Hunger Games - The "I saw it" thread (open spoilers)

Cafe Society
161

Ok - the bolded part is where I’m seeing the disconnect here.

If you had read the books, you would know this. I know you haven’t, so I’ll explain to you what you’ve got mistaken (and I understand that it wasn’t clear in the film, but as the film was self-evidently based upon a book, I have to assume that the film wasn’t trying to change the backstory it was based on, as it didn’t try to change anything else).

In the books, there was a long-ago disaster (speculated to be environmental, but largely left to the imagination of the reader) that rendered large parts of the American continent uninhabitable. The implication is that the centers of power all collapsed/were destroyed/were abandoned, and a new country - Panem - formed from the remaining few livable parts of the landscape.

This new country was comprised of a Capitol (presumed to be in the Rocky Mountains) and a set of 13 Districts scattered throughout the country in various places to perform supporting roles (fishing, mechanics, mining, etc). It was at THIS POINT - way before the time period of the book (and film) that the Constitution and the USA were lost.

Over a long period of time (anywhere from 50 to several hundred years is possible, but no specifics were offered by the author), that Capitol got greedy, and the Districts began to be oppressed and treated as second-class citizens. The oppression eventually got so bad that the Districts rebelled, the Capitol squashed them all, bombed one District entirely out of existance as a warning to the rest, who surrendered, and who live now under constant surveillance and armed guard.

The books begin 75 years AFTER that rebellion, and possibly several hundred years AFTER the dissolution of the USA into this successor Panem - a smaller, central-powered country. The Capitol hasn’t changed any from the beginning of Panem’s existance, because it didn’t have to - it began as a country purposefully as a centralized power with outlying support districts. Later, after the oppression of the Districts caused a rebellion, it still didn’t need to change - it simply defeated the rebels and kept on going.

The author has specifically stated that she based the idea of the country on Rome and how it treated people from all of its conquest areas - to Romans, Rome was the only important place, and everything else existed to support that idea.

I can easily see how this information didn’t get conveyed in the film, but for people who read the book(s) it is a little insulting to insist that the film (and the source material) are referring to specific things that don’t make as much sense when all of the source material is considered. You are welcome to your opinion, of course, and if that particular meaning resonates with you, you are welcome to consider the movie with that interpretation - people are looking at it with all sorts of interpretations.

I just wanted to let you know some of the background knowledge you are missing, so you could maybe understand better where the people disagreeing with you are coming from.

162

Ditto on not reading the books but enjoying the movie.

Also ditto that I had a similar reaction that the betting public would be pissed off at the Gamemaker’s intervention. But the fire didn’t bothered me; Katniss was supposed to see the fire and get out of the way. (Also, given the “fire” suit she and Peeta wore in the parade, I’m not sure it was supposed to be a real fire.) I think the viewing/betting audience wouldn’t be bothered in the least by interventions intended to drive the players together – “no fair” hiding up a tree or in a cave and waiting everyone else out. :stuck_out_tongue:

What bothered me, and what I imagined would bother the in-movie betting audience, was loosing the dogs on Katniss and Peeta. That smacked of picking winners and losers rather than just spicing up the “game”. In short, I can see the Capitol audience griping “Oh, come on! Bogus!” at the dogs but not the fire. :slight_smile:

Mind you, I got the impression – again, didn’t read the book – that finishing off Katniss and/or Peeta was not the Gamesmaker’s idea but President Snow’s. It wasn’t for (within the movie) dramatic purposes but political. The method was left to the Gamesmaker’s dramatic flourish, though.

163

I am an old geezer. I didn’t read the books. I knew NOTHING of this…never heard of it until I went in and the kids talking about it.

I was dragged to this show by the daughter and her friends that still like the dad around - and it means that they will get in free and get concession stand stuff as well :slight_smile:

I really liked the show. I admit I have a soft spot for young main characters who actually act young…but this show was good.

I like shows where you don’t see everything and don’t have everything explained to you. I am hopefully smart enough to figure it out.

Rue dying? I totally got that she saw her younger sister in her. Katniss breaking down out of character and screaming in rage and sorrow I saw as her absolute hatred at the stupid waste of it all coming out and the extreme hatred of the Capitol/controling class unleashing in a torrent. I thought it tied nicely with her beating the Head Game guy at the end with the threat of suicide. It also conveyed nicely into the riots in District 11 because they saw this before…but the reaction of Katniss to Rue’d death broadcast to the people and it pissed them off to do something.

I sympathised with Rue’s death…eyes watered a little :slight_smile: but the scene was important to me because her scream of rage was a declaration of war on the powers that be and many of the audience saw the same.

Katniss liked Peetra (?) but she doesn’t love him. I thought that was obvious. It is set up with Woody H. telling her to get people to like her and how Peetra played the audience. Come on…do you really think the Director didn’t set that up? In the cave she kisses him…but not that romantically…she gets a gift saying “You call that a kiss”…and so what does she do later? She kisses him hard. Purely manipulating the audience.

Why manipulate the audience even though not many gifts? Because she has seen the show before. She knows how cruel the Game controlling people are…and she isn’t just fighting for her life, she is at war with them now after Rue. She sees what may happen…and she just happens to have the poison berries at the end? She knew exactly what was going to happen…the retraction of 2 winning.

Why the threat of suicide at the end? Because she loved Peetra and couldn’t live without him? Again, I think the director made it clear that it was likely she wasn’t…but she didn’t do it for Peetra (not directly) but because she knew that the threat of suicide would force their hand. She WON not just the game but against the cruel system itself. It was an ultimate ‘fuck you’ because Peetra did offer her his life…but instead went for the complete win against the Game controllers themselves.

Maybe I am seeing things not there, but I don’t think so.

Damn fine show.

164

redacted

165

I saw it as when she was really down in her life and starving, probably after her dad died. She looked younger in that scene.

I imagine her dad died, her mom ‘went away’ and she needed food for her and her sister and wasn’t finding it. Peeta threw her some food instead of feeding the pigs.

I did find the idea of feeding bread to pigs weird…from the reaction Katniss had to eating bread in a scene before that. I imagine there was a back story there we didn’t see…probably that he wasn’t feeding the pigs bread but snuck out to throw it to her stolen from his parents shop.

Whatever, he saw her, knew she was in bad trouble and did something to help.

Close? Way Off?

Ok, fine…I am getting the damn book for my Kindle.

166

Didn’t read the book, but in the movie the bread looked burnt, I assume he fucked up making the bread and she was mad at him for wasting supplies, and burnt bread = pig fodder.

167

As I recall from the book, this is basically correct.

168

I didn’t catch any burn thing…it looked like bread to me. Is that what happened in the book? Burnt bread? I still can’t imagine them feeding that to the pigs.

I interpreted it as he was feeding the pigs and snuck some bread to her. I didn’t catch what he was throwing to the pigs but don’t think it was bread.

169

Yes, in the book it was burnt. What else were they going to do with it? It’s not like they were buying Pig Chow at the store. That’s the point of pigs, they eat garbage. Presumably they had enough unsold bread that day for their own needs. I believe Peeta got in trouble for that, because if word got out they were giving away bread they would never heard the end of it - or have any “normal” customers.

170

I meant how they were shooting huge fireballs directly at her. I had no issue with the wall of fire keeping her in the game!

171

“Rio”, by Duran Duran.

Peeta has had an eye on Katniss since they were very young - kindergarten-ish age. After the death of Mr. Everdeen in a mine explosion, Katniss’s mom “checks out” and just stares blankly into space while she and her children slowly starve to death.

Katniss takes a bundle of Prim’s old baby clothes down to the Hob (the local black market/swapmeet) in an attempt to get some food or money for them, but finds no takers. It’s cold and raining, Katniss is broke and weakened by stavation, and she collapses in the street, dropping the clothes into the mud. Surely, nobody would buy them now.

She roots around in the garbage cans behind the bakery, hoping to find something to eat, but finds nothing. Peeta’s mother shoos her off.

Peeta, seeing his crush out there starving to death in the rain, deliberately drops bread into the fire, burning it. This “clumsy accident” earns his mother’s wrath; she smacks him good in the face (Katniss can see that she’s left a mark) and orders him to throw the ruined loaves to the pigs.

Peeta tosses the bread out where he knows Katniss can get it without attracting his mother’s attention, thus saving her and her family from certain death.

Parts of this incident replay occasionally or are referenced throughout the books, either as part of Katniss’s reminiscing or conversations involving Peeta. It’s the first time Katniss ever recalls seeing Peeta, but he noticed her the first time she showed up for school.

172

What the movie didn’t highlight was how desperate things in the district are. It shows a vaguely Appalachian community. In the books, many people starve to death. Unless you’re at least middle class (and even then it’s not like a current middle class - Peeta mentions they never got to eat the beautiful cakes he makes) you have no access to medical care. Katniss’s mother does herbal medicine, but a major infection and you’re toast. In the movie it looks sort of depressed, but not third-world. Peeta gets a pretty big whack from his mother for burning bread. By taking food from the pigs and giving it to Katniss, the pigs then have to get their calories from somewhere.

StG

173

I’ll definitely agree with that. I mean, granted that without knowing the book at all, I still found it obvious that it was SUPPOSED to be an atrocious shithole stricken with disease, poverty, and starvation, but throughout the beginning I couldn’t get over the feeling that it would be kind of nice to live there for a year.

174

We were talking about this movie again over dinner the other night, and realized the colorful names Collins give to the characters could support its own thread about unusual band names:

Peeta and the Mellarks
Katniss Everdeen and the Muttations
Effie Trinket and the Pink Salukis

175

Just saw this movie. Liked it well enough, though it won’t be on my top ten of all time list. I haven’t read the books, and would like a little more background, so maybe I’ll do that. Didn’t know about the mutant dogs. A few points:

There should have been more gore. I know why there wasn’t, but it would have made the dark and evil nature of the games more intense and vivid.

I thought it was amusing that Jennifer Lawrence played basically the swame character as she did in Winter’s Bone: Tough teenage girl caring for her family when her father goes away and her mother loses it.

Everyone who is reading any commentary on current US politics is seeing things in the movie that just aren’t there.
I liked the song at the end. Taylor swift has a good voice, it’s a shame she wastes it on teeny pop. I’d like to hear her do more rootsy wistful stuff, along the lines of Neko Case.

176

That’s a big reason as to why she was cast. The director saw Winter’s Bone. From that informative interview right after the casting was announced:

177

Thank you very much for the info. That was nice of you to explain.

Again, I stated that I had not read the books many times. The film was written by the author of the book. She has many TV and Film credits so she should know how to convey this stuff for film. I am not saying that my interpretation is THE interpretation. It is just my take on the film.

Now if we want to talk about the stuff lifted from other/better films and the horrible DEUS EX MACHINA I suspect that I might get less criticism. Or more, who knows?

My other problems with the film is that it is 75 years of these games and only 2 of the 12 districts actually “play” the games. Only two districts train their kids and have their best kids volunteer to give them the best chance at winning.

In 75 years no girl from district 12 has EVER volunteered? Never before was a younger sister called up? Or did that quite probable event happen and the older sister looked at her and said “Good luck kid.”

In 75 years of games, no two kids ever thought about suicide rather than kill the other one.

75 years of putting 12 teenage boys with 12 teenage girls and not once did a couple form?

If it were about 10 or 15 years of games I might have liked it better.

Did she have to get a scar on her head just like Harry Potter?

Can I get a can of that ointment?

Other than maglev trains and burning clothing, what was futuristic? (besides the unexplained tech of the actual arena where they can start fires and just make huge dogs appear out of thin air)

I liked it better when it was called The Truman Show/Gladiator/Rollerball (the James Caan version)

178

It’s technically prohibited by the Capital to train children for the games, but Districts 1-4 are the Capital’s pets, so the Capital looks the other way. (Well, technically 1,2 and 4 are the only districts that train children for the game, but District 3 provides military and security to the Capital so they sort of train by default).

179

I saw the movie again yesterday after reading all 3 books. I’m amazed at how faithful the movie was to the book and noticed all kinds of things the filmmakers threw in to delight (most of) the book fans. Maybe if I’d read the books first I could find nitpicks, so I’m glad I didn’t. Seeing the movie first I was able to see the actors in my head as I was reading. Then when watching the movie again I filled in the backstories and things only inside Katness’s head. It was perfect. Now I’m going to try and forget most of the details of the next two books so I won’t nitpick when those movies come out.

Kudos for not bringing up Battle Royale, Running Man or Series 7: The Contender too. At least you’re original with your “I liked it better when it was called…” cliche.

180

Well Running Man and Series 7 are not very good movies. (in my opinion) I didn’t like it better when it was called those.
Battle Royale is a different movie. Both darker and funnier at the same time than Hunger Games. Although both make kids fight to the death, they are different animals all together.