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I have read the book Enders Game once a year since I was 12 and when I heard the movie was coming out I was a little anxious to see how they did with my favorite novel.

i put off seeing it at the movies and finally yesterday afternoon i sat down and watched it. It was dreadful...Under developed characters, missing important bits of story line, changing of names and the worst part of all was the changed ending to the whole damned thing!!!

I wanna know what other fans of Enders Game thought of it's film adaption? Did you find it moved to fast and barely scratched the surface of the novel or were you satisfied with the explosion high film adaption?

Cheers

I really liked them both. Though in the book the plot twist was much less predictable. Maybe it's because I was younger, or I knew what was going to happen in the movie because of the book. Either way i think they are both great.

The film spoiled the ending in the trailers. Nuff said.

They both suck. I read the original short story first, and found the novel annoying and padded. Then I tried to read Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide. So, naturally, I wish Ender's Game the novel had never existed.

The film was pretty decent, if totally unmemorable. A lot of the sanctioned child abuse aspects of the story are more obvious in the film, though.

There should be a 'I didn't like either' option. Unfortunately, I read the book as an adult. Maybe if I'd seen it as a kid, I'd have the nostalgia-tinged glasses required to like it, but the story just fell flat for me.

Novel by far. The rest of the series gets a bit too weird for my tastes and it doesn't help that the author is a giant prick.

When making a film based on a book the book is usually better.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
When making a film based on a book the book is usually better.

Yeah, but you never know. The Godfather, Die Hard, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, most Philip K. Dick movies, and Gone With the Wind are all better than the novels that inspired them. But Sci Fi/Fantasy has a pretty poor record.

Studios have a terrible habit of gutting the meat of a scifi/fantasy work to focus on special effects, often to the detriment of the piece. I don't whine when a movie isn't "as good as the book." That's a pointless comparison to make. But many movies based on books are just plain bad.

I don't love the book like a lot of people do, because I didn't read it at an age when it would have really resonated with me, and I'd known about the twist ending for years before I read the book.

The film missed the mark, pretty badly I feel. Ultimately the script let it down, because it didn't give enough time to the games, showing how Ender was developing. The point was that they were creating a tactical genius who could figure out how to win... and somewhere in the process of scripting or editing or something they lost track of that and didn't actually show why he was special and how he'd changed. As a result the whole thing was flat and kind of pointless.

 LordofHats wrote:
Studios have a terrible habit of gutting the meat of a scifi/fantasy work to focus on special effects, often to the detriment of the piece.

Yeah, and lots of really good sci-fi has a plot that's just there to hold everything together while the author makes points about technology and society and lots of other stuff. Those points are often not easily filmable, and so get stripped out, leaving just that bare bones plot and lots of explosions.

Never read the book or saw the film but it's a rare event IMO when a film can be said to have bettered the book version. A film can never really hope to match the nuance and poetry that text can convey. I'm struggling to think of any example where the film version surpasses the book equivalent.

I've never read the book, but I saw the film and thought it was painfully average. I understand that the book is considered something of a sci-fi classic so I can only assume that the film was a bad adaptation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 filbert wrote:
Never read the book or saw the film but it's a rare event IMO when a film can be said to have bettered the book version. A film can never really hope to match the nuance and poetry that text can convey. I'm struggling to think of any example where the film version surpasses the book equivalent.

The Godfather.

I havnt read the book, but I voted novel. The movie felt WAY rushed

Didn't watch it and won't cause I don't want a penny of my money to trickle down to that bigot of a writer.

I liked the book a lot, mainly because I found myself identifying with Ender a lot. I was going to see the film when it was cheap enough, but I won't bother having seen these poor reviews.Thanks for saving me a few quid, I'll wait for it to be on TV and record it.

Question for those of you who have read Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide: without spoilers, are they worth reading? From what I've seen, there's a very mixed reception for them.

No. Unless you're a masochist and want your eyes to bleed cherry coolaid; if that's the case, jump right in.

The movie felt rushed, neither were great, but both were entertaining.

I never ready the book, and most likely won't ever. So, the movie wins in my book.

The book was bad enough.

I haven't bothered with the movie. The book didn't make me want to finish it, let alone inspire me to want to see a film version.

The visuals in the movie were pretty sweet. I liked the zero G games and wish I could do that for reals!

The movie had me torn. I really liked certain scenes but the overall story felt pretty stupid. An f35 stopping an alien invasion seemed a bit odd, and why was a military commander flying a jet?

 filbert wrote:
Never read the book or saw the film but it's a rare event IMO when a film can be said to have bettered the book version. A film can never really hope to match the nuance and poetry that text can convey. I'm struggling to think of any example where the film version surpasses the book equivalent.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
When making a film based on a book the book is usually better.

Yeah, but you never know. The Godfather, Die Hard, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, most Philip K. Dick movies, and Gone With the Wind are all better than the novels that inspired them. But Sci Fi/Fantasy has a pretty poor record.

Not every book has a lot of nuance or poetry. And even some that do can be improved by adding Morgan Freeman.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Paradigm wrote:

Question for those of you who have read Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide: without spoilers, are they worth reading?

No.

 Paradigm wrote:
I liked the book a lot, mainly because I found myself identifying with Ender a lot. I was going to see the film when it was cheap enough, but I won't bother having seen these poor reviews.Thanks for saving me a few quid, I'll wait for it to be on TV and record it.

Question for those of you who have read Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide: without spoilers, are they worth reading? From what I've seen, there's a very mixed reception for them.

Not really but there is a book written from the perspective of Bean that follows the same story as Enders Game but you see it from the point of the young genius watching Ender instead of Enders view...its worth a read if you can find it

Yeah, I've heard good things about Ender's Shadow and the whole Shadow series, but really, with all the good sci fi out there, do you really want to continue suckling at the teat of Ender's Game? The book was a hit decades ago, times have moved on, and OSC turned out to be a pretty horrible person. Why not read some John Scalzi, Alistair Reynolds or Peter F Hamilton instead?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yeah, I've heard good things about Ender's Shadow and the whole Shadow series, but really, with all the good sci fi out there, do you really want to continue suckling at the teat of Ender's Game? The book was a hit decades ago, times have moved on, and OSC turned out to be a pretty horrible person. Why not read some John Scalzi, Alistair Reynolds or Peter F Hamilton instead?

Oh don't get me wrong I have numerous other authors I read as well from Mike Resnick (Fantastic Sci-Fi writer) to Raymond E. Feist....It isn't the Author I enjoy in Ender game, I like the story of Enders game and of Enders Shadow (Thanks for mentioning the book title i had a blank) the rest of the serious is fairly weak in its writings and delivery...But I will look into those others you mentioned always keen for broadening my horizons!

 chromedog wrote:
The book was bad enough.

I haven't bothered with the movie. The book didn't make me want to finish it, let alone inspire me to want to see a film version.

Agreed. The book was boring trash to me. Plus you could see the "surprise" purpose of the "training" a mile away. I only finished it because it was one of the Boy's favorite books and I said I would.

What garbage did I just watch?

I first received the book as a gift during my more formative years and it has been one of my favorites (author aside and a dash of rose colored glasses I'm sure). What I just finished watching was a fething pile of gak.

I haven't suffered through a movie like that since Inspector Gadget (Matthew Broderick one). I felt no connection to the movie Ender. At best, he seemed to be suffering from some sort of bipolar disorder.

The forced Petra almost romantic scenes made me want to vomit. Everything felt very rushed and pacing was terrible.

"Hey, you're promoted." "Hey, here's your first battle." "Hey, here's your army." "Hey, here's your 2v1 battle."

I honestly have been waiting for a screen adaptation of Ender's Game for years, but not like this. Someone should do like they did for my favorite scifi novel, Dune, and do the book some justice in a miniseries as opposed to the clusterfeth that is the movie Ender's Game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Yeah, I've heard good things about Ender's Shadow and the whole Shadow series, but really, with all the good sci fi out there, do you really want to continue suckling at the teat of Ender's Game? The book was a hit decades ago, times have moved on, and OSC turned out to be a pretty horrible person. Why not read some John Scalzi, Alistair Reynolds or Peter F Hamilton instead?

How is he a horrible person?

Isn't he quite a strongly spoken homophobe? Which I thought was odd when I first found out about it, because I had always thought that Ender and Alai were a little gay. You know, Ancient Greek style.

 motyak wrote:
Isn't he quite a strongly spoken homophobe? Which I thought was odd when I first found out about it, because I had always thought that Ender and Alai were a little gay. You know, Ancient Greek style.

THIS ^^^^^^ SPOT ON!