It's finally here, the trailer for Gavin Hood's film adaptation of Orson Scott Card's celebrated science fiction novel Ender's Game! It's easily one of my favorite books of all time, and I must have stolen at least four copies since I learned about Card's virulent homophobia and contributions to hate groups. I'll probably do the same with the film because while piracy isn't a victimless crime as my DVDs keep telling me, neither is cutting Orson Scott Card a big check.
But never mind that, the movie looks tremendous. You've got to love any flick that managed to talk Harrison Ford back into space, and the battle scenes look amazing. It's definitely going to be a triumph.
Yet the trailer appears to have left out things from the book that I vividly remember. Maybe they're in the film. Maybe not. I understand why somebody wouldn't try to tease an evening at the movies with...
Flashback 5 Horrible Lessons Ender's Game Teaches Kids
Big Group Children Shower Scenes: For a guy that is so vehemently opposed to same-sex relationships the novel is one of the gayest things I have ever read in places. At its heart Ender's Game is the story of a boy who grows up training to fight the most important war in the world alongside the soldiers he will command. It's like Harry Potter, in a sense.
Except J.K. Rowling didn't constantly describe the Hogwarts students walking around naked, taking showers together that end in blood, soapy grappling matches, and students that sit with their laptops on their crotches using a holographic display to show off CGI floppy dongs. Don't worry, most of the girls that attend the battle school also spend their time in the barracks naked, but Card assures us that at their young age their bodies are mostly indistinguishable from a boy's.
Ender Straight Up Kicking a Dude to Death: Ender has been monitored his whole life, had his entire genetic code analyzed, so that the armed forces could be sure that this right here was the perfect living weapon. That means he has spent most of his youth as an outcast, and we all know what happens when you dye a monkey pink and throw him in a cage filled with black ones.
The final act that convinces the higher ups that Ender is the chosen one is when he gets into a fight after his brain monitor is removed. A local bully takes this opportunity to get some friends and try to beat up Ender who they now think isn't being watched. Ender gets the bully down with a lucky shot, and proceeds to methodically kick the bully in the face until his freakin' brain leaks out. Jeez.. in America we just have to turn our heads and cough to get into the army.
