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SDCC 2013: Ender’s Game, the Exhibit


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Some of you know Ender’s Game the book; many more of you, I suspect, know Ender’s Game the homophobic author controversy. I realize, however, that there are many of you simply unaware of the property at all, beyond it being a movie that’s coming. This exhibit may give you a sense of it.

On a superficial level, Ender’s Game has a lot of the same plot points as Harry Potter – an existential threat was defeated a generation ago, but there’s a good chance it’ll be back, so young children are prescreened early on to test their aptitude for battle, then trained in space to be ready for a presumed imminent threat.

The existential threat are aliens who were called “Buggers” in the first book; what’s doubly hilarious given Orson Scott Card’s personal obsessions is that he claims he didn’t know the word already had a sexual meaning, and it was changed in subsequent books to “Formics.”

This is the house of young protagonist Ender Wiggin:

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Ender is recruited into Battle School by Col. Hyram Graff (Harrison Ford), who sees in him the potential to be whatever it is they call the Chosen One in this future. So off he goes on a shuttle…

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Just like at Hogwarts, there are different “houses,” all represented by animals.

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Here is a sample of space barracks.

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Here’s a study room where they get briefed.

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This is the video playing on the big screen:

Through the jump gate, you enter the zero-gravity combat simulator.

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These character posters should be showing up in theater lobbies soon.

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The zero-gravity battles are, like Quidditch, something I’d much rather see onscreen than read about – it’s hard for me to envision three-dimensional combat just from written play-by-play.

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Though the exhibit starts to wrap up with a view of space sunset, I think they missed the potential for something brilliant – if the last room in this show had had Orson Scott Card sitting on a ducking stool that you could throw balls at, it would have been the PR win of PR wins.

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Instead, you get this dork…

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