Harry Potter Meets Star Wars: Excellent Adaption of One of the Classics of Science Fiction

Rating: 9/10 (17 November 2013)

Despite any misgivings concerning Orson Scott Card's personal beliefs about controversial subjects, his novel "Ender's Game" (TOR, 1985) often shows up in the top 2 or 3 titles of the most loved books among Science Fiction readers. The original novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel, not an easy feat since few have won both awards for the same book. ("Dune" by Frank Herbert, "The Left-Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin, and "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis are a few examples which are double winners.) After many starts and stops over a 20+ year period, "Ender's Game" has finally graced the big screen. And it has been worth the long wait.
The screen adaptation of "Ender's Game" is one of the best among classic science fiction novels. (By contrast, the original "Dune" film directed by David Lynch was an atrocious screen version of Herbert's famous novel.) Where "Ender's Game" succeeds (and the original "Dune" film didn't) was because the former understood the sensibility of the story. While on the surface, the plot seems simple: a young cadet is in training at a kind of military space school. At the same time, the story is much deeper than merely a bunch of kids playing shoot 'em up in a weightless battlefield. Underlying the setting of a training school for pre-teen space soldiers (written over 10 years before Harry Potter) is the idea of how a youth becomes a leader among his/her peers. Is leadership in-born, or is it taught? Or does it come from facing adversity in which the person must find within him or herself the ability to be self-reliant?
The administrators of the space school don't believe that leaders are born, but rather can be forged, like a sword. And Earth needs someone forged for the task to stop the alien meanies who threatened to conquer earth. In the last battle, the meanies were stopped by a hero who had the guts and cleverness to use every resource available to ensure victory. To replicate their former hero, they contrive to offer one of their best students a series of experiences which will instill the idea that he is a leader. And that student is Ender Wiggin. The administrators in charge of his experiences are Harrison Ford and Viola Davis who put Ender through a ringer of impossible situations that would be nearly unbearable to almost everyone else. The story is not only about how Ender deals with these experiences at the training school but also how he grows into something a bit different than what the administrators had planned. And after having graduated to different levels of the training school, he meets someone he thought so much larger than life that he can't believe he has met him face-to-face.
A beautiful and moving adaption of one of the great science fiction classics. The cast is first rate all-around with exceptional performances by the kids, particularly Hailee Steinfeld as Petra and the highest marks for Asa Butterfield as Ender. The special effects are fantastic, which is to be expected, but they support the story rather than overwhelm it, which seems to be the trend these days for most science fiction offerings. This is one of the few science fiction films that is simultaneously dazzling and moving. A rare find in the annals of SF filmmaking. And as stated by others involved with this film, the message of "Ender's Game" has absolutely nothing to do with the author's opinions on other subjects.