After watching Ender’s Game, and reading the novel, there are many differences, but while watching the movie there are some things that also stayed faithful to the text. These differences consisted of the characters, the setting, the theme, the lines of dialogue, and some of the events that were either missing, or added to the movie. For example, in the movie the main character, Ender, was a lot older than in the book. Other characters that I imagined to be different from the movie are Bonzo, Major Anderson, Sergeant Dap, Bernard, Mazer Rackham, and Fly Molo. For instance, Bonzo is described in the book as being older and taller; however, in the movie he looked like a teenager with a very large nose. I also don’t remember much of Major Anderson in the novel, but the one thing I remembered of Major Anderson is that, the character was a man in the novel. In the movie, Sergeant Dap caught me off guard because he was very stern and large, I didn’t expect that coming into the movie, another character that I thought would look differently was Bernard. In the novel Bernard was described to be much younger and thinner, in the movie he was a very large boy and also appeared many times in the movie, as opposed to the novel. In addition, I also didn’t remember reading about Mazer Rackham’s facial tattoo in honor of his father’s New Zealand culture. I also felt like that scene with Mazer Rackham was very suspenseful and odd. Lastly, one character that didn’t play a big role in the movie, but had an impact on the book was, Fly Molo. I didn’t have a visual description in my mind of him so I wasn’t disappointed in his character in the film. Some characters that I think matched the description in the novel were Colonel Graff, Bean, and Alai. Personally, I absolutely loved Bean’s character because I think he sustained a nice balance of being stern, and humorous. To me, I think that balance is something I look for in every character. I think Alai definitely matched the description in the book, as well as what I visualized while I was reading the novel. I also enjoy Colonel Graff’s character because in my opinion he was the one character that I felt wanted the best for Ender, and I also felt like he was very sincere.

Another element of the movie that departed from the text was the lines of dialogue, and events that were missing or added to the movie. In the novel, the word “bugger” meaning, aliens, was used quite often, and in the movie it was only used once or twice. And the word everyone was looking forward to hearing, “fart eater”, was never used. I think as a director’s standpoint there are many parts of the novel that you have to cut out, but “fart eater” is a word that you don’t hear everyday and it’s also unique to the novel, so I think that shouldn’t have been cut out of the film. Further more, an event that was added to the film that I don’t recall being in the novel was when Ender and Colonel Graff traveled back to Earth after his refusal to continue in the International Fleet. While on Earth Ender visited Valentine and they paddled in a boat on a lake. As they were paddling, Valentine persuaded Ender to stay in Battle School because she felt that he was destined for greatness and could defeat the aliens. After agreeing with Valentine, Ender and Colonel Graff travel back to Battle School and are then immediately transferred to Command School. In the book Ender and Colonel Graff never travel back to Earth and visit Valentine, but instead they stay in space and continue with their training. An event that was missing from the film was the chapter about Demosthenes and Locke, which had an impact on how the novel unfolded. Finally, an event that was missing from the movie, was when Ender and Bernard got into a fight on the bus before leaving for flight school, but this event was changed to in a science classroom and was started by Ender beating Bernard at a video game, then Bernard calling Ender names. I think by adding or cutting out these elements didn’t really affect the overall of the movie and to me, it didn’t ruin nor enhance the film.

The setting was one element that I felt stayed faithful to the text because when I was reading the novel I imagined all the settings almost exactly like in the movie. I was pretty impressed on the graphics and special affects because I felt like it brought another dimension to the film. One setting that I really liked was Battle School because during the movie I was thinking about how school would be like on a daily basis if our school were in space, and we learned how to kill instead of learning how to read. Another setting that I was entertained by was the simulation room, where Ender trained to flight against the aliens as if it was a real war. Personally I thought the bunkroom was very cool because I have bunked in an actual bunkroom before and it didn’t look that nice, and it was also no that cool.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading the novel, as well as watching the movie, and I think both the book and the film sustained the same theme, which I think is very important when creating a movie based on a novel. But personally I enjoyed the movie better because I enjoyed searching for scenes in the movie that I also remembered visualizing while reading the book. I would definitely recommend reading the novel and watching the movie because it gives us another perspective on how the world could be like one day.