Suzanne Collins has mentioned that she was inspired by reality TV. Reality TV is often manipulated to create a better show. The producers will introduce a new cast member to shake things up. They’ll start a rumor certain to explode into two people yelling at each other. They cut the boring parts, and hype the interesting parts.
Read the books, saw the movie last night. Liked both books and movie very much - not Harry Potter fanatical, but I liked them.
I liked the way the movie showed the death of Rue as a trigger for the revolution. Good set up for the rest of the series without being manipulative.
I understand what is said about deus ex machina, especially in the rules change from “only one victor” to “two victors if they are from the same district” to “OK, you can both be victors since you threatened suicide”. The idea AFAICT is that this is a grotesque reality show for the Capitol, and pressure from the viewers to let the romantic star-crossed lovers live would both bring about the decision to allow two victors as well as the rescinding of the decision to make them kill each other.
But overall I really liked the movie. As much as the book, and that is rare for a reader like myself.
Regards,
Shodan
Meeko, I agree that the movie misfired somewhat. Read my review upthread. However, the addition of a salve that could heal Peeta overnight is not (or actually any of the things that are introduced) to help the real world audience be happy that Peeta is going to survive another day. It’s to help keep the in-story audience interested and keep the game going. In the books, there is a lot of talk about how the in-story audience likes a lot of action and for the contestants to put on a show for the audience in the killings. Foxface dying from berries is NOT something they’d have wanted to happen. Rue getting speared and Katniss using her arrow to kill the District 1 boy, yeah, they like that so there will be contrivances for that kind of thing to happen. The rules are spelled out. There will be power-ups from sponsors, if you are popular enough. And in the book, Katniss keeps doing things to get her more popular in the audience.
But why? I get why the audience watching the movie should feel bad (and I did) but within the world, she couldn’t have been the first very little kid killed in the games. She wasn’t even the first very little kid killed in that same game.
was there an extra clip after the credits?
Katniss made her special. By singing to her, by crying for her, and especially by covering her dead body with flowers. She was reminding the audience that Rue was a person, an innocent little girl, and not just “a piece in their games.”
The relationship that develops between her and Katniss, and then the way she dies (with the song and the flowers) is pretty much unprecedented in The Games*. Katniss has a genuine affection for Rue, and vice versa, and doesn’t just ally with her in order to move ahead. They care for each other. And when Rue dies, Katniss doesn’t celebrate because she’s that much closer to winning; she sings to her and sobs. And then she covers her body in flowers, something she wasn’t really supposed to do.
It isn’t a “rule” (there aren’t any real rules in The Games), but getting emotionally involved with other tributes just “isn’t done”. And treating her death as a tragic murder certainly isn’t done. You are supposed to leave the body and move on. And yet, Katniss covers her in flowers and mourns for her, for the death of a real little girl, not just a pawn in a game. It’s a very rebellious thing to do, in their world. It hurts and angers the people from Rue’s district, and they lash out. It’s also meant to hearken back to what Peeta was saying before they went in, that he wants to stay himself and show that he’s more than just a piece in their games. Katniss doesn’t get that then, but when Rue dies she understands, and she makes a point to highlight the loss of Rue’s individual mortality. And, from that act of rebellion, a larger rebellion is started.
The whole point of The Games is that the life of someone in the Districts is meaningless. You are worthless and The Capitol can kill you for any reason or none, and if you complain, well, they’ll murder your whole town. Katniss’s reaction to Rue’s death is a slap in the face to that idea.
*this is more explicit in the book; I know the movie didn’t make all this clear
No.
The theater I went too was running them back to back, to the point that we didn’t even get to see our full “First Look” programing. We all took our seats as the soundtrack, humane society, “This is a work of fiction”, boilerplate ran. No stinger.
I saw the movie before reading the books, but have read the trilogy since. What I was most disappointed with after the movie, is how she fell in love with Peeta so fast. It just didn’t make sense. But because they skimped on portraying the post-Game events, it’s never shown on-screen that she’s faking it for the benefit of the cameras. Maybe there were hints, but they were too subtle for me to pick up, as a HG virgin. All of the confusion I had after watching the movie was dissolved by the books, thankfully, but that was a pretty big plot hole. The books were fantastic, but I wasn’t too happy with the movie. They really needed to show the post-Game interview and her interactions with Haymitch and how she was still in a lot of danger because she’d defied the Capitol. They totally left that out–hopefully it’s in the beginning of number 2. I also look forward to watching the director’s cut later, in hopes that the story goes there.
I just don’t think this type of story translates particularly well to the big screen, because so much of it is internal. Unless they set up a non-hokey way for Katniss to narrate the story, the audience just ends up missing *way *too much content. And the biggest problem with the film adaptations is that they’re being restricted for young adults, which means they have to keep it clean. If I were adapting the story and being true to the book, the whole trilogy would end up R-rated. I *still *don’t see how they’re going to portray the morphling dependence in #3 while staying in a PG-13 context, for example. And all the children getting blown up and bloody with everyone stepping on broken kid-size body parts at the end.
Shaky-cam gives the impression of raw hand-held documentary footage as opposes to a studio setup with multiple camera angles and 3 point lighting.
We just saw the film this afternoon (never read the books). While I enjoyed it, I have a couple of comments:
It’s not deux ex machina if you are in a controlled gameshow environment.
I felt some of the best parts were the whole pre-game prep stuff.
I would have liked to get more of a sense of the world of the Districts outside of the Capital. Do people actually enjoy the games or are they merely tolerated? I really didn’t get much of a feel for what the audience was thinking or feeling once the games started.
It seems to me Kaitniss getting hold of a bow should be an automatic win. Granted she’s not an experienced killer, but it’s kind of takes some of the suspense away when the heroine has the only ranged weapon on the field and is a master at using it.
Granted it’s PG-13 and all. But the lack of realistic gore kind of takes away some of the visceral impact.
I didn’t get much of a feel of “winning over the sponsers” once the game started. It felt more like the gift packages were coming directly from Haymitch.
This is one flick that really needs a director’s cut.
I saw it, but haven’t read the books. I basically went into it knowing absolutely nothing other than the vaguest hint of the premise. I thought it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. Not necessarily “Casablanca” or “Titanic” good, but probably one of the top non-art films.
Most of the complaints in this thread I really had no problem with, or thought were explained adequately. I thought the Rue<->Primrose connection was obvious (though not heavy handed). People have said that the need for sponsors became more evident in the book, and I suspected as much, but I thought it was handled well without a lot of flair. At the very least they were careful about it, I’m glad it was burn cream and not, say, a grenade she could throw they dropped when she was on a tree.
I also thought that the metagame between Katniss and Peeta was evident. I don’t know if it’s obvious in the book whether it’s fake or not, but in the movie I got a really good sense of the fact that they may or may not have been playing each other. I also really appreciated the sort of “reality show gone wrong” aspect of the game master changing rules, burning her out of an area, etc.
I only have one complaint and two bits of confusion. I hated how they really, really liked putting the camera about a quarter of an inch from their face so often. I was confused about her hallucination of the talk show guy explaining Tracker Wasps. It implies she could hear what he was saying, but that would be silly. Was it just a “screwing with the audience” moment?
I also don’t get the dogs, at first I assumed they were genetically engineered warhounds that they brought in through the tubes the contestants came in. Then they went and did something with the console and did what looked like to me magically spawning more. Is that what happened? I understand the capital is a place of technological wonder, but it seemed pretty grounded in the reality of a technologically plausible soon-ish minutes in the future until the magical spawning war-mutts.
I do kind of wish they had gone over a little bit about the politics of the situation, the other districts, and why other nations of the world let this shit go down, but I don’t think it would have added THAT much to the movie.
In the book, the mutts were ferocious engineered reincarnations of the dead Tributes, and were actually recognizable as their former selves. This was done by the Gamer to further dehumanize the children, I suppose, though it would have been difficult for the movie to depict this given how little screen time the other Tributes had – and how shaky the camera was. (I had a hard time distinguishing Peeta from Cato during the final fight.) This was a major weakness in the movie, IMO. In the book, the deaths of key Tributes (Cato, Thresh, Fox Face, Rue, the Careers) had much more of an emotional impact because the characters were better fleshed out.
Another thing edited out from the books is how the dead Tributes left the arena. First, a cannon thundered, indicating that a Tribute had died.* A short time later, a hovercraft appeared above the dead child to retrieve the body. After Rue’s death, Katniss had to race to gather the flowers before the hovercraft appeared. She did it even though she knew that humanizing the contestants would be considered an act of rebellion. Later, the people from Rue’s district, which was one of the poorer districts, gathered their money to send Katniss a parachute in recognition of her friendship with Rue. She knew how dearly it had cost them, and was deeply touched by their gesture.
As far as the parachutes went, the book made it clear that anyone with money could send a parachute, which favored the richer districts, as well as the more popular players. Haymitch also used parachutes to communicate with Katniss. By sending her bread after she kissed Peeta for the first time, Katniss got the message loud and clear that romance = life. In the book, Peeta and Katniss progressed from cheek pecks to full on-mouth kisses, and both were aware that they were manipulating the audience. However, Peeta’s feelings for Katniss were genuine, while Katniss’ feeling evolved much more slowly.
*In the movie, the cannon neglected to fire at all upon Rue and Marvel’s deaths. In the 3rd book, the cannon inexplicably neglected to fire upon the death of another character, which I’ll conceal for those who don’t want to be spoiled.
When Peeta dies after his heart stops in the third book. They are able to re-start his heart after several minutes, but there’s no explanation for why the cannon didn’t thunder upon his death.
Pepper Mill and I haven’ty seen it, but MilliCal has. Her friends offered to take her to the late night showing on Friday. She was generally pleased, but disappointed in the changes and omissions, and agreed with the review in the Boston Phoenix.
Now she has a big Hunger Games movie poster taped to her bedroom door.
Pepper Mill and I will see this one later.
Saw it on Saturday night. I hadn’t heard of the books or film before - it was her idea. I thought it was quite good - reasonably entertaining and a good story.
There were a few plotholes, right? OK, maybe I missed something at the start, but did the guy say that this was the first ever person to volunteer in place of another? In like 76 years, at 24 people a year? That was the first time someone had stood in for someone else? I would have thought it would be relatively common thing for an older brother or sister to step in for a young kid. It’s not important, but stuff like that bugs me.
Oh yeah, and Lenny Kravitz was really bad. I just don’t think he can act.
I think it was more like the first woman in District 12 to volunteer. The Careers as I understand it were volunteers, and volunteering was very common in those districts.
This.
I thought the filming was bad. I felt like the entire film was too ‘close up’ oriented. That and the shaky cam soured me on it.
I thought the acting, the special effects (sans shaky cam), the plotting, and all that were great. The excessive use of close ups and the shaky cam brought down the movie significantly in my opinion.
Now, it could be that I don’t go to movies a lot and the, um, ‘food’ was having it’s way with my stomach, but I was fairly nauseous the first 1/2 hour of the film. I think that was due to the overuse of the shaky cam and close ups. In fairness, it could be the popcorn…
This wasn’t just raw handheld footage, this looked like they were filming while riding a unicycle. If they were going for a documentary feel, I would call it a failure. Maybe a documentary during an earthquake, or while you’re running from a grizzly bear, not while you’re standing on a street corner, filming poor people.
I thought it was a pretty fair presentation of the book and I’d expect that most people will feel about the same on both. If you loved the book you’ll probably really like the movie. I thought the book was middling entertainment shallowly presenting a high concept idea. The movie is the same. Neither is horrible, neither had any great impact on me.
I thought many of the cinematography choices (shaky cam, over infactuation with close ups) were awful (they may have made sense within the movie but I’m not in the movie and am being asked to watch it).
I thought they did a good job of compressing the pre-arena stuff but inevitably that lost context and depth. In the group I saw it with, not one of the people who hadn’t read the books came away understanding why they were called the Hunger Games. Yes, there are lines in the movie that but up against it but to the uninitiated I was with they were just random jargon without enough detail to shed light.
I was glad to see more fo the control room and also more of the role Haymitch was playing with working sponsors.
On the down side, seeing some things visually made them harder to ignore than in the book. Such as District 12 apparently having a population of only a few thousand people (since everybody, especially the children) gathers for the Reaping, everybody in District 12 was apparently on screen). Apparently all of the coal needed by Parnem is provided from a very small area.
Or seeing the magical technology of the Capitol so in advance of anything even we have (making dogs appear out of dirt, “fake” fire) that one wonders what they need with small amounts of coal anyway.
Anyway, solid “eh” from me.
Let me see if I can guess just based on the movie –
Random Hot Boy™ said that his name was entered in the lottery a ton of times for taking a lot of extra rations. I also remember them mentioning that winning the games would get things for their district.
I assume that between these two facts, winning the hunger games, or at least being a district that can reliably win them, is going to get you a lot of extra money to get food, if not directly get extra food outright. If you don’t win very often, you won’t get much in the way of extra food.
Is it something like that?