Do you remember the first time you’ve read a book and instantly declared….”this is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read.”

That kind of mentality usually comes from reading something at a young age, the time you can be most affected by a story. I can remember the books that had such an effect on me ,and when I was 15 years, finishing Orson Scott Card’s* novel Ender’s Game in my history teachers class during silent reading period, that thought entered my head.

“This is one of the greatest things I’ve ever read.”

Since reading that book, I’ve imagined how cinematic this film will look. Who would play Ender. What kind of actor could play him? How exciting would the anti-gravity training room battle scenes would be, and how challenging it would be the pull off the finale.

So….no pressure to the film adaptation right?

Hollywood has been trying to make an Ender’s Game film for decades. At one point Wolfgang Peterson (Das Boot, The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine and Air Force One) was LONG attached to direct it but left the production around 2005-2007.

Finally, in 2010 writer/director Gavin Hood took over the creative reigns on the film.

Today we get our first glimpse at what this film will look like….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP0cUBi4hwE

It looks promising, but one can’t help notice something. Usually when a trailer decides to let us know that so much of the cast if filled with Academy Award winners/nominees, it usually means they want to let us know that, this film is CLAAAAAASSSY. So I’m a bit surprised to see them push the Oscar clout on what essentially is a sci-fi action film. Maybe they think they made a film that is more then that? Or (most likely) maybe they know that their lead is not a famous actor, so they are promising that they got a lot other famous and talented actors in supporting.

Marketing angles aside, I hope this film works out. I have only seen one film that Gavin Hood directed, and sadly that film is called X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I know that production was hell, so I’m giving Hood the benefit that he was just working under terrible conditions, and thus couldn’t deliver a good film. The trailer looks slick, and I do look forward to seeing more of it.

Funny enough, I haven’t read Ender’s Game in years. I was on my way to re-read it before the film’s release, but I decided to not do it. I’m going to go see this film as open minded as possible, and just let it be what it is…a movie.

But even though I will be open minded, the 15 year old in me is very happy to see these images finally on the big screen…

Ender’s Game comes to theaters November 11, 2013.

 

*It’s a shame that the year we celebrate the release of this film is also the year  Orson Scott Card’s personal opinions came out.  Click HERE to know more about it. While I won’t go into detail here about my own conflicted feelings about this, I will say this. I don’t agree AT ALL with his own personal view point, but even Card himself can’t take away the affect his book had on me. It’s a shame.