Hunger Games

[Pity Party Arnie]

Saw this movie last night and I was actually impressed. Very consistent with the source material and the acting was pretty solid. Pacing was incredible and the muttations were well done.

Read the first book about a week ago and loved it. Working on the second book "Catching Fire" as we speak.

Anyone see the movie or read the books? Thoughts?

I'd give the movie a solid 8/10

[whiteyford]

Enjoyed the books,alot better than i expected them to be, going to see the movie next week.

[Crimson]

Battle Royale the white version

[Requiem]

Alright, so allow me to start by saying that I haven't read the books. Don't really plan on it, as I've got other books I'm reading and the movie just didn't interest me enough to go out and pick up the books right away. Maybe some day.

I'll say that I enjoyed the movie, and didn't feel like I wasted any time or money by watching it.

However, I can't help but feel like this movie was sort of mocking the people who bought into the hype or made it out to be better/more than it is. The story made the bad guys seem so abnormally different from us, and made it all too easy to despise them as if to hide the fact that it is actually us that is lining up to see this in theaters and making them a ridiculous amount of money.

I see so many complaints about there not being enough violence, saying that the book had more and so should the movie. But violence between people who are being forced to fight one another out of survival, isn't nearly as 'satisfying' as is violence done for vengeance or with a true purpose. At least let us feel like it's justified in some way. I have no problems with violence in movies. Braveheart is my favorite movie of all time, and I was just thinking about the fact that I recently watched Man on Fire, a movie where he goes around torturing people without remorse on a mission to rescue a kidnapped girl.

However, it disgusted me to see people saying there needed to be more violence in this movie. The removal of much of the graphic violence seems to be almost appropriate to a potential theme of mockery, as if knowing that although it was a risque topic with kids fighting and killing other kids, they purposely didn't go far enough with the subject. Far enough to get people drawn in, but not far enough to actually deliver on what people were 'hoping' for.

Even the situations they were in, pandering to the audience so they could get gifts to aid them. These situations seemed to pander to the audience watching the movie as well, tugging at our emotions and wanting them to happen even though we're aware that they are simply trying to manipulate the people watching them in their world.

The mockingjay seems to allude to this theme in a way, although I'm curious if there could be some deeper meaning to what the mockingjay could stand for in the books. I know as well that the books build up to the rebellion later in the series. But the first half of the movie is spent shoving it in our faces, and there are brief flashes to a rebellion in one of the districts during the hunger games, but it never actually delivers on it.

In that regard, even though it may come at a later date, this movie only teases us with the promise of giving some sort of meaning to all of this. But it never gives us a reason for everything we watched. It ends with no resolution in sight. Not even a hint at it. If I wasn't already aware that there were more books and that the rebellion comes later, I would have thought the movie had just spit in my face. I'm still not convinced it didn't.

Haven't been able to stop thinking about this since I saw it earlier today, so I figured I'd post this while it was still fresh. Anyone agree? Disagree?

[Swiss Ultimate]

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[DaveBrawl]

That does make sense Req. I didn't really put that much thought into it to be honest, I went last Monday because I was offered a ticket and I needed to relax a little after a fender bender earlier that day. At the time it just seemed like another overhyped but average movie.

To me it seemed like there was plenty of violence, it just needed to be spread out more. All of the killings were bunched together or not even shown at all and left long lulls between the action, and they tried to fill the time with this awkward/forced romance with a character that (as awful as it sounds) I personally was rooting for the death of since he was in no way redeeming. Then that was coupled with they had so many little subplots they tried to introduce but kind of left hanging out there like you said. It seemed almost like they tried to cram too much in despite the movie being longer than most.

However I have never read the books, and didn't even know what the movie was about until a few days before it premiered, so maybe it was like that in the book as well.

[Raven Reaper]

Battle Royale the white version

And despite the fact, Suzanne Collins the author of HG denies that as a rip-off and she never heard or read Battle Royale herself. Go figure. And no, I refuse to see Hunger Games. Like the reviewer said the violence is off-screen and only for PG-13 viewers.. I never see the appeal of it at all.

[whiteyford]

Enjoyed the film but it suffers from the usual problem of trying to condense a novel into a two hour movie and skipping/altering things to accomodate that.

[Ogen]

That was one of the biggest piles of wank I've ever paid to see. Fucking awful.

[Vastardikai]

Battle Royale the white version

And even then, not enough of the characters were developed. I didn't know the names of half of the people who died. I was like "That happened." Battle Royale had 3 times the characters and most of them were developed at least to the point where you felt something when they died.