The biggest difference between the book and the movie of Ender’s Game is that they cut out a lot of scenes from the book. The book took about six and a half hours to read and they cut it into a 1-hour 54-minute movie. So that meant that they took out a lot of parts from the book. This is like Harry Potter and how they cut a 500-page book and made a 2-hour movie.

Ender is a very smart boy and as soon as he arrived to battle school he proves his point that he will go farther than just battle school. Bean and Ender have no tension between them in the movie and in the book they had tension between them. One example was Bean was being very sassy to Ender throughout the book. But, I think that Bean was introduced way to early in the movie. If you read the book you would realize how much stuff was out of order and not there.

Once Ender is onboard the battle school in space he encounters kids who are very competitive and hostile. Ender tries not to be like his brother Peter who is very violent. Ender thinks that he is going to end up like his brother, Peter. Ender tries to use his brains to keep going and avoid as much trouble as possible. Twice they people tried to beat Ender up but Ender defends himself and beats them up and they didn’t touch him since then. Graff thinks that Ender is ready to move to the “Salamander Army” so he does that. So he tells Ender and then he goes to the army. The Commander of the Salamander Army is Bonzo. As soon as they met Bonzo already hated them. They had their first battle so they do their formation and tell Ender to stay behind and be the last one out of the gate. But Ender doesn’t listen and just goes anyway. If you get to the enemy’s gate your team wins. So then the only one that crosses for Salamander Army is Ender. Well, Bonzo is now furious with Ender. He ends up taking Ender’s free time to practice away. So now while Ender was taking a shower his Commander, Bonzo comes up to him and wants a fight but Ender does not want to harm him but he has to defend himself. Ender smacks Bonzo and then he falls and hits his head on the edge on the step. Ender is calling for help and Bonzo ends up dying. Ender feels so bad and really wishes he did not do that.

Ender is playing this mind game that only he can play. He is a mouse and he needs to get past the giant. So the giant say “There is one cup is poisonous and one cup that is good. If you get the good cup you can pass through.” So Ender goes through one cup and fails. Then to the other and he fails. Then no one has ever done this and he jumps right into the giant’s eye and kills him. So he has his own thoughts and he sees his sister Valentine and follows her into this weird place. Then he sees his brother Peter in the reflection and throws his game off to the side.

When they put Ender into command school he has people from his Dragon Army that they put together including Petra and Bean. So he does these battles, first one is a success, the second one success, and then the third one is a failure. Then the final test he blows up the whole ant planet. After that he was so happy. He thought it was a game like how they told him. But no, it was real and he cried and was upset. Later he goes out of the Command School, which is on one of the bug’s planets. He sees the castle that fell down from his mind game and he approaches it and kept walking in. He then sees a queen bug. He does no harm to the bug and it does no harm back.

Some things that were different like when I read the book I didn’t know it was that high tech, it’s like the 22nd century. I also thought Bonzo was going to be big and scary not short and scrawny. Also I didn’t know Dap was going to be like Graff not big and scary. Command school was just like I pictured it to be. I will say that Graff’s car was so awesome. I also visualized Anderson as a boy because when I was reading I just thought Anderson is a boy. They also put the part when Ender and Peter were playing and Ender was the bug. Then Peter could of choked Ender and killed him but he let go. One of the parts that I wanted to see is when Ender was sleeping and Peter apologized to Ender and actually was kind and caring. Ender actually wasn’t sleeping and heard everything Peter said. So then it struck Ender that Peter was actually very good inside.


The theme of the book is “ It’s good for you to do what is needed, even if what is need doesn’t always seem to be right.” This was a very good movie and I would rate it a 4.5/5 because it wasn’t as good as the book but overall was a great movie. I recommend reading the book then watching the movie but it’s your decision. Really I think/hope there will be another one of these movies because it didn’t end like how the book ended and the movie was open ended. The movie was really detailed with the main scenes and cut out most of the parts that we not as enjoyable. You should take my advice and watch/read this because it was very great enjoyable.