I didn’t see this thread on the first page and am too lazy to go to page two…
How did everyone like it? IMHO it was my favorite of the four movies because I thought this one made the most sense, but I’d hesitate to say it’s an awesome movie or anything like that.
My biggest issue with this movie, like the others, is that J-Law is such a terrible actress in these movies that I can’t get around it. She is no different than Kristin Stewart, she just has a vapid expression on her fat face while everyone else acts around her.
Josh Hucherson carried this movie on his back and was the absolute best part of it. The ending was fine and mirrored the book quite well. Good ending to the series that didn’t need this many movies.
Huh. I have the exact opposite opinion of Lawrence; there’s an awful lot of crying in this movie and I think she pulls it off, where as Hutcherson isn’t asked to do much (acting-wise). Harrelson was the perfect choice for Haymitch.
Overall I liked the movie. It was well-done and stayed very true to the book (which some may take as a negative). It didn’t have the eye-rolling scenes that Part 1 had (like the loggers scampering up trees to escape gun-fire) except maybe the final scene with Coin. I don’t think this movie will disappoint a fan of the series.
I enjoyed it, though again, I wish it were possible to make this an R-rated series with the R-rated violence that it deserves.
Actually, I do have one other complaint. I’d like for Hollywood to stop making these almost scene for scene adaptations of novels. I get why they do it, but it screws up the pacing most of the time, since a novel isn’t built with the same story beats as a movie. Pacing is one of the biggest complaints I see about this movie, how some things are rushed, and some are dragged waaaaayy out, and I’d rather the writer and director just tell their own version of Katniss’s story, one that better fits the narrative structure of a film.
not since aliens has a dark/tunnel scene been quite so intense.
We enjoyed it - I was (and am ) quite surprised how well we liked this series - I didn’t expect to - we know nothing of the books save their popularity with my niece, etc -
I haven’t read the books, so I wasn’t expecting Hunger Games: Attack of the CHUDs. Seemed like a perfectly fine end to the series and wraps everything up in the expected way. Peeta’s still a twerp.
It kept very true to the books, which I admit I was shocked by. Not in the larger beats, but in the smaller moments and some of the interpretations of scenes.
I will say that it felt **workmanlike **in a way that the others didn’t. Perhaps that was a result of the pacing (horrid) or the way the plot progresses in that last section of the story (grim), but it felt very sturdy and uninspired to me. Not bad, just not any exciting choices or reactions in the theater of “ohhh, that’s awesome.”
I loved seeing Effie in this one also, and I thought it was sweet that she and Haymitch have a bit of a thing. I wish she’d gotten more to do. As much as I really love Harrelson in this role, I think that Banks would have nailed the shit out of that letter from Plutarch to Katniss.
(Which, can we have a moment of sadness for PS Hoffman? So sad to see everything going on and him just sort of ghosted in around the edges.)
The only thing I really quibbled with was that at the end, I think they made that epilogue a lot more positive and romantic and “happily ever after” than I thought it was in the book. That might just be my own pessimistic depressive view of things, so not a major issue, but it was the one place I felt like it was off.
Also, they should have given Gwendoline Christie just a LITTLE more to do. Honestly.
I think the last thing I would have said is that Jennifer Lawrence was a terrible actress in this movies, FWIW. I was hoping they’d give a little more time to the PTSD that Katniss felt after coming back home. They had that one scene with the cat, which made people in my theater so uncomfortable that they tried to make jokes during the scene - which it should make people uncomfortable, so that worked in some respects, but I think they should have kept it going. For instance, in the book when Katniss goes hunting and see Peeta planting primrose, she’s dirty and stinking because she hasn’t had a shower in weeks (due to her depression). More of that would have been better, I think. But they had a lot of room to cover because Mockingjay part 1 barely covered much.
It was interesting in that it revealed just how much the last book has evaporated from my mind.
Absolutely nothing in the movie had any familiarity to it so I left the theater thinking they must have completely redone things and look it up to find it was reasonably favorable.
IMHO, no trouble. If you didn’t remember mutts from the earlier movies – not likely considering how much they fueled the Games action (and some moviegoers’ nightmares!) – enough was said & shown in this movie to give context.
Agreed. BTW did anyone else wonder if she was also serving as Coin’s stylist? Coin’s wardrobe got a lot lighter and more civilian, plus her last outfit was the same colour as Effie’s.
I was wondering if Coin’s final styling was a hint that she was turning into another Snow. Her hair was shorter as well but I have no idea what that might mean.
I have a random Hunger Games question that I’ll throw out here, since there are fans in this thread. I’ve only seen the first 2 films, and haven’t read the books.
As I understand the backstory, the Hunger Games were instituted as a punishment for the districts that revolted, right? They’re forced to send tributes to the games, and are starved into submission, or something like that?
If I’ve got that right, then the whole tone of the games seems wrong. For one thing, if I was running a fascist regime and keeping the masses under my thumb, the games would be called the “Annual Celebration of the Glorious Regime and Suppression of Counter-Revolutionary Thought”, or some kind of Maoist Cultural Revolution jargon like that. Calling the the “hunger games” just buys into the popular discontent.
Similarly, I wouldn’t celebrate the tributes, I’d treat them like criminals. Give them a speech like “For the most fortunate of you, you will be treated like royalty. For the rest, may you spend your dying moments regretting the crimes of your forebears.”
Officially speaking, the Games are a sacred reminder and a celebration of continued unity, and a visualization of how the Capital thrives based on the blood and sweat and toil of the Districts. That’s why the Tributes are taken to the Capital and treated like royalty and spoiled and coddled, and why the Victor is given a house and a continued stipend and brought back as a Mentor (or allowed to stay nearly permanently in the Capital, sometimes).
The average capital citizen (and a good many from Districts 1, 2 and some from 4) is too fat and happy, or brainwashed, or stupid, or uninformed enough to believe that the Games are a celebration and a sacred tradition that everyone is happy about, but don’t for a second believe that the Powers That Be ever truly thought it was something the Districts would universally support, or that they wouldn’t realize what it was intended to do.
In reality, the tone of the Games was intended to be a continual goading of the Districts, to remind them that they were defeated. They LOST, and now they’re slaves, now their children live only at the continued whim of the Capital, and not only are they slaves and have to send their children in as tribute, it’s not actually for anything VITAL, but for the ENTERTAINMENT of the “real citizens” in the Capital. The Capital “knows” (haha) that there’s no chance that the impoverished and tech-deprived Districts will ever successfully revolt, but in the meantime, the Games force the Districts to be angry at each other for the yearly deaths of their children, which distracts them and further weakens the chances of them allying.
Wholeheartedly agree. I read only the first book, and didn’t really care for it, but the pacing of these movies was all over the place.
I assume that wasn’t a letter in the books? Most of the shots of Hoffman looked like B-roll.
I thought the movies did a good job of sowing doubt in Katniss’s mind about whether Coin was trustworthy without being heavy-handed about it.
The movies all seem to have the same problem of not really understanding how big their world is. There’s what appears to be a capital city inhabited by millions, supported by 10,000 coal miners, but then they’re all invited to the President’s house at the end. District 13 has so few people they can all stand in one room to hear the President speak, but also a major air force. It’s a country made up of a dozen middling rural towns, NORAD with a skeleton crew, and Manhattan. What?
I thought that the relationship arc between Katniss and Peeta ultimately worked pretty well.
I was not a fan of the books, but I thought the Hunger Games movies were decent enough. There was nothing revolutionary as far as story and charactors are concerned, but it was interesting and had good effects, so I can’t find too much to complain about.
I don’t think that J-Law is the great beauty that so many make her out to be, but she is attractive and I think she acts the role well.
If I was disapointed in the movie it was that I was expecting and hoping for more Jena Malone.