When I heard about the movie, it's all I could think about. I was beyond excited. My cousins and I bought tickets for the midnight showing immediately after they were put on sale, and I swear it's all we could talk about. We watched trailers over and over again... actually ecstatic. We waited for hours outside the theatre in anticipation, not doubting for a second how incredible these next few hours were about to be. And then we watched the movie. Oh my god. No.
How could a story with such potential and quality be so completely butchered? Not only was the casting and acting atrocious, but the plot was destroyed. The little things were exaggerated, the big ideas were underrepresented, and my worst fear had come true: The Hunger Games were about to turn into the Twilight series. Suddenly the story changed from being about the future, the harsh "government,"and the sick ways of the Capitol, into a creepy, weird love story. It was no longer about the cruelty of the Games and the Capitol and how the main characters dealt with them, and instead was completely misinterpreted. Everything was wrong. I felt as if the entire movie was a parody of itself... as if I was watching a bad youtube video making fun of a good movie (similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgsIitK77yc).
Since when did Gale and Katniss have such a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship? Weren't their feelings for each other realized after the games? Why isn't Haymitch drunk? Don't Katniss and Haymitch hate each other... and don't they have an unspoken sort of "pact" (loving Peeta = survival)? Where's the avox girl Katniss recognized, and why weren't avoxes explained at all? Why do Rue and Katniss only know each other for 5 minutes... and why isn't it explained that Katniss become so attached to her because of how it makes her think of Prim? Why does it seem creepy how attached Katniss is to Rue, and weird how she cries when Rue is killed? Wait, why did an uprising start in District 8 after her death... isn't that not supposed to happen until the second book? Why doesn't Peeta lose his leg in the end? What is going on...
The Hunger Games were killed for me. Rather than a powerful story on the importance of survival and family, the movie was twisted into a weird love story between Katniss, Gale and Peeta. I was so disappointed.
After watching this movie, did anyone realize the major differences between the book and the film? Was anyone else disturbed by how everything was shown in theaters? Does this representation of the book in theaters show that this is all really a game of the industry- who can make the most money off of a movie?
I hear you. Your first mistake was going in thinking that the movie would be good. It's impossible. After Twlight (and countless other books), I knew that a wonderful story was about to be slaughtered. I agree that some of the most vital points were glossed over, and I missed them (with the exception of Cato slowly dying for hours). The difference is, I came at the movie thinking that I wouldn't like a single thing about it. I found that I actually did like a few things about it. I liked the way they depicted the characters (bad acting or not), I sobbed when Rue died, and I liked the way they showed the uprisings. To me, this movie should be thought of as a supplement to the book. While they left out many important parts, there were nods to the readers (if you read the book, you'd get what was going on, and if you didn't read it you didn't get the full story). Think about the explosion at the cornucopia--we saw her get disoriented from the sound, but only the reader would know that Catniss actually lost hearing from it. In a way, these little nods let me feel like this story wasn't going down the same awful road as Twlight. Also, I liked how they showed Haymitch dealing with sponsors and the reactions of Catniss' loved ones while she went through different parts of the games. This really makes the movie a nice *addition* to the book, not something you can watch and get a replay of what you read.
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