The inevitable Hunger Games thread

it was kind of confusing in the movie, and there's no way I'm bothering with fan wikis or reading the damn book.

i was informed afterwards that the dogs were made from like the uh... fucking souls of the dead contestants or something. or dna. i dont know

Yeah, in the book they have the faces of the dead contestants, but it's really not clear whether this is just the games masters fucking with the remaining Tributes or what.

Not the entire faces, just the eyes.

its cool how the 'capital' is this place with all this fascist architecture and everyone who lives there is a humongous fruit, really makes you yearn for the simple honest country folk of the districts

― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, May 22, 2012 2:11 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ah yes, hmmmmm

fwiw the subsequent books do go into that whole setup a little bit more

I'm kind of lolling at myself for defending these books so much, I must be really bored

that line just makes me think "i can't turn my face into a heart"

I know what I'm getting DJP for Christmas.

I know what I'm getting Austerity Ponies for Christmas.

Would you like that gift-wrapped?

thanks for the etsy link. i'm buying one of those bracelets right now.

or maybe...

Philip Seymour Hoffman cast as Plutarch!

ooh, that's good casting!

too lazy to verify but twitter is saying they're splitting "mockingjay" into two movies? dumb but not NEARLY as dumb as splitting "breaking dawn" into two movies. at least mockingjay has the pretense of like, introducing district 13 and the war and stuff.

Haven't read anything beyond the first yet, but at this point I think its just so they can milk a sure-fire franchise a little longer, nothing to do with actually following the plot.

the 'break the last book of a series up into 2 movies' trend is kind of silly and transparently greedy, but probably even pretty short novels usually have enough happening that you can get 4-5 hours of film out of it as easily as 2 so i'm kinda like ah go for it who cares.

yeah it's obv a cash grab but p much all the HP movies after the third one had enough stuff going on to warrant split movies, and the three that weren't split had so much incomprehensible crap crammed into a couple hours and they sucked for it. the first three books fit pretty perfectly so it's going to be a problem when the next four books are more than twice as long but WB keeps the same time limit on the movies. deathly hallows movies weren't great movies but they at least had enough room to be good movies (in the hands of a less boring director and screenwriter)

problem with this is the hunger games books are all the same length and the first book adapted very easily

probably even pretty short novels usually have enough happening that you can get 4-5 hours of film out of it as easily as 2

yeah one of the best novel-to-film adaptations i've seen was brokeback mtn, which was tellingly a slim 100-page novella - the film had so much space to breathe and linger on stuff rather than having to cram plot points and exposition in at every turn

OK, Melissa Leo is in talks to play Mags? I know haggard-looking characters are kind of her thing, but she's like 30 years younger than the character.

its cool how the 'capital' is this place with all this fascist architecture and everyone who lives there is a humongous fruit, really makes you yearn for the simple honest country folk of the districts

― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, May 22, 2012 6:11 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean really

plus what several people said upthread about how katniss never has to confront the conflict that the entire premise of the movie points to with big flashing arrows: what happens when allies have disposed of their enemies? at the very least let's see how the band of baddies deals with this situation? but it's completely elided in favor of what, a kind of disheartening ending where the heroes become what they aren't, the very thing peeta said he was determined not to do, and it sort of dribbles out.

NB i have not read the book

and i mean the districts' down-by-the-old-mill aesthetic is picturesque but in a society where inequality is stretched to such extremes having clothes in an entirely different vocabulary doesn't make sense; they'd be living on cast-offs, kansas city mega-chiefs championship jerseys from 8 years ago, a birthday frock worn once by a capitol citizen and then donated selflessly to the hoi polloi, subsequently mended 20 times but still retaining a spangle here and there

also wtf with "anti-chekhov's brooch" - constantly referred to, zero payoff

You mean the mockingjay pin? That'll become more significant in later films.

the last book is called it

kansas city mega-chiefs championship jerseys from 8 years ago

i was gonna answer this with "this world would have practically no memory of any current sport" but then i started wondering just WHEN this all takes place? the way katniss talks about how little she knows of 'when panem was america' and the entire structure of the country being different made me think it was 500-1000+ years in the future. but their most advanced technology (CHOOSE-YOUR-OWN-SHOWERS) seems to be pretty much attainable to us now, or in the near future if we really wanted to make genetically modified killer animals.

I'm not sure if it's even clear if there's much in the way of books? Though this is related to the questions above re: what's on the TV the rest of the time?

plus what several people said upthread about how katniss never has to confront the conflict that the entire premise of the movie points to with big flashing arrows: what happens when allies have disposed of their enemies? at the very least let's see how the band of baddies deals with this situation? but it's completely elided in favor of what, a kind of disheartening ending where the heroes become what they aren't, the very thing peeta said he was determined not to do, and it sort of dribbles out.

Well, I don't think that's accidental, like - the story, and the characters inside the story interested in "a good story" are very deliberate about providing the obvious tensions, and when they run out, Katniss and Peeta have to face that question, attempt mutual suicide. And when they decide against that (because their other motivation, to bring food back home for their Sector, kicks in), then it's C for Complicity.

i was gonna answer this with "this world would have practically no memory of any current sport"

then depression-era clothes make even less sense! i just meant that as an example, though. my point is that the exploited of our world live off the scraps and leftovers of the rich yet in this movie they appear to have their own separate haberdashery or something.

right andrew i understand what's happening at the end of the movie, it just feels hollow and tremendously unsatisfying. you can argue that it's a brave subversive thing for a movie to attempt, this kind of non-resolution, and maybe you'd be right, i dunno? something to do with what "we" need from a narrative, and katniss and peeta provide it, but it's bullshit? and that reveals something about how we're similar to the capitol viewership of this future society? or something?

i could buy that. worse to me is the dodging of the question of what happens once alliances in the game crumble. when you have to kill a friend. or a frenemy. surely this alone is the drama that has sustained this television show/ritual for seven decades despite all the other reasons why it makes no sense. but we never see this conflict addressed. i felt surely the gang of baddies would provide a "safe" way for us to see how this might play out, as a kind of warm-up for how our heroine's going to face the same issue - with rue, with the red-haired girl, with peeta, whomever.

also to echo the wtfs upthread about sponsorships. such a big deal is made of them in the movie, it's the justification upon which rests the need to appeal to the public, to get a high score in the assessment, etc - we are constantly told by woody that sponsorships are absolutely critical to success because you can get a leg up with equipment and supplies. but then we are.... never shown anyone receiving anything from a sponsor? in the game? unless i missed something?

guys, i don't think Suzanne Collins put much thought into her future world

but then we are.... never shown anyone receiving anything from a sponsor? in the game? unless i missed something?

yeah we are, at least twice - medicine both times i think

that's not from a sponsor she "won" through being appealing it's a special treat from her mentor isn't it?

the beginning of the game was thrilling and nightmarish, when they're all on those pedestals and the corcnucopia is waiting for them, and the first dash which cuts the number of contestants in half

i was sort of wondering why everyone is so stupid as to run straight for the goodies when they've presumably seen the results of such a strategy (and every strategy) every year on their TVs

no it's def from a sponsor

and because they think they're big and strong enough to survive, esp if they're from the trained districts

i also think a lot of the things we're not shown, that could be entire stories in themselves, are kinda key to why this has become such a phenomenon - creating a fantasy world and leaving tons of room for your imagination to fill in the blanks is what's always made this kind of literature compelling (as opposed to, like, the prose). and that's especially the case when kids nowadays are relating to the material through online discussions, fan fiction etc etc - the story does not end at the actual story as written by the author and suzanne collins understands this

yeah, that sounds very right

i dunno i just figured we were gonna get some treasure-of-the-sierra-madre type paranoid shiz out of this, it's the whole reason i watched. it had nothing, i repeat nothing to do with watching the impossibly gorgeous jennifer lawrence shoot magically replenishing arrows around the place in tight clothing

i think we were shown very brief shots of haymitch chatting up some rich people, presumably convincing them to be sponsors. then haymitch is the one in charge of sending items along using that sponsorship money. it makes more sense in the movie than the book actually, because in the book it gets MORE expensive to send things the farther along in the game it is...for some reason? and the districts themselves send along, like, a chunk of bread to their player and it represents incredible cost and sacrifice for them to do so. idk

Oh i see, Woody's the go-between! Ahhh. I was confused because in the movie he's watching her on TV, we see her wincing in pain from her wound and then we cut to him looking determined and striding purposefully away, like he's about to "get on the case" somehow and then next thing you know there's a parachute floating toward her with a note from him inside. I guess he went to his contact list of sponsors and was like "OK now's the time to make good on your promises, this girl's goin down"

i think we covered upthread how the "hunger games as tv show" was a bit of a missed opportunity from the perspective of seeing it through the viewers' eyes

the "hunger games as moral dilemma" was a missed opportunity as well, which leaves you with nothing much left over, other than close-ups of jennifer lawrence looking gorgeous which, you know what i'm OK with that actually

My memory is that Woody gladhanding is inbetween the "Katniss needs help" and "Katniss gets help" scenes, I think. What's not as clear in the movie is that being the only person from District 12 to win the games doesn't actually confer much status on him - he's basically the town drunk 51 weeks of the year.

I thought he lived in the Capitol cause of his celeb status

Maybe I should have watched this movie at some point before 1am

They established this very neatly in the book, but I can see why the scene where he first meets Katniss and Peeta and then throws up all over the floor might've been the first to go.

I felt with the clothing that the more working class districts had kept to sort of functional, plain wear because they have to work in them. Harder to work in a castoff bright blue wig and fake McQueen heels or whatever! Also: they probably sew their own clothes, so a simpler pattern would be easier/use less fabric? It's been a while since I read the books so not certain if that's touched upon. The Capitol people by and large are very wasteful [TINY SPOILER: they have a pill or drink that makes them throw up so they can gorge themselves on food at parties!], unlikely that they'd even think to donate!

The sponsorship thing could definitely have been clearer in the movie - I almost missed the scene of Woody talking to them, iirc you can't even hear what he's saying? Poor planning for those who hadn't read the books! It was pretty shit to cut out the scene where Rue's district sends Katniss a piece of their distinctive bread after Rue's death. That was a pretty touching moment in the books. Because the district is so poor, she assumes almost everyone in the district chipped in to get that piece to her.

functional's one thing but heritage vintage patterns from ca. 300 years ago?

well, if they are even using patterns? just simple, functional clothes imo. what would you have them wear?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ayV4QQAggPY/T4LxSdCW1DI/AAAAAAAAHOk/P3vBvM1dtEg/s1600/katniss+reaping+sign.jpg

I haven't seen the movie but please, those are not somehow fashion-neutral "simple, functional" clothes. Simple and functional would be T-tunics and shapeless, pull-on pants with drawstring waists. There would be no pleats, no gathers, no belts, and one size would fit most. Every single person in that picture is wearing something that has extra, unnecessary fabric and work in it.

Buttons? BUTTONS? Do you know how much work buttonholes are??? The poors of the future will be wearing shapeless pull-over tunics made of recycled fibers flattened into a colorless mulch.

iirc (from teh books) that dress was her mother's 'fancy' dress and her mother came from a higher-class than her father and had kept a bunch of fancier stuff