Ender's Game (ATOM Study Guide)

Ender Wiggin, a brilliant and remarkably gifted twelve-year-old, is trained to become Earth's ultimate military leader in Ender's Game, the long-awaited big-screen adaptation of the classic, award-winning novel by Orson Scott Card.

After surviving a devastating attack by the insect-like Formics, the people of Earth have spent years readying themselves for a repeat attack by nurturing a new generation of child geniuses to be trained as warriors. The planet's best and brightest youngsters are selected to attend Battle School, an orbiting space station where they compete for a chance to become a commander of the International Fleet. Using advanced computer simulations and rigorous game-like exercises, they train in an atmosphere of violence and intense competition, knowing that only one will be selected to lead.

Ender Wiggin is exceptional, even among his extraordinary classmates. His unique combination of intelligence, empathy and strategic brilliance makes him a standout in the classroom and in the Battle Room – a zero-gravity playground where games of futuristic laser tag test the trainees' strategic and physical abilities. Ender's singular gifts inspire envy in his fellow recruits, and the school's commander, Colonel Hyrum Graff, deliberately alienates Ender from the other children in order to hone his individual leadership skills.

An outsider at first, Ender, with his preternatural understanding of human nature, gradually builds a coalition among his peers and is soon promoted to Command School, located on a distant planet once used by the Formics as a forward staging post for their invasion of Earth. Under the severe tutelage of Mazer Rackham, the brilliant general who defeated the Formics years earlier, Ender is rapidly promoted to lead his fellow students in simulated war games against enemy forces.

Certain that another attack by the Formics is imminent, Graff and Rackham believe they have only weeks to ready Ender to lead the International Fleet in a battle for planetary survival. But as the boy prepares to face his final test, he develops gnawing doubts about the monumental task that lies ahead. Is this the best strategy for achieving peace?

Ender's Game examines critical and timely ideas such as the true meaning of leadership, the balance between good and evil, and the justification for war. Is the way we win as important as winning itself? Where's the line between good and evil, and don't we all contain both, sometimes in the same moment? Is real leadership the exercise of brutal authority in order to get people to do what you want? Or is it more about drawing them in to get the best out of them? Ender struggles with all of these questions throughout the film.

Curriculum Links

The curriculum areas Ender's Game can be related to include English, Physical, Personal and Social Learning, and the Cross-curriclulm Priority of Sustainability.