Hunger Games

POSTED BY: Shinygoodguy
UPDATED: Sunday, April 15, 2012 02:38
VIEWED: 12634
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SHINYGOODGUY

Saturday, March 24, 2012 12:41 AM

I'm in the process of reading the book and tomorrow, around 4 pm, I will be experiencing the movie. So far I've just skimmed the surface of the 1st book, and it's a fast read; interesting premise and story.

It could easily be considered sci-fi, since it deals with a possible future - and the fact that it's the former United States is the most interesting aspect of all. What's scary is that the signs of the beginnings of that society are present. The jury's still out on that count. I'll know more once I finish the books.

I'll report back tomorrow once I've seen the film.

SGG

Tawabawho?

ECGORDON

Saturday, March 24, 2012 4:41 AM

I read the book and reviewed it a week or so ago. Saw the movie this afternoon and just uploaded my review of it too.

There are a few spoilers, especially in the movie review, so don't click until later if you're averse to such.

http://templetongate.net/hungergames-book.htm

http://templetongate.net/hungergames-movie.htm

PHOENIXROSE

Saturday, March 24, 2012 8:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
I read the book and reviewed it a week or so ago. Saw the movie this afternoon and just uploaded my review of it too.

There are a few spoilers, especially in the movie review, so don't click until later if you're averse to such.

http://templetongate.net/hungergames-book.htm

http://templetongate.net/hungergames-movie.htm

Very interesting that you would say the strength of the books is being told first-person from the perspective of Katniss and how that made you care more. I've actually thought since I read them that the perspective was a bad call because Katniss had the emotional depth of a coconut, and I really didn't care about her at all and thought other characters were far more interesting and better developed, despite the fact that first-person narration should have made her the most developed character in the story. I was kind of figuring that the movie would be better in this way, because the story (which is very exciting) could just play out without all of that emotional deadness in the way. I guess I'll have to see for myself whenever I get around to going.

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

FREMDFIRMA

Saturday, March 24, 2012 11:29 AM

Both a weakness and a strength but I think it could have been done better, yeah.

Katniss is very, very messed up - to the point where underneath the facade she's essentialy gone semi-feral, I can relate... and I dunno how you'd write that effectively from anything BUT a first person perspective.
BUT, someone without a frame of reference is gonna find it jarring, maybe a bit boring, and not feel a whole lot of empathy for the character, cause she really, really ISN'T very likeable, as a character or as a person - why Peeta puts up with her...
*shrug*

Gonna be tricky to carry that from an external movie perspective, we will see.

I'm more interested in how well they do Haymitch and Cinna, the latter being my favorite character and having a lot in common attitude-wise with the former.

Honestly, I doubt the movie is gonna pull it off, barring a miracle of acting and directing, and hollywood has given me no faith to go on in that respect.

-Frem

ANONYMOUSE

Saturday, March 24, 2012 1:06 PM

I received this today from Amazon; I'll start reading it later. But a casual glance at the first page shows a pet peeve of mine: usually I hate novels written in the present tense. It's a literary device to make the reader feel the events are happening right now, but it doesn't work - well, not for me, anyway.

Here's hoping the story's good enough for me not to care overly much.

ECGORDON

Saturday, March 24, 2012 1:50 PM

I generally like well-written first person narration, but I realize it is the hardest to master, and Collins didn't do a very good job of it. Most first person stories are told either in past tense (written after the fact), or as in a journal written at the time the events are happening. Katniss could not have been writing a journal, and the present tense was a hindrance to my enjoyment of the book. The premise was interesting, but it lacked depth in both character and history of the times. I still think the book is better, but just barely.

I thought the cast and production personnel had the potential for the movie to be better, but they dropped the ball. Harrelson should have been the perfect Haymitch, but his performance was lackluster. Kravitz is pretty good as Cinna, but he didn't have many scenes, but that should change with the next movie. The major fault with the movie is the script and direction. It was just barely sufficient to tell the story, and none of the characters were explored in any depth.

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, March 25, 2012 4:27 AM

That went well! Just got back from seeing this, was very pleased. Was mostly in or near tears for the first half of the movie, and much of the time after. All sorts of Nazi Germany, Warsaw Ghetto, Stalinist Russia cues in the scene design. They really go for the emotional jugular with Prim and Mom. Poor Gale, though, kinda ended up this unintended joke because once Kat and Peeta hit the Capitol he's out of the picture but for the innevitable cut aways when K & P kiss or say nice things to each other or save each other's lives--cut to Gale looking mopey. Sorry, dude!

But, to my mind, a solid adaptation of the book, absolutely. Yes, you lose a ton of Katniss' trademark cray-zay, but you also lose pretty much all of the obligatory YA love triangle foolishness. Yes, Gale clearly saw himself in the boy friend zone, but oh well, sucks to be him then.

And I liked the way they openned up the script to include all the business with Seneca, Pres. Snow and the audience reactions. Thought the last scene w/ Seneca was genius and so...well, no spoilers!

And yeah, Frem, I found each book to be more and more psychologically sophisticated as they went along, but the subject of real children placed in these situations, the terrible toll PTSD takes on the psyche seemed to leave a lot of readers scratching their heads.

What happens to Peeta in the third book is both phenomenal as a subject for YA fiction and deeply dispiriting as it utterly eclipses the reader's escapist expectations. I think it's possible to enjoy the first book without a lick of psycho-political engagement, but that last book is just a confusing downer if you're not interested in just how devastating war is to the young.

I think I will eternally be fascinated by the animus garnered by the first person present tense. I wonder--and forgive me, all, if this is too RWED for the movie forum--but I wonder if the first person present bothers materialistic minded folk more than spiritually inclined individuals. Just thinking out loud here. First person present tense is, from a strictly literal perspective unrealistic. There is no real world equivalent. If you can't simply accept the convention on its own terms, you're forced to wonder "how is Katniss writing all this down?" Well, of course, she's not. This creates a dissonance that annoys some folk no end.

It's funny. The book I'm working on takes place 100 years in the future and is written in the 1st-person present. At that point in history though, it's *just* possible that such a thing could exist technologically. Sorta like a thought-activated twitter feed. But I digress...

Of course, this POV never bothers me in the slightest (sure, I've dipped into some pretty atrocious YA written in this POV, but that was, surely, the least of their problems). Of course, I have a pretty robust inner monologue going much of the time. And I love live theatre so the idea of a character "breaking the fourth wall" and saying things that they would never say nor have the occasion to say directly to the audience never phases me. It's theatre, it's art, it's something unique, stop always having to explain everything, not everything can be explained!!!

The idea of being so merged with the character as to experience a spontanious narrative emerging directly from her experience intrigues rather than confuses me.

Anyways, excellent way to spend 2 1/2 hours of my life, definitely. Well cast, well staged, well written. If you wanna hear a nit pick: they kinda rushed the climactic ending of the movie. Kinda rushed through the last few beats before that and suddenly, you're like, is that it? Then they picked up the ball again, quite nicely after that and set up the sequel very tastefully without giving away anything. Well done!

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

PHOENIXROSE

Sunday, March 25, 2012 6:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
What happens to Peeta in the third book is both phenomenal as a subject for YA fiction and deeply dispiriting as it utterly eclipses the reader's escapist expectations. I think it's possible to enjoy the first book without a lick of psycho-political engagement, but that last book is just a confusing downer if you're not interested in just how devastating war is to the young.

I think I will eternally be fascinated by the animus garnered by the first person present tense. I wonder--and forgive me, all, if this is too RWED for the movie forum--but I wonder if the first person present bothers materialistic minded folk more than spiritually inclined individuals. Just thinking out loud here. First person present tense is, from a strictly literal perspective unrealistic. There is no real world equivalent. If you can't simply accept the convention on its own terms, you're forced to wonder "how is Katniss writing all this down?" Well, of course, she's not. This creates a dissonance that annoys some folk no end.

Just speaking for myself here, but Peeta's whole arc was the most interesting thing in the novels, to me, and part of the reason it was... frustrating to have it told from the perspective of this girl who didn't really seem to care, even when she kept saying that she did care. Maybe that was the intent, but I still thought it was perhaps the wrong choice of perspective for that author writing that character. Peeta was more interesting and more developed and more sympathetic than the perspective character. I mean... c'mon, really?
I think there were more effective ways to explore the characters and conflict, just in general. The novels did a lot of telling where they should have been showing, and a lot of showing where there could have been some great internal monologue exploring what was happening on an emotional level. That's the thing about first-person, is that it can offer a perspective that is rarely seen, a look at the internal workings of someone's heart. Sure, no one really thinks through what they're feeling in detail, but the written word can describe it in detail anyway. I think that's what I felt as lacking. And Peeta's story made me wish it was being told in third person, just so I could see more of it.
(And I don't have any problem with first-person perspective in general. My favorite current series is the Dresden Files.)

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

WHOZIT

Sunday, March 25, 2012 1:15 PM

Deadline.com is reporting that the film will gross over $150 million over the weekend, I'm not sure if it will beat "Avatar" but will likely piss off hard core "Twilight" fans.

TWO

Sunday, March 25, 2012 3:28 PM

How can Panem be so poor and yet so rich in knowledge? Could any real country have an economy like Panem’s? Actually, yes. - www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/03/the_hunger_games_
could_a_real_country_have_an_economy_like_panem_s_.single.html
“Africa’s modern states, they note, were created by European colonialists who set out to create extractive institutions to exploit the local population. The injustice of the situation led eventually to African mass resistance and the overthrow of colonial rule. But in almost every case, the new elite simply started running the same extractive institutions for their own benefit. The real battle turned out to have been over who ran the machinery of extraction, not its existence. And this, precisely, is the moral of Collins’ trilogy.”

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

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