The Hunger Games Movie
Because Catching Fire is about to come out, I decided to re-watch the 1st Hunger Games film and determine how good of an adaptation it is. I saw the movie in theaters, I just don't remember it that well, so I'm watching it again on Netflix.
Overall, this is a very very good adaptation, but it isn't an adaptation of The Hunger Games, it's more of a addition.
The most interesting part of The Hunger Games novel to me was the 1st 3rd of the book when all of the interviews and training is happening. I like this part of the book the most because it's a peek into the society in Panem and how insane it is, which is very scary as Panem is an exaggeration of current American values. I like this book because it takes our society to extremes to show how screwed up it is even when it isn't exaggerated.
The movie does none of this, and breezes over the 1st 3rd so that it can get to the interesting part. The author of the book, Suzanne Collins, had a lot to do with the screenplay for this film, and you could tell that the story wanted to focus on the interviews because it is the most interesting part of the story. In actuality, it is very obvious that the director, art director, producer and pretty much everyone else in a position like that hated the 1st 3rd and just wanted to get to the children killing each other.
And who can blame them? That stuff sells! But it's obvious the writers had a different vision than everyone else. The interview/training portion of the narrative takes up the 1st hour and 30 minutes and is the 1st half instead of the 1st 3rd. All of the details from the book were carried over into the film, even to the point of well thought out additions that added to the story in one way or another. Meanwhile most of the children killing each other is edited down, edited out, not focused on, and overall the writing staff did not give a crap about the children killing each other.
The children killing each other was all the filmmakers focused on. As stated in The Player, the second half of the film has suspense, heart, hope, violence, sex (kinda) and a happy ending. All of these traits, are traits that make people like movies, and so more effort was put into showcasing these traits. Accordingly, more effort was put onto the children killing each other instead of the interview/training.
The reason I take issue with this is because it causes the world not to be played correctly. I don't need Suzanne Collins to be the art director, but the capitol was at times either too weird, or not weird enough. I feel like the general public should have been played down while everyone else should have been played up more.
This is shockingly difficult to explain, but lets just say that the interview scene sucked. None of the tributes were wearing makeup or had dresses that were ridiculous enough. This practically ruined the movie for me because it destroyed one of the most important themes of the story. That Cinna is a rebel, and the Capitol is insane. Granted we've already seen plenty of demonstrations that the capitol is insane, but the narrative is relentless about this and it has to be to get the point across. But I digress.
This story vs production thing isn't bad, in fact it makes the movie more balanced, it's just turned into an action film instead of the conflict study we were given in the book. Again, there is nothing wrong with this, it's just a different interpretation of the same story.
What the story took out, it took out for a reason. I never liked the plot from the book with the avox. For those that don't know, the avoxes are the slaves that serve everybody in the Capitol. To become an avox, you commit a federal offense. In the film you see them milling around in the background a bit, but the subplot with Katniss knowing an avox does not exist. I probably should have put a spoiler-alert on that, but there's no spoiler to alert you about. This subplot never goes anywhere, is only important for exposition purposes, and is probably the plot to some manuscript for Catching Fire that was too stupid to finish. This was the only part of the story removed from the interview/training portion, and I didn't need it to be in the story in the 1st place.
Something I can say about The Hunger Games is that it benefits from being made after the books were finished. Don't get me wrong, I like Harry Potter as much as the next guy, but the movies always seemed plot-hole ridden. Why? Because they didn't know what to include. The books weren't finished yet and the films really suffered for it because they had no idea what to put in. The Hunger Games is finished, and it knows what it needs to show you in order to keep you up to speed in the next two. Granted they took out the eardrum thing (which does come back later in Catching Fire) but I'm certain that won't come up in the movie at all.
Now we come to the shaky cam. Cinemasins joked that the director of photography was Micheal J. Fox. Ha, Parkinson's. But in all seriousness, I don't care about the shaky cam, it was never irritating to me, and it looked kinda cool to be honest. What I had a problem with was the quick jumps between shots. We never stay on one shot for more than about 10 seconds, especially in the beginning of the film. This was irritating to me because I was watching it so close to the screen, and it isn't my complaint. My complaint is that we never get to look at anything. They change shot so fast you don't get to see anything in detail. I don't care that much, it just seems like a strange artistic choice.
I should also bring up the way they get around the 1st person narration thing. In the books, Katniss is always keeping the audience up to speed through her narration, we know what Katniss knows, and we understand the story. In film, you can't do that, because you have the omniscient narrator that is the camera. So we get plot information through news broadcasts, scenes in that control room, and, well, just scenes that aren't the games. I love it. I salute you writers, well done!
So, the movie has good bits, it has bad bits, and overall, it's a very good movie.
But here's the thing, it's an action film. This movie isn't supposed to be a retelling of the Hunger Games, it's trying to be supplemental material. Like The Lion King 1 1/2 or Rosencrants and Guildenstern. The story is still there, but it doesn't exist to retell the story in a different medium, it serves to flesh out the story already presented. However, this doesn't get rid of the fact that it is an action film, and if you want to see an action film, you need to sit through an hour and 30 minutes of story first. Overall, it's just as good as the original, as instead of restating thoughts it adds to and improves upon them.
8/10
Overall, this is a very very good adaptation, but it isn't an adaptation of The Hunger Games, it's more of a addition.
The most interesting part of The Hunger Games novel to me was the 1st 3rd of the book when all of the interviews and training is happening. I like this part of the book the most because it's a peek into the society in Panem and how insane it is, which is very scary as Panem is an exaggeration of current American values. I like this book because it takes our society to extremes to show how screwed up it is even when it isn't exaggerated.
The movie does none of this, and breezes over the 1st 3rd so that it can get to the interesting part. The author of the book, Suzanne Collins, had a lot to do with the screenplay for this film, and you could tell that the story wanted to focus on the interviews because it is the most interesting part of the story. In actuality, it is very obvious that the director, art director, producer and pretty much everyone else in a position like that hated the 1st 3rd and just wanted to get to the children killing each other.
And who can blame them? That stuff sells! But it's obvious the writers had a different vision than everyone else. The interview/training portion of the narrative takes up the 1st hour and 30 minutes and is the 1st half instead of the 1st 3rd. All of the details from the book were carried over into the film, even to the point of well thought out additions that added to the story in one way or another. Meanwhile most of the children killing each other is edited down, edited out, not focused on, and overall the writing staff did not give a crap about the children killing each other.
The children killing each other was all the filmmakers focused on. As stated in The Player, the second half of the film has suspense, heart, hope, violence, sex (kinda) and a happy ending. All of these traits, are traits that make people like movies, and so more effort was put into showcasing these traits. Accordingly, more effort was put onto the children killing each other instead of the interview/training.
The reason I take issue with this is because it causes the world not to be played correctly. I don't need Suzanne Collins to be the art director, but the capitol was at times either too weird, or not weird enough. I feel like the general public should have been played down while everyone else should have been played up more.
This is shockingly difficult to explain, but lets just say that the interview scene sucked. None of the tributes were wearing makeup or had dresses that were ridiculous enough. This practically ruined the movie for me because it destroyed one of the most important themes of the story. That Cinna is a rebel, and the Capitol is insane. Granted we've already seen plenty of demonstrations that the capitol is insane, but the narrative is relentless about this and it has to be to get the point across. But I digress.
This story vs production thing isn't bad, in fact it makes the movie more balanced, it's just turned into an action film instead of the conflict study we were given in the book. Again, there is nothing wrong with this, it's just a different interpretation of the same story.
What the story took out, it took out for a reason. I never liked the plot from the book with the avox. For those that don't know, the avoxes are the slaves that serve everybody in the Capitol. To become an avox, you commit a federal offense. In the film you see them milling around in the background a bit, but the subplot with Katniss knowing an avox does not exist. I probably should have put a spoiler-alert on that, but there's no spoiler to alert you about. This subplot never goes anywhere, is only important for exposition purposes, and is probably the plot to some manuscript for Catching Fire that was too stupid to finish. This was the only part of the story removed from the interview/training portion, and I didn't need it to be in the story in the 1st place.
Something I can say about The Hunger Games is that it benefits from being made after the books were finished. Don't get me wrong, I like Harry Potter as much as the next guy, but the movies always seemed plot-hole ridden. Why? Because they didn't know what to include. The books weren't finished yet and the films really suffered for it because they had no idea what to put in. The Hunger Games is finished, and it knows what it needs to show you in order to keep you up to speed in the next two. Granted they took out the eardrum thing (which does come back later in Catching Fire) but I'm certain that won't come up in the movie at all.
Now we come to the shaky cam. Cinemasins joked that the director of photography was Micheal J. Fox. Ha, Parkinson's. But in all seriousness, I don't care about the shaky cam, it was never irritating to me, and it looked kinda cool to be honest. What I had a problem with was the quick jumps between shots. We never stay on one shot for more than about 10 seconds, especially in the beginning of the film. This was irritating to me because I was watching it so close to the screen, and it isn't my complaint. My complaint is that we never get to look at anything. They change shot so fast you don't get to see anything in detail. I don't care that much, it just seems like a strange artistic choice.
I should also bring up the way they get around the 1st person narration thing. In the books, Katniss is always keeping the audience up to speed through her narration, we know what Katniss knows, and we understand the story. In film, you can't do that, because you have the omniscient narrator that is the camera. So we get plot information through news broadcasts, scenes in that control room, and, well, just scenes that aren't the games. I love it. I salute you writers, well done!
So, the movie has good bits, it has bad bits, and overall, it's a very good movie.
But here's the thing, it's an action film. This movie isn't supposed to be a retelling of the Hunger Games, it's trying to be supplemental material. Like The Lion King 1 1/2 or Rosencrants and Guildenstern. The story is still there, but it doesn't exist to retell the story in a different medium, it serves to flesh out the story already presented. However, this doesn't get rid of the fact that it is an action film, and if you want to see an action film, you need to sit through an hour and 30 minutes of story first. Overall, it's just as good as the original, as instead of restating thoughts it adds to and improves upon them.
8/10