It was in the book, everyone would have been screaming that Hollywood had changed the premise if they left it out. Conflict makes things interesting and the triangle was about trust as much as feelings.
There weren’t any sparkly vampires, that’s a huge plus. I liked the book and didn’t hate the movie.
Both of those items you mentioned were included in the movie, although the scenes were brief. Maybe the director’s cut will have extended scenes, or they’ll have deleted scenes on the DVD.
After they win the games, there’s a scene in the movie with Katniss and Haymitch talking (at night, possibly on the roof of the building?), and he specifically says that they’re in great danger and she needs to pretend to be deliriously in love, and that the only way they’ll get away with what they did is if she convinces everyone she only threatened to eat the berries because she couldn’t stand the thought of living without Peeta. Then they cut to a scene with Cesare Flickerman interviewing Katniss and Peeta, and she gushes about how much she loves him and she just couldn’t bear living without him, and they hold hands. In the interview scene, Peeta does a more convincing job of looking like he’s actually in love, whereas Katniss’ declarations of love seem less completely enthusiastic and slightly forced - which is perfectly in character with the book, but might be confusing for people who haven’t read the book.
I thought the actress who played Katniss did an exceptional job with that last interview scene. Her delighted smile kept starting to fade and then she would turn up the wattage again. You could see that she was playing a part for the Capitol audience; there was an undercurrent of fear in her mannerisms.
I enjoyed the movie greatly. Of course they skimmed over certain parts of the book – how could they not, with 450 pages to cover? – but I felt they left a coherent story and told it well. I didn’t even recognize Elizabeth Banks and Wes Bentley until I got home and googled them. Woody Harrelson was pitch-perfect. I have adored Stanley Tucci in every role he’s ever appeared in. I’m looking forward to seeing how they handle the other two books.
I read somewhere that the movie was required to be a 12 certificate :- as we were going to the cinema, I remarked to my wife that I’d lay money that the dogs would just be generic, ferocious wolves.
My reasoning was that the whole concept of them being reincarnated, engineered versions of the dead children was just inherently too dark to get a 12 cert.
Overall I was quite impressed :- I thought Jennifer Lawrence, in particular, was wonderful.
They did; Ripley in Alien. And that’s all you get. 
In the book, Katniss kept saying, “But I don’t want to be married,” and “But I don’t want to have kids.” She was focused on keeping her family of origin together. This seemed more glossed over in the movie, but in books 2 and 3 (I’m only about 1/3 through the third), the love triangle thing really detracts from the point of the books and from the best parts of Katniss’s character.
I disagree. Aside from the love triangle nonsense, Gale is there to demonstrate a different response to living under an oppressive government. He’s the only character in the book (until the finale of the games) that demonstrates any kind of concept of collective action. (“What if no one watched?”) He also proposes running away from District 12. His vision of possible alternatives to daily oppression is much broader than anything Katniss or Peeta displays. Katniss hates the capital and its oppression of the districts, but her rebellion is (initially) very tempered by her reluctance to do anything too risky for herself or her sister - so much so that she can’t even see bigger picture possibilities or imagine a better alternative.
Question for those who’ve seen the movie but not read the book: Did the flashback scenes with Peeta and Katniss make any sense to you? (The one in the rain when he throws her the bread.) Did you get the significance of that scene? Or did it seem random?
They show it several times, each time longer than the last. I think it had the intended effect: at first, I thought he ignored her and came away thinking he he was a dick; then, you realize he was conflicted but still think he’s a bit of a dick for not helping; then you realize he did help her, but didn’t go as far as he wanted to.
So, my opinion of it changed each time they showed it (which is what I think they wanted), but it made perfect sense as a plot device.
If I may add: as someone who hadn’t read the books, I was confused as hell at his name. See, I kept thinking she was randomly saying “Peter” with a bizarre British accent. Oops heh.
My husband saw it with me and my friends - he and another girlfriend were the only ones who had not read the books. They had some pretty interesting ideas afterwards that relate to some of the more recent posts in this thread.
According to him and her:
The Games themselves: “if the Capitol has that kind of power” (to create and manipulate the arena as demonstrated) “WTF do they need to keep the Districts in such poverty for? It increases the likelihood of a rebellion, even if it’s not likely to be a successful one - it’s like they are *trying *to be hated.”
The “love story”: Peeta (who he thought was Peter with a bad “futuristic accent”) had a “minor” crush on Katniss, but he realized that he was shit as a competitor, so he played it up during the show-off period before the games to try and get people to like him. Katniss didn’t really give a crap, but she wised up during the games and faked it for the benefits it provided them at that point. At the end, he thinks that Peeta’s crush got a bit worse “she nursed him back to health!” but Katniss is still totally faking.
the “love triangle”: “Oh, that dude? I bet he’s a plant - from a rebel alliance or a spy from the Capitol or something. He’s the only one from that District that has any hope, and he’s bragging about how he’s been so far from their area - that means he’s likely in on something from somewhere else. He’s going to get her into trouble.”
the manipulation of the Games and “Victors” : “So… do the Districts not notice, or not care, that the Capitol manipulates the battle and the victory so blatantly? Does the Capitol do that to balance it out so every District gets a win eventually so everyone feels like they have a shot? Or is it just manipulation for ratings?”
Effie: “What did she do to get kicked out of the Capitol and sent out for that shit job? She seems really pathetic and clueless.”
Yes, I got it - took a couple of iterations, but I got it. I thought it was nicely done, showing their history in flashback.
This is a hilarious meme already. Look; if those kinds of things get you down, pay closer attention to the* response* from most people. When we are laughing our asses off at the idiots, it breeds a warm glow of love for your fellow internet peers.
Regarding the film, I haven’t seen it yet. My 13 year old daughter loved the book and said the film was great. She even said she cried, which is unusual for the little stone hearted girl. Her dad said it was good too. I think I will check it out Friday night.
Most of my answers are from the film or Wiki, but:
Why is ACTUAL Appalachia not much better off?
The whole thing is basically a “Fuck You” to the Districts because of a rebellion 74 years ago. It serves to tell them “we are the Capital and we do as we please”.
And actually, not all the districts are in poverty. Districts 1 and 4 are relatively wealthy. They are the ones who produce the “Careers” who train from birth to be in the games.
Peeta is definitely the “Jacob” in this. She cares for him, but I don’t think in that way. I mean she did nurse him back to health when she could have just given him a tearfull sendoff and put him out of his misery with a big rock.
I don’t think the Districts have much say in the matter. And they don’t ballance it out. Cato’s district (4?) wins all the time while Woody’s character was the last District 12 winner like 25 years ago.
Why is it a shit job? She doesn’t LIVE in District 12. She goes out there once a year (via maglev supertrain) to grab a couple of chumps and be their handler back at the Capital. It looks like she does pretty well for herself.
I’m actually interested in the game theory as to why anyone would cooperate with each other at all.
Oh we explained (like I said, most of us *had *read the books) - but I think it’s interesting to have some of the impressions recorded from someone who didn’t have all that background to draw on.
Makes for some interesting conversations as to what the movie implied when it was taken on its own.
I’ve read the first book. I enjoyed it, but didn’t love it. Not planning to read the others. I thought the movie was good. I’ll probably see the next two.
One thing that I noticed didn’t quite make sense in the book, and really didn’t make sense in the movie, is the size of District 12. The story starts on reaping day, and everyone in the District is gathered in the central square. Looks like about as many people as went to my high school. By comparison, the audience at one of the shows in Capital City stretches on into the distance.
How do a few thousand people mine enough coal to even matter? I got the impression that the country was divided into 12 districts (and one smoking crater), but you can’t exactly gather the population of West Virginia into a town square. Are the Districts supposed to be very small ghettos in relation to the Capital? If so, how do they possibly win a revolution?
I would say because the Gamemakers were watching, saw that they were giving him CPR, and knew there was a chance it would work. They would look bad if they counted him as dead, and were wrong.
This is really the biggest flaw in the series, and as flaws go its not that bad. The population and geography of Panem makes no sense at all if you start thinking about it too much. It was obvious by the second book that they don’t make sense, and even more obvious in the movie that the population of the districts is far too small, as are the districts themselves, for them to function in the way they are supposed to. This is not the type of thing that bugs me, but it drove my sister nuts when she was reading the series. I think of it as part of a larger drawing of parallels to Roman cities and move on figuring it serves a more important metaphorical significance than a literal one.
Maybe it’s explained in the book, but why do they team up and form alliances? It’s not like there are Survivor “challenges” that require them to work together to get food and stuff. I mean does Kaitness think “maybe this girl is playing up the ‘sweet little girl’ angle long enough for me to kill some of the more hard core competitors for her then she’s going to bash my head in while I’m sleeping”?
I assumed that, much like present day Appalachia, it’s actually a pretty large population spread over of thousands of miles in tiny village and hamlets. But you don’t get that a sense of that from the film. The film makes it seem like it’s just a couple thousand people living in some sort of fenced in community.
The thing is, if you had like 10 million people living in a district, your odds of getting called up for the games are about as good as winning the lottery (the Powerball kind…not the Shirley Jackson kind).
They form alliances because it’s always helpful for someone to have your back. Usually the careers do it: take out everyone else then go their separate ways. The fact that Peeta and that kid we saw guarding the supplies means they let the “lesser” districts in with them, as long as they served their purpose.
I think that’s one of the things that made Rue and Katniss so special, that they trusted each other completely, kinda like how someone said above about Katniss genuinely mourning Rue’s death.
The book makes it quite clear that everyone in District 12 is gathered together for reaping day. It’s no big deal. The story is still engaging and thematically interesting. It just means that the world as portrayed isn’t self-consistent.
For some people that is a big deal. My husband is a world guy, bad world building pulls him out of the story and makes it unreadable. Not surprisingly, he loves Lord of the Rings and hates Harry Potter. I’m less of a world person, more of a flow of language person. Other people are plot people or character people.