Ender’s Game Review


Ender’s game is a science fiction about a young, intelligent boy named Ender Wiggin. In Ender’s Game humanity is at war with the Formics, also known as the buggers. The Formics are ant-like creatures that have already attacked once and the humans are thinking they will attack again. Ender is chosen to go through a program that will train him to fight the second war against the Formics.

The program that chooses children to fight the war only chose the most intelligent children to join. Ender was the only one that made it out of his family. He is the youngest child of three children, him having an older brother and an older sister. He loved his older sister Valentine but developed a hate for his older brother Peter, who was the oldest sibling. Peter would bully Ender and he was especially mad when Ender made the program and he didn’t. He wasn’t happy to lose Valentine or his parents but he had to do what was right and agree to join the program.

The book and the movie had many differences. One difference was that in the book, Ender was a six-year-old little boy in the first grade. In the movie Ender looked like he might have been anywhere from ten to twelve years old. This was probably a lot better for the movie because it would be harder to make a movie like Ender’s Game with very young actors. Also, it would take a very long time to make the movie because you would have to let ender age throughout the movie so that he is in early adulthood at the very end.

Ender’s capacity of violence is a lot less in the movie. In the book Ender is much more violent, for example in the book when he beats up Stilson he repeatedly kicks his face and stomach and even kicks his groin a couple times. In the movie he kicks Stilson in the stomach a few times and then he is over with it. Another example would be in the battle room when Bonzo and his friends gang up on Ender and his launchie buddies. When they fought Ender sent them all to the health room with broken noses, hurt groins, and some with broken bones.

The third differences between the movie and the book was that since the book was so detailed the movie left out a couple scenes from the book. One of the scenes that were left out was Ender’s practice with the launchies when he was in Salamander army. Every night he would meet up with his launchie crew in the book but they didn’t show that in the movie. Another part of the book that was cut out was the part entirely about Valentine and Peter. Valentine and Peter were known as Locke and Demosthenes and they politically gained dominance over the world. It was shown in the movie where all the countries are united under Peter’s hegemony.

In the movie the lines of dialogue were a lot different from the book. In the book when Ender is in battle school everyone uses slang talk. For example they would call each other fart eaters and they would say things like “Ho Ender, you bad!”
In the movie no one used the slang talk in battle school, which was kind of disappointing for me because I was really looking forward to seeing how they would use the slang language in their parts.

Another difference between the movie and the book is the ending. In the end of the movie Ender goes off and finds the last life form of the Formics and he knows he has to find a place for it so their race can survive. In the book Ender goes with Valentine to find a planet for the queen formic and they find a planet, and they do what they need to do to make sure the queen survives. In the movie it just shows Ender drifting off in space to find a planet for the queen formic and it doesn’t show that Ender ever finds a home for it.

One more difference was the settings in the book and movie. First of all Ender spent much more time in battle school and command school in the book than he did in the movie. In the book he spent a few years in battle school and he also spent a couple of years in command school. In the movie Ender spent maybe a couple of months in battle school and even less time in command school. Another difference in the settings was in the book when Ender went to Eros he described the rooms as vast but with low ceilings. In the movie it showed that his room was very small in Eros but the ceiling was high.

The themes of the movie and the book were very similar. In the book Ender didn’t want to be a killer like his older brother Peter. In the movie, numerous times he showed that he didn’t want to hurt anyone because he always had compassion for his enemy. The main theme in the book and the movie is that it’s not what you win; it’s how you win.

These are the differences between the Ender’s Game book and movie. I think they both were really good but if I had to say which is better I would say the book is better just because of the details and a couple of those scenes that were left out. The movie though is definitely not a waste of time and I recommend you to go and watch it.