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Benne
Sep 2, 2011

STOP DOING HEROIN
Yeah, I decided to wait for a Friday matinee. My theater has all its midnight shows sold out now.


I wonder if they'll open up 3:00AM showings like they did for The Dark Knight, when there was an entire mob of angry people practically throwing their money at the box office window. That was the most surreal midnight experience I ever had.

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Grawl
Aug 28, 2008

Do the D.A.N.C.E
1234, fight!
Stick to the B.E.A.T
Get ready to ignite
You were such a P.Y.T
Catching all the lights
Just easy as A.B.C
That's how we make it right
Saw the movie tonight as a birthday present from my sister (I liked the books). The crowd were mostly teenage girls, I didn't expect that.

As mentioned before, some of the camerawork is a little too shaky. I got bothered by it during the reaping. Why does a shot from above have to shake? Nothing is going on. During the fight with Peeta and that other guy, I was glad I read the book because I was confused who were actually fighting.

I also felt a lot of important details from the book were left out, such as the fence around District 12. I wonder how they'll include that detail in the second movie (or if they'll just ignore/skip it).

Pirate Jenny
Mar 28, 2006

Sie wissen nicht, mit wem Sie reden.
I was in the Scholastic company screening- Gary Ross showed up. Nice guy!

All my nitpicks were mostly aesthetic (odd editing in parts, too much shaky cam, Willow Smith's hair is too drat clean, etc). Other than that? Loved it. Especially loved the little touches that they added. Lenny Kravitz makes gold eyeliner look masculine. Can't wait to see it again.

Teenage Fansub
Jan 28, 2006

How do future people make killer dogs spontaneously appear?

Syllables
Jul 2, 2011

XOF XOF XOF

:fag:
All the kids at school are raving on about it. I don't really understand how they are all so "Rapid" about it. If they get any more excited they'd be foaming at their mouths.

Anyways I think I might go watch it on Sunday, if I have some free time.

Captain Mog
Jun 17, 2011

Farbtoner posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri6wRz_NjiA

I think I might actually see this during a weekday just so I don't have to deal with all the gigglesqueeing teenage girls :stare:

I'm actually glad that they're getting excited over an independent, assertive, badass heroine and a franchise with a message against fascism over glittery vampires.

der juicen
Aug 11, 2005

Fuck haters
My community college secured two showings with 6 dollar tickets and cheap popcorn, but they are at 930 am Friday and Saturday. Christ.

Also, I have never seen anything in IMAX, would this be one to try for?

der juicen fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 22, 2012

gohmak
Feb 12, 2004
cookies need love

SlenderWhore posted:

I'm actually glad that they're getting excited over an independent, assertive, badass heroine and a franchise with a message against fascism over glittery vampires.

If independent means cling to a boy because of social pressures and assertive means dare not speak your mind for survival then yes, those are her qualities.

Armacham
Mar 3, 2007

Then brothers in war, to the skirmish must we hence! Shall we hence?
Oh man I was at the mall today around 12 and there were already people lining up.

Electronico6
Feb 25, 2011

Just came out from seeing this, and I didn't like it all that much, never read the books either so maybe I'm doing it wrong.

The combination of shaky cam and bad editing gave me a massive headache, which contributed much for my troubles with this film. Some people are complaining about the final fight, which just shakes around and jumps everywhere and you can't follow what's going on, but plenty of early moments in the film are just as bad, and this is before they even get to the PG-13 violence and blood.
When Katniss is in the market where she gets her lil' pin, the camera work is handled by what I believe a very drunk person, it just wobbles around aimlessly, and to make matters worst the amount of quick cuts just make it impossible to understand what is going on. And this is a simple scene, there is this market, filled with raggedy people, Katniss is buying food and jewelry.
When it finally gets to the games, the director doesn't even try to build a cohesive action scene or momentum. All big shaking close ups of Jennifer Lawrence's face, while she is indeed pretty to look at, I would also like to understand visually what the hell is going on! It's just a big painful mess.

The film also doesn't really seem to fully commit to it's satire/critique of social class and reality TV. The stuff on the capital is just so dry and the caricature of the High Class is basically gaudy costumes and silly make up. We are told that "they" love spectacle, but very little of it are we shown. Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones gleefully commentating over the brutal deaths of 12 years old, would've probably helped a lot.
Then later on during the games, the violence and deaths are all hidden by the shaking and the cutting, it becomes almost meaningless and devoid of actual tension and danger. Maybe that's point I don't know, but it just lacked any kind of punch or bite.The behind the curtains stuff, with more Tv execs rigging the games and planning action, was a nice touch and seemed to be actually saying something interesting. Kinda boring science fiction material here.

At the end of the day, The Hunger Games gave me a nasty headache and wasn't all that interesting or captivating. Jennifer Lawrence was pretty good though, as was Stanley Tucci in his brief scenes and it has Toby Jones on a funny wig. Always the silver lining.

Electronico6 fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Mar 22, 2012

Corn Thongs
Feb 13, 2004

Armacham posted:

Oh man I was at the mall today around 12 and there were already people lining up.

Oh man, I'm starting to regret deciding to see a midnight showing a little. Wonder if I can get a refund...

Fatkraken
Jun 23, 2005

Fun-time is over.

gohmak posted:

If independent means cling to a boy because of social pressures and assertive means dare not speak your mind for survival then yes, those are her qualities.

I don't actually have too much of a problem with that (at least as presented in the book, which is first person so we get a lot of her internal monologue). The whole point is that outside pressures are forcing Katniss into unwelcome situations and actions she would otherwise not undertake. Someone who does what is necessary for survival and for the sake of others is not automatically a "weak" character, and while she is forced to bury her own desires she never actually abandons them.

The fact that it is a fake romance is a major theme of the story, you can read it as a sharp critique of the desire an audience feels (which is invariably fulfilled) for a neat little love story within the grander narrative, however grotesque that narrative itself might be. The desires of characters in the story (in this case real people within the films broader fiction) are secondary to the needs of the audience for that romance, however trite and unrealistic it might be. Even at the end of the third book where she DOES end up with Peeta, it feels more like two broken people trying to help each other heal than some sweeping storybook romance.

I never took it as Katniss clinging to Peeta as much as the pair of them realizing the fake romance is necessary. In fact he loves her but she doesn't love him, AND he knows it. She is the one with the power in that dynamic, as much as either of them is ever in control, which is not much.


^^trilogy spoilers^^

The whole thing feels a lot healthier than Twilight anyway, I think it's an interesting set of themes to present to young people, especially girls and young women.

MIDWIFE CRISIS
Nov 5, 2008

Ta gueule, laisse-moi finir.
I didn't particularly like the first book, and I probably won't go see the movie in the theater, but I tear up every loving time I see the trailer on tv and the heroine shouts "I volunteer!". I realize it's preying on my own love for my siblings, but I can't help it and it's getting really embarrassing <:mad:>

Timeless Appeal
May 28, 2006

Admiral Goodenough posted:

I didn't particularly like the first book, and I probably won't go see the movie in the theater, but I tear up every loving time I see the trailer on tv and the heroine shouts "I volunteer!". I realize it's preying on my own love for my siblings, but I can't help it and it's getting really embarrassing <:mad:>
That to me will always be the defining and great thing about Katniss as a character. She didn't have some destiny that pushes her to be a heroine, or otherwise stumble into her story. Everything that happens in the books happens because Katniss decided to do something incredibly brave.

CelestialScribe
Jan 16, 2008

Electronico6 posted:

The film also doesn't really seem to fully commit to it's satire/critique of social class and reality TV. The stuff on the capital is just so dry and the caricature of the High Class is basically gaudy costumes and silly make up. We are told that "they" love spectacle, but very little of it are we shown. Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones gleefully commentating over the brutal deaths of 12 years old, would've probably helped a lot.

This right here is my biggest problem. It was competently made, but it didn't feel as if it had a message other than, "hey, isn't this horrible".

Slasherfan
Dec 2, 2003
IS IT WRONG THAT I ONCE WROTE A HORROR STORY ABOUT THE BUDDIES? YOU KNOW, THE TALKING PUPPIES?
I just saw this at a packed theater and people where pretty much laughing though the second half of the movie.
I thought the movie was decent enough but pretty much ruined by the camera shaking around so much. None of the deaths in the movie have any impact at all.

SolidRed
Jan 23, 2008
and if you didn't know.... NOW YOU KNOW - Christian Cage
Not really much to say other than this was an average film. As has been previously said every action scene was ruined by Jason Bourne Shaky cam attempts taken to far. It worked in the Bourne movies because the action scenes were actually decent and it was used as a tool to further that end, I am getting sick of films using shaky cam to cover up poorly acted fight scenes.

26 Fighters enter but who cares this movie is about the two main characters and four villians. Remember in Battle Royale when they spent alot of time on all the characters including the villains of the film so you actually cared about character deaths? We didn't have any time for that here.

It seems like they had a perfect set up to show us at least a few characters during the training scene but I guess why bother to introduce us to the other contestants since they either die within the first two minutes of the game or are killed off screen.

I give it two out of ten Battle Royale's but 10/10 The Condemned's. My favourite scene being when the black contestant we never learn the name of shows up to save the day, murders a little girl then disappears to be killed off screen later

SolidRed fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Mar 23, 2012

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Nonetheless this movie is going to be a massive phenomenon. I just went out to get some Taco Bell and drove through the movie theater parking lot on the way home and every single parking space was filled for the midnight showing.

That theater's been open 10 years and I've never seen anywhere near that busy. The showing we're going to tomorrow was already sold out today when a friend tried to get a ticket.

This is a relatively small city too.

Arkane
Dec 19, 2006

by R. Guyovich
The bugaboo is that this could do $75+ million on Friday (including midnights).

For perspective, that would make it the 2nd highest all-time (Harry Potter 7.2 at $92), and put this in line for one of the top 5 opening weekends of all-time.

I've followed box office closely for years. This is loving unprecedented.

Casimir Radon
Aug 2, 2008


If this is going to be all packed and poo poo with teenage girls we might not bother going for a week.

gohmak
Feb 12, 2004
cookies need love

Admiral Goodenough posted:

I didn't particularly like the first book, and I probably won't go see the movie in the theater, but I tear up every loving time I see the trailer on tv and the heroine shouts "I volunteer!". I realize it's preying on my own love for my siblings, but I can't help it and it's getting really embarrassing <:mad:>

I didn't particularly care for the book either but I actually felt the movie was better. The changes made more sense to move the story thematically. they could have spent more time developing the relationship with Rue to give her death a bit more weight but the district 11 uprising more than made up for it. The shaky cam was not nearly as bad as you guys are making it out to be.but I wish they would have kept the part about the Mutts dragging Kato into the Cornucopia keeping him alive to prolong the game

scrooger
Feb 26, 2006
Having not read the book I thought this movie was pretty terrible. I didn't care one bit about any character, the dialogue was pretty loving terrible and the entire story was filled with cliches. The one character who I wanted to see more of showed up for all of one moderately cool scene then proceeded to die off camera without even being mentioned.

PoopinClumpin
Jul 4, 2006

gohmak posted:

The shaky cam was not nearly as bad as you guys are making it out to be.

I agree with almost everything you said, but the shaky cam made a confusing mess out of the final grapple with Peeta and Kato. If I hadn't read the book I would have had no idea how Kato got him in a headlock at all. The movie was good but I wish they'd have toned down the frantic camera.

VaultAggie
Nov 18, 2010

Best out of 71?
Just finished seeing it and although the shaky cam was annoying, the movie was great. Woody Harrelson was awesome and Jennifer Lawrence blew it out of the water. I do felt that Rue should have been expanded on and the final grapple scene with Peeta and Kota was a horrendous bit of filming.

ZombieScholar
Mar 17, 2009

Bash 'em in the head, that seems to work.
Loved the books, pretty meh on the movie. Shaky cam all over - not just in action scenes, but in establishing, environment developing shots, which is all kinds of awful. I thought Woody Harrelson was a bright spot in a dim movie - but I really, really missed the combative give and take that Haymitch and Katniss have in the books.

I think the biggest plus the film had was that the muttations were fairly cleverly handled. With all the terrible camera work, I was pretty convinced we would in fact be getting Tim Allen in Shaggy Dog...

not trolled not crying
Jan 29, 2007

21st Century Awezome Man
I liked it, but I have to agree with the shaky-cam complaints. I think this was to hide some budget issues with the cgi, sets and violence so they could keep it "close to the actors", but it was really distracting at points. Every fight that was 1 on 1, you could not tell what the poo poo was happening. And there were a few normal scenes that were just shaking all over the place.

Other than that, I liked it more than the book and it was surprisingly violent and intense for a PG-13 film, there actually was quite a bit of blood flying, especially during the cornucopia scene, that was brutal. The mutts were handled better than I expected and the whole scene was really intense. Until the shakycam awfulness that followed.

I liked the scenes where they showed how the game was controlled and all that, it was very Truman Showish, which was nice.
Jennifer Lawrence of course was great, so good that I felt she overshadowed Hutcherson too much when it comes to acting.

Since it's certain this will get a sequel(s), I expect them getting a much bigger budget to work with, so maybe they can expand the scope with clearer shots and without this much shaking.

nigga crab pollock
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
I wrote this to post somewhere else, so i guess ignore the vulgarity if that isn't your thing - my points still stand though so why not put them here.

quote:

Man it's just such a bad movie. I did not read the books and didn't know much about it from outside sources and its so fuckin boring and bad. 2/10.

The introduction was pretty good but it was an introduction to the wrong movie, and the transition between it and the rest of the movie is very jarring. It's not really an introduction because of it, it messes up the flow of the movie and the rest of it is just a garbled mess of flat story advancement - there's no climax or ending, it just ends. You're left hanging with no clue as to why everything is so mad hosed up and why all of this seemingly useless poo poo is happening until halfway through the movie which only explains why there are televised games and not why the games are necessary in the first place.

Character development is strong in the introduction but then just kind of like falls flat and flounders about - and most characters are introduced in that second half while the ones in the first are forgotten. The main character is the most developed but you don't give a poo poo about her because her interactions with other characters are just flat and boring. It's a major disappointment because the acting in the movie is fantastic - but i don't care if she can convincingly act like her lifelong friend has died when it actually wasnt a lifelong friend it was some little girl whose death scene has more screen time than her actually being alive. Also i can't remember any of the characters names which is a good indicator of badness

The camerawork changes so much through the film, there's not one solid feel to it which doesn't help the movie at all - and the fight scenes were a complete joke. They were honestly the worst i have ever seen in a movie because they completely failed to do anything but give you motion sickness. And the crazy wacky clothing design was boring as it was just "roll these fucks in glitter and put them on camera." not even some rad 5th element style wackness. and the special effects were a joke which really shouldn't matter but come on they were bad. They didn't have to do much and they didn't even do that

It wasn't viscerally bad, i didn't want to walk away in disgust but i probably would have gotten bored and gotten something to eat if it was on dvd. Taken a dump or something. It was just a boring-rear end movie and not because i was missing something deep about it, paying attention netted me nothing besides some lovely rear end mixture of brave new world and 1984 remixed and watered down to be a kids book. Maybe some lord of the flies for good measure i dunno.

Forget Forgive
Aug 13, 2007

This movie was really bad in my opinion. I was invited by my sister and had only wiki'd the plots of the three novels, but this went many times below my expectations. The novels actually seem interesting, but this movie was awful.


The huge problem for me was the world and society the movie tries to build up for us is poorly observed and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I could not get past how completely unrealistically inconsistent every single thing and character was.

The tyranny of the Capitol government was barely evident, and from the sparse evidence we're given of the surrounding districts' characteristics there seems to be no reason at all why the Capitol needs to subjugate anyone or hold these games. What does this hyper-powerful Capitol need these districts for, given the levels of technology we see them control vs. the absolute squalor of the districts? Why don't they use their vastly superior technology to easily and safely mine coal? Why the hell does the Capitol need their slave labor beyond domestic servants? What exactly are these districts contributing economically if everyone can collectively sit down and watch the hunger games from not only a big screen TV in a courtyard but also wireless projectors in their homes? For hours if not days at a time! It makes no loving sense.

The population of the Capitol reacts to the tributes not in a gladiatorial way but instead in a morning talk-show celebrity worship way, even though every single citizen knows that all but one will die. Why would anyone faun over these kids if they know that most die almost immediately during the games? No human being would react that way, and the movie gives us no evidence as to how the society of the Capitol is different enough to make such behavior realistic.

And the behavior of some of the tributes:

One of the biggest blocks to my suspension of disbelief was the team of tributes that becomes a roving pack of bullies. Like, middle school level bullies. Here we have several tributes that allegedly have been trained specifically to win the games and bring glory to their district. That means they must kill or outlast every single person including their own comrade from their home district. You'd think they'd have a more sober mind and killer instinct than to run after Katniss yelling "Na na na boo boo" type stuff. And the fact that they didn't at least post a watch during the night while they waited below Katniss' tree? Much less that fact that they just gave up on climbing after her or at least using their plentiful arrows to shoot her down? MUCH LESS THE FACT THAT ALL OF THEM KNOW THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE WINNER SO WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY FORM A ROVING BAND OF BULLIES IF INEVITABLY THEY MUST TURN ON EACH OTHER ONE BY ONE?

Needless to say, I could write pages and pages on how completely hosed the internal consistency of The Hunger Games' world is. I can easily suspend my disbelief for almost any fiction. What I cannot abide is the logic of this world's mythos hemorrhaging from every orifice from literally the beginning of the movie to the very end.


P.S. The cinematography was horribly claustrophobic. The fact that they crammed so much CGI and costumes into this movie makes me think it was simply incompetence on the artistic team's part rather than camouflaging budget shortcuts. This movie didn't have a coherent idea of what it was trying to do and it shows in every department.

Forget Forgive fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Mar 23, 2012

trash person
Apr 5, 2006

Baby Executive is pleased with your performance!

Named Ashamed posted:

MUCH LESS THE FACT THAT ALL OF THEM KNOW THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE WINNER SO WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY FORM A ROVING BAND OF BULLIES IF INEVITABLY THEY MUST TURN ON EACH OTHER ONE BY ONE?

To stay alive longer?

Does this really confuse you? I mean, have you just never watched Survivor?

VelveetaAvenger
Nov 3, 2011

Boom!
So what happened to the awesome werewolves with 4 inch steel claws genetically engineered from the dead contestants? After reading the book on Wednesday that was the part I was looking forward to.

I did think the movie had a chance to be better then the book, since the plot was ok. Unfortunately, the acting was worse then the writing. They also really needed to go all out on the tv show aspect. The target audience isn't going to know (or care) if they ripped off the Running Man, and all we get are a couple of one or two line scenes.

I can't believe they managed to cut out so much of the beginning and still stretch it to 2 1/2 hours either. The pacing was awful, and some of the changes simply did not make sense to me. I thought District 11 sending the bread was a far more meaningful gesture then the riot which apparently doesn't happen til the next book. However, Locking the Gamemaster in the room with the berries at the end was a nice touch though

I also went with my sister and my dad. It seemed like all the teen to 20's girls that made up the majority of the audience really liked it, despite laughing at Cato's awful line delivery throughout the movie. My dad liked it too, which I find pretty funny.

Teenage Fansub
Jan 28, 2006

Teenage Fansub posted:

How do future people make killer dogs spontaneously appear?

Anyone?

Vegetable
Oct 22, 2010

Teenage Fansub posted:

Anyone?
Drop them off their future spacecrafts? Catapult them in? I'm sure they have all that junk prepared somewhere already, just as they have with the fireballs.

I've read the book and it was exciting to see some scenes come to life. The lack of context will really confuse many non-readers though. I agree with one of the posters here, the pacing is really off. After 2.5 hours I didn't think they covered nearly enough to provide a meaningful commentary on anything. I would have liked them to be more radical in their changes.

They could take a lesson or two from The Lord of the Rings, where the first film felt like a complete one in its own right. For now I'm just eagerly anticipating a second film to provide more background information on the story.

Teenage Fansub
Jan 28, 2006

Vegetable posted:

Drop them off their future spacecrafts? Catapult them in? I'm sure they have all that junk prepared somewhere already, just as they have with the fireballs.

When they added the second and third ones it looked like they materialized, but I guess they opened trap doors in the ground. It was a bit too quick to tell.
Just asking in case there's some unexplained future genetic engineering poo poo where they could magic up some dogs.

not trolled not crying
Jan 29, 2007

21st Century Awezome Man

Teenage Fansub posted:

When they added the second and third ones it looked like they materialized, but I guess they opened trap doors in the ground. It was a bit too quick to tell.
Just asking in case there's some unexplained future genetic engineering poo poo where they could magic up some dogs.

This is what it looked like to me. It's really quick but I was looking very closely at the scene since the dog-things were the ones I'd been waiting for the whole time, and from what I could tell, they jumped up from the ground so there was probably some sort of tunnels/cages underground. I'm glad they chose to make the animals more doglike than the super werewolves in the book, since it was kind of laughable even when I was reading it and it would have looked even more stupid on the screen.

Butt Soup Barnes
Nov 25, 2008

Named Ashamed posted:

This movie was really bad in my opinion. I was invited by my sister and had only wiki'd the plots of the three novels, but this went many times below my expectations. The novels actually seem interesting, but this movie was awful.


The huge problem for me was the world and society the movie tries to build up for us is poorly observed and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I could not get past how completely unrealistically inconsistent every single thing and character was.

The tyranny of the Capitol government was barely evident, and from the sparse evidence we're given of the surrounding districts' characteristics there seems to be no reason at all why the Capitol needs to subjugate anyone or hold these games. What does this hyper-powerful Capitol need these districts for, given the levels of technology we see them control vs. the absolute squalor of the districts? Why don't they use their vastly superior technology to easily and safely mine coal? Why the hell does the Capitol need their slave labor beyond domestic servants? What exactly are these districts contributing economically if everyone can collectively sit down and watch the hunger games from not only a big screen TV in a courtyard but also wireless projectors in their homes? For hours if not days at a time! It makes no loving sense.

The population of the Capitol reacts to the tributes not in a gladiatorial way but instead in a morning talk-show celebrity worship way, even though every single citizen knows that all but one will die. Why would anyone faun over these kids if they know that most die almost immediately during the games? No human being would react that way, and the movie gives us no evidence as to how the society of the Capitol is different enough to make such behavior realistic.

And the behavior of some of the tributes:

One of the biggest blocks to my suspension of disbelief was the team of tributes that becomes a roving pack of bullies. Like, middle school level bullies. Here we have several tributes that allegedly have been trained specifically to win the games and bring glory to their district. That means they must kill or outlast every single person including their own comrade from their home district. You'd think they'd have a more sober mind and killer instinct than to run after Katniss yelling "Na na na boo boo" type stuff. And the fact that they didn't at least post a watch during the night while they waited below Katniss' tree? Much less that fact that they just gave up on climbing after her or at least using their plentiful arrows to shoot her down? MUCH LESS THE FACT THAT ALL OF THEM KNOW THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE WINNER SO WHY THE HELL WOULD THEY FORM A ROVING BAND OF BULLIES IF INEVITABLY THEY MUST TURN ON EACH OTHER ONE BY ONE?

Needless to say, I could write pages and pages on how completely hosed the internal consistency of The Hunger Games' world is. I can easily suspend my disbelief for almost any fiction. What I cannot abide is the logic of this world's mythos hemorrhaging from every orifice from literally the beginning of the movie to the very end.


P.S. The cinematography was horribly claustrophobic. The fact that they crammed so much CGI and costumes into this movie makes me think it was simply incompetence on the artistic team's part rather than camouflaging budget shortcuts. This movie didn't have a coherent idea of what it was trying to do and it shows in every department.

Reading the first book will answer most of your questions, I'll try to explain some of them.

Each district specializes in a specific resource, i.e. coal for District 12, agriculture for District 11, etc. One of the districts produces the technology for the Capitol, another "farms" Peacekeepers. The Capitol relies on them since the Capitol itself is small and has no resources. As for why they can't just use technology, why spend the time, effort, and money when you can have plebes do it for next to nothing?

The book also mentions that the Hunger Games are the only times that electricity is consistent in the district and that televisions actually work (in the book they don't mention projectors, she says they have a really old television that never receives a broadcast until the games each year.) They spend massive amounts of effort to make sure that everybody in the districts can watch the game, and basically not be able to avoid it.

The way the Capitol population acts is just a caricature of how we act with reality shows today. They are so far removed from the district citizens to truly feel any sympathy, for the most part. There are of course some sane ones, and you get to see that a lot in the second and third books.

As for the alliances, I could never really get over that in the books either. It's just too hard to believe that they wouldn't turn on each other instantly. However, the book does explain that the more prosperous districts have "career" tributes (I believe they mentioned this in the movie as well.) Those districts win a majority of the time and pride themselves in being the best. So it sort of makes sense that they could have some sort of "gentleman's agreement" to weed out the weaklings and then go their separate ways. But again you really have to suspend your disbelief a lot to go with it.

I understand why somebody would be frustrated at the movie because of all this without reading the books, because it's hard to suspend your disbelief for so much of it. But if you think the novels look interesting, please read them, you will get a much better sense of what they were trying to do in the movie. A good third of the first book deals with the Capitol, and at least half of the second.


Edit: As for my opinion of the film, as somebody who read all three books, I think they did a great job of bringing the Capitol/district 12 to life and showing the stark contrast between those in the Capitol and those in the districts. But that's because I knew all of the "details" ahead of time so everything made a lot more sense to me than somebody who went in without knowing anything.

The cinematography was dizzying at times, but I think that was their way of showing how chaotic the fights were in the arena since they couldn't go the straight gore route due to PG-13. Could have been a little less extreme though. I REALLY liked how they did the hallucination scene with the tracker jackets, though.

I was interested to see how they would portray Katniss' internal struggles, since the book was from her point of view. In the book, you get a great idea of her conflicting ideas about Haymitch and Peeta that you simply don't see at all in the movie.

As for Rue's death, it is understandable to not really feel much since there was next to no character development of her. In the books you get to see how they bonded quite well in the few days they had in the arena, and how much she reminds Katniss of her little sister. That scene in the book was a lot more heart wrenching than in the movie, yet still half the theatre was crying when it happened.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie a lot, and it was very true to the books, with two exceptions, one minor and one major. In the books, the Mockinjay pin is not found at the market, it is given to her by the Mayor's daughter, Madge, when she was given time to say goodbye to everybody after the reaping. Madge was one of Katniss' few "friends" in District 12, but had a very minor role in the books so it's understandable that she was left out. Also, the uprising in District 11 didn't happen until the second book, and all of the foreshadowing of Katniss being a problem for the Capitol was not touched on one bit until book 2.



TL;DR: If you didn't particularly like the movie but thought the plot was interesting, just read the books. They're 400 page YA novels, and can be finished in a day easily.

Butt Soup Barnes fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Mar 23, 2012

extremebuff
Jun 20, 2010

The movie was great but I had three main complaints, from least to greatest:

1. Things that were excluded or changed from the book. I understand cutting things out for time but they changed a lot of scenes for no reason. I thought the introduction (with the random news casts from the capitol to explain things instead of hearing Katniss' thoughts) was really creative, but on the other hand, well, I didn't feel like anyone was hungry throughout the entire movie. A lot of things weren't shown that would've taken 3 seconds to explain and that would confuse the poo poo out of people who didn't read the books.

2. The shaky cam. I'm sorry but a shaky blurry camera does not make a scene frantic, it is confusing and irritating to the audience and kills the presentation. It is also a very gaudy, lazy way to make a scene seem crazy. The worst part is I know they used the shaky cam a lot because of censorship, which brings me to my biggest complaint:

3. This is a movie about children killing eachother because an oppressive government seeks to punish the people for their former attempts at rebellion. It is bleak, it is horrifying, and instead of going for the art, for the gruesomeness of it all, they went for the cash-in. The PG-13 rating. I saw 12 year-old girls with loving "Team Gale" on their cheeks.

extremebuff fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Mar 23, 2012

leokitty
Apr 5, 2005

I live. I die. I live again.

Bobnumerotres posted:

3. This is a movie about children killing eachother because an oppressive government seeks to punish the people for their former attempts at rebellion. It is bleak, it is horrifying, and instead of going for the art, for the gruesomeness of it all, they went for the cash-in. The PG-13 rating. I saw 12 year girls with loving "Team Gale" on their cheeks.

The movie makers are not going to cut out the bulk of their audience (the teenagers who have read the book and love it so much) by making the movie rated R. I wouldn't even call it a cash in, they are making the movie for those people and to do so they have to work within a system that doesn't allow them to approach things properly.

The thing worth examining here is why we treat books and movies so differently.

Back Hack
Jan 17, 2010


Went to movies with my brother who came visit over the weekend and we went to see this film this morning. Didn't think it was good, but didn't think it was bad either, just kind of 'meh'. Course our movie experience was kind of poisoned by the fact there were no less than 7 babies with parent who were doing the whole "ignore them, they just want attention" thing in the relatively small theatre we got put in. The constant see of crying started 10 minutes into the movie and ended 10 minutes after the movie. :v:

extremebuff
Jun 20, 2010

leokitty posted:

The thing worth examining here is why we treat books and movies so differently.

I want to avoid going really off-topic but yes I agree that censorship is nothing but confusing to me. I remember being in middle school and being forced to read stuff like A Child Called It and when I asked if we could read Fight Club I was told it was too violent. gently caress censorship.

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GaryLeeLoveBuckets
May 8, 2009

Bobnumerotres posted:

I saw 12 year-old girls with loving "Team Gale" on their cheeks.

Consider yourself lucky, I saw girls this age wearing shirts for Team Peeta/Katniss. About 20 of them were all sporting "Team Pee-Niss" shirts, one even had it painted on her face in alternated gold and red.

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