The Authorized Ender Companion (57 page)

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.

2. COMIC BOOKS

As mentioned before, the writing team that followed Scott Card had just finished a successful comic book film when they signed on to do
Ender’s Game
. Months later, while working on
Ender’s Game
, the team agreed to write another comic book film as soon as their contract with
Ender’s Game
ended. Comic books, it seemed, was quickly becoming their niche.

Perhaps that’s why the team added comic books into their draft of
Ender’s Game
. Comics were their thing. Slipping a comic book into the
Ender’s Game
screenplay would be like an inside joke to themselves.

whatever their reason, their version of Ender loves comic books. He
reads them all the time—especially Superman. He’s so obsessed with the man in tights, in fact, that when packing his one suitcase for Battle School, Ender tosses in a few comics because he apparently can’t live without them.

In the later draft written by the other screenwriter, comic books again reappeared. Ender sneaks his comics into Battle School, and he and Petra learn that they share a mutual interest in superheroes. One evening, while sitting in their adjacent bunks, they debate about who’s the better superhero, Spider-Man or Superman.

For me, this scene was the comic book that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. I couldn’t see the significance of using comic books as a story element in the film. Comics do nothing but deviate Ender from the task at hand and make it appear as if he’s obsessed with grandiose heroics, which he clearly is not.

In fact, in the novels, comic-book heroics are the farthest things from Ender Wiggin’s mind. The only reason he assumes the responsibility given him and does heroic things is because he has to, because he knows there’s no one else who can. He’s not trying to emulate a fictional demigod. He’s not seeking the praise and respect showered upon superheroes. That’s what people like Bonzo do. No, Ender is simply doing his job. His motivations are purely selfless. Comic books are simply not his style.

Besides, the International Fleet would never allow comics in Battle School anyway. Comics, like anything else that might remind a soldier of his previous life, would be forbidden. Isolation is part of a soldier’s training. He must be cut off completely from the world. If these children aren’t allowed to contact their parents, why would they be permitted to read comic books?

This isn’t to say I’m opposed to comics. I happen to subscribe to a title right now, thank you very much, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the medium. But to have comics
in
the story feels wrong. It gives a false impression of Ender and introduces an element to the story that has no clear justification. For me, it felt as if the writers were inserting themselves into the story, like a painter who signs his name so large on the canvas that it fights the art for attention.

3. THE BATTLE ROOM

For many of us, when we say we want to see
Ender’s Game
come to life on the big screen, what we really mean is that we want to see the Battle Room—just as we saw it in our minds when we read the novels.