After waiting for what seems like forever, the Ender’s Game movie is finally going to see the light of day. Principle photography ended back in June and slowly but surely more information and the first official images from the film. Entertainment Weekly got an exclusive first look at the film and you can see a larger version of the image above at the link.
You can also find a few musings on whether Ender’s Game is looking to follow in the Hungers Games’ footsteps. They aren’t the only ones. After the release of this first image, blogs across the web have been posting comparisons between the two films. After all, it’s also a movie about kids fighting one another, training in their flashy, futuristic track suits. Few fail to mention that the Ender’s Game source material predates the Hunger Games by decades and yet there still exists that subtle accusation that, really, it’s Ender’s Game that’s ripping off the Hunger Games.
To be fair, it not for the Hunger Games movie’s success it’s unlikely we ever would have seen Ender’s Game on the big screen. Hollywood has been talking about it for years but the project had never before seemed quite feasible. Now that the young adult dystopian genre is the money maker, Ender’s Game finally has a chance to make it big. But will the film be able to make a name for itself if it’s constantly being compared to the Hunger Games and any number of other similar, upcoming films?
As a long time fan of the Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow I am certainly hopeful. From what I’ve read in interviews with the director, he’s a real fan of the original book and has worked closely with the author to make sure that the movie remains faithful despite a number of necessary changes. And with a cast of such talented young people – and, of course, Harrison Ford playing Colonel Graff – I think there is plenty of potential for one fantastic movie.
We’ll find out for ourselves in November 2013.
(Image via EW.com)
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To be fair, the Hunger Games movie predates the Ender’s Game movie.
No. It’s not fair.
What’s interesting is the cross parallel between the two stories. They were written by two different authors years apart, but in a way the events of Ender’s Game & Shadow of the Hegemon could lead into an early history from which Panem was later founded. The bugger wars destroyed much of humanity, and after Ender won, unknowingly destroying the buggers, leaves Earth behind to restore balance with the fallen race. Meanwhile on Earth, humanity begins to fight one another into full scale world war with Peter Wiggin attempting to establish what little control is left of the nations. It’s becomes chaotic & brutal, where humanity is ever close to destroying one another in an apocalyptic manner. Had Peter Wiggin failed to become Hegemon, the world could have been torn apart by nation rising against nation until there was nothing left. After Peter dies, perhaps this could have still happened, and what remains of humanity could become the founding fathers of Panem, creating a balance of power between fear and hope, which the hunger games were built on. Scary isn’t it? lol! Of course, Ender & Valentine are three millennia into the future on Lusitania haha, so Panem could have very well existed as a sequel to the Hegemon storyline. Poor Peeta, Gale, and Katniss! History becomes lost, and we must relearn from what we think we know from the past. Usually, life begins anew all over again, which Panem often exhibits. Little is known of the history before Panem other than the country was once the United States, but that is pretty much it. History repeats itself as the hunger games story takes center stage after Ender’s Armageddon. Of course the two stories have nothing to do with each other, but what if they did?