I recently watched Ender’s Game in theatres. And while I loved it, I maintain that the book was better, and here’s why:
While the movie stayed very true to the book, it lacked a lot of detail. There were a lot more subplots in the book that were missing in the movie. The film also lacked a lot of details regarding Ender’s age and his abilities in battle strategy. Although his age was never actually mentioned in the movie, he was six in the book when he was first sent to Battle School. He graduates into a Battle School army at the age of six, when protocol calls for only eight year olds to be part of armies. Ender proved to be a true threat to the older kids in Battle School and sat at the top of the ranks in shooting accuracy and his game’s win-lose ratio, which was not mentioned in the movie.
At the age of 10, Ender is promoted to commander of his own army. This was not mentioned in the movie, but as commander of his army, Ender fought in zero gravity battles every day for four weeks, and won every single game. Because of this he lost many friends. In the movie they also changes a detail about Bean, one of the main characters. In the books, Bean was only six when Ender was ten, whereas in the movie, Bean is Ender’s age.
Ender is graduated to Command School when he is still 10 years old, even though students are supposed to be 16 before they are promoted. I would tell you the rest of the plot, but that would probably spoil the entire movie/book for you.
In the movie, although it was never clarified, I think Ender was the same age throughout the entire film. Whereas in the books, he starts as a six-year-old and ends as a 23-year-old.
In the film, a subplot involving Valentine and Peter, Ender’s siblings, was removed. I was surprisingly okay with that, because a lot the details in the books were not vital.
All in all, the Ender’s Game movie adaptation was very well done. It was a little lacking on detail, however, the book was so jam packed with information that the movie would have made no sense had they managed to have all the information in the film. In the book, Ender’s entire life would change in a page, his entire group of friends and his enemies being different in each chapter. A lot of that was missing from the movie, but the detail that was missing was not particularly vital to the overall plot.
One thing that movie completely lacked was character development. Especially within Ender’s emotions. Ender was a very complex character in the book, even as a six year old. He experiences a lot of feelings of unhappiness and self loathing, a lot of those emotions stemming from the torment of his psychopathic older brother Peter. Throughout the series, the books opens up about how unhappy Ender is to be in Battle School, not wanting to be a pawn in war. And how he doesn’t want to be a killer, and how he doesn’t want to harm anyone. In the book there was also a lot of development in Ender’s sister, Valentine, which was missing in the movie.
Finally I would like to say that I loved the book Ender’s Game, and I was really happy with how the movie was done. The movie was successful in conveying the plot of the book. It was fast-paced and intense, and followed the plot of the book well enough. I’m not sure how easy the movie was to follow had you not read the book, but I thought it was a very well done adaptation.
