Catching Fire (Hunger Games Sequel)

Mickeroo

Trailer out for the follow up to The Hunger Games.

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

I enjoyed the first one, read the books after seeing it, so am looking forward to this.

Tipsy McSwagger

Thought the first one was awful, a kids version of Battle Royale.

Basq

Didn't like the first movie much..

.. but the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman in this has me intrigued.

don ramo

Tipsy McSwagger wrote: »

Thought the first one was awful, a kids version of Battle Royale.

which is a rip off of the running man, which is a rip off of lord of the flies, which is a rip off of spartacus, ETC ETC ETC

madrab

cool, enjoyed the books so it will be interesting to see how this movie turns out, it already looks darker than the first

Mr E

Wasn't mad about the 2nd and 3rd books (and splitting the 3rd into two movies is stupid/greedy beyond belief).

I liked the trailer though, and all credit to them for not giving too much away.

Liam O

Mr E wrote: »

Wasn't mad about the 2nd and 3rd books (and splitting the 3rd into two movies is stupid/greedy beyond belief).

I liked the trailer though, and all credit to them for not giving too much away.

I enjoyed them, they open up more of a universe than the first one and explain why Katniss and Peeta are so bitter towards the regime.

The first film was lacking in a few core elements from the books and J Law definitely looks far too healthy for someone playing a malnourished teenager. The lack of reference to hunger is painfully ironic because they were ever present in the books.

Sarxos

There's 11 new character banners for the film like the below. Link

jpm4

don ramo wrote: »

which is a rip off of the running man, which is a rip off of lord of the flies, which is a rip off of spartacus, ETC ETC ETC

The argument has been done to death but Battle Royale has a slight similarity at best to The Running Man.

bnt

What the heck is Effie (Elizabeth Banks) wearing? She looks like she's being eaten by butterflies. :P



(It's by Alexander McQueen, apparently.)

Corholio

bnt wrote: »

What the heck is Effie (Elizabeth Banks) wearing? She looks like she's being eaten by butterflies. :P



(It's by Alexander McQueen, apparently.)

Elizabeth Banks can wear whatever the hell she wants....right!

Sleepy

Sarxos wrote: »

There's 11 new character banners for the film like the below. Link

Is it just my heterosexuality or is he seriously not pretty enough for the role of Finnick?

don ramo

new trailer from comic con, looks brilliant, cant wait for this, it looks like their doing it right,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQeodgN8EcI

don ramo

Sleepy wrote: »

Is it just my heterosexuality or is he seriously not pretty enough for the role of Finnick?

i would have though ryan gosling would have been prefect for the role, hed be the right age and have the right look for it, wont judge to early, they seem to have gotten the casting right for nearly all the characters so far,

mrmanunited

Im a fan of the books, but I dont think they took them far enough, should have had real peril and moral decisions, like Katniss having to choose between her family and friends who survives. The hunger games in the second book was also dull. Looking forward to the last one tho, although im gutted theyre splitting it. Will ruin any momentum and drag it out

bnt

The final trailer is pretty much a visual showcase: it looks pretty amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoKj7TdJk98

The Dom

Just home from the midnight screening of this tonight.

At times it really really felt like I was watching a cross between a new season of Episode of Lost - The Next Generation (complete with Love Triangle and all) and The Truman Show II.

Could see a few things coming a mile off also, such as the fake pregnancy thing.

Felt they got the tone of it slightly off also, as some very grave things happen and the reactions of the characters to those things seem rather brief and fleeting, which is fine in a movie that is set over a few months and beyond but those things then become hard to take seriously in a film set over a period of a few days if the characters themselves don't seem to be.

Other than those gripes though, I liked it and will watch it a second time for sure. It is also much different from the first film for me, so hard to say one is better than the other either. As a result, chances are, even if you hated the first one, you may really like this one. Conversely, if you loved the first film, you might hate this.

Be interested to hear what others think as from reading one or two early reports, was well different to what I had expected to see, in a good way.

Bullseye1

Went to a mid night showing myself last night. Thought it was an enjoyable enough follow up the the first outing. Nothing spectacular but solid.

kryogen

bnt wrote: »

What the heck is Effie (Elizabeth Banks) wearing? She looks like she's being eaten by butterflies. :P



(It's by Alexander McQueen, apparently.)

Monarch butterlies, ties in nicely to Illuminati symbolism (mind control) which I would assume is some sort of theme in these films/books?

A powerful group that control the world?

McQueen was famous for this time of fashion

El Diablo Blanco

Saw this earlier today, and enjoyed it. Doesn't stray too far from the book.

A lot of those commenting on IMDb described the pre-Games stuff as dull or plodding, but I personally found the opening hour-and-a-half to be the strongest of the film. The scene

in District 11 paying tribute to Rue

was very powerful, and the lead up to the Games, themselves, was handled very well, creating a palpable feeling of injustice and uprising.

The Games section of the film, while executed well, felt a little rushed, and slightly convoluted.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. My only concern with the remaining installments is that Catching Fire stuck pretty close to the source material, and Mockingjay was an extremely weak and badly-written conclusion to the series, in my opinion. I fear a direct translation of it would lead to a pretty terrible end to the film series as well.

Catching Fire, in any case, was a solid and enjoyable follow-up to the original. Good story, very well-acted, and very arresting, visually.

Alfred Borden

Found this very enjoyable and probably better than the first. All round solid film with nothing really wrong with it, good ending too

leading up to the next one

El Diablo Blanco

El Diablo Blanco wrote: »

My only concern with the remaining installments is that Catching Fire stuck pretty close to the source material, and Mockingjay was an extremely weak and badly-written conclusion to the series, in my opinion. I fear a direct translation of it would lead to a pretty terrible end to the film series as well.

I agree. The last book was all over the place - not a cohesive story in any way. Not sure how they will go about bringing it to the screen.

mightyreds

I found it enjoyable as been noted thought they did brilliant in the build up to the games I really got the feeling an uprising was slowly building.

I loved the books so might be slightly biased I may read over the third book but I think they have a great story for the film

fisgon

Have not read the books, but have enjoyed the two films now. I didn't expect to like the first one but I was really impressed. Saw the second yesterday. I think it is obvious that it was adapted from a book and is trying to cram in all the important details, I get the sense that many of the scenes were far more fully realised in the book, though cut short in the film.

Still, it is compelling stuff, fascinating in its own way.

By the way, what are young kids doing going to this film? I know the books are supposedly for teens or young adults, but there were seven, eight and nine year olds in the cinema when I was there. Part of what I like about the films is that they are very dark and intense. The themes are adult and there is a lot of violence, executions, beatings, lashings. I'm not sure where the idea came out of that this was a kids' film.

Finally, is there a better looking human being on the planet than Jennifer Lawrence? She is stunningly beautiful right the way through this film, almost hypnotically so. Even

with boils on her skin

she is hot

Evenstevens

I really enjoyed it. I thought it was better than the first one.

SusieBlue

I really enjoyed it too. I was worried about some of the casting, I had my doubts about Finnick in particular but Sam Claflin was amazing!

I thought it was really well done, stuck to the story and was easy enough for my non-reader boyfriend to follow.

I love how it was true to the book, without being cheesy. I also like how it didn't downplay the despair and violence. These are things other similar series (Harry Potter and Twilight comes to mind) completely failed to do.

I'm gutted they're splitting the next one, can't see how that'll work at all, but definitely still excited for the next one. Mockinjay was my least favourite book by a mile, I also thought it was rushed and scatty and I was so (spoiler):

numb by the end of it I was almost immune to all the deaths. I also didn't like how there was no explanation of how things turned out, I would have liked more closure than what was given.

constitutionus

was a choice between this and parkland yesterday and went with this.

thought it was very enjoyable. a level above the twilight stuff IMO in that its far more "real" for want of a better word in terms of how its characters react to what theyve been through.

as someone who hasnt read the books it is a bit of a jip that theres no actual ending, leading as it does into the next one. but thats a small gripe.

it looks great, is well acted by all involved, has some nifty ideas in the combat areana and it handles the whole "developing revolution" thing very well.

7/10.

(only that low because im not really a fan of the series. guys waiting for this will like it much more as IMO its better than the first)

FortuneChip

I thought the first one was fairly ok. This was a big improvement.
The cast seemed more likable this time around. Obviously Lawrence is near perfect, she's really a talent.
But even some of the weaker characters of the first movie were better fleshed out and it all added to a better movie.
I felt the "revolution" would only be teased, so I expected the abrupt ending. It immediately reminded me of the second Matrix movie for some reason.

There's going to be a lot of young impressionable teens wanting to grow up to be Katniss; all I can say is, as role models go, she's a massive upgrade from that horrendous Bella Swan!!!

Dirty Dingus McGee

3rd book was by far the weakest oif the 3.it was the longest of the 3 books but had way less happening in it and should have been about 200 pages shorter.It took ages to get going and even when it did the action and suspense was nowhere near as good as in the first 2 books.

Haven't read any of the books. Went to see this yesterday not expecting much. I thought the first was decent but nothing special. I really enjoyed Catching Fire, one of those rare moments when I enjoyed a sequel more the it's predecessor, it did feel long but I was never bored throughout.

After the rather poor first Hunger Games I had zero interest in ever watching the sequel but unfortunately found myself having to watch Catching Fire tonight with my girlfriend who has spent the past few weeks trying to convince me to watch it.

Much like the first film the games themselves are by far the least interesting aspect of the film. The teenage friendly rating means that they are a sanitised, oddly bloodless debacle that proves once and for all that you simply cannot create an adult and interesting film centered around a death match when appealing to all the family. From the very start of the games the film takes great pains to paint the participans as either good guys and cartoonish baddies, with any sense of satire and suspense replaced instead with brooding and enough melancholic posturing to fill a dozen teenage wet dreams.

The film repeatedly goes out of it's way to show that our heroine is never in any sense of danger and as such it's hard to care about anything that occurs on screen. There's never a sense of threat from the other participants of the games and the action scenes, few and far between as they are fell like something lifted from a mid 90s action film which most likely starred Hulk Hogan.

Once again the film goes to great lengths to try and create a love triangle for the ages, and once again it's a bland, soppy waste of time. Lawrence is by far the best of the young actors and it's a shame that she is given so little to work against. Her boyfriend Gale is a moping slap of teenage angst who constantly seems on the verge of falling asleep. Peeta is even worse and his way to Katniss's heart seems to be through constantly whining about all they went through and laying guilt trip after guilt trip upon her. I get that Twilight and it's ilk has created this sub-genre where a torrid love triangle is expected but if you're going to create one then at the very least make it interesting. The sooner both are killed off and Lawrence is allowed to move away from the limitations of a trite and cliched love triangle the sooner the film can say something interesting.

Once again the film comes alive when the elder supporting cast are on display. Stanley Tucci snake like TV presenter steals every scene he's in and Harrellson once more proves that he's one of the most capable and interesting actors working today. He takes a thankless role and makes it his own and would be the best thing here were it not for Phillip Seymour Hoffman who pops up for a few scenes and works his magic. Were it not for these performances the film would solely be a showcase for Lawrence but great as she is, she's out shined by the more seasoned performers who manage to inject the film with a little life.

The early scenes are where the film is at it's most interesting. There's a number of interesting ideas in play but sadly nothing is done with them. One early scene has a district made up entirely of blacks who are constantly under the thumb of the government soldiers dressed entirely in white. There's an interesting dynamic to the imagery and you assume that the film will do something interesting but sadly it's all forgotten in favor of more scenes of Peeta looking on the verge of tears and Katniss looking bored. Similar imagery is prevalent throughout he first half of the film but time after time the filmmakers do nothing with it.

Catching Fire isn't a terrible film but it's sadly not a very good one either. All the pieces are here but sadly it's clear that no one knows what to do with them. There's a lot that could be said with the films and a number of interesting themes to explore but sadly thanks to the target audience, the sequels promise little more than another retread of the same bland and unoriginal themes and ideas. The one good thing that can be said about Catching Fire is that unlike the original it actually feels like a film. Lawrence may not be a great director but he's a fine visualist and ensures that at the very least everything is pretty to look at.

Mickeroo

Thought it was by far the best blockbuster of the year apart from Gravity.

NowThatsCool

If you saw number 1 ... Then u saw number 2. Same storyline, same bad acting, same clichéd cinematography. Nothing essentially new.

Mickeroo

Mickeroo wrote: »

Thought it was by far the best blockbuster of the year apart from Gravity.

I was pleasantly surprised too. Wasn't expecting much at all but really enjoyed it & afterwards all I wanted was to see the next movie.

FloatingVoter

Watched the first one last Saturday due to rain stopping play (pub). I was expecting a borefest.
Watched Catching Fire straight after. Excellent way to spend 5 hours. I love it when I get surprised like that.
Heartily recommended to even the most cynical of us.

Outkast_IRE

To be honest I don't understand the hate for these movies.

In my opinion they are far better put together than the twilight series.
Direction, script, set design and costumes etc are all relatively well done.

They aren't going to be winning awards left right and centre, but as movies to pass a few hours they are entertaining enough.

Gillespy

It's a shame Twilight is mentioned in the same breath as these movies. I was the same, scoffed off the first one as more teenage silliness. Wasn't until I saw Silver Linings and Jennifer Lawrence, did I see it. She owns these movies and I like really the subject. This world is like a cross of Roman games and reality television with this awful, cruel government. Even the love story isn't that prominent, giving the circumstance, it couldn't really. In comparison with Catching Fire, Wes Bentley's beard was probably the best part of the first one. Must go down to the change in director but he has more to work with this time, the other districts and the setting of the games. Seeing the revolution gain momentum throughout adds more tension to it also. I've read the third book subsequently because like the previous poster said, I had to see how it pans out.

Outkast_IRE

I am currently in the middle of the second book, and I actually find myself impressed with how true to the book they are staying, obviously there is less obvious bloodshed in the movies so it can keep the rating but with regards to the whole Peeta - Katniss - Gale dynamic is shown on film, is pretty true to the book.

Obviously the movie cant show all scenes or go into the detail but overall its pretty true with regards to there actually isn't a love triangle really. Katniss doesn't know what she really wants and the movie stays true to that. Its not in your face in the book, and the movie follows suit by keeping it relatively unspoken to an extent.

To be honest out of all the book to movie conversions I have seen and read. This one is doing a solid job of it so far.

Gillespy

I haven't read the first two books, only the third. But I haven't read too many complaints about how it was adapted. From what I gather, the initial reaction to the casting wasn't great, Jennifer was blond and too old and Josh Hutcherson was brunette but that's not an issue anymore, fans of the books are happy with the films.

Minor details like Peeta losing his leg aside.:pac:

Outkast_IRE

Gillespy wrote: »

Minor details like Peeta losing his leg aside.:pac:

From what I have read so far in the 2nd book its barely brought up, they aren't back in the arena yet, but so far theres only been a few words about his loss of a limb

If you read the third and enjoyed it, I would recommend going back and reading the first and second books, they are a relatively quick read but enjoyable, I only starting reading after seeing the 2nd movie.

Mickeroo

Genuinely think this is one of the few instances where the films surpass the books, particularly in the case of the second film. Found Katniss to be quite unlikable in the books but Lawrence's performances do away with that in the films. The third book was a bit of a mess, it could have done with a bit of tightening up for the screen, which is why the decision to split it worries me slightly.

Gillespy

It's true. She doesn't make her a whiny victim. Lesser actor would make you hate Katniss.

Any idea where they're going to split the book? There is a lot going on with potential to flesh out scenes in the capitol and have it being pretty much a war movie but ultimately it's about money. Lesser franchises do it, so why not this too.

Mickeroo

Gillespy wrote: »

It's true. She doesn't make her a whiny victim. Lesser actor would make you hate Katniss.

Any idea where they're going to split the book? There is a lot going on with potential to flesh out scenes in the capitol and have it being pretty much a war movie but ultimately it's about money. Lesser franchises do it, so why not this too.

Would imagine majority of part 2 will be the

assault on the capital

. Not sure where they will split it, been a while since I read it, they'll probably choose somewhere that will leave it on a cliffhanger.

don ramo

Gillespy wrote: »

Any idea where they're going to split the book?

maybe as their heading for the assault on the capital, probably around the time they enter the sewers, just as a pod explodes with dangerous insect

mightyreds

I may read the book again but I think a lot happens before

she's shot with peeta being rescued, and her propaganda campaign so I think they'll split it as she's shot

don ramo

mightyreds wrote: »

I may read the book again but I think a lot happens

before she's shot with peeta being rescued, and her propaganda campaign so I think they'll split it as she's shot

wanna fix your spoiler tag

mightyreds

don ramo wrote: »

wanna fix your spoiler tag

Why looks fine on my phone

Edit: doesn't look ok on desktop weird(got it)

Outkast_IRE

With the unfortunate passing of Phillip Seymour Hoffmann (RIP) I wonder are we looking at a change to the storyline to accommodate this. I haven't read the third book yet so im not sure how big his part is.

According to IMDB its still filming, I am sure we will be updated in the next week.

don ramo

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

With the unfortunate passing of Phillip Seymour Hoffmann (RIP) I wonder are we looking at a change to the storyline to accommodate this. I haven't read the third book yet so im not sure how big his part is.

According to IMDB its still filming, I am sure we will be updated in the next week.

the studio already released a statement saying he had filmed the majority of his scenes already and he had 7 day left of shooting for the 4th film thats due out Nov 2015, they wrapped the 3rd film last november i think,

Outkast_IRE

don ramo wrote: »

the studio already released a statement saying he had filmed the majority of his scenes already and he had 7 day left of shooting for the 4th film thats due out Nov 2015, they wrapped the 3rd film last november i think,

Probably minor thing so to write him out for the remainder so or they will use some high tech wizardry for the rest of his scenes.

Sort of sad that this will be his last movie.

don ramo

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

Sort of sad that this will be his last movie.

yeah, i only read last week he was after casting the 2 leads in his upcoming film that he was due to direct, and he had also shot a pilot episode for a new showtime show of his,