I get excited when I see popular books get a movie adaptation, especially Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels when they're well done (seven years later and I'm still cringing over the Eragon film, the book deserved better than that). One of my goals is to have at least one of my books hollywood-ized, so it makes me happy to see other authors achieve that milestone. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit.
I have a weird personal rule (actually I have a lot of these) that I can't, or rather, I won't allow myself to watch an adaptation of something I've been wanting to read until after I've read it. That's why I'm missing out on the Game of Thrones frenzy right now and probably five or ten years from now I'll be tweeting about how good the show is long after it's over. The problem with this personal rule is that I'm a slow reader. I wanted to finish Ender's Game in time to see it in theaters, but wound up just making the DVD release.
The book was a great ride! Orson Scott Card has a brilliant, forward thinking mind. If I had been living under a rock and someone told me the book was written last year I would've believed them. I've read some pretty silly 80's Sci-Fi in my life, some stories that are set in the distant future yet the technology was old in the 90's and the characters are using words like "tubular" and "radical" to describe said technology. But here we are almost thirty years later and Ender's Game is still relevant. That says a lot.
Also the characterization is spot on. I was worried at first that the characters would come across as very juvenile sounding, but before I got even halfway through I forgot I was reading a YA novel and had to be reminded of Ender's age. The kids at Battle School are only children in stature, sure they have some moments where they're goofing off and acting their age but they are each complex characters. It reminded me a little of Lord of the Flies.
I loved every bit of it, the military's manipulation of children, the twist that I should have seen coming but didn't that made me loudly exclaim "oh shit!" at three A.M. By the last chapter I was thoroughly at home in this world and I didn't want to turn that last page, but then I remembered... I had the movie to look forward to!
As I feared the movie was much faster paced than the novel and left out a lot of nuances, but I forgave it for that because everything looked so dang cool! I was impressed, it looked better on screen than in my head (especially the battle room scenes). And unlike some recent film adaptations like The Great Gatsby where reviewers criticized the film for putting more emphasis on style than substance (which I only partially agree with in the case of The Great Gatsby), I didn't feel like Ender's Game was just a visual spectacle. It stayed true to the source material, more than I thought it would, and captured the major plot points at the expense of smaller details. I watched with my girlfriend who hadn't read the book and didn't know anything about it before the movie started and she told me a few times throughout "I feel like I'm missing something," or "did they skip something here." And she was right, quite a few things were altered, abridged or omitted (like Peter's significance to the story and Valentine and Peter's takeover of the nets on earth). If anything I would've wished for an extra 20-30 minutes of film time. But overall I can't say I was disappointed with the movie.
I'm glad it was made, I'm glad it prompted me to read a book that had been in my backlog forever, I'm glad I got to see Bean on the big screen (hes just too awesome!), and I'm glad that the movie, while hit or miss for some people, potentially turned new readers on to Orson Scott Card and the Sci-Fi genre as a whole.
I want to stay in Ender's world. I want to dive into the next book... but right now I have to switch gears to the fantasy genre, continue on where I left off in the Broken Empire Trilogy and catch up with Jorg and the gang. Best not keep the prince waiting!
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