Cult-Movie Review: Ender's Game (2013)

The film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (2013) attracted some strong criticism last year around the time of its theatrical release, up to and including the threat of a boycott. 

The criticism was political in nature, and had everything to do with the book’s author and his personal history of making unfortunate statements. The criticism had very little to do with the nature or specifics of the movie, or apparently the Ender’s Game narrative itself. 

I don’t seek or desire to re-litigate the unfortunate matter here, but Ender’s Game is so good, and so valuable a science fiction epic that, if necessary, one might resort to the “separate the art from the artist” defense…at least if that helps fence-sitters give the film a chance.

That’s what I did, and I’m glad I threaded that particular needle.

In short, Ender’s Game is a science fiction spectacular that seems relevant right now, at this point in our history. By my tally, it is now the second big genre film (after Star Trek: Into Darkness [2012]) to attempt to exorcise America’s worst demons of the War on Terror Age.. 

Specifically, Ender’s Game concerns the idea that you don’t beat your enemy by lowering yourself to your enemy’s level or standards. 

On the contrary, you defeat your enemy -- and perhaps even turn him into an eventual ally -- by holding fast to the time-tested values you already hold dear.

You “win” by staying true to yourself.

Appropriately, Ender’s Game makes a difficult, cerebral, and worthwhile point: Even those who have been -- objectively -- wronged by another person or force shall be judged by history in part by their response to that wrong.   

To approximate the film’s stance, a poor response becomes a burden, an albatross, a “shame” that people will have to “bear,” perhaps “forever.”  Thus the film believes that even the most heinous wrong -- a surprise attack, for instance -- deserves a measured, thoughtful, proportional answer.

Otherwise, we risk becoming as bad (and lawless…) as those who attacked us in the first place.

Given the film’s clever and timely expression of this theme, Ender’s Game is strongly anti-war in tenor, and it expresses that viewpoint in quite a different style from another, equally powerful man-vs.-bugs space epic of the same bent: Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997).

I also noted in Ender’s Game some ideas that are very much like those dramatized in Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986).  Like that Oscar winner, Ender’s Game is also a movie about a boy soldier whose identity is apparently up for grabs, and thus two sides wage war over it.

One side is brutal and violent, and the other is compassionate and thoughtful. The boy, ultimately, must choose what kind of man he is going to be, and which spiritual “father” or “mother” he will follow.

At the heart of Ender’s Game is one simple question: do we follow the better angels of our nature during the bad times, or do we allow our worst instincts to carry the day…to our everlasting shame?

“We don’t really understand our enemy.”

Half-a-century ago, a race of alien insectoids called the Formix launched a surprise attack on Earth in an attempt to colonize our planet. 

The invaders were barely defeated, and only by the clever, unconventional tactics of a soldier named Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley).

Now, the Earth’s military-industrial complex is paranoid, and obsessed with forestalling another attack, despite the fact that the Formix have never returned. 

In particular, Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) ruthlessly trains children as soldiers at Battle School because they are “intuitive” and “decisive,” and therefore hold the key to another victory.  Graff is teamed with a psychologist named Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis), who polices him to make certain he doesn’t go too far in his sculpting of children into warriors.

One such new recruit is sensitive Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterworth). He is a third child, and both of his older siblings washed out at the same school. His older brother Peter (Jim Pinchak), a bully, failed because he was too violent. His sister, Valentine (Abigail Breslin) failed because she showed too much compassion.

Though Graff takes steps to isolate Ender and make the other trainees resent him, the intuitive, thoughtful boy soon charts his own path toward leadership, and eventually becomes the planet Earth’s best hope to defeat the Formix.

Soon, Graff is trained by Rackham himself on a former Formix colony world.  All Ender has to do to succeed now is play one final war scenario simulation along with his hand-picked team of misfits and outsiders…

“I still know nothing about my enemy.”

 In Ender’s Game’s first act, there are many visual and narrative signs that the beleaguered Earth has lapsed into a permanent culture of fear, militarism, and even fascism.  

For instance, Earth’s children are systematically indoctrinated into hatred for the Formix through many auspices including propaganda posters that read “We Remember. Never Again.” and “One World. One Peace.”

Yet, on a basic level, the children don’t remember. They weren’t even alive when the Formix attack occurred. They are expected to fight the war nonetheless.

Military cadets are also under surveillance at all times by their superiors -- a tell-tale sign of a totalitarian state -- courtesy of monitor implants on the back of their necks.

The reach of the military industrial complex is so great that it can even insert itself into family matters and personal decisions.  At one point, Graff tells Ender that the fleet “owns you.”

Similarly, Cadets are imbued, at an early age, with a sense of heroic purpose and destiny, a common factor in fascist societies. “It’s what I was born for, right?” Ender says of his destiny to totally annihilate the Formix. 

This too is what he has been conditioned to believe.

As the movie commenced I wondered if Ender’s Game would meaningfully address this pervasive culture of fear and militarism, and I began thinking of Starship Troopers.  That Verhoeven film utilized mock-propaganda “news reels” to satirize nationalism and imperialism, and a close reading of the film -- from the military uniforms to some of dialogue -- reveals that, in fact, that the human “heroes” in the film are not unlike the Nazis.

 To my delight, Ender’s Game criticizes the fascist world view, but in an all-together different way.  The tone here is not humorous, satirical or mocking, but simply earnest.  One gets the impression while watching the film that people have been afraid of another attack for so long that they don’t even realize how much freedom they have lost in the meantime.  It takes the non-sullied viewpoint of a child, essentially, to point it out.

At one point in the story, Ender notes that neither he nor the military really “understand” the enemy.  Because of this lack of understanding, the military will not allow itself to consider an important option.

Perhaps the Formix will not attack again at all.  Perhaps the war is over…forever.

But this is a message that the fearful defenders of Earth simply cannot hear.  “Their very existence is a threat” Graff insists.  Furthermore, he tries to put an idealistic spin on his pursuit of an enemy that has not attacked in half-a-century.  “The purpose of this war is to prevent all future wars,” he tells Ender.

Because of Earth’s rampant and irrational fear about another attack, reason can no longer gain traction in Graff’s mind.  Ender wonders why communication hasn’t been attempted with the aliens, why humans don’t attempt to “think” to the Formix, but he gets no meaningful answer.

When one thinks about it, if you know “nothing” of your enemy…then you don’t even know for sure if your enemy is still an enemy at all. 

Ultimately, Ender is tricked by Graff and the military into committing genocide, the total and complete annihilation of a race of sentient beings.  When he protests about his mistreatment and the mass murder of the Formix, he is told: “We won. That’s all that matters.” 

And at this point, the movie reaches its key point.  “The way we win matters,” Ender replies.

Those are words that we didn’t hear enough in the decade of Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, and the Patriot Act, I’m afraid. 

Ender can so readily understand this notion, perhaps, because he is always being torn between two sides, and thus must navigate between them.  In the film, he actually has two sets of role-models, one adult, and one child, and to find his own way, he must not merely “win” but win in a fashion that brings him the end he desires, and which maintains his family.

His two spiritual “parents” of the adult mode are Graff and Anderson. 

Graff doesn’t care about feelings or friendship, or cooperation.  He just cares about the competition, about carrying the day.  Graff likes Ender because he knows Ender thinks tactically.  And in this case, thinking tactically means erasing a future threat…even if it has not yet materialized as a real threat. 

This is an appealing viewpoint to Ender because he has been bullied at school and also at home.  He doesn’t want to live in fear of another incident, and to end that fear, he has to end not the threat, but the possibility of a threat.

Yet as we see in the film’s conclusion, when you eliminate a possible threat you also, finally, eliminate a possible ally.

And really, can a human being ever kill an amorphous fear that is based on ignorance or a lack of information?

By pointed contrast, Anderson worries about Ender’s mental health, and wants him to be healthy, the brand of leader with the moral authority and stability to lead wisely.  Anderson’s computer game tests Ender, but also shows him that life is not as easy as choosing between Option A and Option B.  Sometimes, a third option must be “imagined,” and imagination can only stem from empathy, from knowing your enemy.

This dynamic is echoed very strongly in Ender’s own family. His brother Peter is the Graff surrogate, one who acts as though might makes right.  His sister, Valentine, is empathetic and compassionate.

In both cases, Ender is in the middle, and therefore forced to find a “third way” that takes into account both influences.

In Platoon, a soldier in Vietnam named Chris Taylor, played by Charlie Sheen, also had to choose a path between two philosophies. He had to choose between spiritual fathers in the form of Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe). 

They too held diametrically opposed views about life and death, and the way in which to prosecute a war.  Ender’s plight echoes Taylor’s because the one thing no child ever wants to do is let down or otherwise disappoint a parent.  Ender wants to do the right thing, but he also wants to please Graff. 

Ultimately, however, he finds that he outgrows Graff’s narrow (and implacably hostile…) world view, and dedicates his life to a cause Graff could never accept: helping the enemy re-establish itself.

Beyond its leitmotif that “the way we win matters,” I appreciate that Ender’s Game also examines, head on the way that our culture measures “strength,” particularly as it applies to men, and boys.

Graff seems to think that to be strong, one can’t have friends….only competitors.  He also believes that to be strong, one mustn’t “feel” or “empathize” with the enemy. 

Yet Ender’s very strength rests in his ability to make friends and convert enemies, and in his desire to understand and empathize with those he opposes.  He becomes a leader not by taunting or bullying others (like Peter or Squad Leader Bonzo do), but by welcoming other “misfits” into the fold.   The compassion that Graff derides is actually the key to Ender’s success.

Ender’s Game thus stresses the idea that rigid “certainty” is not necessarily a sign of strength…but a moral and personal failing.  Ender constantly seeks to adapt to new situations, and learn new information so he can make the right decision. There is nothing closed-off, locked-down or certain about him.  Accordingly, all options remain open to him.  Too often in the world today, these character qualities are considered weaknesses. But in reality, changing your mind is not a sign of weakness, but a symptom of the adaptability required to navigate new challenges, or incorporate new data into one’s world view.

In Hollywood, as in Battle Command School, “the pressure to win is intense,” and it appears that Ender’s Game was only a modest success at the box office.  This probably means no further films are forthcoming in the franchise.  Although that news is disappointing, Ender’s Game resolutely delivers all the points its makers hoped to make. It does so with some terrific special effects, and with remarkable performances, particularly from Harrison Ford and Asa Butterworth.

So the box office might be “MISSION FAIL,” but in terms of art, Ender’s Game provides much food for thought, and t even enunciates a point-of-view relevant to the Zeitgeist.