Ender's Game

[Donegeal]

yeah, have too kids and a night shift job has made me have to put off seeing this until next Monday. There was a time where I wouldn't miss opening weekend for any sci-fi movie. Now I just don't have the time.

[Elok]

Don't rush. It really was profoundly uninspiring, like a three-and-a-half-hour movie they cut down to two, losing all narrative meaning in the process.

[Uncle Sparky]

The visuals were very good. I think I read the book in the late 70s and the move was missing significant bits... never the less, more fun than most recent sci-fi undertakings.

[Donegeal]

That's very impressive considering the book was written in 1985. (But I get your point anyway)

[Lorizael]

He might be thinking of the original short story, which came out in 77.

[Donegeal]

It was just too rushed; and they left out/changed so much. Book would have made a better mini-series.

[Elok]

One also wonders

Spoiler:

Just how ****ing incompetent was IF's security, that they failed to notice a Formic queen living within literal walking distance of their super-secret base? I get that they didn't have screen time to spare on getting Ender to another colony where he could discover it, but did that never come up?

Of course, I never wondered before

Spoiler:

Why, in the book, taking out the one home planet wins the whole war and constitutes genocide. They had colonies all over the galaxy, didn't they? How were those running without fertile queens? Did they ever answer that in the book? I remember something about withdrawing all queens to their homeworld or something, but I can't recall why.

[Donegeal]

Spoiler:

Although the timing doesn't work out due to relativity, the Formics recalled their queens when Ender's fleets started showing up at their colonies and beating them. The Formics concluded very early that the humans, and Ender in particular, was not going to stop fighting them. It would have been non-stop war for both sides for centuries. To avoid this, the Formics put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and allowed themselves to be destroyed so Ender could bring them back to a hopefully more understanding Human race.

And yes, to your first point. Very idiotic and only done for the reasons you stated.

[regexcellent]

I heard it was really good

[Donegeal]

Did you read the book?

[regexcellent]

Yes.

[Donegeal]

Well, they skipped so much of the book. They never really explain why Ender was so afraid of his brother; they just show one fight between him and Peter and skip the whole squirel skinning thing. They never establish the close relationship between Valentine and Ender. They skip Locke and Demontheses completely. Ender doesn't break Bernards arm on the launch. Doesn't even fight him. Speaking of which, Ender and Bean meet in the Launch. That really messes things up as when Graff tells all the kids only Ender among them has a brain we know that's not true. I could go on, but this is just the first 15-20 minutes of the movie.

[Patroklos]

I don't give a **** about Bean's later exploits in barely readable books, and neither did the makers of this movie.

[DinoDoc]

Spoiler:

Although the timing doesn't work out due to relativity, the Formics recalled their queens when Ender's fleets started showing up at their colonies and beating them. The Formics concluded very early that the humans, and Ender in particular, was not going to stop fighting them. It would have been non-stop war for both sides for centuries. To avoid this, the Formics put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and allowed themselves to be destroyed so Ender could bring them back to a hopefully more understanding Human race.

Then why did they start the fight in the first place?

[N35t0r]

Then why did they start the fight in the first place?

Spoiler:

IIRC, they didn't realise humanity was sapient when they first met them, and killed a bunch of people, or something.