The sci-fi movie “Ender’s Game” hits the big screen today. The film shows a world preparing for an attack from bug-like aliens, the Formics. The military has decided that children make the best solders, so Ender Wiggin is recruited to battle school a very young age.
The film is based on a book of the same name by Orson Scott Card, who is controversial for his anti-gay marriage stance. In 2008, he wrote an opinion piece for the Deseret News saying that a government that allowed for gay marriage should be overthrown. He recently told the Deseret News that he stands by his remarks.
The LGBT group Geeks Out is calling for a boycott of the movie, though those behind the movie say he won’t profit from the film.
The movie stars Asa Butterfield, only 12 at the time of filming, as Ender. Harrison Ford plays Ender’s stern commanding officer, Colonel Graff.
Gavin Hood, who directed the movie and wrote the screenplay, joins Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson to discuss the film. Hood says the message of the story and of the film is one of acceptance, tolerance and even love for the enemy, and that those are the messages he’d like the audience to focus on.
“My position on gay marriage and gay rights is fundamentally the opposite to his,” Hood says. “But here’s how I feel: I love Orson Scott Card’s book. So do many gay and straight people. And I imagine lots of people holding that book up and saying, Orson, we love what you said in this book. What you said in this book about compassion and tolerance and empathy for the other is what we love about this book, and I think we should celebrate that.”
- NPR movie review: Everything At Stake, And Everything On The Table
Guest
- Gavin Hood, screenwriter and director of the movie “Ender’s Game.”
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