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Hunger Games

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03.25.2012 1:21am

Nelfichu
I've been there, hombre.

^Yeah, I read the first book. Reading the description of the fire dress in the chariot scene, I knew the movie would never be able to match it, but I thought they might do better than a crappy fire effect following behind them. And the camouflage... I envisioned Peeta doing something akin to Arnold in Predator, not a ridiculously good self-applied makeup job from someone suffering from pretty bad injuries.

I really loved all the bits with Seneca, especially his ending, but I've yet to read books 2 and 3, so I'm eager to see how that all fits in.

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03.25.2012 3:04am

(Edited on 03.25.2012 at 3:11am)

Atma Weapon
I Am Pure Energy

I hated it. On many levels. I won't go into much detail, to avoid excessive spoilers for anyone else who's unfortunate enough to have to sit through this train wreck.

I have never read the book but I could tell the story is almost impossible to adapt into film in an artistically satisfying way.

Reason 1: Poor acting. Try to get child actors to display characters in a nightmare-scenario moral dilemma and you have a recipe for disaster. There aren't many actors of any age who have the skill and depth to pull this off, much less kids.

Reason 2: Unoriginal story. This is the most forgivable aspect of the film since there are few, if any, new stories to tell and archetypes can still work. Anyway, throw "Lord of the Flies", "1984", and the Greek myth of the Minotaur into a meat grinder and "The Hunger Games" is basically what comes out the other end.

Reason 3: Total charicature. The ficticious world and it's categorically evil, vain, and voyeuristic society is over-the-top and lacking in depth. Maybe the book was more nuanced, but I would be surprised f it was.

Reason 4: Too cynical and preachy. This a huge risk when any allegorical story is adapted to film. This goes hand-in-hand with reason 3 however.

Reason 5: Hypocritical. How do you take a satirical story about blood sport, make it into a visual spectacle aimed at making money, and not be a self-mocking joke in the process? It's really fucking hard and this movie doesn't pass the test. Gladiator this is not.

Reason 6: No real moral take-away. Really: What did we learn from this thought experiment? That blood sport is immoral? That dictatorships are bad? That consumerism and 24/7 obsession with entertainment prevent people from living their own lives in a morally significant way? That humans are capable of great moral crimes when their own survival is at stake? I don't think any of these ideas are particularly novel or controversial.

I could rage about this movie for hours but I'll leave it at that. I'm going to drink some wine and sleep off this atrocity of a film.

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03.25.2012 3:40am

Colinp42
Registered Member

Wow. Surprised at that reaction. Well I saw this today. Went in knowing absolutely nothing about it, and really enjoyed it. Not the best movie ever, but I got my money's worth.

What the hell is Battle Royale?

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03.25.2012 7:10am

hkr
Too queer to get out of bed

Colinp42 said:

Wow. Surprised at that reaction. Well I saw this today. Went in knowing absolutely nothing about it, and really enjoyed it. Not the best movie ever, but I got my money's worth.

What the hell is Battle Royale?

I just died a little inside

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03.25.2012 8:53pm

SuperSquall
Shortening His Posts

Battle Royale is a Japanese film that has a very similar concept - I'd recommend it if you are into the Tarantino sort of schtick. It's not a "good" movie in the traditional sense but it's entertaining and has an interesting premise. Also I like how their dystopian version of future Japan is a 20% unemployment rate.

Saw Hunger Games (also read the first two books and then a synopsis of the third one). It was very good, and I don't see how the movie could be adapted from the book much better than it is. It's very deserving of it's 86% rating from RottenTomatoes. Although I disagree with Atma Weapon on almost every point I will agree that the book (and movie) are both essentially without a moral or real communication. It has no thesis - it's just showing an idea. You aren't exactly supposed to think the hunger games are good but you spend the movie being entertained by them. Aside from being a commentary I don't think there is supposed to be much there.

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03.25.2012 11:10pm

Atma Weapon
I Am Pure Energy

Maybe I am overanalyzing it, but I really felt that the film was trying to make a statement, and therefore had to be viewed through the lens of a serious dystopian fiction scenario. Battle Royale looks like a more enjoyable movie because the violence is flamboyant and not to be taken seriously, alla Tarantino.

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03.25.2012 11:59pm

CaButler
Winter Knight of the Unseelie Court

I enjoyed the film myself, but was very surprised to see it get away with the PG-13 rating.

As for the message, I think, if anything, they were trying for something along the lines of the media and violence, but that might be looking for something that isn't there. Sometimes people write a story simply because they want to tell a story, not attach a message to it.

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03.26.2012 12:50am

Sanna
What a Tedious fight!

Nelfichu said:

Raphael said:

3/4th of the movie is shaky, blurry, zoomed in cam. Did not like it.

Seriously, the first 20 minutes of the movie plus every battle scene were so damn shakey! I couldn't even tell what was happening between Katniss, Peeta, and Cato at the end on the cornucopia until they zoomed out for a wide shot.

I facepalmed at the chariot fire clothes and Peeta's ridiculous rock camouflaged scene. Some parts of the film were good, but overall it was a "meh" for me. Battle Royale was much, much better.

BTW, did anyone else feel this was a really soft PG-13? (With the exception of the awesome neck snap, of course.)

I'm actually looking really forward to the chariot fire clothes scene. It's one the best parts of the book. I wanted to see how it looked on the screen. That's disappointing. D:

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03.26.2012 2:37am

Mole
Somebody loves ya.

The movie carried some interesting themes for the first half. Aside from the obvious commentary on media/reality TV, it seemed to deal with ideas on how young women are expected to behave and present themselves in a post-modern media driven society. I really don't know anything about the books at all, but is this one of the reasons it's so popular with the young teens?

This is why I found it so frustrating when they decided to stop and tool around in the woods for eighty minutes. I wanted to see where they'd carry all these ideas, and the answer was Absolutely Nowhere. They actually have a character monologuing "There will be CONSEQUENCES for your actions. Not now, not in this movie, but SOMETIME, possibly in the NEXT MOVIE that you will pay another twelve dollars for, something will ACTUALLY HAPPEN". Ugh.

So anyways, uh, third highest opening weekend of all time. Right behind The Dark Knight. Wowwwwwww

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03.26.2012 1:02pm

Murasame
HALE YEAH

Never underestimate the power of teen girls and the general approval of the internet combined.

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03.26.2012 4:13pm

Clowd Cole
Dangerous Zombie

It was good. Not great, but good. Still enjoy battle royal more. Probably will end up buying the blu-ray.

Buggle Up! Danger! Danger! (Genocide!) Death the Crisis! Dangerous Zombie!

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03.29.2012 10:36am

Kal
yes

If it wasn't for the fucking shakycam, I think I would've enjoyed it. Motion sickness + incomprehensible fight scenes = me wanting to grab the guy who invented shakycam and shake him til he drops dead.

Other than that, I though it had a lot of potential, but felt too much like an introductory movie to be really complete.
The concept was interesting although derivative of a lot of things but they introduced a lot of things without really explaining any of them, but obviously they'll be explained in the sequel.
What bugged me most is that it tries to be a commentary on a lot of things (blood sports, voyeurism, media, totalitarism) but it's so caricatural, what with the evil voyeuristic barely human rich people vs the brave but poor and opressed slum dwellers, that's it's hard to take seriously.

A couple of minor things bugged me a little too :
SOME SPOILERS !

- What was the point of the hunky character back in D12 (Dale ? Gale?), other than eye candy? I'm guessing he'll have some part to play in the sequels but in this movie there was either too much or too little of him.

-What was the point of putting so much emphasis on the grading and sponsoring thing (with the lol-worthy fire chariot and dress) if Mary Sue only gets two parachutes during the whole game, both of which come from her Mentor..and one of which is... soup ?
Also, why so much emphasis on the "Girl on fire" theme during the pre-arena scenes, only to let it go completely unmentioned again for the rest of the movie ?

-lol@Rock Peeta

-I'm not sure I got the point of the Lenny Kravitz character. He was good with what little material he was given but I'm not sure why he took such a liking to Katniss, other then for the sole reason she was the main character.

-Also, I realize this is YA fiction and in YA fiction god forbid you have gray morality, but in a series with a theme as mature as this one, I expected the world and characters to be less black-and-white. I realize this is not ASOIAF but, considering the dark premise, the cast should be more ambiguous than Good Gryffyndor vs Slimy Slytherin. The instant they introduce the tributes you could tell who was going to kill whom.

-Magical Rue to the rescue! "I will give my life for you, White Mary-Sue!"

-Why can't we have, just once, a black or at least non-caucasian main character?

-When they released the beasts at the end, didnt they risk killing off all three remaining tributes? Or was Cato already safe on the Cornucopia ?

Overall, I had an alright time if I ignore the motion sickness and some glaring flaws, but it's movies like this that remind me that most of teen fiction is, well, for teens and I'm not, well, a teen anymore.

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03.30.2012 6:42pm

Old Juan
filled with hate

The movie was okay. It takes a very dark premise and waters it down enough for the masses. It's too bad because if you are going have such a dark concept you really need to either go for broke or go home.

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03.31.2012 1:18am

scnix
scnix.com

I went in expecting something similar to Battle Royale.

There were no similarities.

I was dissapointed.

Shaky camera during action scenes made it worse.

Overall, I didn't really enjoy it. Maybe I was expecting too much, maybe it was the lack of mindless violence. I'll probably watch it again when it gets released on Blu-ray.

Lastly, *MINOR SPOILER I suppose*

When the games started, the thought that went into my head was "Damn, Bear Grylls would so win this game."

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03.31.2012 2:12am

CaButler
Winter Knight of the Unseelie Court

I know there are some complaints about the shaky cam, but I think the only reason they had it was to avoid the dreaded R raiting, because let's be honest, it's kids killing kids, and even if the rest of the film was squeaky clean, if there was no shakey cam, there would be no way the MPAA would let this go with anything less than an R rating.

At least, that's my theory behind it.

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