I picked up the books when the first movie came out since there was buzz about them.
The point where I started to lose it was in the second book. I get that Katniss is good with a bow and it makes sense that she has to hunt with it in a poor district and it fits with the idea of hand to hand combat in the first movie. But when she gets a super weaponized bow and uses it to bring down planes and fight in real battles then I found myself losing interest in the story. The leaders acted exactly like teenagers themselves with the same petty desires and lack of subtlety - I felt like I was reading a new take on the world created in the movie “Idiocracy”
Not everyone in District 12 is as poor as the Everdeens. There’s a small middle class (that Peeta and Katniss’s mother are from), as well as the resident Peacekeepers and local government officials. The Mellarks’ bakery even makes fairly elaborate pastries & cakes for (that they can’t afford to eat) for the local elite.
I’m pretty sure that the coal from 12 doesn’t go the Capital, as there’s a separate district that produces energy. I think the coal goes to the other districts to use as fuel. The districts that actually manufacture things are described as very polluted and sooty
The author’s weak points are similar to the weak points of J K Rowling. Lots of holes in the general explanation of “how the world works”. Complicated tactical “situations” (whether quiddich matches or hunger games involving structured threats) don’t seem well thought out.
But the “fairy tale” aspects — drawing you into an entertaining web of people and passions and good versus evil and ominous looming threats and so on — are well done and it’s easy enough to suspend concern about the other stuff since for the most part it isn’t so badly done as to permanently derail your attention from the unfolding of the story.
I think J K Rowling cleans up the floor with Suzanne Collins.
There are a lot of things about the Hunger Games universe that simply make no sense. The only saving grace is that the books are written from Katniss’s perspective, so her lack of insight is translated to the audience.
I’m looking forward to this movie, as it was my favorite of the three books.
I haven’t seen the movies, but my problem with the books is that I cannot sympathise with the protagonists. They are, quite simply, horrible people. Katniss is far too eager to do horrible things to her fellow victims (while sucking up to the people responsible) and in the third book, baker-boy’s “I told everyone we’re a couple, so if you don’t play along we’re screwed” plan is skeevy as fuck, and Gale flat-out murders Katniss’s sister in the course of committing war crimes specifically intended to kill medics.
There’s like one chapter in the first book when Katniss acts like a human being - having a bit of a tantrum as you do when you’re a teenager who has been sentenced to death for no reason, and then taking comfort in the presence of the only person who isn’t either there to kill her or to help make that happen.
The second book is better in that it has some new characters who aren’t absolute shit, like Mags, the old woman who sacrifices her own life twice to save someone else, and Johanna, who is just generally a fun character to read.
I like Harry Potter a good bit more than the Hunger games, overall (although I definitely enjoyed the latter), but I actually think that while neither world is really plausible or well fleshed out, the Hunger Games world is a heck of a lot closer to believable than the HP world (even ignoring magic existing).
HP is just FULL of details which, the moment you start thinking about them, make no sense whatsoever. The ridiculous rules of Quidditch are an obvious and frequently-discussed one, but there are plenty of others.
The world-building makes little sense for it’s based on the premise that there are 12 (or 13) “things” which are needed to keep a high-tech civilization like the Capital “high tech.” So I just pretty much ignore it, just like I try to ignore all the implications of badly-designed worlds in other works of fiction.
However… at the end of the movieD12 is taken out of the picture. So… does this mean no more coal? How does that work?
the tongue thing was for people considered “traitors” and as they needed a low wage worker corps, they didn’t want to kill them outright. this way they are kept quiet and not made into martyrs. they disappear from the district and as not too many people from the districts go to the capital, they are never seen again.
I saw it with my daughter last Thursday. I thought it was very well-made; the cast was quite good and the movie was totally exciting. From the publicity photos, I hadn’t thought I would like the actor who plays Finnick, but he was just fine. One thing about the books that I appreciated is how increasingly traumatized Katniss is; she’s no superhero who shrugs off each blow as if it were a scratch. She’s scrappy and a survivor, but the focus on surviving and the responsibility she’s carried for keeping her family together and alive from the time she was so young has left her emotionally stunted and it just gets worse with every awful thing she goes through in the Games. Jennifer Lawrence is just amazing at showing what’s going on under Katniss’s surface.
I had mentioned in an earlier thread that the 3rd movie will be much better than the 3rd book because Jennifer Lawrence is a far better actor than Suzanne Collins is a novelist. In the same way, the directors and screenwriters of the two movies have also been better directors and screenwriters than Suzanne Collins is a novelist. The books were readable, but she’s a mediocre writer of SF.
I watched both movies, but didn’t read the books. I think the entire story is very full of holes, but I still find it entertaining. Plus Katniss is hot!
Anyway, how come the 25 anniversary quell was such a surprise to them? Did people forget the first 2? It seemed like even President Snow forgot and had to be reminded (and eventually figure out that was the way to kill Katniss).
I think the 25th is always special, but not necessarily in the same way each time. The returning champion twist was new, and hadn’t been used in the previous two.
Read the books, saw the first movie but not the second one (yet).
One thing I remember from the books is that the rules for the Quarter Quells seemed to have been established long before they actually happened (it was a little ambiguous, but ISTR they were laid down at the founding of the Games). So the decision that the participants for the 75th games were to be culled from previous victors was made long before Katniss was born (again, according to the book).
Just curious if the movie reworked that to suggest that President Snow specifically crafted the rules of the 3rd Quarter Quell to enable him to get rid of Katniss?
I guess this is implied in the films though not stated outright AFAICR. (Implied, though, by the fact that the kid called out by Effie is apparently guaranteed to be there in the square.)
Do you remember if the books give any hard numbers?
I could’ve written this, word for word. Well said. I’ll watch the third movie, too, but I have zero interest in reading the books, from all the criticism I’ve heard (and given how much other stuff I have gathering dust on the shelf).
It’s been a while since I read the books, but I’m pretty sure that the decision to reap from the victors was new for the 75th games. The established rules for the Quarter Quell were just that they would be special/different from the regular games. So the Quarter Quell allows a plot twist, but doesn’t specify exactly what it will be, to allow the current President some flexibility.
As I had it explained to me, each Quarter Quell was, theoretically, decided before the first Hunger Games, but the rules were not known. A bunch of Quarter Quell ideas were written and put in sealed envelopes, and the president or gamemaker or whoever would open one of the envelopes and enact the game rules written on it. Snow just spoofed the envelope and wrote in the game idea he felt was necessary to maintain control.