When I read Ender’s Game in high school, it was kind of a revelation. For those that might not know, the book tell the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin as he is trained from age six to effectively become the perfect leader in training for the oncoming invasion of the “Buggers”. To do this, he and his fellow students are subjected to war games that take place in zero gravity. All of this builds up to the final climactic battle which I won’t dare spoil, even though you should’ve already read it.
At the time, it was extremely hard for me to find new literature to gobble down simply because I wasn’t interested in anything. Then I got this book and I read it in a week and a half. I don’t know about you all, but for me, that’s something incredible. While I read some of it’s sequels and the spin-off book Ender’s Shadow, nothing really packed the punch that Ender’s Game did at the time.
So, when I see Robert Orci updating his Twitter saying he and writing partner Alex Kurtzman are on the Ender’s Game film adaptation, my heart sinks a little bit. First off, you can’t translate the spirit of the novel to film. 90% of the book is Ender dealing with internal struggles, which reads like constipation on celluloid and is cinematic death. Second, while their work on the nuTrek was a lot of fun, there’s absolutely no way that they can translate the super serious tone of the books to screen. Orci/Kurtzman are about popcorn and fun. Ender’s Game is a hard film that, if actually adapted, should be at least a hard PG-13 due to the amount of violence in the book.
Gavin Hood is also attached to the project, which means something, I’m sure, but it’s Orci and Kurtzman that really worry me. I’m sure they’d make Ender a cocksure, roguish type instead of the reluctant leader that he is through the whole book, but I feel like I’m entering into dangerous fanboy rant mode, so I’ll stop while I’m ahead. While there aren’t any serious details as of yet, as it doesn’t even say that they wrote it, I’m still obviously very wary. However, since the adaptation has gone through so many permutations and so many other directors, this version stands just as much a chance of going through the pipes. I really hope this creative crew knows what they’re doing.