Based on the classic novel by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game is the story of the Earth's most gifted children training to defend their homeplanet in the space wars of the future.
06 Feb Ender’s Game (2013)
Internals Revealed
I do dimly recall the first couple books of the series. They were engagingly written. But more importantly, they used a device that probably won‘t work today.
The books were powerful because they focused on Ender‘s internal mind. The second book folded this into Ender‘s own book a what it wrought. A very clever structure. The first book was imagined second, and had to use a different folding device. The solution was games.
This wouldn‘t work today because games have become more prescriptive and in the world. In the eighties, they were vastly more abstract, closer to the imagination than to furniture.
See, the thing is that winds of the mind are ephemeral. You have to describe something else to convey the shape of them. This is why, for example, something as invisible as love is conveyed through stories of war or political upheaval.
Card‘s war was only an excuse for the exclusive focus on war gaming, which could stand in and illuminate his internal emotional forces. These were suitably simplified for a teen audience, so the match could be well made. But in the book, the genius is that reader invented what the games looked like, being a cocreator of the world. The pathway through the games then segued to a pathway for the alien creature. Not sure why so many of these alien creatures are insect- like.
The movie has most of the same story, but none of this folding. The war is real. The games are as real as the real world (with one exception). So what we are stuck with is having to get Ender‘s emotions from the face of a weak child actor.
Nothing to say about Harrison Ford. He has a rough enough life.
Posted in 2014
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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