30dropframe is an ongoing project to take books that have not yet been made into films, and to write cues for the score that might fit the film, if it were ever made. Ender’s Game is the first book in the series.

A young boy is separated from his family, and travels through the lonely brutality of becoming what humanity needs most – a starship fleet commander who can defend earth against an alien invasion. The story is so beautifully told, and so heartbreakingly tragic, that Ender’s Game transcends genre to become a “sci-fi” novel that is read and loved by many who have otherwise never picked up a book with spaceships and aliens.

Several stalled attempts have been made to turn Ender’s Game into a movie, which I think is an excellent idea. Below are some proposed scenes and matching score cues to that, as yet, hypothetical movie.

Cue 1

Title Cue
The opening title is a montage of the first two alien invasions, the backstory that charges and motivates every interaction in the novel. Lacking any sound effects, the visual of space battles and asteroid explosions is slipped out of realtime, and becomes simple exposition.

The title cue plays with two themes. The first is a simple, childlike motif (G – D – C), like half-remembered phrase from a nursery rhyme. The second theme is the sharp snap of the string pizzicato, evoking both military precision, and the buggish alienness of the invading horde.

The scene resolves on a present day close-up of our hero, Ender Wiggin, about to get in a fist-fight with a gang of bullies.

Cue 2

A Thousand Lonely Deaths
Away from Battle School, Ender is completely isolated in Command School, his only companion is Mazer Rackham, the retired ex-commander who won the 2nd Bugger War, a man he comes to loathe. He is given unrestricted access to all video footage of the first two Bugger wars, and pours over them relentlessly, looking for any clue as to how Mazer managed to defeat the invaders. The unrelenting violence and isolation began to break down any remaining connection to the world. The cue plays as we watch over Ender’s shoulder, trying to see what he sees in the battle footage.

The theme from the Title Cue is here picked up and used as the starting basis of a 12-tone row. The lack of clear tonal harmony or function serves to unhinge the audience from any stable orientation, so that we can join Ender in his confusion and despondency. Most of the sounds are sourced and manipulated from a 1928 Steinway grand piano, including Lood Piano plucking, scrapes, slams, and bowed low strings.

Cue 3

Dragon Army At Long Odds
In Battle School, Ender quickly demonstrates his superior sense of tactic and strategy. In the battle room, opposing armies enter to fight in zero-gravity, with hanging “star” obstacles in their way. Ender’s abilities are clearly seen by the commanding officers, and he is soon given an army of his own, Dragon Army. It becomes clear, however, that the commanders have no interest in giving Ender a fair match. He is thrown into battle sooner and more often than the other commanders, given limited time to train and recoup his soldiers.

In this scene, Ender returns from a brutal fight in the shower with an older commander, to find that his army has been summoned to fight not one, but two armies. At the beginning of the cue they assemble in quarters, and then begin to jog to the battle room. They arrive, the door opens, and it becomes immediately obvious that they are outmatched. Instead of heading into the vast expanse, Ender forms them into a cluster around a single soldier, Bean, and as every man around him is shot down, Bean flies to the far side and opens the opposing army’s door. At first, nobody is sure what that means, but it becomes clear that, even though most of his army have been shot and “frozen” Ender has still won the battle. It also becomes clear that Ender has ceased to care about the ranking, the battle room, or the approval of his commanding officers. Without pause or ceremony, he storms out of the battle room, leaving the officer to chase after him, shouting for him to stop.

Ender has won again, but the overwhelming loneliness of command, and the relentless brutality of the battle system, have broken him. He no longer cares about anything, or anyone.

The cue borrows themes from Stavinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, a ballet in which a young maiden is sacrificed for the good of the whole tribe. Ender stands in for the maiden, sacrificing his humanity to give the human race what they need most – the perfect fleet commander.