The Hunger Games

JJ · 11-04-2012 12:08pm

I finally got around to seeing the movie last week and I should also mention that I went into it have read all 3 books first. I think I'd agree with most of what was said already. I didn't mind the shaky cam stuff too much though

having Cato's death off screen occur offscreen was a blatant attempt to keep the rating down.

I was also a bit confused as to why they had Katiness backstage during Peeta's interview with Caesar before the games. In the book, the whole point of withholding Peeta's romantic confession about Katiness was so they'd get a genuine reaction from her on camera. In the movie, she's backstage and the audience (in the movie) don't see her reaction. That was just one change that didn't make sense and didn't seem to save time or pacing either.

One other small point I thought was interesting was the promotional video they showed at the reaping. It was almost kind of chilling how the killing of innocent teenagers is justified as being for the good of the country. That video also reminded me of the video you're greeted with nowadays when you go thru US customs.

Cantona's Collars · 11-04-2012 6:36pm

For the ultraviolent version of the battle,the movie The Condemned is on 5USA on Friday night at 10pm.

Liam O · 11-04-2012 10:30pm

I'd agree with a lot of what johnny said above, and add that I found far too many characters lack depth. From what I can gather from the (racist) people on Twitter who I've heard talking about it Ruu was a very big part of the first novel and her

death

scene wasn't really that heart-wrenching for me as we'd only seen her for about 5 minutes.

That magic healing potion thing annoyed me to no end too. I thought it was just some burn cream for Katniss but when it cures Peeta's

sword wound with about half the inside of his leg hanging out

it got a bit ridiculous.

Ultimately what the movie did was not overly enthrall me, but persuade me that the book might possibly do that and with a bit more character development instead of the seemingly irrelevant plotlines revolving around sponsors (built up as this big part of the games but seemingly useless in there) and unexplained social circumstances and lack of depth of the world around the games this could be a really good story.

pixelburp · 12-04-2012 7:59am

Saw it the other night; went in with some trepidation as I wasn't familiar with the books, only insofar as I knew it to be a popular young-adults novel; I came out pleasantly surprised mind you. A solid if unspectacular film, It's entertaining for what it is, and couldn't fault the performances or the ideas (I wasn't hung up on what movie did the concept first - who cares ultimately?).

The only thing that stuck in my craw was the jarring transition between the depression-era stylings of District 12 and the OTT, futuristic decadence - by way of The 5th Element - of the Capitol. It felt somewhat alienating, as if we stepped into another film. Having said that, viewed in isolation, the aesthetics were very similar to those you'd see in a 1970s dystopian sci-fi film, particularly the costumes of the police. I kept expecting Charlton Heston to run across the screen at any moment

don ramo · 12-04-2012 4:54pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

But there were a load of silly contrivances that just bothered me as it progressed,
not least of which was the 'magical healing balm' which was just a leap of logic too far for me. The dog sequence was ludicrous, were they meant to be game master generated or what? After so much build up, the climax and 'epilogue' felt rushed and overly episodic.

you have to remember the capitol is very advanced, and keeps the districts under their thumbs, this is a crowd that make each district give up 2 children every year to face certain death, and it was the 74th hunger games, so this has been going on for a while, also the film was a kind of reality TV gone wild show, thus the dogs at the end to spice things up, like the fire earlier to force katniss into the path of the other tributes,

you might have to zoom a bit, but it shows what each district does, with the majority of the supplies going to the capitol, and also each of the districts don't interact with each other, there is one of them electric fence that katniss goes through to hunt surrounding each district, 12 is just so poor that its rarely active,

they really didn't explain a lot in the film, might be a good thing Gary Ross isn't doing the second film,

stevenmu · 12-04-2012 5:11pm

I was kind of impressed by this. It is quite dumbed down in sci-fi terms, but for a film largely aimed at the teen/twilight audience, it isn't actually dumbed down all that much. It does touch on some interesting themes, not in a huge amount of detail, but they're there at least. I hope that if this continues being a huge success, Hollywood might realise that not everyone is as dumb as they think.

jupiterjack · 13-04-2012 11:21pm

loved the hunger games

kellybutler · 16-04-2012 7:25pm

officially addicted! dying to read the second book !!!

Sad Professor · 14-05-2012 6:54pm

I rather enjoyed this. It's great to see such a strong female protagonist in a film. Thankfully they never oversold her strength or tried to make her superhuman. I also liked the fact that the male romantic interest, Peeta, was less capable and even shorter than Katniss. A refreshing change from the norm, especially when there's a more conventional male character (Hemsworth) standing on the sidelines.

A lot of stuff about the games didn't make sense to me though. The way different contestants cooperated at the beginning, for example. I have a hard time believing that anyone would want one particular district, even their own, to win/lose so badly that they would risk banding together like that. Any one of them could wake up in the middle of the night and slaughter the rest in their sleep.

Oh and it is one very poorly shot film. I can live with shaky cam, but keep the bloody shots in focus! It's amateurish looking. Ross doesn't seem to have a clue how to shoot a scene properly. Go wide and let us see what's going on. They spent all that money on sets and costumes, yet we can't see them because the director was more interested in close-ups of Elizabeth Bank's teeth. The series can only gain from Ross's departure. They need a new DP as well. The cinematography is bland and uninspired across the board.

constitutionus · 23-05-2012 9:40pm

finally got around to seeing this yesterday.

TBH i dont get what all the fuss was about.

thougt it was just OK. I liked the way they "kept it real" on the emotional and technological front but as an old fogey all i kept thinking of was "the running man" from the 80s .

havent read the books or anything just to let others know.

it DOES look like a good start to a franchise though

guess i'd give it a 6/10

constitutionus · 23-05-2012 9:51pm

don ramo wrote: »

you have to remember the capitol is very advanced, and keeps the districts under their thumbs, this is a crowd that make each district give up 2 children every year to face certain death, and it was the 74th hunger games, so this has been going on for a while, also the film was a kind of reality TV gone wild show, thus the dogs at the end to spice things up, like the fire earlier to force katniss into the path of the other tributes,

you might have to zoom a bit, but it shows what each district does, with the majority of the supplies going to the capitol, and also each of the districts don't interact with each other, there is one of them electric fence that katniss goes through to hunt surrounding each district, 12 is just so poor that its rarely active,

they really didn't explain a lot in the film, might be a good thing Gary Ross isn't doing the second film,

thats the impression i got too.

my money was on the burn cream and other medicines actually being some form of nanotech.

theyve been doing this for the guts of a century so this sort of injury was probably delt with years ago.

the whole enviorment seemd to be controlled and they outright say the tracker jackers are genetically engineered to do what they do so the notion they can slap genetically engineered dogs (or whatever the hell they were) anywhere they want from holding pens aint that big a stretch. its is after all just a really fancy version of the colluseum.

i liked the way they intimated they were nocturnal too, having to set the sun before releasing them.

one of the aspects i really liked in this was the stark difference in tech. coming from district 12 to 1 is like coming from sub saharn africa to new york.

QikBax · 09-07-2012 6:15pm

Philip Seymour Hoffman as the new head gamesmaker. Nice

http://www.deadline.com/2012/07/philip-seymour-hoffman-cast-in-hunger-games-sequel-catching-fire/

TwoShedsJackson · 08-08-2012 7:23pm

This was terrible. All been done before, and a lot better, by Battle Royale, no character development, poor special effects, ridiculous contrivances during the second half of the film, very disappointing.

11-08-2012 9:34pm

I loved it, but I loved the books even more. I agree with the poster who said they didn't explain a lot, and maybe its a good thing Gary Ross is not directing the sequels.

It suppose it would be very hard to get across on film the whole inner monologue of Katniss' thoughts, and the confusion she goes through, and I thought most of that was lost in this translation.

JJ wrote: »

I was also a bit confused as to why they had Katiness backstage during Peeta's interview with Caesar before the games. In the book, the whole point of withholding Peeta's romantic confession about Katiness was so they'd get a genuine reaction from her on camera. In the movie, she's backstage and the audience (in the movie) don't see her reaction. That was just one change that didn't make sense and didn't seem to save time or pacing either.

I think they did that (and left some other things deliberately vague or omitted them altogether) in the movie, so they can keep the watching teen girl audience interested, and to build up a whole new love triangle for them to argue over, now that Twilight is near its end. They will fight over whether they are "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale", much like they did with the Twilight characters.

In the case of The Hunger Games, I would really recommend anyone who hasn't read the books to read at least the first one, BEFORE watching the movie. Filming of Catching Fire is due to start shortly, and I'm loving who they've cast as Plutarch, Finnick and Johanna so far.

ziedth · 11-08-2012 10:22pm

I only downloaded the ebooks of these a few weeks ago and I finished them off the other night (which for me is rare as I'm not a big reader). I'm gonna throw on the film later tonight, I'm really looking forward to seeing the the three films.

11-08-2012 10:43pm

ziedth wrote: »

I'm really looking forward to seeing the the three films.

They're planning four movies, ... they're going to split Mockingjay into two movies.

Don't know how well that will work, myself.

Bullseye1 · 11-08-2012 11:37pm

Were these books written before the Battle Royal movies?

ziedth · 12-08-2012 1:03am

Deleted User wrote: »

They're planning four movies, ... they're going to split Mockingjay into two movies.

Don't know how well that will work, myself.

As far as I know all three books are roughly the same length so it's hard to see How that would work at all. Even from a pacing point of view one will be nothing but action if you split it down the middle.

I just watched the first hour(ill watch the rest tomorrow) and while it's entertaining enough they really made a balls of some parts. Peeta's character is totally different to How he is portrayed in the book. I'd still look forward to mockingjay, two films or not I really couldn't put that book down.

ziedth · 12-08-2012 1:04am

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Were these books written before the Battle Royal movies?

No, many years after IIRC, she claimed to have never heard of battle royale but I'd be skeptical.

Hank Scorpio · 21-08-2012 5:21am

Found this to be pretty dissapointing, was expecting so much more

Goldstein · 21-08-2012 1:30pm

ENOUGH WITH THE SHAKEY CAM FFS!!! Barely made it past the first 5 minutes. Brutal directing.

Story: crap, Acting: crap, Chemistry: laughable, boy camouflaging his whole face scene to near photoshop levels in the wild: funniest thing I've seen all year :pac: but to be fair it's a fantasy movie for teenagers so the bar was never that high to begin with and it does all it needs to do in that regard.

The more worrying thing is this is the same studio that's about to make a complete and utter balls of Ender's Game purposely releasing it close to the Hunger Games sequel marketing it to the same audience.

mdwexford · 22-08-2012 12:30am

Was poor and at least 30 mins too long.

Hilarious the writer claims she never heard of Battle Royale, blatant rip off.

spideyman92 · 03-09-2012 1:34pm

iv read the books and seen the movie but i got the bluray the other day and just cant figure out what the extra footage is?

09-01-2013 5:10am

Just after watching The Hunger Games and really not that impressed. For a film called The Hunger Games everyone looked remarkably well fed.

It started off decent enough with an interesting opening that seemed to evoke depression era America and the initial introduction of the more affluent citizens could have been interesting but sadly it was all so dull and uninteresting to look at that it felt like an early 90s direct to VHS quickie. Much could have been made of a world where the rich force the poor to fight for their entertainment but Ross seemed more concerned with showing just how white everyone's teeth were than anything else.That the most interesting visual in the film is Wes Bently's rather snazzy beard says it all.

Lawrence was fantastic and its nice to see a string female at the centre of a film but she had little to to. The moral quandary of killing to survive went unexplored as the film makers found handy ways to have her not directly kill and the love story was trite and boring.

Visually the film was a mess. It was dull, uninteresting and boring with all the wit of one of those terrible looking Sensodyne adverts. The decision to shot in close up was selected I'm sure to show the urgency of the action but it just didn't work. Throw in the dreadful CGI and bargain basement green screen work and you have one of the last years most visually flat film. I've seen SyFy original films about mutated snakes that looked better.

The script felt like something dreamt up over a beer. The whole manipulation of the game world was ridiculous and made little sense. I initially assumed that it occurred in some remote wilderness but throughout the film it seemed to be taking place on the Enterprise's holo deck. The scene with the dogs ranks as one of the most ludicrous and out of place moments in recent memory. I'm expecting the final film to end with a twist along the lines that it was all a dream or some elaborate virtual reality game.

The least interesting aspect of the film are the games themselves with them offering some truly mind bogglingly stupid moments. Teaming up with combatants from other districts because they saw "her go this way" was just retarded and an example of truly lazy writing. Much like the manner in which characters can spend days roaming the woods and not meet another soul till the day they conveniently die so as to give our hero an excuse to show her humanity.

It's not a terrible film just a rather bland one that wastes a gifted cast. Toby Jobes, Harrelson, Tucci and Sutherland impress but are given little to do and after 2 hours and 20 minutes, of which at least 60 could be lost and the film no worse for it one just feels like we've sent it done better a dozen times before.

red dave · 09-01-2013 4:10pm

Felt so nauseous watching in the cinema from all the shaky closeup cam work. Never felt like that from any film before or since this one. Suffice to say I didn't enjoy this film & don't think I'll be watching the others.

don ramo · 09-01-2013 7:07pm

Deleted User wrote: »

It's not a terrible film just a rather bland one that wastes a gifted cast. Toby Jobes, Harrelson, Tucci and Sutherland impress but are given little to do and after 2 hours and 20 minutes, of which at least 60 could be lost and the film no worse for it one just feels like we've sent it done better a dozen times before.

its part 1 of what is gonna be a 4 films series, most of the actors you named only have small role in the first book anyway, the biggest problem they had was making a film out of a book that is told through katnisses inner monologue, everything is told from her perspective, we find out more bout the history of the games, in 1 particular games it was set in a frozen wasteland and most of the contestants froze to death, it wasnt considered a good games,

i dont recall them saying that the capital was based in the rocky mountains, or anything about district 13 being wiped out at the end of the war which lead to hunger games in the first place,

red dave wrote: »

Felt so nauseous watching in the cinema from all the shaky closeup cam work. Never felt like that from any film before or since this one. Suffice to say I didn't enjoy this film & don't think I'll be watching the others.

dont ever watch a bourne film or colverfield, your head would explode, i didnt think the shaky cam was used that much, the main part i remember was when a few tributes died, which id say was difficult to do seeing as they wanted the 12 rating in the film, afterall the books were aimed at young adults, so its only fair they get to watch them,

Otacon · 10-01-2013 12:36am

Laughed quite hard at this.

Also:

red dave · 11-01-2013 1:58pm

don ramo wrote: »

dont ever watch a bourne film or colverfield, your head would explode, i didnt think the shaky cam was used that much, the main part i remember was when a few tributes died, which id say was difficult to do seeing as they wanted the 12 rating in the film, afterall the books were aimed at young adults, so its only fair they get to watch them,

yeah that's the weird thing is I watched both of those movies in the cinema & loved them. I remember others complaining about feeling sick from the cam movement whereas I felt fine.
I must be getting too old

Otacon · 11-01-2013 2:26pm

Pics from Catching Fire

Johnny31 · 30-01-2013 11:55pm

enjoyed the first film.. was a rip off of battle royale but looking forward to tihe next instalment

The Hunger Games

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