Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Movie Blurb by Shale
November 2, 2013

This movie is based on a 1985 sci-fi book by Orson Scott Card and according to some reviewers the book is darker, Ender more vicious. That's the problem with ppl who read, they want movies to be books. I go to movies, never read Ender's Game and so I will not be tainted in my assessment of the movie. I did read some positive reviews of the movie that said it would have been very difficult to translate the book to a movie.

This PG-13 movie is targeting that age group and it addresses a lot of social issues from bullying to the morality of warfare focusing on young adolescents being trained as soldiers, with the lead character Ender Wiggins being played by Asa Butterfield who was 15 when the movie was being made.

Ender Wiggins


The story is about interplanetary warfare where a bug species called Formics invade the earth killing millions of ppl before they are defeated by a now mythical hero named Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley). Tho the aliens were defeated and earth returned to normal there was an expected new invasion and Col Graff (Harrison Ford) is forming an army of young, recruits who are adept at strategy and battle simulations that appear like any kids vid games. Working with him is the military psychologist Major Anderson (Viola Davis) who has some misgivings about training children for war.

They are trained in the military discipline as I was at 18, just and exponential 3 years older than these guys where I did hear muted crying in the barracks after lights out. Still, despite the discipline, Ender has a habit of questioning everything - not the usual soldier - and his observations seem always to be correct. This is why he is being groomed by Col. Graff - his uncanny ability to strategize and control situations seemingly out of his control.

Col Graff & Ender in Barracks



During their training at a huge station in space, they have a zero grav battle room where their "lazer tag" guns actually immobilize limbs that are shot and a kill shot immobilizes the whole body. NEAT!

Training Field in Space



Even tho this competition among the cadets is fierce and there are bullies who try to put Ender in his place, he usually prevails, strategically striking deals with the bullies letting them save face while giving in to him - and when the persist, he fights viciously to ensure that they won't come back at him again. This too is a trait that Col. Graff is looking for in a leader - to make sure the bugs know not to ever try us again.

Ender does make a friend Petra Arkanian (Hailee Steinfeld) who is ahead of him in class and who teaches him some firing tips in zero grav. She will eventually become part of the team that he commands as he quickly rises thru the ranks.

Petra & Ender in Chowhall


All thru this movie I kept thinking how it would appeal to and be good for young ppl to see a movie that gives such responsibility to characters their age. I also thot about my experience with this age group, of playing chess with a 13-year-old boy who went at it with an aggressiveness as if it were football. (Yeah, I got mated and he did a victory dance). As reprehensible as it may seem, children can all too easily be made into soldiers as proven on our planet thruout history. Some of us see 18 year olds as still children, yet we send them into battle all the time. In war you have to do what you have to do - and that is a message addressed by this movie.

So, I recommend it for adolescents and adults - it is an entertaining space/alien/action/adventure movie with messages.

 

DISCLAIMER:

A friend sent me an e-mail today asking me if I knew that the author of Ender's Game was virulently anti-gay. I had read short mentions of that in some of the reviews I perused while looking for info for my blurb. Therefore, today I researched more fully this award winning but bent author's bio and anti-gay beliefs. While he is not close to Fred Phelps, he is in the same neighborhood.

So, I offer you this disclaimer in case you want to join the suggested boycott of this film. I went in blind to the fact that Card is a Mormon fundamentalist who blindly follows archaic scripture and refuted ideas about homosexuality and that he actively supported in his views and published writings that homosexuals be persecuted and denied civil rights. Also, he not only is the writer of the story which would get him royalties but he is also involved in the production of the movie. So, your admission money to this movie will enrich this homophobe to continue his attack on our rights.

Now, given this information - would I see this movie? Probably. It had several well-known and respected actors and a bunch of kids new to the industry. While I do not know the written story in the book I do know that director Gavin Hood did the screenplay and that the book reference to the bad aliens as "buggers" was removed. The movie I saw had no anti-homosexual references unless you really extrapolated some possible inner motives of the bullies portrayed. (So maybe I am as guilty and hypocritical as Elton John when he got all BFF onstage with that little homophobic asswipe Martin Mathers - whom I have yet to forgive).

However, it is your personal decision. The movie itself has qualities that are good. The fact that it supports an asswipe is another matter.

More info on:
Orson Scott Card
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card

Excerpts:
Views about homosexuality

Card publicly declared his disapproval of same-sex sexual relations and of same-sex marriage, and has authored various articles pertaining to this. He has claimed that the term "homophobe", with which he is sometimes labeled, is used in order to imply that opponents of the "homosexual activist agenda" are mentally ill. In a 1990 essay for Sunstone magazine, he wrote that the laws prohibiting homosexual behavior should "remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society." In May 2013, Card made a statement saying that he no longer advocates this, and says that the 1990 stance must be seen in the context of the times (such laws were still deemed constitutional at the time) and the conservative Mormon audience to whom his essay was addressed. "[N]ow that the law has changed," Card states, "I have no interest in criminalizing homosexual acts and would never call for such a thing, any more than I wanted such laws enforced back when they were still on the books." (What a crawfishing hypocrite)

In a 2008 essay opposing same-sex marriage, Card stated that he regarded any government that would attempt to recognize same-sex marriage a "mortal enemy" that he would act to destroy: "If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die."

Geeks Out wants you to Skip Ender's Game:
http://skipendersgame.com/