“Ender’s Game” by my favourite author, Orson Scott Card, is coming to a theatre near you. As with most book-to-film adaptations, I am cautiously optimistic, hesitant, excited, and hoping for the best.
Today, the first look at Ender’s Game left my heart hammering in my ribcage.
In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them…. I destroy them.
I am ridiculously excited for this. They cast the battleschool children a little old, but that might be a necessity of having more capable actors to do justice to the complexities of the rolls.
And Ford as Graff… oh man oh man.
Can you feel my heart pounding?
Here’s hoping.
H.G. Bells 
That one photo told me that this a book to movie version that I will never, ever watch. Every single thing about it is so wrong.
I think Ford makes a good Graff. Sure, the battle schoolers are older than in the book, but that’s just part and parcel of adapting to to a live action film. I think the barracks look good. Guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Ford may be a decent Graf, but I’m more concerned about whether the spirit of the book is preserved. When teenagers are substituted for little kids, then the spirit has been violated. A large part of the book’s emotional impact is the use of youngsters as warriors. An Ender who’s almost as tall as Graf is a massive violation of the spirit. And the nice shiny barracks tell me that a lot of this movie is going to be about visual candy, including action, much of which will be invented for the movie. There are some remakes that can be entertaining if you set your mind not to expect them to resemble the book in any way. But Ender’s Game wasn’t meant to be entertainment. That’s why it’s a classic.
What I’m predicting will be left out — Ender’s brother and sister. His anguished understanding of himself as a killer. The brutal fight in the showers, at least with the nudity and the blood.