WARNING: PURE SPECULATION BELOW

Here’s a little speculation based on all our screen grabs of the new ‘Ender’s Game’ trailer.

This still appears to be a gate to the battle room. Notice the “stars” that are cut off at the top of the picture.

Here’s another shot of a battle room gate. Is that Petra and Ender? This is possibly the scene where Petra teaches Ender to shoot. Notice gate B in the background, the same gate we saw in the production blog last year.

Here Major Anderson appears to be analyzing a brain scan. She looks sad. Could this from an injured student? Bonzo, maybe?

Obviously, the below image must be Bean’s tether that he uses in the battle room to appear to accelerate and change direction in zero-gravity.

Here is someone operating a “desk” or tablet. Notice that the layout is nearly identical to the new if-sentinel.com movie page.

The following series of stills with Ender shouting “Now!” is obvious to those who have read the book. We won’t spoil it for any newcomers to the series.

Now, we think it’s safe to say that this is a ship landing on Eros. Looks formic to us.

Towards the end of the trailer we see Petra running outside with two bags in her hands on what appears to be Eros because 1. She’s outside 2. She still has her IF uniform on and 3. the background is a similar brown shade.

Notice this screen grab of Ender with what appears to be one of those bags strapped across his shoulder. Why does he need a bag? Possibly for exploring Eros, the background is brown. He also looks very upset, possibly crying. Maybe he’s found the Hive Queen’s cocoon?

But wait… who’s that standing next to Ender with the other bag looking out into the formic land? Petra, possibly? If true, this is a large deviation from the book.

We’re going to argue that this is Petra and Ender. Hailee Steinfeld is a very accomplished actress. We’re guessing that the director and producers wanted to capitalize on her success and talent by expanding Petra’s role. Another reason for this decision (again, pure speculation) may be because Ender needs a foil character. The first choice for this foil characters would obviously be Bean, because of this presence at the battle school (unlike Valentine). However, Bean doesn’t understand Ender’s emotions the way a female characters would. Petra’s traditional sassy character wouldn’t either, but we’re guessing they’ve given Petra a soft spot in the film. This way, Petra’s femininity can help show the audience Ender’s emotions.

Final thoughts: While all of these images looks wonderfully detailed, we find the trailer underwhelming. The trailer gives away too much of the plot line surprises (Mazer and “the ending”) without giving new fans any depth to the story line. The trailer is mainly comprised of quick shallow action shots and close up of Ender’s face meant to draw in science fiction and action adventure movie junkies. We would have liked to have heard a little more dialogue from Ender so that new fans have the opportunity to fall in love with Ender’s character the way so many others have.

The few shining moments in the trailer are these stills of Ender and Valentine. Valentine’s emotion-filled face gives us a hint that the film may be more than a sci-fi action flick. Although the lack of dialogue here might have newcomers believing this is Ender’s girlfriend.

The ‘Ender’s Game’ film will be released in U.S. theaters on November 1, 2013.