OK, maybe we went over this the first time around, but I don’t remember seeing it.
So, up front, let me say I am a fan of the books and the movie. Although, with the movie, mostly a fan of Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson, who both did a great job.
So after seeing the movie in the theater when it first came out, I watched it for a second time on DVD last night. Still enjoyed it, although one issue really bothered me. I’m under the impression that the Capitol in The Hunger Games is technologically advanced, but not Star Trek type advanced. It seems like they’re maybe a hundred years ahead of us or so. Does that sound about right?
So then how does this happen? Toward the end of the battle in the arena, some kind of dog-like creatures are introduced. Now, if I remember correctly, in the book, these were genetically engineered creatures and actually had some characteristics/traits from the dead tributes. So, amazing maybe, but could happen in science. In the movie, however, they seemingly create these things out of freaking thin air. One of the workers in the control room actually does a “Control-C” type move and two more creatures just pop into being! Literally not in the arena one second, then POOF, chasing Katniss and Peeta.
There’s also a smaller scene, but similar, where they “make a tree” and then send it crashing over.
So…somebody fanwank this or explain the amazing science that makes this possible. To me, they just decided to use “magic” so they didn’t have to work it out.
Nope, these critters bleed and die and kill people. Holograms aren’t enough for that. They’ve got Star Trek level transport technology to pull templated critters out of the transporter buffer and plant them where they need them (actually, beyond Star Trek, not counting Ryker–they’re creating life). Also, the slaves fighting in the pit did seem to be surprised that there was the ability to create life out of lifelessness, so that may have been new. Okay, so maybe it’s not beyond Star Trek and the critters would go splooge and die if they were around long enough, becaused they used proto-matter in the matrix so they could mimic the creation of life.
Why they don’t seem to have this level of tech in the city? Well, there was a war, of sorts. Given that it sounded like a fairly long and protracted war, there’s a chance that the “winning” side wasn’t much better off at the end than the losing side is now, and it’s taken them a long time to recover.
FWIW, I didn’t read the books and am basing this off of just the movie.
The books have some consistency issues with this kind of thing. The population levels and technology levels seem weirdly all over the place.
The movie version of the Mutts was…goofy. The only explanations I can think of are:
A, rapidly assembling nanomachines
B, teleportation
C, the movie just depicts what’s “actually happening” poorly
None is particularly satisfying, since the first two don’t make much sense considering the whole of the series.
If I’m remembering it correctly (and I may not be–only saw the movie once), the dogs appeared as wire-frame holographic images, then fleshed out and started running.
Perhaps this is like showing someone an operating television (getting a signal, sound and picture working) in 1900 and asking them to explain the science behind it. Might as well have been magic to someone back then. You’re asking us to explain science that hasn’t been invented/discovered yet. How should we know?
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
Yeah, definitely. The whole premise of the Hunger Games thing is that the district populations are small enough that people would be genuinely worried about their kids getting picked, which would imply a bunch of small towns. And yet there’s this whole big technological metropolis that is apparently supported by a handful of small towns that all seem to be engaged in 19th-century style mostly-manual labor. The only way I could see it working is if the Capitol is really supported by some sort of high-tech automation and the districts’ labor is only punitive.
Disclaimer: Haven’t seen the movies, only got through 2.5 books. And my daughter now thinks I’m a great big sourpuss.
The books make it clear that genetically manipulated lifeforms - “mutties” - are standard operating procedure for the Capitol, and there’s a mention that the planning for one year’s game begins years in advanced. IIRC, the reason the dogs freaked Katniss out so badly was because they literally had the other Tributes’ eyes. She recognized some of the other Districts’ Tributes, but she almost lost it when she saw Rue’s eyes. I took it to mean that the dogs were already created, and that as each Tribute was killed and their body reclaimed, a tech harvested the body’s eyes and implanted them in the dogs.
But then, on further thought, the dogs were supposed to have other traits of the dead Tributes, like their hair type as translated to fur. That implies that the dogs were genetically engineered to look like the Tributes, and that could only have been done when the Tributes were taken - about a month before the start of the games.
The second book makes it much more clear that the environment of the Games is completely planned and under control, so while they don’t have teleporters, they do have a lot of machinery to move elements in and out.
According to the books the districts vary in standard of living. District 12, which exists solely to provide coal, is at the rock bottom. The labor itself isn’t punitive make-work, but the districts are deliberately kept in edge-of-starvation poverty in order to stifle attempts at revolt. The revolt in book three only happens because the lost District 13 reappears and backs the revolution
You know there is times square in NYC, doesn’t mean there aren’t places on earth where people don’t even have plowing machinery and use beasts of burden. Why would there be a consistent tech level?
But how much coal could they actually be producing with only a small town’s worth of people using what sound like circa 1890 mining techniques? It doesn’t seem like enough to meet the energy needs of the huge techno-metropolis Capitol, to say nothing of the other 11 Districts.
I never read the books, but did see the movie. I got the impression that the “small town’s worth of people” was only one town of many in District 12. From reading Wikipedia, I gather that this is around present-day Kentucky.
Why do you think they are using 1890 mining techniques? I’ve only read the book but I understood that they were digging much, much deeper than any mine today and were using advanced techniques to do so. What they did not have were advanced safety procedures because they did not care about that.
It seemed The Capital gave each district only enough to produce what it was they wanted produced and nothing more.
But the whole idea of the Hunger Games being a way to terrorize the population of the Districts only seems to work if there’s a decent chance your kid would actually get called up. If the draft-age population is more than a few hundred, it seems like the odds that any one kid will get drafted become pretty much negligible, and yet every one seems pretty worried about it in the book. IIRC, even if each individual kid wasn’t at great risk of getting picked, there was a nearly-100% chance someone they knew would, which to me sounds incompatible with a large population.
[QUOTE=Biggirl]
Why do you think they are using 1890 mining techniques? I’ve only read the book but I understood that they were digging much, much deeper than any mine today and were using advanced techniques to do so. What they did not have were advanced safety procedures because they did not care about that.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe I’ll have to refresh my memory, but it seems pretty clear that the miners are basically unskilled laborers doing extremely physically intense labor. That doesn’t really jive with high-tech mechanized mining to me. Modern mining can certainly be dangerous, but it requires skilled equipment operators and such instead of just a bunch of guys with strong backs.
Yeah, the population thing was something that bothered me about the movie, too…I couldn’t help wondering if the drawing was something that went around to different towns, and Katniss’ one just had unusually bad luck to draw both tributes, or if there was some kind of demographic collapse going on, at least in that district. Quality of life didn’t seem that great, which might have affected population growth; and Katniss herself said she didn’t plan on having kids because of the games—which suggested that others might feel a similar disincentive, leading to a shrinking number of new births.
Then the question becomes if the intention was to dwindle the populations of the subject districts down like that, or if the Capital’s system was just becoming unsustainable due to poor planning.
I think by the third book, it’s either declared or implied that the entire population for District 12 is well under 10,000. Probably around 4,500 souls, and there are only a handful of towns. The mayor of Katniss’s town is the highest ranking District official.
There are several mentions that the miners have extremely shortened lifespans due to the working conditions. Black lung is endemic, crippling injuries are common, and accidents kill a large number of the men. The few who make it to retirement age often end up starving to death. A vendor in the black market stood out because he managed to buy a nanny goat shortly after he retired and took such good care of her, he was able to survive off the income from her milk, kids, and wool.