Ender's Game
Maybe Better With Will Smith
Not Kristen Stewart

November 11, 2013
By: O. J. Cunningham

I went to see Ender's Game -- The Movie.

I'm not sure that I enjoyed it. But I know I enjoyed it more than my lovely wife, Donna.

Short of yelling "BOO" at the screen, Donna blatantly flashed dual "thumbs down" at regular intervals during the 90 minute screening . . . not only was the science preposterous (she told me later) but the Ender Wiggen portrayal by the unknown Asa Butterfield fell far short of the Ender Wiggen expected by Donna Cunningham.

I was actually amazed that she lasted until the end of the movie.

If she had walked out in disgust, I would not have been surprised.

I kept handing her the jumbo buttered popcorn bucket (to distract her) and that always seemed to settle her down until the next series of blasphemous inconsistencies.

You see . . . My wife is a reading machine.

Once she gets focused on a book series . . . it's not unusual for her to buzz through the entire author's collection -- non-stop. As an example, she literally tore through the entire Twilight grouping in less than a week.

The only reason I tell you that is because sometime during her early reading career . . . she got hooked on Ender Wiggen and then read every book by Orson Scott Card . . . in the Ender's Game series. Donna and Ender Wiggen are "Buds."

Donna "knows" Ender Wiggen.

And ... Donna says "Asa Butterfield is no Ender Wiggen."

The Ender Wiggen character originated as a science fiction novelette in Analog magazine (1977) and Card later expanded the novel into the Ender's Game series, dealing with the long-term results of the war with the giant ants.

Ender's Game is the best-known novel by Orson Scott Card, set in a future where mankind is facing annihilation by an alien society, the insectoid "Formics" - more commonly referred to by the pejorative, "buggers."

After two separate Bugger invasions, select children are sent into military training at a very young age to supply commanders for their fleets in hopes of surviving a projected third invasion.

So any way . . . Donna hated Ender's game.

I personally give Ender's Game only One Star. (For the popcorn)

I didn't think it was very realistic -- the formic ants were hardly terrifying -- and I had a problem accepting all the political back-story flowing through Harrison Ford's character.

I remember thinking during the movie that it might have been a lot better if it was Will Smith and Jaden Smith in the two main roles.

Or . . . wait . . . maybe if Ender Wiggen had been played by the gerbil-toothed Kristen Stewart . . . Yeah . . . That's right - Kristen Stewart . . . Then she could have ruined this movie that same way she brutalized Snow White and the Huntsman.

Here's a list of all the books in the Ender Wiggen Series just in case you're looking for something to fill the long winter nights.

Books in the Series & Publication date

Ender's Game (1985) - Nebula Award winner, 1985; Hugo Award winner, 1986; Locus Award nominee, 1986

Speaker for the Dead (1986) - Nebula Award winner, 1986; Hugo & Locus Awards winner, 1987; Campbell Award nominee, 1987

Xenocide (1991) - Hugo and Locus Awards nominee, 1992[12]

Children of the Mind (1996)

Ender's Shadow (1999) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2000[13]

Shadow of the Hegemon (2001) - Shortlisted for a Locus Award, 2002[14]

Shadow Puppets (2002)

First Meetings (2002) - short story collection

Shadow of the Giant (2005)

A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (2007)

Ender in Exile (2008)

Shadows in Flight (2012)

Earth Unaware (2012)

Earth Afire (2013)

Earth Awakens (2014, final book in the Formic Wars trilogy)

Shadows Alive (forthcoming, originally planned as part of "Shadows in Flight")