Spoiler alert: Ender’s Game explores complexity of youth, isolation and warfare

Based on Orson Scott Yard’s 1985 novel, the film depicts the mayhem caused by warfare. PHOTO: FILE

LOS ANGELES: 

Out in theatres on Friday, Ender’s Game follows the journey of young boy Ender Wiggin, played by Asa Butterfield, who is singled out from childhood for his superior intellect and put through advanced warfare training.

Ender is isolated from his comrades and manipulated by Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) into commanding war against a hostile alien race. In doing so, Ender begins to garner a fascination and connection to the alien enemy known as Formics. “It’s about young people being asked to accept huge responsibilities, being trained for warfare because it’s proposed that they have this capacity to absorb information more quickly than older people,” commented Ford.

The movie stars Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley and Oscar-nominated rising star Hailee Steinfeld, among others. Based on Orson Scott Card’s 1985 novel, the film features prominent themes of the emotional impact of warfare on young people, who have been manipulated from childhood through propaganda to develop a hatred for the enemy, an alien race.

Ender’s warfare training comes from videogames and large-scale computer simulations, displayed with striking special effects in the film. Butterfield said that Ender’s Game, while written three decades ago, was “scarily accurate” in how it resonated with present day issues. Davis remarked that the film may lead audiences to consider the bigger human social connection. “We’ve gotten in this age of social media, where we’ve become desensitised, we’ve put things out in the world not knowing that they have an effect,” Davis said.