Book vs Film: The Hunger Games

Once again it's Thursday and we find ourselves comparing the movie and book, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins today.

New Romantic's Thoughts

I read the Hunger Games Trilogy wayyy before there was talk of a movie (I'm talking first came out). My friend from work wouldn't shut up about it so I was instantly hooked. I loved every minute of those books (you can read my review on The Hunger Games Here.)

When I found out there was going to be a movie, I was thrilled. I went pre-opening night, bought a t-shirt and wore it with my orange jeans and orange TOMS. I was the girl on fire; or I tried to be. First initial thought on the movie; I loved it. But once you go back and read the book again, you remember things that should of happened but didn't. 

The main thing I found lacking was the scene where Peeta looses his leg at the end and is being kept from Katniss and she's screaming and pounding on the glass separating them. I think this was a crucial moment in the book that shows us that Katniss might (I say might because I am definitely NOT a Peeta fan.) be developing feelings for Peeta. Totally left this part out.

I thought the movie could have been longer. (I am one of those nut jobs that love the 3 hour plus movies, think Lord of the Rings extended edition). The movie left out a lot of things I thought would have been in the movie (Madge), and weren't. 

I really liked how we saw some scenes from Katniss's point of view, like the part where she is suffering from the trackerjacker poison and the camera is all blurry, yes I liked that, or the part after the explosion and her ears are ringing and you can hear it too, yep liked that too. 

I guess I'm immune to violence or something, because I thought the fight scenes were too vauge. Yes, they had to watch it because of the rating, but I think they could of shown a bit more. 

The pacing was wayyy too fast for my taste. It was like a gun went off and we ran a 100m dash and we were finished just like that (snaps fingers). Back to what I just said, they could of added more.

I loved the cast. I thought they did a fantastic job casting Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. She's perfect. I wish Peeta would of been taller and more burly but that's just me. And I wish Gale had more screen time.

Even though I was very nit-picky with the movie, I will definitely be buying it for sure!

Truly Becoming’s Thoughts

I read The Hunger Games, long before the movie came out, and let me say I really loved The Hunger Games both the book and the movie! There are so many things:  I loved that it was from Katniss’ point of view.  I liked the way the Capitol was portrayed, especially Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman!  He was exactly how I imagined him, and very funny!  I LOVED the cast.  I thought they did an awesome job, all of them.  My favorite part was when Katniss was hallucinating after being stung by the Tracker Jackers, it was awesome!  The only things I did like were 1. Rue’s death didn’t feel long enough for me, I imagined more mourning in the book and 2.  When Peeta threw the bread at Katniss, it definitely wasn’t even close to how I imagined.

Overall I loved the movie! (and of course the book!) I can’t wait to buy it on DVD!

Hopeless Wanderer’s Thoughts

Okay, let me just say.  I fall into the very small margin of people that saw this movie and were more disappointed.  I don’t really like to talk about it because it usually just insights negative discussion and I know I’m in the smaller margin okay? I get it.  Let’s start off with things I liked about the movie:

1. Cinna.  Cinna was perfect, and just how I imagined him.

2. Rue, Rue was sweet and cute.

3. The Captiol.  Everything about it.  The train that took them there, the way the people looked.

4. Effie Trinket.  Holy crap, Elizabeth Banks was the PERFECT Effie.

5. The look of District 12.

6. The main characters, I felt like all of the tributes looked perfect, as well as Haymitch, Prim, and especially Seneca Crane (Wes Bentley you are hot ;)

7. The soundtrack and score.

What I didn’t like:

The pacing, the cinematography, the script, and special effects.  Let me say this:  I feel like this had potential to be an AMAZING movie.  But there were so many changes in it that were just to obvious and took away from too much of the story for me.  Peeta doesn’t loose his leg?  WTF?!  Actually, EVERYTHING between Peeta and Katniss was either downplayed or obliterated.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are Gale/Katniss shippers.  I respect you.  But she ends up with Peeta.  And I think it’s going to be pretty  weird when suddenly they’re married in the third one.  That’s something you have to build up to.  This movie didn’t.  Really, honestly, it didn’t.  And Haymitch’s notes when they were in the Games?  No. No.  You take a ton of stuff out, and then add random stuff it?  That is not okay.  You take literally three minutes of film time to watch Katniss string an arrow and then you cut out the bulk of Rue’s death.  Not okay.  The bulk of Catching Fire, relies on Peeta and Katniss acting like they’re in love.  Seriously, that’s basically one of the two main plot lines that run through that book, so to not show it at all in this film made me feel annoyed.  I get that she doesn’t like him and she’s only doing it to survive and that might make Katniss seem heartless.  But Katniss isn’t really a character for everyone to love anyway.  She’s strong and resilient, but I don’t want to be like her!  Ahh, I digress.

This is turning way too much into a rant.  In short:  everything was going for this movie, but the final product relied so heavily on everyone in the audience to have read the book that it was disjointed, and clunky.  Luckily, I had read the book, but friends of mine who haven’t have been incredibly disappointed and confused.  Though, honestly I encourage you to see the film and keep an open mind, like I said, I’m the small minority.  90% of people I talk to have adored this film and felt like it was an incredible adaptation of the book, I’m just not one of those people.  I felt like it was really slow until the last fifteen minutes (about the time everyone is dead and they’re fighting the wolf hybrids on the cornucopia) when suddenly everything was over, even though there was still another quarter of the book to get through.  This book isn’t that long, they could have had more scenes from the book in it.  It would have been easy, I think that’s why I am truly annoyed.  They wasted so much time that could have been used more wisely in other ways.   I don’t regret seeing it, and like Truly I’ll probably end up buying it because I did find the film entertaining, but I didn’t feel like it was as accurate to the book as it could have been. (which is not to say it wasn’t accurate at all, just that they could have added more instead of taking so long to show monotonous things).