Ender’s Game Gets The Obligatory Mondo Posters
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Because the movie is just a few weeks away, and because it’s kind of a big deal, it seems like a foregone conclusion that director Gavin Hood’s adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel Ender’s Game would get the Mondo poster treatment. Composition wise, they look similar to the real-world offerings from Lionsgate, which is a strategy that doesn’t really work in their favor.
The only way to say it is that these two one-sheets, from artist Martin Ansin, simply come across as jumbled and messy. That’s been an issue all along, ever since the first posters started rolling out. It’s like they want to tell the entire story of the movie in a single spot, throwing random images and pieces of information at your eyeballs. There’s so much going on that it’s like an assault on your senses. Maybe it’s my own personal aesthetic, but these just aren’t doing it. I feel like they’re yelling at me.
However, if you’re into this sort of thing, Limited editions of both versions—340 of the regular, 160 of the spiffy red variant—will be available on October 24, and will set you back $50 for regular and $75 for the fancy pants edition.
Ender’s Game hits movie theaters in a few weeks on November 1, and tells the story of a future where the human race has survived an attack by a vicious alien race called Formics. In order to stop such a thing from happening again, the military has started looking for the next great military mind. This search has them turning over every possible rock, including looking into children who are naturally gifted in strategy and not already weighed down by years of convention. Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is one of their recruits. Young and shy, he is nevertheless a brilliant tactician, not to mention his drive and ruthless streak.
When the highly anticipated adaptation finally drops, it won’t be without a certain level of controversy. As it turns out, Orson Scott Card is not the biggest fan of homosexuality, and has made his opinions, especially those on gay marriage, known in a variety of public forums. This has, understandably, pissed off a fair number of people, and multiple LGBT groups have called for boycotts of the film.
For their part, Lionsgate has done as much as they can to combat Card’s stance and distance themselves from his vitriol. The author was noticeably absent during the Ender’s Game panel at the San Diego Comic-Con last summer, and the studio even announced that they will hold a special premiere to benefit various LGBT support groups. This is all kinds of ironic since the book is all about a young person struggling to find a place to belong, a struggle that has struck a chord with many gay youths trying to figure out how they fit into the world.
