Ender's Game Analysis

No book to movie adaption has ever been described as perfect and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is no exception. Almost every character changed at some point from the book to the movie, whether in regards to personality, physical appearance, or their given amount of screen time. The directors changed the plot noticeably adding in romances and special effects while removing other concepts that failed to translate well on the big screen. Most obviously the use of detail and description isn’t there in the movie. While most readers appreciated Ender’s game for its use of Ender’s perspective thus allowing them to see what he saw, the movie fails to describe that to its audience. The movie captured the action elements of Ender’s Game using Hollywood

and the added plot devices for the glamour of an action movie. Cut out plotlines are a major change due to the shortened timeline; primarily the subplot with Ender’s siblings on earth. When reading the book this plotline seemed distracting, but in the movie Valentine and Peter’s decreased role was incredibly obvious. In the effort to make this movie more action packed many smaller scenes were cut from the book. Ender’s tearful goodbye with his family, his training with his launch group during free time, and the several different armies he joined every time he started to make friends were all cut due to the shortened time line. Alai kissing Ender was also cut from the movie but the scene was still included with a more manly pat on the back, so this cut was obviously not due to the shortened time line. Petra was used as a plot device in this movie adding a forced romantic element that wasn’t in the book presumably because in the book she was 5 years older than Ender and romance isn’t usually a big thing for 6 and 11 year olds in the middle of a war. While this fills the void left by subtracting the vaguely incestual relationship between Valentine and Ender, it ruins Petra’s tomboyish character in the effort to make Ender a more macho less gay protagonist. Understandably the movie makers cut many smaller scenes to fit a shortened timeline and took out many problematic elements of the book in favor of a more traditional child romance; however, these cut plot lines took away some of the depth of the book, the cut scenes took away from Ender’s emotional range and strategic genius, and the added romance ruined the only major female character included in the movie