Ender's Game Book vs. Movie
I like the book more than the movie. Audience reaction has to be taken into consideration in a way that books don't have to. The audience, cannot, even for a moment, be confused as to who the "bad guy" is. Otherwise, you can have a teenage Scarface.
"Moral Convenience" is what's pissing you off. The HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones also does this. Good characters never "cross the line" where as bad guys say homophobic comments and express jealousy.
This is the reason why fantasy-themed works fall out of fashion every 20 or so years. They become a pedestal for "Hollywood morals" that can't articulate themselves without moral convenience. I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you said, especially the part about Graff and Rackhams opinions on the xenocide. This is a major part of why I hated the movie: the tone is completely different by the end, and it fails to capture any of the complexity of the book.Anything I could say is said better in this essay:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm[1]
It's a pretty well known essay amongst big nerds but it's getting a lot more play thanks to the movie.
Too innocent?
The movie made Ender Wiggen look like a budding sociopath who's waiting for the appropriate time to explode all over his friends and classmates. Had it not been for the military coming and getting Ender out of there, there would have been a massive bloodbath.
If anything, the military comes off as the heroes of this universe because they prevented a Columbine situation. Sure they allowed the genocide of a race, but it was better for the world to let Ender explode against the aliens and exile him.
"Moral Convenience" is what's pissing you off. The HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones also does this. Good characters never "cross the line" where as bad guys say homophobic comments and express jealousy.
This is the reason why fantasy-themed works fall out of fashion every 20 or so years. They become a pedestal for "Hollywood morals" that can't articulate themselves without moral convenience. I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you said, especially the part about Graff and Rackhams opinions on the xenocide. This is a major part of why I hated the movie: the tone is completely different by the end, and it fails to capture any of the complexity of the book.Anything I could say is said better in this essay:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm[1]
It's a pretty well known essay amongst big nerds but it's getting a lot more play thanks to the movie.
Too innocent?
The movie made Ender Wiggen look like a budding sociopath who's waiting for the appropriate time to explode all over his friends and classmates. Had it not been for the military coming and getting Ender out of there, there would have been a massive bloodbath.
If anything, the military comes off as the heroes of this universe because they prevented a Columbine situation. Sure they allowed the genocide of a race, but it was better for the world to let Ender explode against the aliens and exile him.