the hunger games

The Hunger Games, the movie

, 0 Comments

Oh god you guys, I have a terrible confession. I actually enjoyed that more than the book.

Not by much, and my opinion may well change later. (My opinions do that.) But OH MY GOD. It was BRILLIANT.

I just liked that that they opened it up beyond Katniss’s POV, I reckon. Obviously I love Katniss, a lot, but this- you saw through Rue’s eyes as she was dying, and you saw through President Snow’s eyes as Katniss becomes a threat, and you saw the people of the Capitol being so horribly like us- it just sort of totally elevated it for me. Sometimes with the book you have to hold it at arm’s length a little, because Katniss isn’t always a reliable narrator, but this just totally immersed you in the world and did it SO WELL and ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH I CAN’T EVEN FIND THE WORDS IT WAS SO GOOD.

(And they cut out all the subplots that ended up going nowhere, like the Avox girl story. Which was 100% the correct choice.)

Yeah, I literally can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about it. I loved the chariot/Girl On Fire scene and the sense of Ancient Rome there – panem et circenses. I loved that they gave Seneca Crane a bigger role and served him up a poetic death, I loved that they managed to make Cato slightly sympathetic in his final scene, I LOVED that we saw the District 11 rebellion (that man who runs out first, was that meant to be Rue’s dad? I like to think it was), I loved it all. Seriously.

Some random notes:

-Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss is spot-on perfect casting, and she’s brilliant
-Amandla Stenberg as Rue is also spot-on perfect casting, as is Josh Hutcherson as Peeta
-In fact, they’re all brilliant. The only castings I don’t completely love are a) Liam Hemsworth as Gale, because I always imagined Gale as black (even after we got a physical description in the books and it was clear he probably wasn’t, I still had this really clear image of him in my head) and b) Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, because my ideal Haymitch will always be Jack Black.
-I loved how Katniss hugging Prim at the beginning and hugging Rue near the end are shot from almost exactly the same angles, letting you know that Katniss sees Rue as a sister without actually saying it.
-This movie made me ship Katniss/Cinna a little bit. Just a little bit.

On another note, THANK YOU filmmakers for refusing to pander to the strangely Twilight-obsessed media and downplaying the love triangle- even downplaying the actual love story! Cos Hunger Games isn’t a love story, it’s about one girl-turned-woman’s battle for survival, and I love that.

The Hunger Games

1 Comment

I did eventually get around to reading them!

I liked them, and quickly became very fond of Katniss. She was tough, and brave, and overall a pretty good heroine for young girls. I could have managed without the love triangle, but there was less of it than I expected, and in the end “Gale or Peeta?” wasn’t the important decision, the decision to kill Coin was. So that was quite nice.

But it did make me so bloody sad that poor Katniss lost almost EVERYTHING. She fought so hard to protect her sister and she ended up dead anyway. Her mother couldn’t help her (I wish they’d been more on the relationship between Katniss and her mother, I find it really interesting), people constantly used her, she lost her home and her best friend…she lost so much, but she survived. I think the epilogue showed that she was healing a bit, maybe? She still has a lot of her life left, so she could easily move around the Districts later on and help rebuild the world. Also: I decided her children were named Prue (Primrose/Rue) and Cinnick (Cinna/Finnick). That may be silly, but I like it. Anyway-

Random stuff: I saw Gale as black before we got a physical description of him, and now even though Liam Hemsworth is playing him I still think of him as black. I confess myself a bit disappointed in that casting. I see Finnick as being black too, but they’re almost certainly going to get someone white to play him…so yeah.

Finnick/Annie is my OTP for this book, I believe. Also, Finnick’s death made me sad because of the sheer pointlessness of it, and the fact that Finnick had so very little happiness in his life. All he had was Annie, and he never even got to meet their child. Wah.

Okay, I’m done…see you at the movie!

«< 2 3 4 5 6