Ender’s Game Posters Warn That The Next Invasion Is Imminent
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It sounds like a politician’s attempt at fear-mongering, doesn’t it? The newest promotional posters for Ender’s Game make stark the parallels between Orson Scott Card’s book and the real world.
The latest publicity campaign for the movie opts for a grittier finish than some of the previously released photos, such as one of Ender in the Battle Room (the enemy’s gate is down!). The first poster above is dominated more by text than by image, and the text demonstrates an interesting degree of verisimilitude. Maybe that’s because the carefully constructed scenario by which Ender is recruited, trained, and ultimately deployed as the militaristic savior of the earth doesn’t really seem so outlandish.
“Join the Next Generation of Heroes,” the posters demands, in an echo of real-life military slogans. There’s great attention to detail in the #BeAHero hashtag at the bottom, which at once puts Ender in our world.
The trio of posters form a kind of triptych — they’re meant to build on one another as a meta-campaign. They imagine modern-day recruiting ads through the Ender lens, while at the same time urging us to join the legion of other movie-going heroes that are going to be lining up come November 1. The International Fleet insignia appears on all three posters, tying together the propaganda concept. The tagline “The Next Invasion is Imminent” also appears in all three. I suppose the next invasion of more Ender’s Game ads is probably imminent too.
The second poster simply says, “Protect Earth.” I think I’ve heard that in a political speech or 12 recently. The hashtag commands, #DoYourPart. See this movie! Or else the aliens will win! And also, the terrorists!
The third poster borrows a widely-used slogan from world history: “Never Again!” Often associated with the Holocaust (or, according to Google, a Kelly Clarkson song), “never again” is the phrase we use when we mean, “Wow, mankind sure did screw that one up. Whoops!” Because it sounds far more confident. This is the most dramatic of the three posters, with a Bugger spacecraft slamming through a high rise. The double entendre works well: either the scene in the poster depicts the first or second time this happened, vowing it’ll never happen again, or the scene could depict the next chapter, in which, regardless of that vow, it is, indeed, happening again. The only way to know is to see the movie. Or, y’know, read the book.
It’s going to be like this until November, isn’t it? Binging on the tiniest morsels of news about this movie, hoping that the cinema will prove a worthy venue for one the best sci-fi stories — make that one of the best stories, period — of all time. Don’t disappoint us, film! Never again!
“If you try and lose then it isn’t your fault. But if you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault.”
