Astonishingly good adaptation

Rating: 9/10 (3 November 2013)

Ender's Game is, in my opinion, one of the best SF books ever written - so I was both excited and wary when I heard it was finally being adapted into a film. After much internal debate (both for political reasons - which I'll touch on later - and for fear of being disappointed)I decided that I did want to risk seeing it during it's theatrical release.
I was glad that I did. This was an astonishingly good adaptation. It managed to avoid becoming yet another action flick set in space, and didn't shy away from the deeper questions raised by the book.
(A few scenes were softened: replacing 2 deaths with "hospitalization" - which I'm sure was done for the PG13 rating - and making video games deaths far less gruesome.)
That being said, this is an adaptation. Film and literature are completely different media and have different strengths. While all the important scenes were touched on, the time frame was very condensed in the film. While in the novel, Ender is in battle school for years, the film gives the impression that this all takes place over a few months.
One benefit to this condensation is that it makes the casting of Asa Butterfield far more reasonable. He (and the other actors) are MUCH too old for the characters in the beginning of the story, if one goes by the novel, but are a reasonable age for where they are by the end.
I would have liked to see more of the mind game, and also more Peter. But all in all, a much better adaptation than I'd feared.
Regarding the boycott: While Orson Scott Card's anti-gay politics are not portrayed in this movie, I will still be donating the price of my and my husband's ticket to the ACLU. I encourage any others who enjoy quality SF but to not support OSC's anti-gay agenda to make a similar donation to the LGBT or human rights organization of their choice.