South African filmmaker, Gavin Hood, takes Orson Scott Card’s novel, Ender’s Game, and brings the story of Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) alive. In the near future, an alien species attacked Earth. With the help of Commander Mazer Rackham, he defeated that fleet of buggers and saved Earth. In preparation for the next attack, the International Military, along with Colonel Graff are training young kids who they think have the best minds to seek out the future commander who will lead the next fleet into battle. They take these kids to Battle School, where they are trained for the next battle against the buggers. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is a quiet, shy, strategically brilliant boy who is personally recruited by Colonel Graff to train in Battle School. Ever since Ender was little, the military government kept a careful eye on him because they knew he was special. When Ender arrives at battle school, he immediately masters all the difficult tasks and challenges thrown his way. Due to Ender’s strategically, intelligent mind, Graff knows he’s the next Mazer Rackham. He is then taken to Command School and is trained personally by Mazer Rackham himself. Ender and his friends, take on the buggers in what they think is only a practice round, but is actually the real battle. They went behind their backs, knowing if they were going to kill an entire race, they wouldn’t have done it. What was done was done. There was no going back. After defeating the alien planet, Ender could finally see things clearly from the bugger’s point of view. They weren’t exactly a threat they wanted to make peace in the end. They thought the human race would forgive them, but of course, they didn’t, and they attacked instead. Ender pieced everything together and found out that the buggers were trying to send him a message. They sent him all these little clues, which lead him to a cave where he came upon the Queen Ant and her egg. She asked Ender to protect the egg and take it to a new planet, where the bugger colony may start again, and that’s exactly what he decided to do.

The cast of Ender and the other students in Battle School were older than in the book. I understand why the director did that though. It would have been very difficult to find young actors to portray such roles. In my opinion, the actors portrayed their scenes very well and they connected to their roles. They became their characters, and that made the story that much more like the book. In the book, Colonel Graff, to me, seemed like a kind-hearted, yet strict, person. In the movie, he never cared of the well being of Ender, he mainly just used him to get what he wanted. In the book, loneliness and connection is played out mostly in Ender. In the movie though, it didn’t show that at all. It didn’t show that he was lonely, because the movie showed he wasn’t really alone. He had made friends very easily and got along with them. He didn’t seem so lonely to me at all. Overall though, cast and acting wise, this movie was very well done but had some differences here and there.

The setting of this story varies greatly in the story. Ender goes to many places throughout the book such as Earth, Battle School, and Command School. I believe the era this took place in is 22nd century due to all the complex technology. It also must have taken them a while to create all the space stations and such. I believe the technology and the setting of this book enhanced what I had read in my mind. The Battle Room, for me, was the coolest graphics they made in the movie. I did not see that in my mind while reading, but that’s because my mind isn’t as the filmmakers. It was really legit and really enhanced the movie to make it feel more realistic. The video game wasn’t as cool as I pictured it to be, but I think it was necessary to create it like that, due to all the other things they created in the movie. The video game would have looked way too realistic and it could have gotten confusing when Ender went to the “castle” the Buggers created for him to go to. Something else they could have done better about the setting is that they should have made the lake more realistic. When Valentine went to visit Ender at the lake on Earth it looked really fake. They should have filmed it at an actual lake instead of doing it on the green screen. I’m not sure if it was because of money, but I still think they could’ve done a better job with that.

There were actually quite a few themes that the author included into this book. The one that stood out for me though, was that it’s good to do what is needed, even if what is needed, doesn’t seem right at the time. Ender had no choice at the time, but to kill the aliens. He knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, that’s why they tricked him, because they knew he wouldn’t do it. He may have killed an entire race, but in everyone else’s minds, it was either do or die. Either kill the buggers or to be killed by them. He needed to kill them, even if it didn’t seem right to him.

Ender’s Game was a very good movie but if you read the book before it, the movie seems like a joke, in my opinion. It can’t compare to the book at all. There was just too much information that they needed to put into the movie. They rushed through it very quickly and it felt really fast. Too many important scenes were cut out or changed, and that was actually very irritating because it was so sad compared to the book. They should’ve just made the movie longer instead of having to change so many big things. Even if I didn’t like the book, I would still think the movie went by too fast and I probably wouldn’t have liked it. Overall, the movie was pretty good, but can, and never will, compare to the book.