r/ender

I traveled to the special collections room of the BYU library in Utah and read both versions of the unpublished scripts for Ender’s Game that Card wrote. While the official catalog lists more than two versions, I looked at each of the versions and most of them consisted of minor edits of two main versions; I chose to read the most recent editions of both versions in their entirety. I also looked at a draft of Speaker for the Dead, but it did not differ much from the published book, so I did not finish reading it. Because of BYU policy and copyright law, I cannot publish the actual scripts online, but they gave me permission to give brief summaries of both versions.

However, I discovered that an excerpt of the second version (1999) was published online back in 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20000816150416/http://www.frescopictures.com/movies/ender/script.html

As proof that I visited, here are a few photos of BYU that I took when visiting:

September 3, 1996 version:
The screenplay opens with Ender getting his monitor removed in front of a propaganda video at the doctor’s office. He goes home and sees Valentine and Peter where the cookie batter incident happens. Peter drags Ender out of the house and places his knee on Ender’s belly; Ender slams a rock into Peter and rushes to Valentine. Graff comes and takes Ender to the launch site.

At the launch site, Ender is the only 6-year-old among mostly 11- and 12-year-olds. They enter their bunk and fight over bunks until Graff says that the bunk they are on is the one they will receive. They get their desks and Ender chooses an ordinary boy named Jack over the many soldier icons. Ender sees and meets Bonzo playing a team game and loses to him the first time but beats him the second and third times despite never having played the game before. Ling tries to access Graff's information in the International Fleet's database but the system denies him access and his attempt to access restricted records is reported to the I.F. headquarters, so she shoves her desk off the table so hard that it crashes against the wall.

The kids return from the showers and the butt incident described in the book happens. Ender plays the Mind Game and is stuck at the Giant’s Drink. Ling tells Graff that Ender chose Jack and that all other kids who choose Jack “wash out” in the first few weeks. She also mentions that Ender is stuck at the Giant’s Drink, which is a dead end.

The kids from Ender’s launch group then enter the Battle Room for the first time and grip the handholds “like nonswimmers clinging to the edge of a pool.” Ender realizes that hitting his elbow against the wall does not hurt and is the first to launch himself off of the wall and into the room. The script then transitions back and forth between a few more Battle Room training scenes and lectures given in a classroom. Yadin tells Graff that he wants a commander in six months.

Ender studies old propaganda reels of International Fleet battles. Graff reassigns Ender to Salamander Army, where he meets Bonzo. Bonzo calls Ender a baby because he is only ten, sends him to the last bunk, and will not allow him to practice at the next training. Petra tells Ender that Bonzo is not a good commander and that he should watch her during the next training session.

Bonzo tells Ender that he can enter the Battle Room, but cannot shoot or take out his gun. Ender shoots his left leg and left arm to make them stiff at the next practice before shooting Dink and all of the soldiers from Leopard moments after they proclaim victory. Anderson congratulates Bonzo for having a “good” strategy even though he told Ender not to shoot. Graff recognizes Ender’s talent and tells Ling that he will push Ender as much as possible, but not to his breaking point.

The next day, Petra tells Ender that he is first in line for breakfast because top soldiers eat first. An officer makes Ender the commander of Dragon Army. During his first day as commander, Ender tells everyone that they have one minute to put on their flashsuits or they will train naked. Some of his soldiers fail to put on all of their flashsuits within one minute and finish putting them on while jogging.

Ender enters the Battle Room during training session with his body upside down (when viewed from the corridor); the others enter right side up. Ender explains that there is no true up or down in space; he asks Bean which way is down. Bean is not sure at first; Ender presses him and Bean says “the enemy’s gate is down.” The other soldiers subsequently enter with their feet pointed toward the enemy’s gate. Ender leads them to practice kneeling, flashing their own legs, pushing off and firing between their knees, and flinging people using stars. Ender announces that their arrangement in their next battle will involve five toons of eight instead of four toons of ten to surprise their rival.

Ender goes back to playing the Giant’s Drink game. Jack picks up a fork just before the giant is about to hit him; the giant ends up stabbing himself on the fork. Ender pushes the fork into the giant’s eye while the giant screams. The giant’s body rapidly decomposes and a bugger appears in its ribcage. The bugger turns into a wasp and flies into a beehive, which turns into a castle with a window and a princess. Two wasps drag the princess away.

Ender wakes his troop for their battle against Rabbit Army. Ender tells toons A, B, C, and D to hit the corners; E should appear to fail at formation at first. Alai and his toon bend and freeze their legs and then push off with their hands. The battle ends within seconds; all of Rabbit’s soldiers are frozen, but none of Ender’s are frozen. Anderson shakes hands with Ender.

Bean shows up late to practice with a cord to experiment with. He tries to lasso a soldier with the cord, but it swings above the other boy’s head with no gravity. Bean then leaps out until the rope catches him. Two soldiers then squeeze Bean using the rope as a trap. At the next battle, Ender uses Tom and the rope as a shield for Bean, who strategically shoots at Badger Army soliders who end up fleeing or hiding behind other soldiers. Bonzo tips a finger into Ender’s milk and flicks his face in the commander’s mess.

Ender goes back to playing the Mind Game. He climbs into the castle and looks into a mirror where he sees Peter taunting him. Ender is shocked and pushes the desk away from him; it falls on the floor. Ling asks Ender why he continues to play the Mind Game if he does not like it and Ender tells her that he progressed past the giant; Ling relays this information to Graff and Anderson. Back in the game, Ender punches the mirror and many caterpillars fall out. They turn into butterflies and Ender takes an emerald from behind the mirror. The bugs pull body parts off of Jack, his avatar. He hears Peter’s voice again.

Ender has won each of his 11 games in 9 days, so he tells Graff that it isn’t fair to his troops; Graff says “war isn’t fair.” The officers disable the Mind Game. Anderson announces that Dragon Army will fight two armies at once. At the battle, Bonzo and Talo Momoe cannot coordinate their armies properly. Bean spins around the star using the cord. Talo tells his soldiers not to fire; Bonzo tells his to. The shield of Dragon soldiers all freeze. Four soldiers push forward and break the shield of frozen soldiers in half. Bean launches himself from the star and is flashed by the enemy soldiers. Four Dragon soldiers touch their helmets to the corners of the gate and they win.

Ender tells his troop that they will have the rest of the day off and the shower scene happens. Right afterward, Ling announces that everyone in Dragon Army will go to Command School. He visits Earth and spends time at the lake before traveling there.

At Command School, Graff talks to Mazer, who has aged by 1.5 years while 40 years have passed to keep him alive. Ender suspects that the room is bugged and places a sock in a hole; the sock moves. Ender is unhappy that Graff let him win the first simulation at Command School. The officers later discuss how it was a real battle.

Ender has a dream that he is on the beach with Valentine and Peter. Valentine builds a sand castle that Peter and Ender stomp on. Valentine transforms into a small bugger who is small enough to live inside the castle. A huge foot stomps onto the castle and her. The broken bugger body turns into Valentine’s dead body. Ender suddenly wakes up and Ling is alerted by an alarm of him waking up. Ender tells her that he has simply had a bad dream. Something slithers into the room from the hole.

The officers discover that a cable line was broken and that there are holes in the rock walls. They suspect that bugger larvae chewed the holes and that this is why they hacked the Battle School computers to alter the Mind Game. Mazer, however, thinks that a human did it instead.

Ender faces an enormous onslaught of oncoming enemy ships in the simulator the next day, resulting in many losses. Bean suggests using the Little Doctor; Ender explains that it can only be used once. Ender tells Petra to strike and she follows his orders.

Ender has a dream where he returns to the woodlot where he fought Peter. Peter is replaced by a bugger and Ender is eventually replaced by Peter. Valentine, as a hive queen, tells Peter not to hit the bugger. Peter is replaced by Ender, who drops the rock. Ender wakes up, screams, and almost falls to the floor before Ling catches him. Graff/Mazer thinks that the larvae are real and communicate to Ender through dreams and tells Ender that he is changing rooms; Ling thinks that they are merely dreams caused by stress.

Graff/Mazer watches the game where a group of human ships are being destroyed because Petra fell asleep (unbeknowest to Ender and the officers). Ling incorrectly believes that it happened because Ender did not take the game seriously and tells Graff/Mazer (they are the same person in this version) that he should tell Ender the truth so he understands that human life and death are at stake. Petra cries because she fell asleep and made losses; Ender comforts and kisses her.

The officers discuss the final battle as 30 bugger larvae emerge from the wall. In the final battle, Ender sees that his ships are outnumbered by one hundred to one. Graff and Rackham are revealed as the same person. Dink successfully predicts that Ender will use the Little Doctor on the homeworld. Ender tells Bean to release it onto the homeworld when it is within 20 kilometers of the surface.

The children cheer and Yadin reveals that it was not actually a simulation; it was real combat. Ender asks why they chose to not make peace and is angry upon learning about the extinction of the buggers, causing him to scream with rage and grief. Ender runs from the room into his bedroom.

Ender sees the bugger larvae in his room and enters a hole in the wall. He sees many larvae and a queen cocoon in this room which resembles the Mind Game. The larvae attack Mazer when he shoots at them. The queen uses Ender to speak her words and tells Mazer to touch the cocoon. The queen gives Ender visions of rebuilding bugger society. Ender and Valentine travel to a new world where Ender tells her that the hive queen will not come out on this world, but possibly the next.

October 22, 1999 version:
The version begins with Mazer Rackham’s battle. Rackham uses a multi-warhead and one heads straight for a formic ship. Admiral Sakata orders an immediate ceasefire and asks for a party to board a formic ship. A dozen marines leave a landing pod and enter the ship using a laser cut hole. The marines fire at the formics they see, who do not fire back and appear unresponsive. Dr. Imanujam concludes that the formics are controlled by a queen as a hive mind. Sakata says that the next commander has not yet been born.

Fifty years later, a swanlike shuttle glides over Earth’s surface, hovering over Greensboro, where there are spires traveling up above transparent domes. A glass bubble projects from the tallest spire. The Wiggin parents are seated with Dr. Deloger and two IF officers; Dr. Deloger says that Peter and Valentine are two of the ten most talented children they have ever seen, but Valentine is too compassionate and Peter too aggressive, impatient, and ambitious. Dr. Deloger offers the Wiggin parents a waiver to have a third child if they promise to sign him up for Battle School if he qualifies.

Ten years later, Stilson throws a note at Ender saying “Hey Third, let me copy.” The teacher takes the note away and tells Ender to see the school doctor; Anderson and Graff are outside. The extractor removes Ender’s monitor, making his back curl and causing pain. Ender receives a muscle relaxant and returns to class. Ender walks home and Anderson and Graff speak outside his house; they debate if Ender is old enough for Battle School. 15 year old Peter removes Ender’s bandage and stomps on it with his feet. The cookie incident and fight with Peter happen, but the fight with Peter happens in the basement rather than outside.

After the parents come into the house, the doorbell rings again and Graff enters. Graff tells Ender that if he comes to Battle School, he may be able to keep his family and the rest of Earth alive. Everyone except for Peter hugs Ender goodbye.

Ender is the smallest and youngest in his launch group. Sebastian jokes that Ender is their instructor and taps him on the head with his knuckles. Alai stops him and Graff asks why only Ender, the youngest one, could obey the order to simply sit down. Sebastian takes off his strap and raps Ender’s head one more time after the shuttle launches; Ender pushes him upward in the weightless environment, making him hit the ceiling. Graff pulls him down and lectures the group.

The boys quarrel over who will get the bottom bunk; Ender took one before them. Ender’s desq shows a list of names of his crewmates. Dap says that the bunk that the boys are on or closest to is theirs; they cannot trade or argue. The butt incident happens and Ender plays the Giant’s Drink game. Anderson tells Graff that she views his repeated playing of the game as a sign of loneliness and self-destruction.

The kids receive their flashsuits and enter the battle room; Sebastian wears one with a cut sleeve to accommodate his wounded arm. Dap opens the door and kids grasp onto handholds on the walls and ceiling. Ender holds onto a handhold with one hand, pushes off with his feet, and his back slams into the wall. Shen is confused but Ender explains that it is harmless when done correctly; Shen pushes himself off too hard and is in pain. Ender launches himself from the handhold across the room. He rebounds from the other hand and grabs onto a handhold on the original wall. The other kids copy Ender.

After Ender gets past the Giant’s Drink with a bear persona, a bat asks “How did you get here? Nobody comes here;” the bat welcomes him into Fairyland. A group of children play in a playground and will not welcome Ender because he is a bear. The kids turn into wolves that pounce onto Ender’s bear. Ender puts the desq away and Anderson says that it is a diagnostic game; she is still confused by what happened. The officers decide to push Ender harder.

Ender is transferred to Salamander Army in the nighttime. He goes there the next day and meets Petra and Bonzo. Bonzo distrusts Ender because he is only nine and sends him to the back of the room and will not allow him to train with the rest of the army. Bonzo wants to trade Ender and Petra away as soon as possible.

The next day, Bonzo fails to launch his army from the wall. Petra talks to Ender, who asks if she will get in trouble for talking to him. Other commanders will not trade Ender, who decides to practice on his own after Bonzo refuses to include him. Petra helps Ender adjust his stance in the Battle Room, which makes Bonzo shove her against a wall. Petra views Bonzo as sexist because she is the best soldier in his army but does not gain enough respect.

Bonzo claims that Ender knows nothing because of his age and Petra claims that Bonzo’s own soldiers “know nothing.” Ender promises not to train with any of Bonzo’s soldiers again, but Petra shouts “yes, you will!”

Ender goes back to the fantasy game. Ender, as a bear, is standing near the edge of a cliff and the bat says that there is nowhere to go. He grabs the bat and jumps off the cliff, landing safely on the dock of an island with a castle below. A knight is dead, along with everyone else in the castle. Ender says “I won’t let you stop me” and Graff and Anderson are unsure what he means.

Ender, Alai, and Shen put on their flashsuits and go to the Battle Room for training and use better tactics than Bonzo in a montage. Bonzo drags Ender off his bunk and is furious that he trains soldiers from other armies. Ender says that he doesn’t teach them anything that Bonzo does. Petra says that a commander has to honor a request for a private conference after Bonzo refuses to speak with Ender. Ender tells Bonzo that free time is free and that Bonzo does not have the right to boss him around. Ender says that if he practices during free time, Bonzo can trade him off. Petra is mad that Ender chooses to follow Bonzo.

Ender plays the fantasy game again and enters the castle with dead bodies. A rug uncoils itself into a snake, saying “I am death,” and kills Ender’s bear. Graff asks Anderson if someone broke into the game to break his spirit. Anderson says that only the formics would do it.

Bonzo lets Ender practice with his jeesh during freetime so he can trade him away. Salamander Army has a battle the next day with Eagle Army. At the battle, Bonzo tells Ender to stay by the door and not fire his gun. The battle is the first with stars and neither army has a strategy. Petra freezes many soldiers before she is frozen. Ender bends his legs, freezes them, and swings himself outward. Eagle is about to win, but Ender freezes them all, making the game a stalemate. The Eagle commander congratulates Bonzo on his strategy.

At the mess hall, Petra tells Ender that he can get iced for disobeying an order. Dink Meeker from Rat Army invites Ender to his table. Ender says that he hopes to be traded to Rat Army, but Dink doubts that Bonzo will trade off his best soldier. Ender enters his barracks, where Bonzo pushes him and hands him a paper telling him that he has been transferred to Rat with a handwritten addendum reading “you’re dead, koncho.”

Anderson tells Graff that Bonzo might endanger Ender’s safety; she suggests that he be removed from Battle School immediately. Graff chooses to not remove Bonzo to make Ender more competitive. Rat Army feels that Ender is unprepared for battle when they see him practice; Ender explains that he received no training in Salamander.

Dink takes Ender to the Battle Room. Ender points out that the formics stopped firing as soon as Mazer Rackham fired a single shot and photos of Mazer are not publicly available, making him confused. Ender also highlights how the Battle Room teaches them to fight against other Humans despite formics being the enemy; he thinks that it exists to train commanders for a future battle. Graff confirms Ender’s theory in the command room; Anderson agrees that they need to push Ender harder.

Ender tells Rose that he is “not good enough to be reliable” when asked. Ender freezes his legs in the Battle Room and pushes off the wall with his hands. He then shoots the Hornet Army soldiers very rapidly before they can spot him. The commander orders his soldiers behind the star; Ender starts shooting at the star to point Rat to it. Ender is still first place in overall rankings and Rose discusses his strategy in the commanders’ mess.

Ender goes back to playing the fantasy game. The snake keeps biting and killing him, so he bites the snake’s head off. The snake turns into a formic with a severed head. It places the head back on its body, revealing that it is a Hive Queen. Anderson and Graff are shocked because nobody has ever seen a Hive Queen before and do not know how the graphic entered the game. The Hive Queen flies away. Ender looks at a mirror and the room rotates to face the mirror. The Hive Queen is right behind him. Ender hits the Queen’s head with his paw and the head falls off; the Queen asks “Why did you kill me?” and Ender responds “I didn’t mean to…” when the head dies. The mirror now shows Peter in the reflection. Ender cries out and throws the desq, screaming “I am not Peter. I’m not.”

Graff orders the game to be shut off; Anderson follows his request. Graff thinks that the formics survived and hacked the computers to modify the game. The game shuts off and the students in the barrack notice. Graff orders Ender to his office. Ender asks what he is supposed to do to train his troops and Graff gives him the hook that controls the flashsuits. Graff says that Ender’s Dragon Army cannot make any trades.

Ender commands his troop to swing off the top rail and gather on the far wall. Ender tells Bean to use the side rail because he is not tall enough for the top rail. Bean leaps for the top rail, but misses. He then swerves to the side wall, making Ender push him to the far wall via hook. Ender turns upside down and asks “Why are you all upside down?” Some turn, but Ender points out that he didn’t tell them to move. Crazy Tom says that they are not upside down from the way that the corridor is arranged, but Ender says “the enemy’s gate is down.” Ender faces his feet toward the soldiers and Bean states that they can only hit his feet.

Ender gets into a kneeling position and tells the others to shoot his legs, but he subsequently shoots over 12 of them through his legs. Bean copies Ender; Ender tells the others to copy him.
Bean asks Ender for a toon outside the Battle Room and Ender says that he can have it if he proves himself capable. Ender asks the other Dragon Army soldiers at the mess the next day about Bean; they give good feedback.

At the Battle Room, the soldiers make tricky side movements along a wall using the handholds. Ender leaps from the opposite wall, calling “Fire!” They shoot at Ender through their knees but Ender unfreezes himself and shoots over a dozen. The soldiers point out that this will not happen in a real battle, but Ender states that in a real battle, people die and they can never let down their guard. Ender gives his toon assignments to Fly Molo, Vlad, Crazy Tom, Hot Soup, and Dumper. Bean is face to face with Ender, saying nothing.

Ender sees his old soldiers at the game room. They ask why he does not see them often and Ender says that he is not allowed to speak to them or trade them. Petra is now a commander. Anderson gives Ender a battle notice even though armies are supposed to wait two months before their first battle. Ender tells his army that they have fifteen minutes before battle.

Ender gives orders to his army at the Battle Room entrance. D toon slides the wall, C and E shoot from around their stars, and A and B attack from the top and bottom using Ender’s leg-first position to secure stars near the enemy’s gate. D toon appears out of nowhere behind the enemy. D, led by Crazy Tom, plunges through, while the other four toon leaders touch their helmets to the corners of the enemy’s gate. Anderson shakes hands with Ender and unfreezes everyone.

There is a montage of battles from Dragon Army. Battlerooms appear increasingly asymmetrical and in favor of the opposing army. Dragon soldiers do daring and rapid movements against armies that appear to copy their tactics. Each battle ends with a Dragon Army victory with one soldier flying through the enemy’s gate and the other four touching helmets to the corners in different styles. Dragon Army seems more and more tired with each battle.

Ender makes Bean a toon leader. Anderson gives both Bonzo and Rose slips for a battle where Dragon Army competes against both armies. Ender’s army gathers outside the Battle Room. When the door opens, a huge star is positioned right in front of them. Bean has a coil of fine cord with one end looped around his waist. Four soldiers come out; one ties the cord to a handhold on the star and the other three brace themselves to launch Bean at an angle.

Rat Army is on the right; Salamander on the left. Rose wants to attack, but Bonzo wants to refuse to attack because he thinks that the game is rigged. Bean rockets from above the star and moves downward without touching anything, speeding up before moving back to his home wall. This allows Bean to change speed and direction in mid-flight. Bonzo thinks it is rigged; Rose sees what is happening. Dragon Army begins a formation; nine soldiers are behind it. Rat and Salamander shoot at the formation, freezing them.

The square of soldiers behind the formation splits into four squares that take the four corners of the Battle Room. The smaller soldiers at the corner of each square hold onto one of Bean’s arms and feet. The four biggest soldiers in each square push the four small soldiers toward the enemy’s gate. The bigger soldiers fire against the two other armies. The two other armies find it difficult to shoot the four pushing toward them because of their speed. Rat and Salamander Army try to dismantle the soldiers from their stars; Bonzo calls them back.

The four small soldiers touch the corners of the enemy’s gate. The door disappears and Bean hurdles through it. Bonzo is confused because soldiers normally need to freeze all soldiers before unlocking the gate; Ender explains that the gate does not lock until the first soldier is frozen. Bonzo thinks that it is a cheat, but Anderson explains that the formics will find a way to gain an advantage. Rat and Salamander soldiers cheer for Ender’s nonstop victories.

Petra asks Bean why Ender is not at the commander’s mess; Bean replies that he is going to take a shower. Petra states that Bonzo and the rest of Salamander will try to kill Ender in the shower since they left in that direction. The shower scene happens. Anderson asks Graff by holo why he does not protect Ender when Bonzo is trying to kill him. Graff and Anderson enter and Ender asks if Bonzo is dead; they simply reply that he is receiving medical treatment.

Ender receives a slip to go to Command School but refuses to go and thinks that Peter should have gone instead. Ender says that all he does is hurt people and Graff says that it is all preparation. Ender is lying on a swimming platform near a lake with a nearby house in Greensboro. Graff and Anderson watch him. A girl swims up to the platform and slaps Ender’s chest saying that there is a wasp there. Ender realizes that she is Valentine and whispers “there was no wasp” in her ear and pushes her into the water.

Ender tells Valentine that they never gave him her letters. Ender says that he thinks that he killed a boy and that he is just as bad as Peter, making Valentine hug him. Valentine says that she loves him for being sad about hurting a boy who hated him. She says that he may feel sad after defeating the formics, but Ender says that he will be more sad if he does not defeat them.

Ender and Anderson sit while Graff shows the truth about Mazer Rackham’s victory; they see a single missile destroy the formic ship. Ender notices that one ship moves erratically and away from the battle; Graff explains that he is actually still alive.

At Command School on Eros, Graff leads Ender down a side tunnel that was not squared by humans, which is rounder, shorter, and grooved. Ender asks how the formics made it and Graff says that they do not know, but they think that formic larvae may have eaten their way through the stone.

Graff leads Ender to the commander’s chair in Command School. Ender asks how to use it and Graff tells him to figure it out himself. Graff leaves and Ender presses a button that causes the enemy fleet to start firing. He presses buttons until he uses his glove to point at one of his ships to start firing. His ship is soon destroyed, so Ender gets another one firing, but it is too late. He presses a button to restart the game in a new configuration.

Anderson waits as Graff palms the door open to Graff’s simulator room, which plays out Ender’s recent simulation game. Graff states that Ender is already bored and Anderson shows him a map of all tunnels on Eros; the marines could not find any formics still inside. Graff says that he thinks that the formics modded the fantasy game from inside the asteroid and that there might be eggs or larvae still inside. Graff says that the formics know what Ender means to them and his life is in danger.

Graff enters as Ender’s forces are wiped out during the next game. Ender complains that the game does not simulate a real battle and Graff points out that they cannot mimic a real Hive Queen. Graff says that he will play against Ender during the next game along with several officers.

Ender speaks into the microphone if anyone is there and Petra shouts “he’s here!” The faces of Dink, Alai, Shen, Sebastian, Crazy Tom, Fly Molo, and Hot Soup are shown greeting Ender as well.

The enemy ships are clustered in a sphere, but Ender’s form only a few small clumps on the side. Ender tells Anderson and Graff that he would not have commanded ships this way and they reply that he will lose ships if he keeps talking. Ender gives Dink, Petra, and Bean one squad each and says that they keep rigging the games like in Battle School.

The command center has a holo display in the middle and workstations all around it. Anderson walks in and sees Ender’s ships on the outside distract the ships in the sphere and a small squad led by Shen penetrates through the sphere from below. Ender is angry that the others did not follow his order to attack at once when Shen penetrated the sphere. The soldiers watch as the sphere collapses. Ender scolds his soldiers for not attacking fast enough and Graff agrees. Graff tells Ender about the existence of the ansible when Ender points out that information can only travel at the speed of light.

Ender sees a weapon enclosed in glass and asks about it. Graff tells him that it is the Little Doctor and that it would be used on Earth if all was lost. Ender asks why he cannot see his officers in person and they explain that he needs to build a professional relationship with them since they are not his jeesh.

Anderson announces that Ender has a battle in the middle of the night. She explains that the formics have a single mind and only children have similar reaction times. A montage of battles plays where Ender and his officers make various mistakes. Admiral Mengkeris talks to the officers and asks if the kids can keep up. Petra falls asleep in the simulator.

Ender asks to see Petra, but his request is denied. Bean climbs through the tunnels during the night to see and greet Ender. They crawl through the tunnels to see countless formic larvae eating at the rock; one bites Ender’s palm and puts its acid onto it. Anderson looks at Ender’s hand and realizes what happened. Graff is angry that he picked up a larva. Ender points out that the movement of the formic ships in Mazer Rackham’s battle when the Hive Queen was inactivated mirrored the tunneling patterns on Eros. Ender points out that the “simulations” involve similar patterns and Anderson and Graff realize that the secret is exposed. They tell Ender that his final exam is in an hour and discuss how Ender will command the ships rather than Graff.

Hot Soup predicts that the battle will be a massacre. There are about 20,000 formic ships surrounding a planet with only a small cluster in one corner. Ender commands his officers to disperse into small groups of no more than four ships each. He tells them to go down to the planet’s surface and use the Little Doctor. The officers are anxious. Ender asks Graff if the planet is Earth and soon discovers that it is not. They lose many human ships until both Bean and Petra launch the Little Doctor on the last ship that each of them have. They see nothing at first, but the planet soon explodes with all of the ships; Ender calls it a stalemate.

Ender sits on his bed with his head in his hands and tells the officers that he doesn’t want to be a soldier; they tell him the truth. Ender runs to a formic tunnel on Eros and sees one, and then more, worms coming out. One attaches to Ender’s monitor scar and controls his body to move toward a larger worm chamber that resembles the Giant’s Drink and follows his footsteps in the game into the tower room. He touches the mirror and a cocoon rolls out.

Ender asks if the cocoon is the last hive queen and a worm attaches itself to both the back of Ender’s neck and the cocoon. Ender is shown as a flying hive queen watching an earlier battle between two formic tribes on their homeworld. A hive queen explains that only queens are conscious; the rest are merely soldiers with no memory. The hive queens eventually grew sick of war and decided not to fight those who can remember. She explains that they fought the humans because they thought that all of them were drones since they did not have a recognizable queen.

Ender sees the earlier formic attack and the Hive Queen explains that they were searching for a human Hive Queen and could not find one; they thought that a human Hive Queen was irrationally angry. They soon realized that all humans are queens and chose not to attack again. However, they correctly feared that the humans would attack them again and left her on Eros. The fantasy game was their failed attempt at trying to tell Ender and other humans that they would not attack again and wanted to be left in peace. The scene of Ender destroying their homeworld is shown from the surface of the planet.

Graff/Rackham (the script does not say who) swings a flashlight to find Ender. He severs the connection between Ender and the cocoon and kills hundreds of formic larvae with an energy weapon. Ender tells Graff/Rackham not to attack, but Graff/Rackham points his beam at the cocoon. Ender steps between the cocoon and Ender explains that she was talking to him. Ender says “If she wanted us dead, do you think your gun would stop her?” The larvae attack Graff/Rackham and spray acid to melt the gun.

Graff/Rackham asks Ender what she wants and Ender replies that she wants a new and safe world to reestablish society. Ender’s officers wave goodbye as Ender and Valentine embrace while boarding a shuttle to a colony ship.

Conclusion:
I felt that both of the scripts I read greatly exceeded the actual Ender’s Game movie script and it is very disappointing that neither was made into an actual movie. The movie that we got did not show Ender’s personal development or enough battles in both Battle School and Command School. I think that the 1999 version would have made a better movie than the 1996 version because it uses more dialogue and shows more of Ender’s battles in Battle School, along with the tension of the officers in Command School trying to hide the fact that they are actually putting Ender in charge of real battles.

My research into the actual 2013 movie’s production reveals that the movie studio cut several planned scenes because of a budget cut when one investor backed out of the project and one of the CGI studios went bankrupt. Ender’s Game was the highest budget indie film of all time when it was made, which explains why its finances were shaky and unable to deliver a high quality product that could do justice to the book. Gavin Hood likely decided to write his own script rather than use either of Card’s because he knew that the original vision could not be made with the budget of an indie film.

In 2013, Asa Butterfield did an AMA where he mentioned his concerns about the movie that was made: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1dxm81/i_am_asa_butterfield_star_of_films_such_as_hugo/ He said "I'm thrilled that the book meant so much to you, and I hope the film lives up to it. In answer to your question, the feeling of joining a group of people that was already so vast felt amazing. I really was like joining a family. When I first got the role, I said to my mum. 'If there is one thing I want to accomplish by doing this, it is to make the lovers of the book happy. I don't want it to be another Hollywood sci-fi piece of shit'."

I truly hope that Ender’s Game could someday be made into a movie using either of the scripts that Card wrote, or a different script that could actually do justice to the book. I want Card and all of his fans to have a movie adaptation that they will love and view as the definitive version.

Series finale book order

I visited the BYU Special Collections and took a look at Mr. Card's original Ender's Game movie scripts

Project Hail Mary (novel) from an Enders Game fan perspective

The ending is so unsatisfying

Well crap. They found Anton's Key.