the faceless killer
so, was I right?"What?"
Was I right when, in October of 2013 after seeing the first trailer, I suggested:
ENDER'S GAME (as a visual experience) looks like Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange set in space, where a band of uncontrollable yobbos go about their deadly and immoral business of ETHNICALLY CLEANSING THE UNIVERSE. [source Free Planet preview of Ender's Game]
Yes, the military recruit and train ABSOLUTE FUCKING PSYCHOPATHS. But that's not the point here, every war needs its general. Right? Every war that's necessary. But since when has war been necessary, to a cultured, intelligent race? I can't understand why every critic alive came down so hard on this film. There's a distinct corporate mindset of bandwagonism going on in the Hollywood review market, it seems. I'm not sure whether people are afraid to like shit any more or whether they're paid to opine i.e. not all that a reviewer writes is coming from his heart (more like his shameless pocket)
Ender's Game is even worse than Burgess seminal clockwork-yobbo treatise, because in that the yobbos knew they were yobs. These young space-fucks don't even know they're YOBS ON A GALACTIC SCALE. Clever, buddying, smart-assed and so desperately keen to please. These cadets are fucked in space by their ruthless gaming generals.
Yes, I did say, "These state-abducted children (drafted into the adult world of WAR FOR PROFIT) are fucked in space," because it's the truth. That's what war does, even in places like Africa where the best soldiers are ruthless little child soldiers who'll do anything so that their daddy pats them on the back and welcomes them into their parental embrace. That's certainly what this film is implying, I call it the Paedo-Flinch - and it happens more than once in the film. Ender's Game is Last Starfighter meets Clockwork Orange but in ruptured reverse; sure the best video game player still gets recruited to save humanity but there's the insidious overlay where Alex's (Clockwork) re-sensitisation is reversed. These 'goody-goody kids with a mean streak' are encouraged to de-empathise. Not empathise, as Ender does. I can't quite see where Hollywood will take this mind-fuck series a) base it on Orson Scott Card's four other books or b) 'do a Jason Bourne' and refranchise the character path i.e. totally ignore the source material. Oh, Ender's Game is all saccarin and syrup and clumsy, and that's what growing up's supposed to be. Not war. Not soldier. Not killer.
