I think this one is an unequivocal yes. This project has been in development for a while; the novel was published in 1985, and Card began developing the movie in the mid-90s. Things began to move more in 1999, but it’s probably a good thing that they didn’t, because one of the hot new actors being considered to play the lead role of Ender was Jake Lloyd. You know Jake Lloyd—he was young Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace. That’s an example of a young actor who just did not meld well with the director, and the result speaks for itself. Maybe it’s fair to blame George Lucas for that performance too, but I think there’s near unanimity around the opinion that Asa Butterfield makes a better fit.
Other actors that could have been in major roles instead of the promising cast we have now? One suggestion from the late 90s was that in the part now inhabited by Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley, Mazer Rackham, we could have seen Will Smith. So just a teeny half-foot difference in size and much more significant different in talent there.
Also that Harrison Ford part? When you’re watching him rekindle your Han Solo fantasies during Ender’s Game, I urge you to take just a moment and imagine that instead of Harrison Ford’s dreamy blue eyes, you’re seeing Rosie O’Donnell. Card was apparently thinking of O’Donnell or Janeane Garofalo or some dry female comic in the part of a female Colonel Graff. I’m sure they would have somehow made it work, but surely the version we’ve ended up with is vastly superior to alternate universe Ender’s Game starring the kid from the Star Wars prequels.
Continue reading on the next page…
