender’s reliance on his sister, but it moved along ok overall and had a clear structure.

There’s some great themes in the story, and Ender’s arc is incredibly interesting and well done. The ending is obviously a massive talking point too and mostly well handed (didn’t need the setup for the sequel that never came) and I generally really like morality tales and stories about the ethics of war. The idea of there being a right way to win is something I firmly believe in and I like that they explored that through Ender throughout. So it’s a good watch overall, i’m just not sure why they were all children outside of the bred for war thing. Maybe i’m nitpicking, I don’t know.