The Authorized Ender Companion

by Black, Jake

  But in a film, as said before, we don’t have that luxury. We can’t get inside Ender’s head. All we know is what we see characters do and say. So when Ender kicks a man who’s down and then makes angry threats to the bullies still standing, we assume he’s expressing his true feelings. Our interpretation of the scene would be exactly what the bullies would assume: that Ender is a violent, dangerous kid.

  Rather than endear us to Ender by teaching us how averse he is to violence, the Stilson scene in the film could potentially lead the audience to dislike Ender. For this reason Scott Card chose to exclude the Stilson scene from all of his drafts.

  The writing team that followed Scott, however, thought the Stilson scene a necessary plot point. Their execution of it complicated the matter further, however, because for them, it wasn’t enough for Ender to merely kick Stilson while he was down. In their draft, Ender does a little karate move and shatters Stilson’s nose. Then Ender proceeds to beat Stilson to a bloody pulp, kicking his head, hitting him as hard as he can, beating him viciously in the chest and stomach, and slamming his fists repeatedly into Stilson’s already broken nose.

  It’s an extremely violent scene, possibly even violent enough to earn the film an R rating. It surprised me. It painted Ender, right from the beginning, as a vicious kid driven by bloodlust and went beyond what was necessary to scare off the other bullies. To be fair to the writers, the scene that follows the Stilson scene shows Ender running off and crying, visibly shaken for what he has just done. But I don’t think it compensated for what we would have just seen Ender do. When I read it, I despised Ender for it. And I presume audiences would have had the same reaction.

  3. THE FANTASY GAME

  Scott Card’s first draft incorporated the Fantasy Game a great deal. It was a clear way of showing that the Formics were trying to communicate with Ender and keep him from committing xenocide. At certain points throughout the draft, Ender picks up his laptop and plays the game. His game character, Ender Mouse, beats the Giant’s Drink, the supposed dead end of the game, and proceeds to explore Fairy Land and find the castle tower where the Formic queen is waiting.

  In Scott’s later drafts, the game appears less, though he does use other devices to incorporate the game into the story. In one scene, for example, we’re inside Fairy Land, and we think Ender is playing the game. Then Ender Mouse finds the Hive Queen, she pounces on him, and Ender wakes up, revealing that it was only a dream. The scene is significant because it proves that the Formics don’t even need the laptop anymore to get inside Ender’s head.

  The other writers, however, chose to exclude the Fantasy Game—with one exception. In one scene of one draft, as Ender is walking in the arcadelike game room, he passes a kid playing the Fantasy Game. There’s no dialogue exchanged or emphasis given to the game. It’s merely mentioned in the screenplay as part of the landscape. If you blink you miss it.

  4. GRAFF

  For die-hard fans of the novels, it might sound like blasphemy to suggest that Ender’s Game be made without Hyrum Graff. But the suggestion was made. Someone in the script-development process asked, Could the film work without Graff? And more specifically, what if Graff and Mazer Rackham were the same character? What if it were Mazer who comes to the Wiggin home at the beginning of the film to recruit Ender? And Mazer who follows Ender through Battle School?

  The screenwriters after Scott explored this idea. In one draft, everyone knows and recognizes Mazer when they see him. But in another draft, neither the audience nor the other characters know he’s Mazer. We think he’s simply a commander in the I.F. No one recognizes him because the International Fleet has kept the vids from the invasion classified. It’s not until late in the film that the big Aha! twist is revealed: that this Graff-like character is in fact Mazer Rackham.

  Scott Card explored a similar idea, but rather than ditching the character of Graff altogether, he merely gave Mazer some of Graff’s duties and therefore beefed up the character of Mazer. In Scott’s draft, Mazer—not Graff—comes to the Wiggin home in the beginning of the film to recruit Ender without identifying himself or being recognized. After Ender agrees to accompany him, Mazer escorts Ender to Battle School and places him under Graff’s care. Mazer reappears later in the film when Ender’s training on Eros begins and there reveals his true identity, just as he does in the novel.

  Personally, I thought this a smart move. It introduces the audience to Mazer’s face early in the film and establishes him as a character of great importance. That way, when we see him later in the film, he’s not a total stranger. We’re not introducing a character at the beginning of the Third Act. It’s also smart because Mazer Rackham is one of the few characters in the film who could be given to a name adult actor, someone who would have some pull at the box office. Beefing up that part by giving Mazer more to do at the beginning of the film makes the role more attractive to name actors.

  5. BATTLE SCHOOL JARGON

  Battle School soldiers have their own vernacular. When two soldiers greet each other in the corridor, for example, they’ll say “Ho” instead of “Hello.”

  “Ho, Ender.”

  “Ho, Bean.”

  Or rather than call someone a four-letter word, a Battle School kid would use the term eemo. “Hold you fire, you stupid eemo!”

  In the novels, these unique words and phrases added another dimension to the Battle School experience and gave it a feeling of authenticity. Kids make up words all the time. As do soldiers in war. Language evolves that way.

  The words were never overused. They weren’t distracting. And if they appeared, the reader needed no translation. Their meaning could easily be surmised from context alone.

  Scott Card used Battle School jargon in his drafts of the screenplay, but the writing team that followed him did not. The screenwriter who followed them did use Battle School jargon, but it was jargon of his own creation, not words lifted from the novel. I found it interesting that I could immediately identify his words as unauthentic even though it had been a few years since I had last read Ender’s Game.

  6. THE TWIST

  Another complication of adapting both stories was deciding how best to reveal the big twist. In Ender’s Game, the reader learns that the simulation on Eros is the real war at the same time Ender does: after the battle is over.

  If you were lucky enough not to know this twist when you first read the book, it was a humdinger of a reveal. It came out of nowhere. “NO WAY! He was fighting the real war?”

  But in Ender’s Shadow, the reader knows this already. Even before we crack the book open, we know the big twist at the end. Scott Card solved this in the novel by wisely giving us another twist, something that wasn’t revealed in Ender’s Game but arguably just as surprising: Bean knew the truth. Bean figured it out. Bean knew he was sending men to their deaths during the final simulation. And because Bean understood Ender, because he knew how the truth would affect him and how it could jeopardize the entire mission, he kept his mouth shut and simply did his job.

  So what should the film do? Should the final twist be saved until the end? Should the audience learn the twist when Ender does, as in the first novel? Or should we learn from Bean as he does in Ender’s Shadow, long before the final simulation?

  Since film is a visual medium, Scott Card and the filmmakers agreed that the final battle would be more engaging and exciting if we cut back and forth between the Ender’s simulation and the real battle, showing the pilots in their starships as they bravely followed the orders that would lead them to their deaths. It made for a very exciting sequence, and all agreed that fans and the uninitiated alike would enjoy watching the I.F. battle it out with the Formics in space.

  With that direction in mind, it was clear that the reveal had to happen before the battle, with Bean discovering the truth as he does in Ender’s Shadow. The great difference among the various screenplay drafts, however, was deciding when and how to reveal that information.

  In the writing team’s draft,
Bean figures out the truth by watching the vids of the Second Invasion. He notices that I.F. communication had a time lag and that the Formic communication did not. From that simple fact he makes the amazing, yet accurate, leap in logic that the I.F. has learned how to communicate instantaneously, has launched a fleet to attack, and will direct that fleet from Earth.

  In Scott Card’s drafts, Bean learns the truth just as he did in the novel: while eavesdropping on the teachers from inside the air vents at Battle School. This occurs at the end of Act II, just before Ender leaves for Eros, with about twenty minutes or so left in the film.

  In the third screenwriter’s draft, Bean also discovers the truth by eavesdropping, but he does so on Eros, immediately before the final battle and just as the fleet is arriving at the Formic planet. In this version, the audience is kept in the dark for the longest time possible, learning the truth just before the fleet and the Formics duke it out in space.

  THE BIG DIFFERENCES

  So far I’ve mentioned a few story elements that were included in some drafts and left out in others. These differences, while significant in some respect, are minor compared to the following story changes, which greatly influenced my overall perception of the drafts.

  1. BONZO’S DEATH

  Go on, admit it. Bonzo is one of your favorite characters. You simply love to hate him. Well, believe me when I say that you wouldn’t be disappointed by the Bonzo portrayed in the film. In all drafts I read, Bonzo is as bad as they come, clearly the villain. When he’s not bullying Ender, he’s demeaning other members of his army or plotting dastardly deeds.

  Bonzo’s critical scene in the film is the final showdown with Ender. In both the novel and in Scott Card’s drafts of the screenplay, this scene takes place in the showers. Bonzo and a group of his cronies have come to the shower to beat Ender to a bloody pulp, if not kill him. Ender, being the genius he is, lathers himself in soap, turns all the shower nozzles to the hottest water setting, and proceeds to taunt Bonzo in the hope that Bonzo will be so angered that he’ll insist on fighting Ender alone. The taunting works, of course, and Ender turns what could have been a lynching into a one-on-one confrontation.

  And we all know what happens next.

  The concern some of the filmmakers had with this scene was the nudity. Ender isn’t wearing any clothes. He’s taking a shower. How could the scene be shot without exposing him? Or from another perspective, what young child actor would do this? What child would agree to wrestle with another actor without wearing his Fruit of the Looms?

  Scott Card was confident the scene could go as originally written. The camera could avoid exposing Ender and yet give the impression that he was nude. Scott thought it important to preserve the scene because Ender is so incredibly helpless. He has no layer of protection, and his only weapons are soap lather and hot water. You can’t get more defenseless than that. Bonzo would clearly have the upper hand. That way, when Ender defeats him, Ender’s victory is all the greater.

  The producer disagreed. The scene couldn’t be in the shower. And subsequent drafts of the screenplay written by others had a very different climatic final scene with Bonzo.

  It’s also worth pointing out that in Scott Card’s drafts, Bonzo dies as he does in the novel: by accident. Ender doesn’t intend to kill him. When Ender delivers his single blow and hits Bonzo with the back of his head, it’s not meant to be fatal. He’s merely trying to hurt Bonzo enough to make him stop. He despises violence, loathes it. Killing Bonzo is the furthest thing from his mind.

  This isn’t the case in the draft written by the other screenwriters. In those drafts, Bonzo suffers a much more violent death at Ender’s hand. In one draft, the fight occurs in the Dragon Army barracks. Ender enters the barracks, thinking he’s alone, and Bonzo steps out of the shadows wielding a lead pipe. Bonzo then pushes Ender onto a glass table, shattering it. As Ender tries to crawl away, Bonzo slams the pipe into Ender’s back. Then he pushes the pipe across Ender’s throat, trying to choke him to death. Ender retaliates by grabbing a large shard of glass from the broken table and slashing Bonzo across the chest. The cut isn’t deep, though, and Bonzo smacks Ender around some more, toying with him. Then Ender gets behind Bonzo and wraps his arms around Bonzo’s neck. Bonzo tries to free himself by repeatedly slamming Ender into the wall, but Ender’s grip is too strong. Finally, with all his exertion, Bonzo slams Ender into the wall one more time. This time, however, the force of the blow results in Ender snapping Bonzo’s neck, killing him.

  In the other draft, Bonzo and two of his cronies jump Ender in the corridor and throw him into the Battle Room—and zero gravity—where they hope to beat him senseless. The cronies smack Ender around a few times and easily avoid his attempts to fight back. Then Bonzo steps in and slams Ender into a few of the Battle Room obstacles like a cat toying with a captured mouse. Ender then uses their tactics against them and incapacitates the two cronies, leaving only Bonzo.

  Now the real fight begins. Bonzo punches Ender in the head. And then, by the screenplay’s own admission, Ender loses all control, becoming completely feral and savagely attacking Bonzo. He head butts Bonzo in the nose, sending globules of blood floating into the air, then punches Bonzo repeatedly in the face, showing no mercy and releasing all his pent-up aggression. The screenplay describes it as a brutal attack, with Ender’s face twisted with blind rage, his fists furiously striking Bonzo again and again.

  The beating doesn’t stop until military policemen storm in. But by then, it’s too late. When Ender releases his attacker, Bonzo’s lifeless and bloody body floats away like a drowned man at sea.

  Both of these different adaptations of Bonzo’s death are violent, but the latter, like the Stilson scene already mentioned, borders on warranting an R rating. I dare say fans, and sensitive parents alike, would be troubled by such an aggressive attack from Ender.

  Besides the violence, however, the scenes also failed to show Ender’s genius and understanding of military command. In the original scene, Ender uses all of the resources, however small, in his environment to his advantage. He also displays a bit of psychological warfare to even the odds and remove Bonzo’s cronies from the battlefield without throwing a single punch.

  But in the other versions, Ender merely resorts to brutal violence. He doesn’t demonstrate spur-of-the-moment strategic thinking. He doesn’t use tactics of hand-to-hand combat. He simply swings and slashes and punches where he can, a strategy that even the lowest of privates might resort to. In these scenes, it’s not brains, but brawn that wins Ender victory. And considering that Ender, compared to Bonzo, is much smaller and physically weaker, Bonzo’s death seems all the more unbelievable. It’s hard to kill someone by merely hitting him in the head, especially if you’re a nine-year-old.

  What’s also troubling about these scenes is that in them both, Ender cries out for help. Rather than use his own skills and quick thinking to save himself when Bonzo first attacks, Ender looks into the nearest surveillance camera, which he knows the teachers are watching, and screams for someone to come save him. It’s only when help doesn’t come, when Ender realizes that he’s in this fight alone, that he fights Bonzo to the death.

  This bothered me. Ender isn’t fearless, of course. But the Ender I grew to love in the novel always solved his own problems. When challenges arose, he quietly faced them. He didn’t run to the nearest adult and seek refuge. He took Peter and Stilson and Bonzo head-on. Alone.

  Equally troubling is how the teachers handle the situation. In the original story, Graff allows the fight to begin but does not expect it to end so tragically. And as soon as it’s obvious that someone is hurt, the teachers rush in. In these new versions, however, the teachers watch the brutal fight between Ender and Bonzo without interfering, even when it’s obvious that Bonzo is very close to killing Ender. As Bonzo pushes the pipe into Ender’s throat and Ender’s eyes roll back and his face turns blue, the teachers merely watch from the surveillance room, without reacting. I found that incredibly
hard to believe. If you thought the fate of all mankind rested on the shoulders of a nine-year-old boy, and that boy was slowly being murdered in the room a few doors down, wouldn’t you do something about it? If not for the boy’s sake, then at least for your own?

  My last complaint with these scenes is that they demean Bonzo. No one gets to Battle School without being incredibly intelligent. Bonzo is one of the smartest kids on Earth. He’s a bully, yes, but he’s a very smart bully. He also greatly values his own standing in the school. So he’s not going to do something that will ruin his chances of advancement or threaten his graduation from Battle School—at least, not if he thinks he’ll get caught.

  In the novel, it’s no coincidence that Bonzo attacks Ender in the shower, the one place at Battle School you might assume the teachers aren’t watching. But in these new versions of events, the surveillance cameras are all in plain sight. They’re positioned on the wall in the barracks and the Battle Room for all the world to see. So Bonzo knows the teachers are watching. He knows they can see him strangling Ender to death. He even makes a comment to the effect, that he doesn’t care that the teachers can see him. This sort of reckless behavior and total disregard for the consequences of his actions makes Bonzo look like quite the idiot. Is he really so driven by hate that he’ll try to kill Ender in front of the teachers? That seems completely self-defeating. How could he know the teachers wouldn’t interfere? If he knew they were watching, wouldn’t he assume they would try to stop him? And once they did, what would his actions have accomplished beyond his own expulsion from Battle School and court-martial for attempted murder?

  No, I think Bonzo is smarter than that. Heck, even murderers are smarter than that. They kill people in private because they don’t want to get caught and be held accountable for their crimes. Bonzo is at least that smart. He wouldn’t have knowingly sacrificed his military career—and long-term prison time—just to get in a few punches.