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About That Trailer Ending…

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Spoiler
Boy, what a day. My head hurts, I still feel like I have earbuds jammed into my ears, and my back is killing me, but what a fantastic day it was anyway!

So now that we’ve all seen it and people are reacting, one of the most common complaints I’ve seen online is that Summit did that dastardly thing us moviegoers hate so much: they ruined the ending of the movie.

I’ll be honest, this was my initial kneejerk reaction too. Why did they reveal that? Why blow up the climax right now? And then I came to my senses.

The only reason anyone thinks this is a spoiler is because you’ve read the book. When you think about it, there’s really nothing in that scene to indicate that Ender knows exactly what he’s doing.

In the book, Ender is using what he is told is a very sophisticated simulator. He revels in its controls and excels in commanding his soldiers to do what he feels must be done to beat his enemy. And as we all know, to Ender, his enemies in these “simulations” aren’t the buggers on the screen. It’s Mazer. It’s Graff. It’s the teachers.

In the very first interview we got with Gavin Hood way back in December when the first still came out, he was asked about the ending by Grady Smith of Entertainment Weekly:

To that end, the director promises that the book’s dark ending (which I won’t spoil here) has remained fully in tact. “That ending — and the complex moral questions that it raises — is one of the reasons why I love the book, ” says Hood. “I promise you that it is very much there.”

Ender-Now I remain confident that the trailer is in fact spoiler free. The only reason it appears to be a spoiler is because we know what it really means.

That doesn’t mean that after that explosion, Ender doesn’t then turn to see a crowd of cheering military brass and then learns that his worst nightmares have come to pass.

As much as I love the character of Ender, I think we’ll still have to see see the pain he suffers as a result of that intense last command.

Anyone going around ranting to people about how the ending spoils the movie is… actually spoiling the movie. So stop it already!

Comments

25 responses to “About That Trailer Ending…”

May 7, 2013

Aradashi

I was actually thinking of it in similar terms. Not necessarily that we know what it was because we read the book, but more that even if you know what it was, the climax of the book isn’t truly the death of the planet but the reactions of Ender and everyone else because it happens. The events aren’t what matter in this series, but how people react and what they learn from them.

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May 7, 2013

Veronica Halbert-Herrera

There’s not spoiling the movie if people just read the book. It really IS worth reading, and makes wanting to see Ender’s story in live-action – even more thrilling.

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May 7, 2013

Rick Cromack

[SPOILER ALERT!]

100% agreed. Also, don’t forget that Ender USED “Dr. Device” before — just to see what it did. Although it DOES appear that the frames at the end of the trailer are of the final “simulation”, at the Buggers’ homeworld, it’s also just possible that what we’re witnessing is a simulation of the Molecular Disruption / Detachment Device’s potential destructive power — that it’s something akin to a training video for just-arrived-at-Command-School Ender — or that, perhaps, a spherical planetOID was incorporated into that early battle, for Ender to test the weapon on in order to gauge its effectiveness against a large celestial body. (Our presumption could also be too dependent on clever marketing-department editing.)

Any way, there’s no reason to be in a twist about this. Although I am a bit surprised that the Device has been replaced, it seems, by a beam / energy weapon.

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1. May 7, 2013
  
  EnderWiggin.net
  
  Regarding the beam, I think it’s unavoidable to have it become glorified. It is, after all, a movie!
  
  Reply
  1. May 8, 2013
    
    Rick Cromack
    
    [Nodding] What they’ve come up with is far cooler-looking than some miscellaneous bomb casing or torpedo.
    
    Also, I LOVE what they’d done with the Battle Room. Never in my wildest imaginings did I picture that!
    
    Reply
    1. May 8, 2013
      
      EnderWiggin.net
      
      Oh man, me too. It almost makes my head hurt how much cooler it looks in the movie!
      
      Reply
  2. September 5, 2013
    
    Julian Delphiki
    
    I think they’ve actually stayed fairly true to the book with regard to the Dr. Device. In the book, it’s two beams that, when they collide, set up a field where molecules can’t form bonds. Specifically, Mazer tells Ender how it can’t fire around corners, but it can penetrate shields, or something like that.
    
    I didn’t imagine the laser guns to be huge and fixed to the hull of the ship like that, more as retractable swiveling turrets (hence the ability to set it off inside a ship), but I agree that it would be less spectacular that way.
    
    Reply
2. May 8, 2013
  
  JP HUDSON
  
  Dr Device…
  
  My recollection is that the MD Device had become the standard artillery of the fleet. In that is was not a “Special” or “Selected” weapon to fire but what was fired in all battles? Ender fired into the closely aligned bugger ships during the first “simulation” battle and destroyed them in one shot. I do not recall the MD device being selected, the command to shoot was just given.
  
  Either way, enjoyed the spoiler and looking forward to the film!
  
  Reply
  1. May 8, 2013
    
    George Marques
    
    It was pretty much standard, but it was only effective if the enemies were all close to each other, so once they used it, the enemy will understand that they should be apart of each other, nulling the effectiveness of the Device.
    
    Reply
May 7, 2013

Jason

ya. i saw that to. but, that scene might not be what we assume. didnt ender use dr. device early in the simulation, and then not use it for awhile?

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1. May 8, 2013
  
  EnderWiggin.net
  
  True, but there was only ever one planet in his training.
  
  Reply
  1. May 8, 2013
    
    Jason
    
    That is true, you are probably right. But wasn’t the Battleroom supposed to be black and cube shaped? Maybe it is a little Gavin Hood creative license?
    
    Reply
  2. September 5, 2013
    
    Julian Delphiki
    
    Not true. There was only ever one planet that was central to the battle, but there were planets off to the side of battles.
    
    That said, this planet does look to be the same on they’re diving towards later.
    
    Reply
May 7, 2013

Wendy Clare

Your thoughts match mine pretty closely…ultimately, I’ll just wait to see the whole thing in context, because my big question right now is how much of Chapter 15 will be in movie. Seems to me to be a difficult way to finish the film (although, of course, I want it in there), similar to all the stuff that follows the destruction of the ring in Return of the King…it’s all great material in a book, but translating it successfully to the screen is very difficult, especially when keeping in mind that a good chunk of the audience will not have read the book. Having said all of that, the trailer looks amazing, is extremely well-edited & paced, and November is just too far away!!

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May 8, 2013

Joren Dahn

The spoiler warning at the top of this article is way too small! I didn’t even see it until after reading the article.

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1. May 8, 2013
  
  EnderWiggin.net
  
  Ugh, I’ll try putting in a graphical one
  
  Reply
May 8, 2013

5LetsGoPens8

just going to chime in here…

I dont think that was the end. Like someone said he did use it before AND in the book if i remember correctly werent the ships he was commanding very close like in the atmosphere close? I pictured them so close in my mind that they were in the clouds of the planet and shot it at the last second not far away.

I think what they showed was him using it once and just had the planet in the background as a foreshadowing but thats NOT the final battle. Just my 2 cents. I think they showed him shooting it because it worked well with the ending of the trailer and i think its funny how everyone thinks they know by watching a 2 min trailer what every scene is.

btw thought it looked unbelievable

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1. May 9, 2013
  
  Seth Cecil
  
  that is true, it could be a view from the first battle where the enemy was so clustered together that a chain reaction was possible; I guess we wont know until Nov.
  
  Reply
  1. September 5, 2013
    
    Julian Delphiki
    
    I agree with 5LetsGoPens8. Now that the 2nd trailer is out, we know that they do go into the atmosphere, so it doesn’t make sense that they would do the final scene from this far away.
    
    I think that this is the FIRST time they use the Dr. Device.
    
    Reply
May 8, 2013

rames

To quote Asa Butterfield: “Only people who know the book will know what’s going on. (I’m trying to be as vague as possible). And if you’ve read the book you already know how it ends. To anyone else that’s just some more explosions”

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May 16, 2013

Kendrick Bong

If it was the ending, it wasn’t true to the books anyway. Bean was commanding the final ships descending to the formic homeworld and commanded them to set the device off inside their own ships to ensure a hit, and to use the ships own mass to propagate the first explosion/sphere, and then he said a quiet prayer that only the pilots could hear as no one else knew it wasnt a game but him.

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1. May 17, 2013
  
  EnderWiggin.net
  
  Technically speaking, that’s from Ender’s Shadow. Since this is Ender’s Game, I think they’ll keep the leadership central to Ender.
  
  Reply
  1. September 5, 2013
    
    Julian Delphiki
    
    Maybe. Marybe not. It’s be stated that bean will have a larger role in the movie than in Ender’s Game. At first, when I heard that every scene would be with Ender in it or people talking about Ender, I assumed that Bean’s story couldn’t play a part in it. But if they emphasize Bean’s importance in battle school, then it’s possible they’ll keep his special duties, etc, in command school.
    
    Reply
June 4, 2013

Kevin

It just makes me think.
What if Star Wars were released today, and in end of the trailer they showed the death star blowing up.

There’s no book to read there, so I would have no idea what it all meant…
but at the same time… I think they show to much in trailers.

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1. June 4, 2013
  
  EnderWiggin.net
  
  I do agree that they could have made it cool just by showing a different battle, not THE final battle. His simulator in general just oozes cool so I think any battle could have sufficed.
  
  Reply