I read the book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card and then I watched the movie. They had some similar parts as well as parts that are different. The characters looked different. Ender was super tall, and looked liked a teenager. Bonzo was super small, but acted tough. Valentine looked like who I thought she was, sweet and loved Ender no matter what. I expected Peter to be in the movie more because Ender didn’t want to be like Peter. Ender didn’t want to be like Peter because Peter was a killer inside. Graff made everyone hate Ender in the beginning just like in the book. Bean and Anderson were what I thought they would look like. Bean small and was not afraid to be Ender’s friend. Anderson tried to protect Ender because she knew that he was just a child. Some characters that looked liked what I imagined are Bean, Alai, Bernard and Petra. I expected Mazer Rackham to be really old with bony legs and gray hair.


The settings really brought out where they were taking place. If they were in space or back on Earth. Some settings that matched what I imagined are the bedrooms. Everyone had their own bed while sharing a bunk bed lined up next to each other. Also in the bedrooms were kind of like their closet with their weapons and suits. The hallways were what I expected with the flashing lights to show where to go. The showers, lake, and his school on Earth were what I expected. The giant’s drink was super cool, some stuff were what I expected like the drinks, the giant, but I didn’t know the character in the game was a mouse. What was different was the battle room because it was bigger than I expected it to be. The ship going to space looked different because I thought the chairs were going to be on different sides of the room instead of like an actual airplane in rows. Fairly land was different because the mirror was different, and Valentine was in the game.


Some themes I thought of for the book and the movie is being a good person in the inside. Ender got two people badly injured but it was the reason why he did it. He didn’t do it out of hate; he did it so the person trying to hurt him would never do it again. Ender would destroy his enemies. Another theme I thought matched is don’t just beat your enemy, destroy them. Everyone wanted Ender to be the one who would destroy the buggers, so the buggers wouldn’t kill anymore of their people. It would either be them or us. Some lines of dialogue that I thought was important are “in the moment when I truly understand my enemy, I understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.” This really showed Ender’s personality because he is capable of killing, but doesn’t kill because he is a good person. Another quote from the movie and the book is “Remember, the enemy’s gate is down.” Bean said that when they were doing their final fight, but they didn’t know that.


Some events that were missing in the movie were the many battles. In the movie there was only one or two battles before he became a commander for dragon army. Launchy practice was missing, where he really met everyone. One of the most important parts in the book was missing in the movie was Demosthenes and Locke. They showed what was going on in Earth when Ender was in space. Another event that was missing is when the launchies had a fight with the older boys and won. Some events that were added to the movie are when Ender was practicing in the Battle room for shooting with some targets that Petra threw.


One element that departed from the text is that Dap was in the movie a lot. Also in the movie Ender wasn’t six years old, he looked like he was a teenager. The director chose to make this change because the directors probably didn’t want a whole bunch of little kids not doing what the director wanted them to do. One actor that played differently than I imagined is Alai because he didn’t kiss Ender. The director chose to change the characters because he thought that those actors could truly bring what the book is about. Like Bean because he was kind of sassy in the beginning, but in the end a really sweet kid. The settings were different like the giant’s drink because the director tried to show that it was a game and I was thinking of it like an actual event that was happening.


I think that the movie was better because it didn’t take as long as reading the book. Also the movie made it more clearly to the viewers without all the hard and confusing words. The movie had a full description and what the characters looked alike. I recommend that you should watch the movie because it’s less confusing and way shorter than the book.