Friday, March 23, 2012

The Hunger Games Aftermath



Currently I just finished reading Book 2: Catching Fire and the movie. But before you proceed on reading this, if you haven't read the first book yet, or watched the movie, then move on to my other posts. But if you're interested to hear what I have to say on the first book and movie, then you can read the rest. Don't say I never warned you first. ;)



Like any other writer, critique or blogger, what we say are just our own opinions. I'm a bit wordy on tiny details, so let's start on the book. The Hunger Games novel is written by Suzanne Collins, and the series is divided into three books: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. On the first book, it describes all the districts of Panem, on how they are divided into their expertise, their status and so on. So how and why was the annual Hunger Games created? It started on the rebellion of District 13 against the Capitol (Panem's fortress city) is not tolerable, thus they were eliminated and to prevent another uprising, they created the Hunger Games wherein each district must have a tribute - a boy and a girl - of ages 12-18 - to participate in these games. Only one can survive the battle of death. Some districts have volunteers, and mostly are picked out from random lottery of some sort during the reaping.

Some districts are wealthy, most are poor. Each has their mayor and Peacekeepers to keep them in place. District 12 was a bit lenient since their officials are quite okay with their black market of illegal trades. Now, when we say illegal trades and black markets doesn't mean drugs. Some exchange clothing and other items for food or food for another food and vice versa. Hunting is forbidden since weapons are not allowed, but since everyone was easygoing, some are still hunting, like Katniss (the lead character) and Gale (one of her love interest).

When Katniss' youngest sister was picked out during the reaping, she volunteered herself as a tribute to save Prim. And her counterpart was Peeta Mellark, the baker's son. Needless to say, there were some of a bit teenage crush going on between them, and during the games, they used this star-cross'd lovers theme in order to keep them alive, as Haymitch would've wanted it.

This could go on if I give out the gist of the story on the first book, so let's go on to the movie. ;)

They all say that the movie must give out the images as one had imagined it playing in the book. Let's just say that imaginations of other people are not the same, very different, but still trying to manage to come out with the most important details of the story.


The movie was directed by Gary Ross, and picked out Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique of X-Men: First Class) to play Katniss Everdeen. She's okay with the role, especially with the facial features on how she manage to feel during the first starvation, the reaping, the training and the games. Let's make a bullet-point of the movie aftermath:

  • description of the districts, especially District 12 was not shown much, or at least narrated by Katniss on a background voice or something as I would imagine it

  • Peacekeepers were not explained or introduced

  • there were lots of missing/changed scenes or dialogue or characters that was supposed to be important, probably to keep the movie congested into a 2 and half hour, give or take, like the life of Katniss' family, Madge giving Katniss the mockingjay pin, Peeta's father giving her cookies, the Avox, Peeta showing Katniss the roofdeck and the 'barrier' and the garden, the hovercraft capturing the two traitors in the forest, how Thresh killed Clove, how Thresh was killed, hovercraft taking the dead bodies from the arena, how they would punish Seneca Crane, etc.

  • Amusing and amazing details of the costumes, the characters, how they exactly feel on every moment of the scenes

  • the battle was as how my husband would say in Filipino as malamya, it was weak, was expecting it to be brutal like Battle Royale, or maybe because they were leaning on families could watch it with younger children, so they omitted those gory scenes? Also, the tracker jackers have these horrific hallucinations and they didn't show it as well

  • The Cornucopia should be a huge golden horn, this was a famous landmark in the arena to get your supplies and weapons

  • The muttations - these were supposed to be a big finale, each mutt was transformed and supposedly look like the dead tributes, as Katniss described, but their appearance was also short and fast



Overall, the movie was a whirlwind, it's like giving a summary of the book. Honestly, was disappointed since the book is so good - it's like reality of politics and the society in our world - how we shouldn't overlook poverty, status, and the community. It's like a V for Vendetta thing, only that the younger generation are the ones standing up for the fight.

I hope they'll do much better on the second movie. Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor! :P

7 comments:

  1. Babasahin ko na lang to next week, pag napanod ko na yung movie. XD

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  2. Ayus lang, kaya nga nagwarn muna ako eh. ;)

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  3. meron pa pong isa Ms. Bea, dapat yung leg ni Peeta mapapalitan ng metal plastic device. pero dun sa movie, walang kagalos-galos yung leg niya after nung laban. lol!!

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  4. Ay honga noh! Forgot about that! Lumala nga pala ung wound niya sa leg up until yung battle sa Cornucopia XD~

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  5. I totally forgot about Madge! -_- oo nga, wala siya sa entire movie and even ung pagkakasunod-sunod ng death ng tributes d ko na natandaan. haha! Napansin ko lang din that the tributes' unique traits mentioned in the book were not highlighted in the movie. Tapos most of the scene about the tributes madami exposure si Cato tapos shift ng camera kay Katniss after, mukha tuloy love interest ni Katniss si Cato. haha! Add this pa Queen Bea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_(film)#Differences_between_the_novel_and_the_film tsktsk. 8/10 rating ko sa movie kahapon. parang gusto kong gawing 6/10 nalang. :/ ang sad. :(

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  6. Grabeng mas comprehensive ung gumawa ng wiki na yan ah XD Mas uber spoiler yan kaysa sakin ahahahaha!

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  7. Hi Charo! Thanks for dropping by and giving your views as well. First off, as you've said, we're merely giving our own opinions. Just like any book fan, I was caught up on seeing what I've read -but that won't happen on an adaptation and a 2hr movie.
    I liked the character portrayal as well, on bullet 4, but did not give more on details on it. Perhaps what I liked there was their facial expressions, their fear for life, etc.
    I posted out missing/changed scenes, like in the wiki (but the wiki was more comprehensive than what I did) because I hoped that people would read books more as much fun as they go for movies instead. But if it came off offending the movie itself, for that I apologize, since that's not my intention. But this is more of an aftermath for me, not an official review, that I'm still craving for more on the movie. But super thanks for the comment! Learned a lot. Hope you can visit again. :)

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