We are getting closer. Nearly twenty years since the first publication of Orson Scott Card’s Hugo Award-winning novel Ender’s Game, the world is finally about to see a movie adaptation release. We’ve spoken before about the challenges in adapting the book, not only due to enormous fan expectations, but also due to the subject matter itself.
That fan fervor is spurred even further today with the release of a second full-length trailer for the film, one that focuses “behind the scenes,” in a way, at Ender’s instructors rather than the titular character himself. In fact, this balance will be one of the major tricks for the movie; the book is focused predominantly from the perspective of Ender, only veering away occasionally to hint at what might actually be going on. With a clearly very physically present supporting cast, led by Harrison Ford’s Colonel Graff and Ben Kingsley’s Mazer Rackham, the movie must deal with them as embodied figures much more than the book ever did, where they are exclusively mediated by Ender’s perceptions and email conversations.
Those who are familiar with the book (and if you’re not, go read it now – and there may be MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD), the new trailer also shows glimpses of Ender inside the psychological video game that troubles much of his time in Battle School, and focuses very much on the final quarter of the book, with Ender in command of fleets rather than Battle School itself. With an older Ender (Asa Butterfield, who plays Ender, is currenly 16; in the book Ender is six when he’s first taken to Battle School), it could be that the movie focuses more attention on this later portion of the story as well. Though this would cut out a significant amount of what figures to be very cool – not to mention character-significant – action in Battle School, so we’re betting the final distribution is more or less what’s found in the source material.
At any rate, it’s here now (below), and the final film will arrive in just three months’ time. Ender’s Game stars Butterfield, Ford, Kingsley, Abigail Breslin, Haylee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, Moises Arias, and Aramis Knight.
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