Actually, in the book they describe a past games where almsot everyone died from the elements. Boringest Hunger Games EVAR. The game ground is carefully engineered so that won’t happen again.
The Tributes don’t have the perfect knowledge of the Arena the way the audience does. Fox-Face was hiding inside the Cornucopia, so obviously she was brave enough to get in there ahead of everybody else, but Katniss knew that at least Cato was still alive and he could have set up some kind of trap.
In the book, Cato’s backpack at the feast contained flesh-tone body armour that was proof against Katniss’s arrows. During the finale, when Cato comes crashing out of the forest with the dogs on his heels, Katniss nails him square in the chest and the arrow bounces harmlessly off. It would have been easy for Cato to ambush her had he reached the Cornucopia first during the feast and donned his suit.
The Gamemakers were hoping to draw the remaining Tributes together with offers of something they need to survive (body armour for Cato, medicine for Katniss to give to Peeta, and presumably provisions for Thresh and Fox-Face). Best case scenario, it turns into a desperate showdown with only one Tribute coming out on top.
The dogs are “Mutt-ations” – genetically engineered creatures bred by the Capitol for a specific purpose. Tracker-Jackers and Jabber-Jays were also bred this way, and deployed against the Districts to keep them in line.
In the book, each of the dogs resembles one of the dead tributes in some way: the Thresh dog is large and has dark fur, the Rue dog is smaller than the others, and the Glimmer dog has green eyes and wavy blond fur. Additionally, each one wears a collar reminiscent of its “home District”, even though the dogs were created by Capitol scientists. This was intended as much of a psychological shock (Katniss even wonders to herself if the dogs might actually have some of the memories of the Tributes they represent) as a method of killing, trying to flush the remaining Tributes towards the Cornucopia for one last spectacular battle.
They had likely all been born and advanced to the correct age in a lab before the Hunger Games even began, being held in underground pens by Seneca Crane until the right moment to unleash them on the unsuspecting Tributes. There were probably also Peeta, Cato, and Katniss mutts as well; but since those three tributes survived to the finale, the matching mutts would never see the light of day.
I thought about that, too. But there’s the possibility that one could use distraction by another to attack her, especially if using the cornucopia itself as cover to get close. The other wouldn’t even have to be in collusion, just an opportunistic attack. Plus, Katniss herself was reluctant to kill. She really only directly killed one person. The tracker-jacker death was the result of her actions, but she didn’t do the killing, she just needed the distraction. She shot at the one girl, but missed. And she shot Cato in the hand, then Peeta pushed him off.
Plus, even if she strolled in alert, calmly took her pack, and then strolled off the field, someone might maneuver through the woods to near her exit point and catch her by surprise.
That actually explains something. We’re shown the packs, but only really know what is in Katniss’s. The others are just bags. Later, when she’s in the battle with Cato, I was having trouble figuring why she didn’t shoot him. The implication was that he would fall over backwards and take Peeta with him, but that’s not a given. Though a risk. Hitting the hand made him lose his grip. But having armor would have made that more significant. Other targets are less vulnerable.
The way they were released into the arena was suspect. They didn’t pop open trap doors, they materialized out of nothing. Thus, “holograms”, in the Star Trek interactive kind of solid hologram.
Mockingjays.
Not only that but a woman seems to be “designing” them on the fly to Seneca’s approval, this design work happens moments before they appear.
Nope, (I don’t know when this came up in the books so I’ll spoil the jabberjay/mockingjay explanation)
[spoiler] the Jabberjays were the capitol-created Muttation. The Mockingjay is a natural cross-bred descendant of Mockingbirds and Jabberjays.
The Mockingjay is something that happened outside of the capitol’s control, and it becomes a symbol of rebellion.[/spoiler]
IIRC, in both the book and the movie a number of the competitors die “off camera” and Katniss doesn’t know what happened to them, so some of them could have died of dehydration, etc. There are 24 total tributes, 22 of whom die, and I don’t think more than about 10 of these deaths happen onscreen.
I don’t think the figure the trainer gave for deaths from natural causes was as high as 70% (although I may be misremembering), but that figure would be based on past games and not necessarily a good prediction of any particular game as the terrain and special challenges change every year.
having watched again, may i just say, i love the looks of cinna and seneca crane.
seneca crane’s beard is just very, very, well done. keeping his clothes very tailored and neutral, letting the beard do the talking. also the actor playing the part has really gorgeous blue eyes.
cinna is also very well done. the touch of gold liner on the eyes, just perfect. just great. mr. kravitz is really good looking.
the 2 of them stand out in the crazy foo-foo captial.
now if i could get over president snow’s resemblance to a priest i know…
12 died in the “bloodbath” katness counts the cannons. girl by the fire, then glimmer by the wasps. rue lists those that died while katniss detoxed from the wasps. we don’t know the cause of death there.
then the kid who guarded the stock pile, the kid who speared rue, then rue.
clove by thresh, then foxface, then thresh, then cato. leaving peeta and katniss.
so we see about 18 or 19 on screen, we hear 2 but don’t see them.
It took me a little while to recognize him, but that was Wes Bentley, best known for his role in American Beauty.
In the book they were genetically engineered; in the film I’m assuming they a combination of holography and utility fog.
The movie is only 1/3 of the whole story. There most definitely ARE sympathetic people in the Capitol, which is detailed more in books 2 and 3. Notably,
Many of the former tributes, Cinna himself, and a Capitol shopkeeper who plays a major role in book 3. The revolution would **not **have succeeded without inside help. However, to rebel from inside the Capitol is kinda like (if I may club a cheesy movie analogy) being outside the Matrix. In the first place, it’s a hell of a risk. To question that the districts deserve to be punished is treason. Snow doesn’t tolerate rebellion. There’s the risk of outright murder, imprisonment, or becoming an avox.
In the second place, though, rebellion is just not a likely outcome when the population is so privileged. Think about the spoiled child of a modern-day over-indulgent millionaire. This child doesn’t understand the concept of hunger at all. Anything they want, they have. Their time is almost universally dedicated to hedonism and matters of appearance. Now, put that child in an environment where the Hunger Games exist as a deserved punishment for rebellion, and have been praised throughout their entire lifetime. To this child, those poor kids from the districts are more like animals than people.*
What’s the comparative likelihood that the child is even going to realize that an injustice is being done? Or, even if they DO realize that an injustice is being done, are they going to put their fortune, their freedom, their LIFE on the line to remedy that? Those chances are astronomically infinitesimal, of course.
Incidentally, I think this book is a wonderful study on human nature and groupthink. 
*This reminds me of how Katniss repeatedly and humorously refers to her stylists as “bird-like” in the books. She doesn’t feel self-conscious when naked in their presence, because they flit around her like strangely-colored creatures. They don’t resemble humanity as she knows it. And it’s quite fair to say that feeling is mutual.
The book makes a big deal about the surgery and cosmetic procedures undertaken by medical professionals and stylists during the recovery period after the Games. There is always a lag of a few days while they heal the winner and make them presentable for TV cameras. The removal of the tracking device is not explicitly mentioned, but it’s implicitly understood to be removed during the post-game medical treatment and body-polishing.
She knew the girl from Cato’s district (Clove) was still alive, and she was deadly with knives–the book said she had never been known to miss a single target. It’s Clove’s knife that gets embedded into Katniss’s backpack on day 1–it *would *have been in the back of Katniss’s skull, if she hadn’t moved her backpack. And, given equivalent strength and training, a knife can be thrown faster than an arrow can be shot (or, at least as fast–certainly no slower). As a career, though, Clove had a lifetime of training for this event. Katniss’s fitness and training wasn’t in the same league as Clove’s.
Katniss assumed, naturally, that all the other tributes were hiding somewhere in the woods near the cornucopia. The first one to make a run for it would probably get picked off. And, indeed, that’s exactly what would have happened to Katniss but for Thresh (Foxface got away because she was smarter than the rest, of course). But for Thresh, Katniss would have been a grease spot.
the more i’m thinking about it the more i wonder if they do get removed, it isn’t mentioned. perhaps they have a range that they work in and are nonactive outside of the arena.
on the other hand…i’m thinking snow may like to keep track of “his” victors.
If I recall correctly, the original tracking device is too large and obvious for them to get away with that. That’s not to say they couldn’t implant a smaller one later, of course, but THAT seems too implausible to have occurred without being discovered or mentioned in the books (and it wasn’t). Game winners don’t have any more ways to travel than anyone else in the districts. And their phones are monitored by the Capitol. And there’s the threat of harm to one’s family if they fuck up, which comes into play in the 2nd and 3rd book re: Haymitch’s backstory (and other tributes’ backstories). Snow doesn’t NEED a tracking device to keep the champions in line.
Thanks. I still think that if people are truly starving, every family in each district would maximize the rations they receive as much as possible. The larger the population in a district, the lower the reason for not doing this. There’s very little benefit, probability-wise, to allowing yourself to be hungry just to minimize your kid’s chance of being picked.
They downplay this in the movie, but in the book:
The whole lovey-dovey thing is real on Peeta’s side, but Katniss is playing the whole thing up as a way to get sympathy and raise donations by sponsers. All of the items that come down on the parachutes are gifts donated by people to help them. Hamish and katniss have an upspoken ‘deal’ that she won’t get what she and Peeta need unless she makes the lovey-dovey look good.
it did leave a lump, and that needle looked way more painfull than a microchip in my cat.
the thing that seems unique to district 12 is that the fence wasn’t electrified at all times and not as secure.
snow does have his ways… and they aren’t known for being subtle. that’s why now i’m wondering why he wouldn’t use a really easy thing in his arsenal. also now it’s bugging me that something isn’t mentioned in book 2.
mr ross was trying to have a way to have them in the movie but had trouble with explaining the tribute connection. this is what he came up with. something book readers would recognize as the tribute mutts, and something movie watchers only could understand as they saw how the game team manipulated the arena.
it was explained in one of the interviews with him, i can’t remember if it was on demand or on the dvd.
In the movie, what was the purpose of Katniss’s original “boyfriend”? He didn’t seem to play any significant role going forward. While watching the movie, I kept on expecting him to do something important and he never did. I guess he comes back into play in the sequel?
Yes, a little more in the second and more in the third.
He has definite ideas for the rebellion and Katniss is conflicted because she doesn’t like the Capital but she sees the rebellion as being more of the same but different and just as uncaring of the people. Gale gets in deeper with them and disagreements arise because of the star crossed lovers thing portrayed during the games just as much as how each of them perceive/act within the rebellion.
Well, in the movie, I explicitly remember references to mockingjays, and no references to jabberjays. They may have been jabberjays in the arena, but I don’t recall them being mentioned by name, and Katniss refers to mockingjays at that time.
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As a career, though, Clove had a lifetime of training for this event. Katniss’s fitness and training wasn’t in the same league as Clove’s.
Katniss assumed, naturally, that all the other tributes were hiding somewhere in the woods near the cornucopia. The first one to make a run for it would probably get picked off. And, indeed, that’s exactly what would have happened to Katniss but for Thresh (Foxface got away because she was smarter than the rest, of course). But for Thresh, Katniss would have been a grease spot.
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