The film is based on the novel of the same name by the famous American science fiction writer Ossen Scott Carter. The original work is more famous than the popular "Three-Body Problem", won two awards of the Nebula Award and the Cloud Country Award, is the first place in the New York Times best-seller list, has been on the Amazon best-seller list for 166 consecutive weeks, gained countless fans around the world, and was officially designated as a psychology textbook by the US Marine Corps.
But it's not easy to bring a science fiction book to the big screen in a visual way. Before the film was released, the original author had also written several versions of the script, but it ended in failure.
It was 26 years later that the film version officially began to be planned. In order to present the plot in a short period of time, the film is moderately cut on the basis of the original book, focusing on the main story line to narrate. When the film was put on the screen by Hollywood in 2014 and released worldwide, it attracted the attention and enthusiasm of many fans of the original.
The film mainly tells the story of the genius teenager Ender who was sent to the Space Combat School for special training, and his way of thinking and personality resilience were constantly honed, and he eventually became a qualified commander with stable qualities. In order to keep Ender in the best state of mind, the superiors and teachers conceal the truth, causing him to mistake him for a simulation game, which eventually led to the fall of the entire race of the Zerg Race.
Through Ender's redemption and choice after realizing the truth, the film explores the question of human nature and how human beings should make choices in the face of different cultural conflicts.
In order to maximize the conflict and dramatization of the characters in a limited time, the film has appropriately cut and selected the story of the protagonist in the novel, and has made appropriate modifications in some details to reflect the theme that the director wants to convey.
First, cut the story of the protagonist's other age groups and only choose the year when he is 12 years old.
Movies are not like TV dramas, which can lay out all the scenes of the protagonists of the story from the past to the present. Therefore, to show the dramatic conflict of the characters in a short period of time, the main story can only be unfolded in a short period of age of the protagonist.
Ender, as a gifted child, told the story from the age of 6 to the age of 13. In the span of childhood, the appearance and height of the characters will change greatly. As far as the film is concerned, it is unlikely to find actors of every age group to connect. Therefore, the director made a compromise, using the most historic year of 12 years old as the choice of the protagonist of the film, using this time period as the background to lay out the story of the film.
Shortening the focus to the key age group not only solves the problem of actor selection, but also makes the contradictions and conflicts concentrated, which facilitates the film to present the story logic and makes the plot design easier to operate.
Second, the other storylines were cut down to focus on the plot of him being selected to be trained to attack the alien zerg race.
In the original novel, Ender grew up inseparable from the various inhuman encounters of his childhood. At the same time, Ender's brother and sister held a vital position as political leaders on Earth. However, in order to compress the plot, the film cuts down the torture and conflict that Ender experienced as a child, and cuts out the story about Ender's brother and sister, and uses the sister as a supplement and embellishment at the right time.
The main story line depicted in the film is the clue that Ender was chosen to attack the alien zerg race. In this thread, the conflicting and dramatic side of various contradictions is maximized. In this story line, the action scenes and grand scenes between the characters are highlighted in this link, giving the audience more visual effects and making the plot more compact.
Third, the changes in some of the details make the comparison more prominent in a limited time.
In the novel, when Ender attacks the Zerg in what he thinks is a simulation game, he asks commander Marzer Rehan if he can attack the Zerg planet with weapons of mass destruction. In the novel, the other side said that the Zerg tribe never attacked civilians in the invasion of us. The phrase in the film was cut down and replaced by Harrison Ford's repeated emphasis that "humans were slaughtered by the Zergs."
Through this change, Ender's act of making the final decision under the limited expression of the film is more rationalized, showing the current moral standard that the destruction of the zerg behavior is justice under the current logic framework of the United States. Finally, through the real destruction of the zerg tribe, the guilt and pain in Ender's heart, it reveals the thinking behind the film about how justice and morality are judged.
In Ender's game, the game is maximized, it is not only a game, but also a practical effect. It is Ender's training method against the zerg, the way to communicate with the zerg, and the real war through the way of the game.
First, the game connects the real world with Ender's mental world.
When Ender trained at the Space Combat School, there were two ways to play, one was a simulation game of team combat, and the other was a personal brainwave game.
In the simulation game of team combat, the choice of team combat can be seen in Ender's personal personality, leadership courage and decision under crisis. The film's personal growth process about Ender, which cannot be described in detail, is perfectly presented in the personal decision-making during the game.
Another game is the Brainwave Game, a very special kind of game that goes deep into one's own subconscious mind to dig deep into one's own innermost thoughts.
In such a game, Ender's superiors can glimpse the mysteries of his heart in this way, and constantly help him correct his own thoughts. This also combines the real world with Ender's inner psychological world, projecting Ender's various reactions in reality into his subconscious, and finally making his decisions in the game world.
In the subconscious world, real-world encounters are connected to Ender's inner world. Through the hesitation and choice in the course of the game, it is reflected that Ender does not want to be the killer of war, and he prefers to solve the problem peacefully through the exchange of ideas.
Second, games become a medium of communication with alien creatures.
In the film, in order to enhance the students' practical skills, Ender's training is carried out in a virtual confrontation game. In the brainwave game, Ender enters his subconscious world.
The Zerg have no language, they communicate through their minds. So when Ender entered the subconscious level, he instead contributed to a way of communicating ideas with other populations. Therefore, in the movie, the Zerg Queen enters Ender's game world in this way to talk to him, and Ender also finds that he can communicate with the Zerg with his own ideas, and understand the true intentions of the other party without communication.
Through the game, the queen reveals her purpose to Ender, paving the way for Ender to finally help the Zerg clan to help rebuild the homeland. Here, too, the film explores the ways in which civilizations communicate. If the language barrier is not culturally diverse, how to have an accessible communication dialogue across species.
Third, the simulation game became a real battle, paving the way for Ender's final choice.
The final climax of the film is that Ender thinks that the real war is a game, but he does not expect that his superiors have deceived him. It's a real war, and knowing the truth brings his inner contradictions and guilt to its peak, and pushes the film to its climax.
Because in the previous battles, although Ender continued to carry out through computer programs in the command room, in fact Ender was always told that these were just simulated combat games, and it was a necessary test for him to become the commander-in-chief. However, everything is not a simulation, every time they command a real fleet, and countless people lose their lives at the fall of each ship. At the same time, the entire race of the Zerg clan was destroyed in his "simulation game".
After learning the truth, Ender found himself angry after being deceived, and the infinite self-blame of sacrificing his life in every war, and began to think about whether his choice was correct, and the balance of his heart swayed greatly. This swing is not only a sense of guilt for the demise of the entire zerg race, but also for all the human beings who died in battle.
In this extreme way, Ender finally chose to self-exile, with the hope of the Zerg, to drift into space permanently. The film presents the pain after the deception and anger suffered by Ender, and makes a reasonable explanation and preparation for his future path of spiritual redemption and self-exile.
The director hopes that the audience will not only see the gorgeous scenes such as special effects and space wars of the film, he hopes that the audience will see the ideological connotation behind the film. This is not only the reason for the enduring of the original novel, but also the proposition explored in this film.
First, the two-sidedness of Ender's personality, showing the topic of good and evil in human nature.
The film does not mythologize Ender, behind a genius teenager is a real humanity. As a heroic figure who saved all of humanity, he was not a perfect saint.
The violent side of Ender's personality is shown in many places in the film. At the beginning of the film, when a classmate is jealous of Ender forcing him into a corner, Andrew fights back and almost kills him. When Captain Bonzo wanted to hurt Ender because of his hatred, he sprayed the tap on Bonzo and kicked at the opponent. Ender's character is also reflected in the simulated wars he commanded, sacrificing the lives of thousands of soldiers and using a unique stacking decomposition tactic to miraculously destroy the entire Zerg planet.
Although he adopts such tactics, thinking that this is just a simulated battle, it also magnifies the dark side of his heart, exposing the evil side of other human nature.
But Ender is not bad in nature, he has his own sense of justice and inner conscience. When he discovers that the simulated battle is actually a real battle, and he destroys the real zerg race, his inner conscience makes him unable to accept such a fact. Therefore, he chose to go alone to take out the Zerg burglars and take him in space to constantly drift and exile himself. On this side, the good side of his character is also revealed.
In fact, this is the real human nature, it is a double-edged sword. In certain circumstances, people are likely to give up their goodness and become selfish and ugly. How to maintain the goodness and brilliance of human nature under the extreme circumstances of threat to one's own interests is a question worth pondering.
Only by soberly understanding their own situation and treating other things objectively can we treat all things in life with reason and evidence, so as to be beneficial and harmless.
Second, Ender's eventual redemption of the Zerg embodies the purpose of peace.
Director Hood believes that you can win with violence, but in the end violence will not solve the problem, because it will only stir up hatred on the other side, and so on. Therefore, he prefers to get to know each other through peaceful dialogue.
The ending of the film makes a different change from the novel, through Ender with the hope of the future of the zerg tribe, in the universe of constantly wandering self-exile, to find the meaning and redemption of life, from this point on the call for peace.
Ender will constantly speculate on the enemy's thoughts during the battle, and when he knows the enemy well enough, he will in turn fall in love with his enemy. The proposition behind the film is not only about the relationship between people, but also about how to get along between peoples, countries, and even different species on different planets.
The final result of the conflict between humans and the zerg race is that both sides are defeated, the human race has lost many soldiers, and the zerg clan is close to extinction. However, if humans and insects work together with each other, have completely sufficient space for peaceful development, and learn from each other's respective technologies and advantages, they can achieve greater achievements.
The film reflects the call for human peace. Only peace is the only way to truly resolve disputes. Only by calling for peace can the clash of civilizations be avoided and all things in the universe can coexist in harmony.
Ends with Ender embarking on an interstellar journey with the last hope of reviving the Zerg Race, showing reverence and love for life through his self-redemption and the way he chooses, as well as exploring the problems of moral justice and the clash of standard civilizations.
Behind the film is a reflection on social reality. Although the audience's tastes are difficult to reconcile, when it was released in China, the film did not cause great repercussions, but the cosmology behind him, as well as his thinking on human nature and the discussion of moral judgment standards, still have meanings that deserve our deep consideration.