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.
Reaction time to throw a knife is faster than to draw and fire a bow, but a bow is a longer range weapon. But it requires having enough range to see the opponent, aim and fire, and not be surprised (from behind the cornucopia, or from the woods as you reenter). So she could enter the clearing enough to get distance from anything, then sit and pick off the careers. Or she can try to get the medicine and get back to Peeta, which involves moments when she cannot fire the bow (picking up the pack) and other moments of vulnerability. So she chose speed over weapon coverage. Since she’s not mentally prepared to be a killer, that makes sense.
one of the things that got lost in the need to keep the movie under 2 hours.
they both lost fathers in the mine explosion. gale is a year or 2 older than katniss, they teamed up to keep their families going. gale’s strength is hunting with snares, katniss is hunting with bow and arrow. they use both talents to keep the families in food and needed items.
i viewed their relationship more as a sibling thing than as a romantic thing. gale may have considered it here and there, but he had other girl friends. i think that katniss saw him as an older brother type, a steady rock she could depend on.
Irishman - The jabberjay was the original product of the Capitol. Its purpose was to listen to conversations and repeat the whole thing back to the Panem military. They mated with the mockingbirds and became mockingjays, which could repeat a tune but not repeat words. When Rue was talking about the birds at home, they were mockingjays. She’d whistle a tune and the birds would carry it.
He has more to do in the sequels, but in the movie he’s basically there for exposition at the beginning and to be one corner of the love triangle. The love triangle plot is (thankfully, IMHO) not the major focus of this story or the series, but it is a significant element and does add some additional drama to Katniss’s situation. Her survival in the Games does depend in part on being in love with Peeta, or at least making a convincing show of it, and having another love interest makes this more difficult for her. This is more subtle in the movie since the audience isn’t privy to Katniss’s inner monologue as in the book, but the movie did cut back to Gale once or twice watching the games to remind viewers that there is another guy in her life.
I went into this movie expecting to dislike it, but on a whole found it not bad. But those mutts really bothered me. The movie made it pretty obvious that the beasts were designed on the fly by the woman in the control room. And when the two extras appear to chase the protagonists they certainly seem to appear out of thin air. Seemed totally out of step with the level of tech otherwise demonstrated.
The other thing that really annoyed me, is that you’re in a life or death battle, you’ve managed to tree the most dangerous person in the game, and decide to wait them out - OK fair enough. But then you promptly decide to all go to sleep!!! (Unless I missed seeing a sentry they had left, but it certainly appeared to me that the entire group was sleeping) WTF? These are ‘careers’ who have spent the last six years training for this, and you thought that was a good idea? :rolleyes: (I understand that is not necessarily a filmmakers error, but come on?)
I do have a couple of questions as well.
I don’t know if maybe I missed the explanation in the movie, but what was the significance of the three finger salute? The movie made it seem as if District 11 knew it as well.
The ‘careers’ all team up, and it seems that their primary concern is to get Katniss, is there any context in the books as to why, or is it simply because she got the highest rating?
Related to that I suppose, is how did she get the highest rating? OK fair enough she is great with a bow, but that seems limiting, in that it is one specific weapon, which she will have no guarantee of getting her hands on. Did the organisers know that she had woodcraft skills? I have seen references in this thread that hunting is illegal?
More than a couple of questions it seems.
Woody Harrelsons’s character and the heavily made up ‘announcer’ lady. Seem to be ‘attached’ to the District 12 tributes. Have they come from District 12 themselves originally? Do they receive some reward, or prestige or something if ‘their’ tributes win the game?
Presumably (in the books) there are more sponsors gifts provided to other tributes throughout the games? Is it explained in the books more the mechanics of this? Is it purely the ‘minders’ that go and encourage well heeled individuals to make one of these gifts?
If anyone with some money can make a gift, and it certainly appears that there is gambling on the outcome of the games, how do they stop wealthy gamblers from stacking the deck so to speak, and just providing masses of gifts to the tribute they’re backing?
Sorry for all the questions, I obviously haven’t read the books, and probably won’t any time soon, so there’s a bit of background info I’m curious about.
The announcer lady (Effie Trinket) is the face of the Hunger Games without being important to it all, like Ryan Seacrest is/was to American Idol. She’s a capitol resident but she travels wherever the Hunger Games goes. Officially, she is the “escort” to the Tributes.
The competitors from each District are trained by past winners of the Hunger Games from their District. Woody Harrelson’s character (Haymitch) is the only living winner from District 12, ergo, Katniss and Peeta do not have their choice of trainers.
Personally, I thought the way the mutts were presented in the book was far stupider.
Their primary concern is to win the game. That involves killing Katniss regardless of her rating, but having the highest rating certainly gives them extra reason to want her out of the way. Since the story is from Katniss’s perspective then the parts where the career alliance is trying to get her are going to be more prominent than the parts where they’re killing other players or gathering/securing supplies, but the movie does show that these things happen too.
Katniss apparently impressed the Gamemakers with her moxie/ruthlessness/ability to think outside the box when she shot the apple out of their roast pig’s mouth. Peeta’s declaration of love for her may also have helped her rating, as his willingness to help her would increase her odds of survival.
Some of the other tributes presumably do receive gifts, but everything in the book is from the first-person perspective of Katniss so the reader basically only knows what she sees for herself. I don’t remember her seeing anyone else receive a gift.
Anyone who can afford to can send a gift to the tribute of their choice. The mentors are supposed to try to drum up support for the tributes from their district and are involved in selecting exactly what the gifts are. The only thing about this that was not (IIRC) explained in the movie is that Katniss spends some time trying to work out what her mentor meant by selecting the gifts that he did. For instance, she’s in need of water but he doesn’t send water, so she figures there must be water in the area and that her mentor doesn’t want to blow a gift on something she could get on her own.
This isn’t something Katniss is concerned about so it isn’t addressed in the books. I don’t see why anyone should be worried about stopping wealthy gamblers from sending gifts to the tributes though, since the gifts are an established part of the game. It’s not cheating to send gifts to the tributes you support. It is mentioned in the books that gifts are expensive and become increasingly so as the game continues, so it may be that one is unlikely to profit by betting on a tribute and then sending helpful gifts.
One thing from the book that’s not shown in the movie is that the people of District 11 are so impressed and moved by Katniss’s caring of Rue that they send her a gift of bread after Rue dies. Katniss knows that it had to have been extremely expensive and that District 11 is hardly any better off than District 12, so she is appropriately grateful and moved by the gesture.
And she acknowledges on the universal video feed the gift from another district and the sacrifice it took for the district to do it. Which helped the outlier districts to feel unity instead of enmity. Which becomes important.
katness mentioned the salute was something her district did out of respect or mourning. usually at a goodbye or funeral. she didn’t seem to think it went beyond her district.
each districts reaping is shown so all of them saw the salute to katness, and katness saluting rue.
district 11 could either have the same salute or copied what they saw katness do.
katness was targeted because she had the highest score. the careers usually try to go through the tributes highest to lowest. the plan seemed to be get peeta’s help tracking her down, kill katness then him, and go after the others.
peeta’s plan was to lead them in the wrong directions or to be able to warn katness of what they were planning. when cato heard him warn katness, they fought and that is when peeta got the leg injury.
thresh the other high scorer was in a very high grass area that intimidated the careers. peeta mentioned that no one wanted to go in there after him. thresh felt safe there as he comes from an agriculture region and familiar with fields.
peeta gave katness a bread tutorial once at dinner, explaining each district’s breads.
Nitpick: Effie is the face of the Hunger Games only for District 12. She also only escorts tributes from District 12. She’s not particularly happy to be assigned to the least affluent district in Panem. In the book, it notes that she hopes to be assigned to a more affluent district some day.
That’s the catchphrase, not her catchphrase. She runs the reaping in District 12 and escorts the tributes, but you’ll notice when they get to the capitol that she doesn’t appear on camera, she’s just one of the District 12 support team. The Hunger Games hosts are the guys played by Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones.
when it comes to books that has a movie adaptation, i’ve found that i enjoy them better reading the book first. you’ll then watch the movie and fill in all the gaps with details in the books. a movie that is faithful to the book simply has no time nor place to explain everything in detail.
as for the book/movie being made for young readers, maybe it’s just coincidence but; Bridge to Terabithia, Harry Potter, Twilight, the Hunger Games.. so much angst, so much sorrow. the first book of the Hunger Games seems pretty balanced, but by book two and three.. are the popular teen stuff all like that?
the thing with Rue was viewed as an act of rebellion. it didn’t happen straightaway in the books, but Katniss’ actions served as a catalyst.
they did set a watch but she fell asleep. she was one of the two that died from the hive attack.
she does, she tries and she fails miserably. the thing with Peeta was ostensibly an effort to win sponsors, but it really only worked because she did like him. by book 3, they had to have a camera crew tail her into the midst of battle just to tape some propaganda shots, after failing to do so in a studio.
Katniss was 16/17? i think she would not be considered a child in Rome. what were the age of gladiators then?
a question about the third book - the deaths in the “Star Squad” were so pointless. i don’t think the distraction they made really mattered much at all. i suppose this is intentional but, what was the point the author was trying to make? that deaths in war are pointless? that Katniss was unaware that she had 20 in Charisma and had people dying willing and happily for it?
I’ve only read the book, but intend to watch the movie.
It may be that the world building shows more holes later on, but in the first book at least it’s relatively believable. There’s a huge disparity between the tech level of the Capitol and the districts. The districts are kept isolated physically, everyone is watched, news is centrally controlled, and it’s made clear that there’s almost no communication between districts. One district was eradicated in an early rebellion and it’s held up as an example of what the Capitol would do to the remaining districts if there was another rebellion attempt.
Anyone who finds the setup unrealistic doesn’t know much history. Ever see the movie The Killing Fields? It was based solidly on real life. In Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, kids were in charge of labor camps, meted out corporal punishments, and killed adults. The kids were reportedly more bloodthirsty than any adult. Families were deliberately disrupted and the children were raised in government creches. Sentiment and familial ties were corrupt indoctrination that no right-thinking Khmer Rouge would permit to influence them. There was close to a generation raised that way, since many of the adults were killed off.
In Africa right now there are several countries where kids are basically stolen from their families by paramilitary groups to fight in one or another bush war. In the breakup of Yugoslavia, children as young as 10 were used in fighting on all sides of that meltdown. So kids being forced into fighting while their families are powerless to prevent it? Pfft, done so many times even in recent history you’d need a spreadsheet to keep track of it.
How about bloody entertainment? Up to the middle of the 19th century in the UK, hangings were public, and children were executed for the same crimes as adults. A public execution was good old fashioned family entertainment. The last public execution in the US was in 1936, with a 20,000 person turnout. That wasn’t the execution of a child, but it was disturbingly recent and well-attended. Gladiators in the Roman era were sometimes as young as 14 or 15, and people of all ages thought the Games were bloody good fun.
For anyone who has watched any “reality” TV, or even the Olympics, the Hunger Games are not really pushing the format much. Given the setup of a brutally repressive dystopian society with a severe inequality in technology, the addition of blood and death to the already common in real life combat-by-proxy is not a stretch at all.
the first book of the Hunger Games seems pretty balanced, but by book two and three.. are the popular teen stuff all like that?