Ender's Game, The Movie

You know that uncomfortable feeling that you get upon learning that your absolute favourite novel will be spun into a Hollywood film?  I am currently dealing with such a feeling in regard to my favourite sci-fi novel, Ender's Game, which will hit the big screens in the spring of 2013.  On the one hand, I am excited to experience this wonderful story through a new medium, but on the other, I fear that the movie will not live up to the book. 

It is strange for one to have such strong feelings for a story that one takes offense to a lacklustre portrayal of it.  After all, I am not Orson Scott Card, the author of the Ender's Game series of novels, of which Ender's Game was the original publication.  But, that is what is special about a novel: the reader has the freedom to make the story their own, and in so doing, develops a much more intimate relationship with it than can be established through film.

I first read Ender's Game (I have read it twice since) in 1999, as part of a college English class.  The 1985 novel may be summarized as follows: Star Wars meets Harry Potter without the hocus pocus.  The story examines two advanced species, mankind and formics (commonly referred to as "buggers"), for whom this neighbourhood of the universe is not big enough.  The story unfolds almost entirely on a military base in space, where young boys and girls are trained in space war.  Harry Potter fans will draw comparisons between this training facility, known as Battle School, and Hogwarts, but to be fair, J. K. Rowling's fictional world was created after Card's.