Ender's Game: Book to Movie
A Review of the Science Fiction Novel & Film by Orson Scott Card
Apr 6, 2007
In 1985 and 1986, Orson Scott Card won the Nebula and Hugo Awards, respectively, for his groundbreaking novel Ender’s Game. Originally published as a short story in Analog Magazine (August 1977), Ender’s Game tells the story of Andrew Wiggin (a.k.a. “Ender”), a six-year old boy conscripted into military training, along with dozens of other child geniuses, to defend Earth from a horrifying alien race that no one alive has ever seen.
The novel follows Ender as he navigates the puzzling, cruel and unfair world created by the Battle School teachers and the other children to complete his military training and assume the responsibility he has been shaped for, by learning to out-bully his enemies, outsmart his teachers, and think like the aliens he is being raised to kill.
Ender’s Game, the Novel: A Modern Classic
Ender’s Game is science fiction with a tough, enjoyable core of psychology and ethical dilemmas. The most intriguing aspect of this novel is not the clichéd concept - brilliant child is selected by authority figures and grows up to save the world - but the startling tweaks in that concept and the details through which Orson Scott Card presents Ender’s isolation, his inner turmoil, and the extremes to which a young boy is forced in the name of what is “good.”
A hardcore sci-fi war and gravity-free mock training battles will appeal to some readers, and the psychological dilemmas and mental puzzles will appeal to others. However, it is Ender’s personal journey, and that of his siblings back on Earth and his cohort of other Battle School students, that will fascinate readers whether or not they are fans of science fiction.
Caught between adult and juvenile science fiction, Ender’s Game has stood the test of twenty years of popularity, and continues to ensnare news fans young and old. The novel has been used as required reading in university courses dealing with the psychology of leadership, and has even been cited as an influence in contemporary military training (New York Times, Amy Hammon, Technology: “More Than Just a Game, But How Close to Reality?”, April 3, 2003).
The book contains violence and some heavy situations that may not be suitable for very young readers.
Ender’s Game, the Movie: Lost in Freefall?
Despite the success of the book, the upcoming movie may present problems that even Ender couldn’t overcome.
In 2005, it was announced that Warner Brothers had purchased the rights to produce Ender’s Game and the companion novel, Ender’s Shadow, as a feature film. Orson Scott Card, the author of the books, was invited to write a script, which had fans of the novels anticipating a great movie. Unfortunately, in 2006 the script turned into a series of rewrites and a second, completely new script from Card. Since the autumn of 2006 news on the movie’s progress seems to have trickled to a halt. Casting and all other plans for the movie are on hold indefinitely until a script is agreed upon.
The movie is still listed as set to be released in 2008, but it seems doubtful that script-writing, casting, and production of a complex film involving so many children can be completed in so short an amount of time. Even if filming gets underway soon, the challenge for any cinematic version of Ender’s Game will be to capture the heart and mind of the novel as well as the thrilling action sequences. Lesser novels have suffered in the attempt. At this rate it seems doubtful that a 2008 film version of Ender’s Game has more than a passing chance of success.
