First official image from ENDER'S GAME

This is not a good sign...

That's Harrison Ford as Graff and Asa Butterfield as Ender, in the first official pic from the production of Ender's Game, based on Orson Scott Card's classic science-fiction novel.

For the record, I think Butterfield is a terrific and astounding young actor. The first time I saw him in anything it was in Hugo and he brought a spirit and sense of adventure to that film that I hadn't seen from a movie in an awful long time. The kid has a brilliant future ahead of him.

But looking at that pic, with his Ender getting stared-down by Graff... I can't but wonder if this film is being cast well at all.

It's like this: Ender should be smaller. And younger. Butterfield in this photo looks like he could be Ender Wiggin, but a few years down the line. At this point in his career, freshly arrived at the Battle School, Ender needs to be more prepubescent. And much more puny. One of the things about the novel that resonated most with me (and a lot of other readers) was that Ender is almost a primal force of nature contained within the body of a very small and very young boy. And then how the adults turn that boy into something to be used and exploited and ultimately employed as a weapon of mass destruction. Ender's Game is a very moving tale of innocence lost and that it's not just Ender but a bunch of children who likewise are being trained to fight the Formics no matter the personal cost... it makes the loss of innocence that much more a damning thing.

We need to see that in the eyes, in the stature of Ender. And I just can't see that here.

But, I've been wrong before. We'll find out next year.

(Though I do think that Ben Kingsley as Mazer Rackham was a severe stroke of genius casting :-)