Roughly, yes. But my point isn’t that it was impossible to know, just that apparently (based on my group anyway), it wasn’t particularly obvious.
My wife asked a lot of decent questions afterward (that I can’t really recall at the moment) that I mostly couldn’t answer without saying “in the book…”
I could be off-base here, but I thought a lot of the shaky, handheld cam shots (which were prevalent during the fight scenes) were a way to “blur” the violence and keep the whole thing to a PG-13 level.
Don’t know if that is the case, but I suspect that the gamemaker turned off the lights for the dogs so that the moviemaker could save money on CGI.
Haven’t seen the movie yet but just finished the first book so this is probably more a critique of the book but oh well.
Facsinating world and concepts the author has created. The whole dystopian future and the first person account of being a player in this bizzare government control game was great. Mix in the modern obsession with reality TV, life and death survival, anti-government uprising, etc. and you’ve got a great story to tell.
But it’s as if the publishers read all this then said “You know what this story needs? A shmaltzy teen love triangle story. The main character should be confused about boys. Teen girls love that crap. You see how popular Twilight is?” :rolleyes: (vomit)
I could have done without all of that but then I guess you’re giving up your core YA audience.
Haven’t started the second book yet but it sounds like it’s more “are we faking it or not” juvenile puppy love with a jealous other boy thrown in. Hopefully that’s kept at a minimum.
Considering that there is an IMDb credit for “Avox Girl,” I think we can rest assured on seeing, if not that, then at least an extended edition on DVD.
At the very least, some significant deleted scenes.
Well there were several visible avox girls when they first reached their hotel in the capitol
Unless it was answered and I missed it, I am still not clear as to why the two winners went back to District 12. I thought part of the prize was you get to live in the Capital.
What I got was that they bring glory, wealth, and food both for themselves and their district. I also seemed to infer that they moved up in class, but only within their own district.
It’s premium housing that’s been built in your district. District 12 has some but most of it sit’s empty since Haymitch is the only one living there.
This - The Capitol residents don’t consider the District people really “people” - there would be no way they would let them live in their Capitol. You also get the sense that working as the stylist-presentation team for the poorer districts (Cinna and Effie) is a sort of “hardship duty” that is imposed on Capitol residents as a punishment or a sign of significant lack of favor.
The main reason Haymitch works as a ‘mentor’ is that even in the nice “Victor’s House” that he gets in District 12 for winning, he doesn’t have enough money to buy alcohol - he works as a mentor for the ‘refreshments’ - ie - he needs to drink away his memories, and working in the Capitol as a mentor is the only way he has access to booze.
Which wouldn’t explain why one actress gets credited as such, particularly one who so exactly matches the description of the one Katniss had extended interactions with in the book.
Oh, and in case you need to lose a little love for your fellow human beings:
Collins didn’t do that for audience appeal. She did it because that’s the only way 2 people could have won the games together. If Katniss and Peeta hadn’t both won together by refusing to accept the stupid rule changie-backsies, thereby defying the Capitol, the revolution would not have happened as early as it did.
The series is a little unclear on this, but I’m pretty sure that the winners always go back to live in their districts. Except Finnick, who was allowed to live in the Capitol because Snow sold Finnick’s body to wealthy Capitol women.
Also* keep in mind that the victors spend a lot of time every year in the Capitol for the games themselves. Even if they don’t maintain residences there, they still know the other victors fairly well. They all get to have telephones, unlike the rest of the rabble in the districts, so they can keep in touch in a manner that is denied normal citizens. They’re not Capitol, but they’re not blue collar laborers or merchants, either. They’re a very small upper-middle class.
*Sorry, I got busy and the edit window ran down on me.
I gotta say I’m also in the general eyes-glaze-over-when-the-teen-love-triangle-kicks-in camp, but I do think that the general setup is extremely clever. Normally if a story ends up in a situation where person A has to pretend to be in love with person B, but this is witnessed by person C who is really person A’s true love, it’s some comically contrived situation which could easily be resolved by people actually, gee, I dunno, TALKING to each other. But the entire setup of the Hunger Games, without ever giving you a feeling of “oh, the author keeps setting things up specifically for some gimmick to work out”, leads pretty organically to a situation where Katniss pretends to be in love with Peeta and Gael sees it.
I’ll admit I neither have read the books nor knew much about the premise of this story, but after watching it Friday, I was a bit annoyed at the love story angle, too. Not the part you talk about here- I get it, they have to play the game to win. But the whole movie ending with her staring lovingly at her squirrel shooting friend back home, while he stares broken hearted at her and Peeta . . . blech. Everyone I know who has read the books say things aren’t played up so love triangle-y in the book, but all I can go off of is the movie.
Just once, ONCE, it’d be nice for Hollywood to put out a strong female protagonist without throwing some love conflict in.
Actually, it was made very clear in Book 1 that the winners returned to their districts because in subsequent years, prior winners were responsible for mentoring his/her District’s Tributes. That’s how Haymitch became their mentor. Both Haymitch and Effie were written as increasingly sympathetic characters, once Katniss realized that they were responsible for grooming children year after year who had very little chance of winning.
And, of course, since District 12 had no other living female winners, it was pre-determined that Katniss would return to represent District 12 in the 75th Games.
That part worked all right plot wise but I got annoyed when the main character who was very strong willed and independant turn into precious girly-girl who gets confused about her feelings towards boys.
I would have preferred they just left the Gale character out completely. He really serves no purpose, at least not in book one.
You’re talking about a story written about and (largely) for teenagers. How realistic would it be not to have them struggle with feelings of romance?