Movie Review for Ender's Game

What it's about (for those who haven't read the book): Earth was attacked by aliens called Fomics (commonly referred to as Buggers because of their appearance), within a very short amount of time, they had killed millions and scorched a lot of Asia. A hero emerged and, in one battle, did something that caused humans to win the war.

In preparation for our next encounter, the International Fleet was organized and started searching for, testing, monitoring, and recruiting children from around the world to go to Battle School (a space station where they begin their military training).

The story follows Ender Wiggin, humankind's best hope, and maybe last hope. As well as being brilliant, he is chosen because he has both a ferociousness and an advanced sense of empathy. The powers-that-be hope this combination will allow him to understand the Buggers enough to defeat them.

In Battle School Ender quickly distinguishes himself and rapidly becomes a leader of an “army” with faithful followers. This is one of the most major areas where the movie is lacking, in the book you learn why those under Ender come to trust him and love him enough that they say they would follow him anywhere, but in the movie this whole time period is rushed. With a few words and gestures of Ender, they did a fairly good job hinting at these things, but I didn't feel it was enough.

Time is running out, so Ender's training is increasingly sped up and he soon finds himself at Command School, the last stop before he is put in charge of humanities military forces.

Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are two of my very favorite books, I've read them both three times. Despite this, I tried my best not to have expectations going into the movie, but of course I couldn't avoid some.

First off, because they couldn't find any real kids who were young enough to fill the roles appropriately, they basically aged all the Battle School students by about 3 or 4 years, as compared to what their ages were in the book.

As always, in movies taken from books, there were a few small things that seemed unnecessarily changed that wouldn't have been hard to keep the same and, as always, those small things bugged me.

I am huge on character development, I don't care if it makes the movie two hours longer, I would rather the characters be well developed. For the sake of time and courtesy to those who don't want to sit an hour learning about a character, they didn't let you get to know everyone; which I thought was a loss, but others may not agree. I'd be interested to hear an outsiders' (aka someone who hasn't read the book) view who doesn't know all the back stories, did you feel you got to know people well enough to get attached to them?

If you read and loved the book, it kind of felt like they had the whole story on fast-forward. Saying that, I think it was a fairly good “abridged version” and stayed true to the basic story. As a stand-alone movie, not compared to anything, I think it was quite good. It was exciting, had cool special effects, fairly good acting, and a good and surprising story.

As with other movie reviews, you can go look at content rating for yourself.

Book Review for The Worthing Saga by Orson Scott Card

Jason Worthing comes from a planet totally covered over with steel, where the elite take a drug that causes them to sleep agelessly for years at a time, “skipping through time as a stone skips over water,” so they can pretend to live forever. Lared comes from a planet roughly technologically similar to medieval times, a planet that until recently, until the Day of Pain, did not have true pain, fresh grief, or accidents with consequences.

Throughout time some have thought Jason was a god, after all, he came out of the starship which brought forth man, animals, and crops. He came from the heavens and walked on water, along with his companion, Justice. But really Jason is only a man. True, he is a man who reads minds and memories so thoroughly that he sometimes confuses others memories with his own, but he is still just a man. Lared is just a boy, a boy who helps around the farm, but he can read and write. He can receive dreams and can tell a story.

Jason needs someone through whom his story can be told, Lared is chosen because through his mostly unlearned quill, the story will be simple and, hopefully, have the simple ring of truth. Jason needs to explain why the Day of Pain occurred on this and every world and what his part in the story was.

Lared is becoming a man and, in this new world which contains pain, that means more in more ways than it ever has before.

What is it about? It is science fiction and also somewhat fantasy. It is about growing up, memories, defining moments, pain and joy and sorrow. I think it is most deeply a philosophical book. It is a book which seeks to answer why some pain occurs; why grief, betrayal, and want can be a blessing. It strives to show how living one day at a time, instead of trying so hard to live forever, is really the best way, because it is lived side by side with others that we love.

It is a little slow at times but it is also really and truly interesting. Also, some of it is quite thought provoking. Though it certainly doesn't make sense of all pain, suffering, and hardship; it does, perhaps, make sense of some and seeks to explain why a god would allow these things to come to man.

I would rate it a strong PG-13 or maybe an R for violence, gore, sexual content (it doesn't go into details), and tough subject matter.

Some Non-book Reviews or Book Non-reviews?

I have discovered one of my weaknesses as a book reviewer and it is a fairly major one, I only review books I really like because I do not care enough for the books I disliked to write about them. To make up for this deficiency, here a some “non-reviews”...I suppose they are still reviews, but they will be very short and a little vague.

Firstly I will say, thanks to my new job and the fact that I am tucked back in a corner and rarely disturbed, I am free to listen to audiobooks (while working, of course) most of the day. In the past two weeks I have listened to 5 of them.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It has been years since I read this book, but it is still strongly in my mind as one of my least favorite books ever. Perhaps my dislike is somewhat misplaced because I dislike it almost entirely because the people, in their relating to the main character (a mute), or, more accurately, their lack of relating to him, are so thoughtless as to his needs. But the world is sometimes cruel and people often don't seek to understand and put effort into their relationships. So though this book may have conveyed some truth about the cruel aspects of our world, I did not like it because it left me with a very “bitter taste” in my mouth and I do not think I will ever read it again.I do not remember this one clearly enough to give it a content rating.

Another very unenjoyable book was Toilers of the Sea. Now, despite their tediousness (I refuse to read abridged books) and, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame's case, lack of a happy ending, I very much enjoyed Les Mis. and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Toilers of the Sea is just as tedious or more so than the aforementioned books but has an ending leaving you feeling there is a pointlessness to life, a belief in broken promises, true love fought for does not win (okay, the love was a little one-sided, so it could be viewed more as an obsession than love), and just with an overall bad feeling. Apparently Hugo was in exile while writing this book, so maybe that was one reason for it unredeeming tragedy. I do not remember this one, either, well enough to give a content rating.

Recent audiobooks listened to which I will not be writing full-length book reviews of: Treason by Orson Scott Card and House of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo.

I suppose, taken on its own Treason is actually a decent book, it's quite interesting and original but because Card has written two of my favorite books (Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow), I was expecting more. Treason is a planet seemingly without any hard metals (thus the treasonous cannot build ships to get off-world) on which The Empire put “the cream of the crop” of humanity because they were seeking to overthrow the established order. After being there for thousands of years some of the families have taken their predecessors gifts to the extreme. The geneticists have engineered a people who can regenerate and recover from almost any wound (to the point where completely chopping off their head or totally burning them is the only sure way to kill them). The geologists have grown to understand things so thoroughly at their most basic levels that they can control earth and DNA with their minds. And others, I'm not sure what their forbearers occupation was, have learned to control the flow of time. I guess one thing I disliked is just that it is a little strange, the main character is a “Rad” (radical regenerate), which means he not only regenerates all his parts but begins to grow others. When we meet him as a late teenager he has begun to grow breasts and soon begins to grow an arm out of his shoulder. As well as being a little odd, besides the main character, you don't really get to know anyone, its a sort of lonely book. The book vaguely reminded me of Dune, so if you liked that then you may like this. As I said, despite its weaknesses, it is quite interesting. 

I would give Treason a rating of PG-13 for violence, sexuality, some language, and disturbing situations.

House of Dark Shadows has the makings of a good juvenile book: mystery, a linen closet which transports you to a school locker, magic doors that lead to other worlds, a bazaar house, a boy determined to right a wrong and, yet, though the end of the first book ended on a cliffhanger, I am not in a hurry to read/listen to the next one. I didn't really get attached to the characters, didn't really become invested in their adventures, I suppose those are its greatest downfalls, and those are some major downfalls to have. 

I would rate this PG for violence and disturbing situations.