Throughout first trimester, in my English class, I read the book Ender‘s Game. The author named Orson Scott Card wrote this book and it is under the Genre of Science Fiction. Also, after finishing the book, we were able to go to a private screening and had the opportunity to see the movie on Thursday, November 14, 2013. The main character was Ender, who was played by Asa Butterfield. In the story, Ender is the youngest child of three, which is rare for his time because usually only two children can be born into every family. If you were planning on having a third child, you had to get permission from the government.

In the beginning of the movie, Ender is at school, and gets his monitor taken out, which meant that he had no protection whatsoever on someone else being able to see what other people say or do to him. The monitor was a creation where it was used to watch how children and their brains think to see if they had potential to be a leader. After getting his monitor taken out, he encounters a bully named Stilson, who suddenly starts a fight with him after realizing that it had been taken out. Ender thought of a strategy, where if he could just show Stilson what damage he can do, he would never get bullied again. Ender fulfills this strategy, yet has guilt left in him from hurting someone, even though he didn‘t particularly like Stilson. This was a significant part of the story because when Major Graff heard about this, it lead to something bigger than Ender just getting into a fight with Stilson. This showed Graff that the potential that he saw in Ender was true. Graff goes to Ender’s house and asks Ender if he wants to join an outer space military simulation that trains children to be in battle. This is called Battle School. This is greatly significant because this is the point in the story where Ender makes a huge decision to leave to comfort of his home to go into intense military training. While Ender is at Battle School, automatically he is great at whatever he does. He meets some friends along the way like Petra, Alai, and Bean, who are also very skilled.

In the book and the movie, most of the story takes place at Battle School. This is where the climax of the story rises as the story continues and where Ender develops as a leader, a person, and a friend. Also, another thing that the book and the movie have in common are the lines of dialogue. In the book, Ender in his friends greeted each other by saying things like “Ho, Ender.” or “Ho, Bean.” These sayings were also mentioned in the movie. I liked that the makers of this movie put this into the movie because to me, this was something that was very important because in my mind, it highlighted the importance of their friendship. This also showed me the connection that they had between each other. Although not all of the lines of dialogue were included in the movie from the book, the fact that the movie makers actually included a portion of it in the movie was something that I think was important.

Although the movie was generally awesome, there were some things that slightly disappointed me because they were missing. A missing part that wasn’t included in the movie was when Ender was transferred to Salamander Army and says goodbye to Alai. When Ender was transferred and ready to leave, Alai comes running after him. Alai is then supposed to kiss Ender on the cheek and say “Salaam”. In the movie, Alai did say this, but he did not kiss Ender on the cheek. This wasn’t a big issue for me, but when I think of Ender and Alai’s friendship, I think of that moment when they considered themselves best friends. Another missing part that was in the book but not in the movie was when Ender played against other armies like Rabbit Army. In the movie, they only showed the battle where he has to fight against two armies. This also wasn’t a big issue for me, but it felt kind of weird to go from Ender commanding Dragon Army to doing their first formation when battling against two armies for the first time. The third thing that I noticed that was missing from the book was when Ender first joined the Launchies on their way to Battle School. He sat next to Bernard and Bernard started to pick on Ender. Ender got to his breaking point and actually hurt Bernard’s arm. This part missing actually changed a lot of things because rather than Ender sitting next to Bernard on the way to Battle School, he sat next to Bean. This is a big change because Ender is supposed to meet Bean while commanding Dragon Army.

There were also some things that left me a little questioning when I was watching the movie. In the book, Ender started Battle School and met the Launchies when he was six years old. But, in the movie, Ender looked around the ages of 13-14 years old. So, it kind of left me confused because Ender looked the same age throughout the whole movie and it looked like he had only been in Battle School for a few months.

When I was reading the book, honestly, I pictured Ender to look very similar to Asa Butterfield. So, seeing the movie with Asa in it wasn’t a disappointment. Although there were two characters who I pictured would look and act differently. The first character who I pictured differently when I was reading the book was Bonzo. In the movie, Bonzo was not aesthetically appealing. In my mind, I also pictured Bonzo to be a little taller. Also, I always knew that Ender was going to be the big leader of the movie, but I imagined Bonzo to have a little more dominance over Ender. To me, it kind of looked like Ender bossing Bonzo, his commander around rather than Bonzo bossing Ender around. I know that Ender was the main character, but I found Bonzo commanding Ender humorous rather than Ender being disciplined. The next character that I pictured differently while reading the book was Petra. In the movie, I imagined Petra to be boyish and scary. I imagined her to be tall with short hair and have a soft side for people who deserved it. This wasn’t really a big issue for me because I thought it was awesome that Ender had a good friendship with her and had someone who could provide him with compassion that Valentine, his sister would provide for him.

Overall, reading this book, I think that it was amazing that our whole grade got the opportunity to read the book together and watch the private screening together. I think that the book and the movie were both amazing, but I have specific thoughts about both of them that might help a reader. If you already read the book, I say you should watch the movie and see the different things that you like about it and compare it to the book although you might find some disappointments. If you haven’t read the book I say you should do something completely different. I say you should not read the book only because I think that I would have liked the movie much more if I hadn’t read the book. I think that if I hadn’t read the book, the movie would be much more mind-blowing to me. So, therefore, in conclusion I think that the book was better than the movie. In the movie, there were just too much parts missing for me to prefer the movie than the book, which is really peculiar to me because I usually always prefer the movie than the book because I have a visual of everything like the places and the characters. But, for once, I think that I would prefer the book rather than the movie because it had all the information that I wanted and a better knowing of what the characters were like.