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The Hunger Games: Your imagination is racist and you should feel bad

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  • Redcoat-13Redcoat-13 Registered User regular
    I went off and saw this with the Wife last week. I'll note that I've not read any of the books, while she read all 3 within a week.

    She loved it while I just found it a bit dull (it seemed to go on forever). I've certainly seen worse films at the cinema, but I'm not in a rush to see the next two films.

    At the weekend, a mate and his girlfriend went off and saw the film, both having really enjoyed the books, and similar to my Wife, they both really enjoyed the film.

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  • kimekime Queen of Blades Registered User regular
    Redcoat-13 wrote: »
    I went off and saw this with the Wife last week. I'll note that I've not read any of the books, while she read all 3 within a week.

    She loved it while I just found it a bit dull (it seemed to go on forever). I've certainly seen worse films at the cinema, but I'm not in a rush to see the next two films.

    At the weekend, a mate and his girlfriend went off and saw the film, both having really enjoyed the books, and similar to my Wife, they both really enjoyed the film.

    Yeah, I think it really shines if you've read the books. It adds to the experience instead of just rehashing it.

    Unfortunately, if you haven't read the books, you won't get that feeling :(

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  • CanadianWolverineCanadianWolverine Registered User regular
    I read the books and I didn't get that feeling ... well, maybe a little, some scenes brought on quite a bit of emotion actually, the Reaping was well done. But that isn't my problem with it, I think an R rated movie would have been a hell of a lot more true to the books but that wouldn't explain why so few of the sets/locales of the movie had next to no ghetto apartment block feel/look to them.

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  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    While true, I think the R rating would've potentially killed the movie. Can't go see the movie of your book unless your mom and dad goes with you.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Increasing the grittiness wouldn't have given THG an R rating.

    I also felt the portrayal of 12 on the film was spot on. It looked like a backwater town in Appalacia.

    Pretty reminiscent of coal towns from the early 1900s. I wonder why. Why would it be a concrete wasteland? Any animals within the fence would've been hunted to extinction because of the hunger and pouring concrete is expensive and doesn't accomplish much either way. Maybe the book explicitly said it, maybe people read too much into "wasteland" and want something like fallout.

    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • CanadianWolverineCanadianWolverine Registered User regular
    Why is it always assumed that ghettos are concrete? I was just working with the descriptions of the place in the book and what was in the movie didn't fit with what I had read, that's all.

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  • Ragnar DragonfyreRagnar Dragonfyre Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Saw this last night... at first I was thinking "If they don't stop shaking the camera so fucking much I'm just going to leave." and I've NEVER had a problem with shakey cam before. Either I stopped noticing it, or it got better as the movie went along.

    Regardless, while I did enjoy the film, I found it lacking compared to the Battle Royale novel. Hunger Games conveniently creates clear protagonists/antagonists and avoids any grey areas. I found the very clear distinction between "good guys" and "bad guys" to be rather lame. Battle Royale did the whole "teen deathmatch" far, far better.

    Then again, the movie isn't so much about the actual Hunger Games as it is about the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. I found that theme very interesting and was a little disappointed it received little focus. The casting in this movie was fantastic. I found the three characters involved in mentoring the tributes showed very well the disconnect between the rich and poor. Some "get it"... while others are so disconnected they could never understand just how the Hunger Games are like an ever present pendulum in a poor young persons life. Possibly this is built further upon in the upcoming films.

    Either way, I'll definitely check out the future films.

    Ragnar Dragonfyre on
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  • BagginsesBagginses __BANNED USERS regular
    I was expecting tons of concrete buildings with corrugated metal roofs, with some thatch or earth walls for the really poor. This was my image for the densest part of the outer districts or individual buildings in the Rift:
    Kibera-Slum-The-Worst-Place-to-Live-in-Africa-1.jpg
    This was the main road in town:
    59618488.jpg?redirect_counter=1 or 633620008860367998_thmb_Loitokitok.JPG
    This would be how Katniss lives:
    PB1406475%20Masai-kvinner%20Loitokitok_mod.jpg

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Just as an aside, in the Appalachians, wood is much easier to work with than dirt. The dirt is filled with rocks and boulders and making earth-style houses is extremely difficult without shipping it in from other areas.

    You'd be better off making a hatchet (with flint or other rocks in the area) and trying to mill the wood into planks or making log cabins (which is relatively easy). That's why American Indians on this side of the US (Iroquois) stuck to longhouses. Whilst those stuck in the desert went with your typical earth-like houses of the pueblos or the Navajo.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    double post

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Just as an aside, in the Appalachians, wood is much easier to work with than dirt. The dirt is filled with rocks and boulders and making earth-style houses is extremely difficult without shipping it in from other areas.

    You'd be better off making a hatchet (with flint or other rocks in the area) and trying to mill the wood into planks or making log cabins (which is relatively easy). That's why American Indians on this side of the US (Iroquois) stuck to longhouses. Whilst those stuck in the desert went with your typical earth-like houses of the pueblos or the Navajo.

    I thought the look of district 12 was one of the best parts of the movie, and one of the few areas where the desperation of the situation got accross. Should have had more contrast with the rank desperation of the scene and the random bits of high tech from the capitol scattered about in the form of peacekeepers and patrol ships though.

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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    (cross-threadery)

    Just in:

    Gary Ross, who many assumed would be directing the Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire, has now officially quit the project, leveraging his success with the film into a undisclosed passion project with a different studio. This will leave Lionsgate with about 4 months to put the project through turnaround before production starts at the end of this summer.

  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    After weeks of tantalizing us with speculation of actual good directors taking over the series (Alfonso Cuaron, David Cronenberg, Duncan Jones), it appears that the directing gig for Catching Fire will be helmed by the hack-for-hire behind such flatliners as Constantine, I Am Legend, and Water for Elephants, Francis Lawrence.

    Too bad.

  • Dark Raven XDark Raven X Laugh hard, run fast, be kindRegistered User regular
    Last time Lionsgate had a scenario like this, a successful movie's director leaving for a passion project, they enforced some dick contractual obligation and brought the director back against his will to shit out the sequel. That sequel was Saw 3D.

    Oh brilliant
  • MalReynoldsMalReynolds The Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicines Registered User regular
    I seriously doubt even a great director would have helped the rest of the series.

    I also have a totally, totally unfounded theory about how the first book was going to end, based on nothing more than I'm a writer and it's how I would have ended it.
    I feel like, the whole book they're setting Katniss up to be a confused teenager when it comes to Peeta, and I feel like Peeta is never confused. He's creepily confident, but totally useless in the arena. He literally gets the same leg fucked up twice, the second injury sidelining him from the final fight with the armor clad villian.

    I kind of got the impression that he was supposed to die at the end, either in a heroic sacrifice getting Cato off the cornucopia, or as in incidental death with Katniss arrows Cato. I don't think he was supposed to be mauled by the muttations - the fact that he wasn't, really, in the movie kind of lends itself to that, for me, considering Collin's was a co-writer. The movie smooths over many narrative flaws the book had, too.

    The implications of Peeta's death would have been a gamechanger and a suckerpunch - the Capitol already said that two people could win, so long as they were from the same district, setting up the audience expectation that Peeta and Katniss would band together and win. Not only does that play with us, the readers, but also the viewers of the actual Games. And by having a hand in his death, Katniss would have massive survivor's guilt. Haymitch's final speech at the end of the book would have made just as much sense - she has to go on pretending that she loved Peeta, in order to keep the viewing world in a state of sympathy towards her, and she never gets any resolution as to if she actually loved him or not.

    Sure, it's dark and grim, but eh. That's what I would have done. Makes more sense thematically than the ending of the first book, which seemed totally out of place anyway.

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  • belligerentbelligerent Registered User regular
    This is a young adult IP, no way this ever goes for an R rating.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    After weeks of tantalizing us with speculation of actual good directors taking over the series (Alfonso Cuaron, David Cronenberg, Duncan Jones), it appears that the directing gig for Catching Fire will be helmed by the hack-for-hire behind such flatliners as Constantine, I Am Legend, and Water for Elephants, Francis Lawrence.

    Too bad.
    I rather liked the film adaptation of I Am Legend. Enjoyed it more than the story it was based on, in fact.

    You are history's greatest monster. Honestly, the book is a masterpiece. The film is a tangentially related average-at-best bit of fluff.

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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    Between the better Director's Cut of the film and the jettisoning of the fuckawesome practical monster designs, I Am Legend was just a pale reflection of what could have been a remarkably better film.

  • Guitar Hero Of TimeGuitar Hero Of Time Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    jdarksun wrote: »
    After weeks of tantalizing us with speculation of actual good directors taking over the series (Alfonso Cuaron, David Cronenberg, Duncan Jones), it appears that the directing gig for Catching Fire will be helmed by the hack-for-hire behind such flatliners as Constantine, I Am Legend, and Water for Elephants, Francis Lawrence.

    Too bad.
    I rather liked the film adaptation of I Am Legend. Enjoyed it more than the story it was based on, in fact.
    You are history's greatest monster. Honestly, the book is a masterpiece. The film is a tangentially related average-at-best bit of fluff.
    The book is a classic - no one is disputing that - and I enjoyed it, I just didn't find it living up to the hype. I didn't find the book particularly insightful, moving, or poignant. The (tangentially related) movie had a main character I could connect with on several levels, who acted with motivation I could share.

    Edge: tangentially-related movie.

    EDIT: I just realized this is about I am Legend and not The Hunger Games. Confused!

    Did you see the movie or book first? I saw the movie recently, knowing nothing about it, and I couldn't connect with it at all. I found the characters to be pretty thin and their motivations mysterious upon scrutiny.

    I am curious what your thoughts were about the main character, and if part of that was based on book knowledge or not. It seems that reading the book first generally increases people's enjoyment of the movie.

    Guitar Hero Of Time on
  • quantumcat42quantumcat42 Registered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    Edit: Yeah, this has gotten off course. For THG, I read the book after the movie, and think I enjoyed both more because of it.
    That's funny... I read the book before the movie, and thought the movie was improved by that order.

  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Registered User regular
    Shawnasee wrote: »
    I've never seen someone so doggedly attack something as Ross did with this movie. The more I read your complaints the more I kept thinking you just wanted to hate it because it's popular.

    You should have seen him in the Avatar thread.

    Anyway I thought the movie was a pretty good adaptation of the book. Less depiction of battling cold, hunger, thirst but I guess that makes sense because those are harder to put on screen. The Director's room was a good choice to add in explanations of things like Tracker Jackers. I did really miss the sense that the main characters were battling really serious injury.
    In the book Katniss came back with the blood poisoning cure and passed out in a pool of her own blood. In the movie it's kind of like "oh you have a scratch on your forehead".

    I was also a bit confused by the "blowing up the food" scene. They rush back and she's like 20 feet away in plain sight and they ignore her.

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  • YarYar Registered User regular
    A capital is a city.
    A capitol is a building.
    But in this case, Capitol (or "the Capitol") is a proper noun; the name of the capital.
    The book's publisher even calls it "The Capital" in their listing.

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