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did it really take them 40 years to get there? or was that just the remotely controlled fleet? is his sister basically an old woman by now?

No, see in the books, Ender and the others were flown to one of jupiter's moons and that was where he commanded from. In the movie, ender and company are flown to one of the outlying deserted bugger colonies.

That's where some of the continuity breaks down, because they had "Fast as light" travel, but not FTL, but them being on that bugger world makes the ending work better (for a movie).

In order for Ender and Company to arrive at the bugger colony, the fleet would have been long obliterated before they arrived.

And the ships were in fact manned. Even the fighters. However, in the movie the fighters are referred to as drones. Maybe in the minds of the movie producers this makes it ok for the fighters to behave they way they do.

I haven't seen the move yet but in the book the long travel times were explained with special relativity/time dilation. So while the travel time might be long, the crew experiences time slowly so much time doesn't pass for them.

Isn't the big brains behind the whole operation advising multiple generations on earth, without noticeably ageing himself, while travelling in a fast space-craft?

Not getting special relativity right, would be throwing away a key element in the story, if you ask me. I think I'll have to determine for myself how they handled it in the movie story...

Noes. Einstein theorized that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and that anything traveling at the speed of light would experience time dilation.

only STL travel

Read closer. I was exactly saying that lack of FTL travel was of utmost importance to the construction of both narrative and setting.

It also breaks a lot if Ender knows that he works his "exam" on live buggers. In the books, he fired the MDD on what he thought was a virtual planet.

Anyway, my personal review (as someone who hasn't read the books) is that while the sci-fi elements were above average, the fact that the majority cast were kids makes it an average-quality movie
Watch it if you like sci-fi, but don't expect much more than that.

Anarchid wrote:

Noes. Einstein theorized that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and that anything traveling at the speed of light would experience time dilation.

only STL travel

Read closer. I was exactly saying that lack of FTL travel was of utmost importance to the construction of both narrative and setting.

It also breaks a lot if Ender knows that he works his "exam" on live buggers. In the books, he fired the MDD on what he thought was a virtual planet.

Ok, but you said slower than light. They can travel as fast as light but not faster (as per Einstein's theories). It's a significant difference.