There are just some of the movies which are out. There are TONS more but these are the ones that I recommend seeing or look quite good. So let me know which ones you see and if you enjoy then.
“In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut–young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is.”
-From Amazon.com
Review
This book was, just wow. Nothing like I thought it was going to be. I had had this book sitting on my shelf for quite some time now but when I got it, the reading level was way beyond me and I didn’t understand the book. It starts as if it is part of a series and that is what threw me off to start with. But now that I found out that there was a movie being made of it, I decided to do a little looking around and found out that it indeed was the first one of the series (only just found out that there is more than 1 book in the series.) So I started reading it.
This book is definitely off the wall. The writing style is very strange and sometimes quite confusing but you just have to push through it because eventually it all starts to make sense. This is not a book that you can just sit down and read. You really have to give yourself a little time to actually sit and think about it. Some books you can just pick up and read about 3 pages of and then come back some time later and continue reading. This you cannot. You have to really read a good bunch of pages or finish a chapter before you can put it down because otherwise when you come back it will not make any sense at all. But I have to say that it was extremely well written. It kept you thinking, wondering what would happen, and it kept surprising you with different things that happened. The characters were developed quite well as you got to understand Ender and how he acted and how he felt in different situations. You really got close to him and felt bad for him during many situations.
Honestly, there is not a whole lot you can say about this book without giving anything away as there were many details that can ruin the book for you.
I am also going to tell you that nothing it what it seems and that the end is going to be shocking and leave you sitting there with your mouth open (metaphorically – except in my case where it actually was).
But I am going to tell you this…please read this book before you see the movie because I have a feeling that the movie is going to be different. I am also going to say that you have to get into the book before it starts the flow. The beginning feels a little rough, but it will all start to make sense later on. Just dive in and get going.
Good luck, enjoy the book, and let me know what you think.
Update: There is a movie for this book out and I saw it and thought it was fabulous. It wasn’t exactly like the book…but I still defiantly recommend that you watch it. But read the book first, because after the movie, reading the book will be really difficult.
Tom Cruise – Ray Ferrier
Dakota Fanning – Rachel Ferrier
Miranda Otto – Mary Ann
Justin Chatwin – Robbie
Summary
“Despite super effects, a huge budget, and the cinematic pedigree of alien-happy Steven Spielberg, this take on H.G. Wells’s novel is basically a horror film packaged as a sci-fi thrill ride. Instead of a mad slasher, however, Spielberg (along with writers Josh Friedman & David Koepp) utilizes aliens hell-bent on quickly destroying humanity, and the terrifying results that prey upon adult fears, especially in the post-9/11 world. The realistic results could be a new genre, the grim popcorn thriller; often you feel like you’re watching Schindler’s List more than Spielberg’s other thrill-machine movies (Jaws, Jurassic Park). The film centers on Ray Ferrier, a divorced father (Tom Cruise, oh so comfortable) who witnesses one giant craft destroy his New Jersey town and soon is on the road with his teen son (Justin Chatwin) and preteen daughter (Dakota Fanning) in tow, trying to keep ahead of the invasion. The film is, of course, impeccably designed and produced by Spielberg’s usual crew of A-class talent. The aliens are genuinely scary, even when the film–like the novel–spends a good chunk of time in a basement. Readers of the book (or viewers of the deft 1953 adaptation) will note the variation of whom and how the aliens come to Earth, which poses some logistical problems. The film opens and closes with narration from the novel read by Morgan Freeman, but Spielberg could have adapted Orson Welles’s words from the famous Halloween Eve 1938 radio broadcast: “We couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the best next thing: we annihilated the world.”
–Doug Thomas from Amazon.com
From MoviesOnline.ca
Review
This movie was really good but pretty creepy. There was a lot of blood in this movie. I don’t mean blood like people got decapitated but the creatures machines would suck the blood out of you and then later you would see the machines expel large amounts of blood and there would be pools of blood all over the place. Quite disconcerting and quite creepy too. If your don’t like this type of thing, this movie may not be suited for you.
There was no good role modeling in this movie. Ray Ferrier was a very irresponsible dad. In the beginning he called his son all types of things. As the movie progressed he seemed to change and be more responsible because he realized if he did not buck up his ideas when he was going to die, along with his children and I don’t think he wanted that.
The acting in this movie was done really well. Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin both played the annoying and non-listening children. I got so annoyed with the children and the dad because the dad did nothing to make the children to shut up. But it probably portrayed a typical American family :).
This movie was filmed with a kind of tinge. I am not sure what the tinge was but it seemed to be a metallic, green, gray tinge to it which added to this surreal effect. It was quit an interesting idea because then it put everything kind of not in the present. It was showing that it was set a few years back.
Also the aliens were pretty creepy and the machines were creepy too. They were really big and they had these like tractor beams which disintegrated your body and pulled it up to the machine but left your clothes behind and Ray was eventually covered in body bits even though it was never explicitly mentioned, you got the idea. I am actually not sure if the beam pulled you up or just disintegrated you on the spot But don’t really want to know.
I think that this movie was done really well and is a definite see, but I recommend to be over the age of 14/15 because it was pretty creepy.
It was exciting though and definitely a classic which everyone should see at least once. I will be reading the book really soon and watching the original War of the Worlds which I am excited about. 🙂
Check out CommonSenseMedia.org’s review of the movie as it has more information. I just want to warn you though that CommonSense does sometimes give spoilers because they say what is said and everything which is seen. But there are no spoiler warnings on their sites.
Amanda Seyfried – Valerie
Gary Oldman – Solomen
Billy Burke – Cesaire
Shiloh Fernandez – Peter
Max Irons – Henry
Review Woah. Woah. Woah. Hold up. This movie is PG-13? Uh, check the rating again please. This movie was not ok for 13 year olds at all. This was a movie for 16 year old’s. The movie was quite steamy in some places (parents I am sure you know what I mean) and there was quite a lot of blood.
There was the love scene between Valerie and Peter. That was ok. But for 16 year olds. Not 13-year-old. There was also chopping off of hands, stabbing, and crunching of bones – everything yucky. Also at the end it was hinted at that the wolf had turned grandma into a stew and Valerie was eating the stew. Uhhh. Disgusting.
The movie overall was a good storyline, good acting, and everything, but I feel that it was a little too gruesome in some parts.
Valerie, played by Amanda Seyfried was the beauty of the town. She was to be married to Henry. But as all love stories go, she loved someone else. This story was touching to see how Henry tried to get her to love him but saw that Peter was still winning.
Please also check out CommonSenseMedia.org ‘s review of this movie. It will give you a better understanding of what happened.
