Saw the movie Ender’s game, first, in part, on a flight then in full on HBO and wasn’t too impressed. Sorry, but that kid they had who played him was so … stiff … and robotic I thought, this must definitely be one of those movies that doesn’t translate well from the book.
Then Chris told me someone he worked with recommended the book to him, and he enjoyed it and concurred with my initial assessment that the movie didn’t do justice to the book. I’m hear to tell you that the movie absolutely did justice to the book and then some, in that if anything could be worse than the movie, it was the book.
First let me say, I can understand the appeal. I mean really, the future reality presented in the book (and movie) pretty much justifies allowing children to play as much/many violent video games as often as they like because who knows, in the future, we may need there cunning, killer instincts and increased motor reflexes to defeat some future race of alien invaders … yeah right.
But let’s forget that premise that these “games” are used to train and weed out incapable child commanders for the moment…
Let’s go with the premise that in the future we’re genetically engineering some children (in the movie it seemed like all children but in the book it was decidedly not so) to become amazing battle commanders in order to defeat alien invaders. Except, in the book, nothing’s really mentioned about genetic engineering. So are we? Or does it just happen that Ender’s parents (oh by the way, his real name is Andrew) happen to breed these advanced geniuses. If that’s the case why only a few? There are huge gaping plot holes around how these children were altered (if they were). We are just supposed to accept the fact that there are these little military geniuses running around the planet now.
Okay – so let’s accept that there are a bunch of childhood geniuses running around that are now being trained in military strategy, and aerodynamics, and space travel, and calculus and, and… all before the age of 6. Yes, hundreds of little Sheldons (a la The Big Bang Theory) but here’s the issue why are they all so emotionally mature? Hell, Sheldon is in his thirties and has the emotional maturity of a 19 year-old (maybe) and that’s after maturing over the last 7 years on the show from a 13 year-old emotional maturity level.
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So now we’ve not only got intellectually matured child geniuses running around, but emotionally mature ones too? Hard to believe a six year old knows enough to not only defend himself in a fight but kill (yes he killed that other kid in case you read the book and missed it) another kid and doesn’t miss a beat when he’s then taken from his parents and put on a spaceship to go to a new school. No crying? Nothing? Really? And actually, it’s his decision to go! A six year old can barely choose a shirt in the morning!
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And then this kid get’s older and what around the age of 12-13 he wipes out another species and that’s when he finally breaks down? By then he’s already killed two kids (yes, he killed Bonzo too) in kid-to-kid-combat and he’s a genius, and he’s emotionally mature, and you’re telling me he never had an inkling that these training scenarios were the real thing? Really? Guess he wasn’t such a genius after all. And then, even after all that, the adults around him knew what had to be done in order to wipe out this other alien race (they knew how to use their doomsday weapon) – the character of Razor what’s his name basically acknowledges it as he’s leading Ender to his last “training” scenario, so why didn’t the adults just do it? Are you really wanting me to believe that Ender’s reflexes were so much quicker or that he was conditioned to have no guilt which is why he was able to do it? Bullshit. What about the guilt the adults should feel about what they did to these kids? They’d rather that, than killing an alien race?
Way too many plot holes and leaps of faith that had no basis of support in that future world, add to that the huge antisemitic rant in the early part of the book, the anti-feminine tenor of the story (only one female student – really??) as well as the the blatant rip off of the bugs from Starship Troopers and while you had a quick read, the book was not only a huge let down but so incredibly insulting, some man’s boyhood hero fantasy run amok.
Note: Normally I link the image and titles in the article to Amazon to facilitate purchasing, but I won’t even do that for this book. Don’t waste your time.