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Popcorn posted:SMG, I agree with your analysis and your posts always impress me, but I do envy your ability to overlook seemingly any normal indicator of quality in favour of a theoretical reading. I mean, am I supposed to concede that The Hunger Games is a good novel after all because it may function as a discussion of the Young Adult Novel/Hollywood Blockbuster as a genre, even though it contains sentences as maddening as "now it was Peeta's turn to look surprised"? Or is this not a question of "good" for you? It's a young adult novel. That's readily apparent going into reading it, so if your biggest criticisms revolve around a clearly meant for young adults style, I'd say the fault lies more in unrealistic expectations than it does on Suzanne Collins. That's not to attack you or anything. I'm just saying that it's obviously a young adult franchise written for young adults, so if you cannot set aside the obvious drawbacks that come from that, it was never going to be your thing to begin with, plot aside. For a young adult series, I feel these books are well done and if someone is able to stomach that style of writing, I personally feel they'd enjoy the books. Any comparisons to Twilight, however, are completely disingenuous and should be ignored at all costs. Twilight is a poorly written series meant to live out some fat girl's fantasy about having oft-desired men fight over her. That's readily apparent. The Hunger Games is actually tackling serious matters in a way that identifies with young adults, whether they understand it or not. It's not a perfect series, but considering it's biggest faults are almost all related to sentence structure from Collins, it lends itself quite well to film and I think what you said in the final sentence of your post will more likely than not be the case. The filmmakers worked very closely with Collins on this. I think the marketing is going to try to sell a love triangle bill of goods to get people into the theater, but I'm guessing the final product will not be reflective of that advertising campaign.
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Nov 16, 2011 22:54
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sportsgenius86 posted:It's a young adult novel. That's readily apparent going into reading it, so if your biggest criticisms revolve around a clearly meant for young adults style, I'd say the fault lies more in unrealistic expectations than it does on Suzanne Collins. I don't think this is fair. The world is not lacking in truly excellent literature for teenagers. We shouldn't set our standards for literature lower because we're aiming it at kids; I don't see any necessary "obvious drawback" in writing a young adult novel for young adults. Your argument shouldn't be "but you should have known it was going to suck, so you can't complain". (And you seem to admit that it sucks to some extent by mentioning these alleged "obvious drawbacks".) Instead your argument should be "here's why it actually doesn't suck". You're right about Twilight, though, that was a lazy comparison.
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Nov 16, 2011 23:11
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redjenova posted:
Katinss also pulls a quiver of arrows through Glimmer's liquifying corpse I'm really excited about the movie, there's an active thread in the book barn about it in the book barn if you guys want to check that out
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Nov 17, 2011 00:22
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Perhaps the most important thing that's being missed in this open disdain for "Young Adult Novels" is that Hunger Games comments on those novels the same way this film comments on blockbuster films. The character can't simply live in the woods like a hippie, but rather must look pretty, must kill people in stylish ways in order to be the franchise's heroine. The point being that if you're an 'ugly' pacifist, you're not going to end up the star of an American blockbuster. You're not going to have a book written about you. For those that haven't read past the first book, the whole 'forced commercialization' theme plays a pretty important part through the rest of the books, including Katniss being deliberately made into a commercialized 'Che' propaganda figure - complete with costume and inbedded tv crew - by the resistance which increasingly prevents her from taking a more active role in the fighting..
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Nov 17, 2011 01:47
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Medical posted:Apparently people are upset that some characters in this are black even though they're described that way in the book. This is bizarre as hell considering the response from people in the book thread was that the cast was too white. Katniss and most of the people from her part of town are described as having olive skin and dark hair, with her sister and mother being two of the few exceptions.
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Nov 17, 2011 03:13
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It's easy to accidentally skim over character descriptions and subconsciously slip into defaults (for most people this is white because privilege). But when a casting differs from that default, the first thing you should do is goddamn CHECK, and in Rues case, realize that YOU hosed up because you were reading too fast, and feel silly, and read more carefully next time. If a character is not described at all, make it an exercise to mix up how you choose to picture them: challenge your own preconceptions internally. Cinna's casting looks great, the absolute defining feature of that character is dignity, and it looks like Cravitz is bringing plenty of that to the role.
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Nov 17, 2011 13:45
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I think Rue is consistently describes as black, though. I'm not sure how anyone could miss that. It's right in her first description and reinforced multiple times, even after the first book, IIRC. Cinna's race isn't really defined as explicitly but I can't understand anyone being upset about "he's not how I pictured!" since the description is so vague. Personally I always imagined him to have darker, olive skin, maybe Hispanic. but I have zero problem with their casting choice.
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Nov 17, 2011 18:29
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Yeah Rue and Thresh are little black girl and huge scary black dude in the book, while Cinna was more ambiguous. I always pictured him as fairly "royal" looking, but I have no problem with how he was cast. I'm also liking Katniss' voice in the trailer for some reason.
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Nov 18, 2011 00:11
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Popcorn posted:But I'll concede that the Twilight comparison is lazy and probably only occurred because it's the only other trashy YA fiction I've read in recent years. "Hey, this crummy sentence about feelings is just like that crummy sentence in Twilight..." I slogged through all three Twilight novels during a period when I was basically a shut-in with no TV/music/internet/other media, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Meyer can't construct characters worth giving a poo poo about, can't write romance, shits on the vampire genre altogether (look, I'm kind of a purist about bloodsuckers, and they don't loving sparkle), and infuses the whole thing with LDS doctrine. There was probably some kind of plot in there somewhere but goddamn if I have any idea what it was. I plowed through Hunger Games in three days, though, because I really wanted to find out what the gently caress happened. Yes, Collins' prose is frequently awkward but it was easy enough for me to overlook because I actually got invested in her characters and in the world she created. And I think this movie is going to rule so hard. I just hope they don't wuss out on the death scenes. E: oh yeah, I guess there are FOUR Twilight books. I didn't bother with the last since I was free by then and had no interest in reading about placenta-chewing Lady Frenzy fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Nov 18, 2011 |
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Nov 18, 2011 01:26
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I read Battle Royale and The Hunger Games and enjoyed them both thoroughly. However, I thought the Battle Royale film was a schlocky, disjointed turd. I could not get into it at all. I did not care about any of the characters or their motivations. Also, the flashbacks felt super clumsy and were distracting. That said, I'm hoping this movie is awesome.
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Nov 18, 2011 07:16
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I didn't know Rue or Cinna were black either, but that's fine if they were. Unless I read a book in one sitting, character descriptions are almost always forgotten by the time I pick the book back up except for someone who looks truly exceptional (or it's basically in the name like Ebonaria or President Snow). Forgot Katniss was supposed to be olive-skinned, too.
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Nov 18, 2011 16:04
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Nevermind.
Jesto fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Oct 1, 2014 |
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Nov 18, 2011 16:41
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Someone on ONTD mentioned envisioning Wayne Coyne as Haymitch and now I weep for what might have been. I do think Woody will do a good job even if he doesn't look as quite bloodshot and fall-down drunk as I imagined.
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Nov 19, 2011 14:30
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Lady Frenzy posted:Someone on ONTD mentioned envisioning Wayne Coyne as Haymitch and now I weep for what might have been. We've only seen him in shiny promo shots and that split-second in the trailer, right? There's still hope! I think Woody will be great but I do hope they keep the character as he is in the book, it'd be easy to tone him down too much when his charm is in being utterly foul and drunk and horrible all the time. I'm worried about Josh Hutcherson more than anything, although the only things I've seen him in recently are Terabithia (in which he was good) and Cirque du Freak (in which he was dire (in which everything was dire)). I just don't like him as Peeta okay  Still. Benefit of the doubt and all that. Honestly the only character in THG I really liked was Haymitch so I can't really claim to be all that bothered. Maybe Gale too and he looks pretty good, although I always pictured him as having a buzz cut. I'm looking forward to Lenny Kravitz too. Shocking that people are so up in arms about Cinna being black. I personally pictured him as black so strongly that it surprised me to learn that he's never actually described as such.
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Nov 19, 2011 15:35
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Jesto posted:To be fair, Japan has had some of it's own problems in the past with children and war. The director of the Battle Royale movie had this to say for why he took an interest in it: I've heard that story before but I really think that should say "bombing raid". Unless he was on Okinawa or the Korean or Chinese colonies, most civilian areas were well out of artillery range. That said, I do find it interesting that the Japan of the original book (and film adaptation, although, when the sequel was release, the unseen bad guy is America because of the world political climate post-Iraq invasion) is literally "This is what would happen if we won World War 2." As for the question, there's a lot about the lack of responsibility in Japan. For instance, the main character, Shuya, has a flashback about his father, who committed suicide, an act that he views as selfish. In fact, the whole BR program was designed to "teach" students responsibility through fear of the program, but, in reality, it's just the same avoidance of parental or adult responsibility that created the unemployment, youth crime, and delinquency situations that lead to the BR program in the first place.
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Nov 19, 2011 16:26
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eating only apples posted:We've only seen him in shiny promo shots and that split-second in the trailer, right? There's still hope! I think Woody will be great but I do hope they keep the character as he is in the book, it'd be easy to tone him down too much when his charm is in being utterly foul and drunk and horrible all the time. Hutcherson is really good in The Kids Are All Right. You should be more worried about Gale, honestly.
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Nov 19, 2011 16:48
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sportsgenius86 posted:Hutcherson is really good in The Kids Are All Right. You should be more worried about Gale, honestly. I think I might just be letting Cirque du Freak taint my opinion of him, to be honest. I hadn't ever heard of Liam Hemsworth but turns out I saw him in Triangle, in which he was... unremarkable to say the least, though at least I remember his character. Is he bad? The cast list for this is pretty awesome actually. Toby Jones as Claudius 
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Nov 19, 2011 17:08
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After watching the trailer, I went and read the first book. I thought the story and the characters were fine, but just the way it was written feels so dumbed down, bringing up the point of YA novels. It just didn't feel descriptive at all. I imagine the other two novels are the same? It's gonna suck when it gets a PG-13 rating though.
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Nov 19, 2011 20:25
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Medical posted:Apparently people are upset that some characters in this are black even though they're described that way in the book. Far out, those Facebook comments are terrible. I hope this isn't the audience they're going for as the concept/world seems pretty interesting and I enjoyed the trailer.
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Nov 19, 2011 20:58
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sportsgenius86 posted:Hutcherson is really good in The Kids Are All Right. You should be more worried about Gale, honestly. This is his to gently caress up, but I think he has the chops to do it so I'm optimistic. I was babysitting some kids a few months ago when Little Manhattan came on and I felt kinda pervy thinking he was cute in that and will thus be cute in the Huger Games, (even though he's only like 4 years younger than me, but something like 14 in that movie.) I hated his character in The Kids Are Alright, Laser, but I appreciated his acting. Really his role in the Hunger Games is to be cute and endearing which he has the look and personality to pull off. Whoever did the casting is great, in fact it was the casting of this movie that pushed me into reading the books in the first place. The pact I have with myself to see every movie Stanley Tucci performs in got the ball rolling. The poster release with the cast members highlights their confidence in the casting director as this could launch careers for the younger 3 stars (and probably to a degree the adorable girls who play Rue and Prim) and highlight character actors like Woody Harrelson, Tucci and Elizabeth Banks. Plus the off the wall choices of Lenny Kravitz for Cinna and Wes Bentley (American Beauty) as Seneca Crane make me think this will prove to be better than the books and add depth to the franchise. I'm just a casual observer of Twilight, never read the books and only saw the first movie, which was hands down the worst thing I've ever seen. That being said, my perception of The Hunger Games is that it's the Anti-Twilight. Katniss is kick rear end, has skills that save the day and struggles to have her voice be heard. She's also self sacrificing and as the books progress grows into a more responsible and self aware person. Katniss is the anti-Bella in that she shies away from relationships because she just wants her family and friends to be safe. Even when she starts to develop feelings for Peeta/Gale she shoots them down because of the reality of the world and situation she is living in.Bella is a damsel in distress and is creating problems that the male forces have fix all the time. She sucks, no pun intended. Compare the way Jennifer Lawrence carries herself like a grown woman:  As opposed to Kristen Stewart who is continuously fidgeting, biting her lip and wearing converse sneakers on the red carpet like she's waiting for the school bus to pick her up. It's the sort of infantilizing look that persists in young girls today, I believe I just read a review of Breaking Dawn that described her as a Bratz Doll left out in the rain:  Not to mention the utterly ridiculous tabloid fodder her and Robert Pattinson schill to convince more Twi-hards that this is star! crossed! lovers! ahhh! BARF. I hope Lawrence kills this role and her star rises. I really do. It would be awesome if this franchise stirs up the kind of attention that Twilight undeservedly garners. It would be refreshing to have a feminist icon like Katniss being heralded by young girls and boys. Previews look great, my fingers are doubly crossed.
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Nov 19, 2011 23:03
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The Dittus posted:I'm just a casual observer of Twilight, never read the books and only saw the first movie, which was hands down the worst thing I've ever seen. That being said, my perception of The Hunger Games is that it's the Anti-Twilight. Katniss is kick rear end, has skills that save the day and struggles to have her voice be heard. She's also self sacrificing and as the books progress grows into a more responsible and self aware person. Katniss is the anti-Bella in that she shies away from relationships because she just wants her family and friends to be safe. Even when she starts to develop feelings for Peeta/Gale she shoots them down because of the reality of the world and situation she is living in.Bella is a damsel in distress and is creating problems that the male forces have fix all the time. She sucks, no pun intended. Martial prowess is not the only quality that makes a strong female character. The Ripley Effect
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Nov 20, 2011 06:25
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The Dittus posted:
Interesting choice of words given the major theme between Peeta and Katniss in the books.
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Nov 20, 2011 06:29
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Stayne Falls posted:Interesting choice of words given the major theme between Peeta and Katniss in the books. The entire point of that is to show that the star crossed lovers schtick is really just concocted schlock, though. Honestly, Katniss only shows the vaguest preference for Gale because they're such close friends, and her 'settling down' with Peeta in the very end of the third book is just that--settling. There's no real romance there, just Katniss literally accepting what she has in front of her.
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Nov 20, 2011 06:54
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reach42 posted:Martial prowess is not the only quality that makes a strong female character. Are you arguing that Katniss is not a strong female character, or just pointing that out?
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Nov 21, 2011 02:06
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reach42 posted:Martial prowess is not the only quality that makes a strong female character. Obviously not, its a female sexing themselves up and using it to take advantage of a male that makes them a strong character. 
IShallRiseAgain fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Nov 21, 2011 |
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Nov 21, 2011 03:04
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redjenova posted:The entire point of that is to show that the star crossed lovers schtick is really just concocted schlock, though. Honestly, Katniss only shows the vaguest preference for Gale because they're such close friends, and her 'settling down' with Peeta in the very end of the third book is just that--settling. There's no real romance there, just Katniss literally accepting what she has in front of her. ....probably a great time to mention I haven't made it to the third book yet. D'oh.
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Nov 21, 2011 08:11
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I don't know about Battle Royale or w/e, but the "Dystopian Dicatorship has deathmatch reality show" formula has already been perfected in the movie The Running Man. I fail to see how this movie can match it.
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Nov 21, 2011 15:09
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Chexoid posted:I don't know about Battle Royale or w/e, but the "Dystopian Dicatorship has deathmatch reality show" formula has already been perfected in the movie The Running Man. I fail to see how this movie can match it. There's a movie made a decade ago called Series 7: The Contenders which is essentially this as well and another good take on the subject. It actually pre-dates Survivor and the recent spate of reality shows, but features a lot of the same techniques that those show use to build up tension, such as creating "bad guys" for the audience to root against. Also, Peter Watkins has made at least two movies on this subject: The Gladiators/The Peace Game, which is "game" held by the neutral countries between the East and West to avoid all-out nuclear war between the Soviets and NATO, and Punishment Park, which is a "documentary" about national guardsmen and state troopers forcing arrested hippies to play capture the flag.
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Nov 21, 2011 20:36
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There's also the comedy option The Condemned with Vinnie Jones and Stone Cold Steve Austin, which I think was the WWE's best movie made, sadly.
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Nov 22, 2011 00:25
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I just finished reading the books and I can't wait for this to come out. I'm a little apprehensive but with the author so heavily involved I'm optimistic. I think she did an excellent job of establishing the world and made me actually give poo poo about the characters. Except Gale, hes boring.
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Dec 3, 2011 20:48
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Popcorn posted:The population is starving. The kid who wins The Hunger Games wins their hometown lots of food from the evil government. There might be a metaphor involved too but you'd have to ask one of the scholars who read the whole trilogy. Actually, there is a bit of metaphor to this--in Book 3 someone explains that the country's name, Panem, comes from the latin "circus et panem," which basically is a dictatorial principle that all you need to keep a population subdued is to entertain and feed them. Anyway. Yes, I've read all the books; the prose is bland and commercial (read Laini Taylor, Jandy Nelson, Melina Marchetta, Maggie Stiefvater if you want literary heart-stoppers), but the ideas and world-building are pretty fantastic and a lot of the black-and-white of the first book gets very murky very quickly as the series goes on, which I appreciate. I do believe it's a superior species to Twilight--Katniss is all about taking charge of her fate, she has flaws, she has convictions--and I'm very glad they're giving the series the budget it deserves to show that YA can be the source of more than just love triangles and body glitter. From reading the very first book I was dying to see it on the big screen, to see how well a solid director could portray the hyper-reality-TV society, and the stark contrasts between the denizens of the Capitol and those in the Districts. And, holy hell, the trailer delivers on that. Elizabeth Banks and her whole entourage looks so absurdly out-of-place in District 12, putting on such an elaborate act for the truculent, shabbily-dressed populace. The harsh sun washing out her over-the-top makeup, the feedback on the mic . . . I don't know, but that first scene impressed the hell out of me. I'm hoping the movie will be faithful to the ideas of the book while taking them even further.
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Dec 4, 2011 04:45
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Just finished the first book and I'm now looking forward to this. I definitely agree with Bohomienne that the world/Panem is really interesting. For action fans the deaths and combat are surprisingly brutal. The author sure spends a lot of time describing food though. I started just zoning out when there was yet another paragraph about the characters eating.
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Dec 4, 2011 09:12
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Mu Zeta posted:Just finished the first book and I'm now looking forward to this. I definitely agree with Bohomienne that the world/Panem is really interesting. For action fans the deaths and combat are surprisingly brutal. The author sure spends a lot of time describing food though. I started just zoning out when there was yet another paragraph about the characters eating. I just finished the first book too. It was okay, it could have been "deeper" or more detailed, it seemed the author just started to speed through the story towards the end like she couldn't wait to start writing the next book. I was worried about the pg-13-rating this is going to get and I still am after reading the book. I know there are dark and gritty pg-13 films, but they still can't show any blood coming out of a person and the very first kill in the Games has a kid spraying blood all over Katniss' face after being stabbed in the back. Sure there's not that much blood and gore in the book, but most of the kills are very brutal; an arrow through the throat, a rock caves someones head in. Those are going to be hard to show with that rating. But the biggest thing I am worried about is the very end of the games. How the hell are they going to do the muttations scene without it looking ridiculous? That is going to involve lots of cgi or terrible costumes, and even with the greatest cgi, it is not going to look anything short of unintentional hilarity. Despite all that, I am really looking forward to this, since the world depicted is kind of unique and interesting and the hunger games itself is really intense and I can't wait to see how they can keep it up in the film. not trolled not crying fucked around with this message at 11:28 on Dec 4, 2011 |
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Dec 4, 2011 11:25
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Kush posted:
I could see it working with good quality animatronics deliberately obscured by lighting/editing. The best monster movies only give you glimpses and impressions of their creature; a snout here, a silhouette there. The rest can be filled in with dialogue
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Dec 4, 2011 13:56
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I guarantee that scene will be full CGI and look terrible like this http://youtu.be/nrVOxSQVSUg?t=20s
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Dec 4, 2011 14:02
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Mu Zeta posted:I guarantee that scene will be full CGI and look terrible like this http://youtu.be/nrVOxSQVSUg?t=20s Why are those wolves as big as ponies? They look ridiculous. And you're probably right. I'd LOVE to see them done with animatronics or augmented animatronics (animatronic base with nuances of expression and movement added post production with CG) but they'll probably go full CG and look rubbish. I hope even if they go the CG route though they use editing, lighting and shot composition to keep them a bit more mysterious.
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Dec 4, 2011 14:32
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Fatkraken posted:Why are those wolves as big as ponies? They look ridiculous. Because Twilight. All they really need to do with the muttations is get the eyes right. Make it very clear those eyes are human eyes, and even spend a little time making the audience aware of the kids' eyes, so that they make the connection. They may have to say it plainly, though, and probably will, just so your average viewer isn't confused.
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Dec 4, 2011 14:42
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Kruller posted:
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Dec 4, 2011 15:11
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That was uncalled for.
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Dec 4, 2011 18:59
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Can we change the thread title? I've shut up about it
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Dec 5, 2011 13:09
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