I get it: Ender's Game is not a science movie, or even a hard sci-fi movie. In many ways it's barely sci-fi at all, falling closer to the coming-of-age hero fantasy narratives of Percy Jackson or (ducking) The Phantom Menace. But it certainly contains plenty of science fiction tropes and settings, many of which dovetail with themes from other recent science fiction films. As I watched it, I was intrigued by these recurring elements, and by the ways they riff on--or contradict--recent scientific discoveries.