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I enjoyed it. It's a fine adaption and a great movie as far as the sff/f movie fare goes.
They've done a sterling job with the cast too - especially the gal who played Katniss.
It's worth seeing at any rate, and I dare say, from what I've seen, they are aiming for it to be the next Twilight (Team Gale and Team Peeta anyone?)
Posts: 628 | Registered: Nov 2009
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I dunno...probably my least favorite feature of anime and Japanimation and manga is the way the characters would wander into these endless fight matches that just stretched on and on and on...and, from the descriptions of The Hunger Games, the book and the movie, it all seemed like more of the same.
I don't want to out-and-out condem something I haven't read or seen---I mean, for all I know, the writer and the movie-makers might have done it right and it's all genuinely interesting one one gets into it---but, really, it's not my cup of tea. (I haven't seen any of the Harry Potter movies, either---and have only read the first book---but I hear they're all pretty good.)
You guys who did like the book, go, have fun, see the thing...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I have actually read the series. I juWell,st don't want to see it ruined by a poorly done film trilogy. Curmudeon-y Foste? No, I just don't want to pay big bucks to watch it unless it's really good. So far, I'm hearing the same folks who loved Twilight say they loved The Hunger Games. Which of course is no slight to you, since you didn't actually say you liked Twilight. No correlation doesn't prove causation--or whatever that saying is. Good that no one sparkles though! Posts: 440 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I read the trilogy, partly because I was curious what all the buzz was about and partly because I wanted to see how Suzanne Collins created a likeable heroine out of someone whose primary goal is to be the last person standing in a battle to the death. What I didn't expect was that the book would so thoroughly suck me in. I blogged about it last year. Now I'm interested in seeing how the movie handles the brutality and whether it's toned down. I'll get to a theater at some point in the next few weeks.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2008
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Should'a mentioned, too, there's been some discussion of the level of violence and whether it's something you should take your children to...I'm sure everybody who posts here can take it.
Just a few minutes ago I heard a discussion of why The Hunger Games got a PG-13 rating, where another movie, a documentary about bullying, got an R because some kids swear in it. The ratings system is rife with pecularities, and decisions are made that often don't meet rational standards when closely examined---something that is difficult to do because of the level of secrecy the ratings board practices.
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Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Ender's Game... I wonder what the next obsession will be.
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I know which books I would like to see that popular with a series of movies but probably won't happen.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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Ender's Game is being made (if not done already) into a movie. Since all actors are in their teens, I suspect there will be attempt to turn it into another of these blockbusters, albeit much more sci-fi than the rest.
Posts: 1271 | Registered: May 2007
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Ender's Game started filming last week, actually. The book has had decades to sell lots of copies and build a fan base, but I don't see it as a cultural phenomenon like Harry Potter, Twilight or The Hunger Games.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2008
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Well, J. D. Salinger was so distressed at the movie version of one of his short stories that he never sold movie rights to The Catcher in the Rye. I think that worked out pretty well as a phenomenon without a movie to go with it.
It's said that once a writer relinquishes his work to the movies, he loses all control over his creations. Think Burroughs and Tarzan.
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Assuming I can get somebody interested in buying my work for publication...I think I'd hold on to the movie rights myself. My circumstances are such that I don't need the money or the hassle.
That could change, of course---someday I might need the money and be willing to put up with the hassle for the money---besides, somebody would have to offer to buy before I could turn it down.
*****
On issues of control over one's material---I understand there's some upset among the Hunger Games fanbase over casting an actress who was blonde to play a character who's a brunette. You fans out there heard anything about that?
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Not a fan as such, but I don't recall any incongruities. Moreover I was pleasantly surprised by their choices (though Peeta should have been FATTER and Haymitch more of a bum rather than a badass mofo who likes a drink now and then).
Smaug - Yay, you're also a part of the I Like To Eat and Pay My Rent Club(tm)?
posted
A local radio guy had a discussion on Games since he didn't understand it. Many callers and evidently even more E-mailers thought the Capitol acted like the old Soviet Union minus the Games. Some took as a warning what could happen in real life--or something similar that is.
Everyone loved it and thought the movie was spot on. Well, except on caller who was a little disappointed in the movie. She still saw it twice I believe.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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quote:Rue being black "ruined" the movie? Despite the fact that she is, in fact, black in the books?
There's a lot of race-neutral-meaning-white casting in Hollywood---somewhere about here we had a discussion about what happened with Le Guin's Earthsea in this matter---but I'm glad somebody decided to stick with the source material.
As for dye jobs---blonde into brunette may be easy, but, speaking as an authentic redhead, I've seen many dye jobs that don't match the person under that dyed hair...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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This is not about Games but the other day while out to dinner with my wife I'm sure I saw a woman with that fake red color they like these days over real red hair. The bottom looked real red but I didn't see her again to double check.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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True's true...it's a vivid red, all right, and if a dye job makes 'em happy that's okay, too...but it's not the color that those of us who were born with red hair carry around on their heads and bodies.
(I was looking at some pictures of actresses from Game of Thrones this morning...blonde on their heads, brunette or black in their eyebrows. May be a deliberate effect, though.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I surmise there may be something wrong with me in that I found John Carter a better fantasy (escapist) film than the much admired, immensely successful The Hunger Games.
[Spoiler Alert!]
There are stark hit-me-on-the-head-with-a-mallet themes in THG: the evil haves (the villianous 1%) and the oppressed but mostly noble have-nots (99%); reality tv (our new gladitorial arena) as the opiate of the masses controlled and pushed by the ruling elite; the potential animal in everyone and the essential choice of being beast or human.
The heroine protagonist is the presumed winner from the start (not only by the reader who knows she is the protagonist), but even by the officials who score her higher than any other candidate. Her noble sacrifice is for her beloved sister; her inspiration and motivation is to protect her family; but the film haltingly suggests her nobility extends to protecting her fellow candidate Peter--but not because she loves him (no Twilight Edwardian romance here). No, she fakes she's in love with him for the camera--she plays the audience--to survive. In the end, she manipulates (controls) the audience and the elite rulers just as she is manipulated and controlled.
Would we wish our children to be like her? Noble yet ruthless? She sees the wrong of it yet plays the game given no choice, but then continues to play the role the elite assign her to the very end of the film. There are hints of potential rebellion to come, but blurred with her working, and gaming, the existing system (albeit partly in ignorance; and she never declares a plan for rebellion and bringing down the corrupt system).
I guess I prefer motivations from true love over faked love (i.e. that performed merely to survive) and from a fixed noble moral code, rather than one that teaches the end justifies the means. It is obvious I would not survive THG.
Seeing teens and even children as young as 12 seek to kill each other--and some relishing the kill, is disturbing. I'm not sure teaching such lessons in the permissive societal moral vacuum today is desirable. Lord of the Flies did this first and better.
The voyeuristic nature of the film is disturbing not uplifting. This is not an escapist fantasy. It is merely a veil. We are the Panem populace watching children murder one another--as we sit snug in our homes while children soldiers kill each other in Africa and Asia in the real world. This is not a film we should enjoy but one we should learn from as if it was a documentary--and be inspired to set aside complacency and get out of our seats, off our couches, and do something.
First, hug your children.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
Posts: 1475 | Registered: Aug 2010
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posted
Actually, they are two different types of stories. So there's nothing wrong with liking one and not the other.
I felt the same thing with the Twilight movies. Of course children won't killed but they were immensely successful. I like to say I rejected the book before it became so popular.
But as I understand it and not having read the books I could be wrong- THG isn't about children being killed, as we discussed on the zombie thread, that is the backdrop. It shows how evil the Capitol is. Like the David Weber book I am reading. The main bad guy will cheerfully torture woman and children to get to at their husbands and fathers. And some of his men will do it with relish. Of course the men aren't children and the book doesn't show the actual torture so there is a significant difference but at the same time the basic idea is the same.
At the same time I won't be seeing or reading THG.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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Couldn't stand Lord of the Flies---yup, it was assigned reading for a high school class.
Wasn't there some book or movie (or both), some years before The Hunger Games, where someone stranded a bunch of kids on an island and had them fight it out until only one was left? (I only remember it 'cause someone sent me a fanfic parody of it for comments---so it's probably from 2000 or earlier.)
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Also...I'm belatedly reminded of Robert Sheckley's short story "The Seventh Victim" (and also his novel The Tenth Victim and the movie thereof).
So, really, there's nothing new, and it's the spin you put on it.
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Wasn't there some book or movie (or both), some years before The Hunger Games, where someone stranded a bunch of kids on an island and had them fight it out until only one was left? (I only remember it 'cause someone sent me a fanfic parody of it for comments---so it's probably from 2000 or earlier.)
Battle Royale, probably. But hey, it's Japanese, not American, and no white characters.
Posts: 62 | Registered: Feb 2012
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HISTORY, I agree with your analysis of THG, but I would be even more harsh. I haven't read the book, but went to the movie hoping to see something halfway intelligent. I was bored with the simplistic plot, characters, and message. I couldn't figure out why the districts would put up with sending their kids to fight to the death. If the kids could breach the fence between districts, why not the adults to start a rebellion? And where was the horror and disgust by the kids when they saw the waste and excess in the capital? Woody Harrelson's character was the only one interesting because he seemed real and raw, not homogonized or cartoonized (is that a word?) like everyone else. At least he was conflicted and drank to try to live with his conscience. I did like the relationship between Rue and the main character. I was really sorry to see Rue die. And the poor guy from district 12 - it was almost painful watching him deal with what he believed would be his imminent death at the hand of the girl he "loved" (sorry, not believeable). And were the dogs real or computer generated? I couldn't tell.
I didn't like the extreme closeups, especially in the fight scenes because I couldn't tell what was happening. Enough already with the jiggly camera syndrome. And don't get me started with the costumes and set decoration.
Sorry to rant, but this movie was painful for me to watch. At least Twilight had stylized production values and characters that had some depth. I'm afraid, however, that Twilight and The Hunger Games have spawned a new genre of shallow and fad-worthy young adult fiction and films. Is this what we get for raising a generation of kids on the Disney Channel? Shame on us.
(I do have to say I never let my son watch the Disney Channel. I raised him on Asimov, Clarke, and Tolkien, with a smattering of Star Trek and Babylon 5 thrown in for fun.)
Posts: 95 | Registered: Mar 2012
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Don't think it has been mentioned but there is a spoof out already.
Forget the title but it has a dead bird in the circle.
Hmm just thought of something. I almost would like to do a spoof or satire. Maybe some day I will give it a try.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
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Yeah, Disney Channel was something of a disappointment to me. I'd expected more of Disney's classic cartoons, and what do I get? These incredibly bad-acted live-action kid shows...a trend that seems to have infected Nickelodeon as well, and is even starting to make inroads on the Cartoon Network as well...
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