First of all, if you haven't read the Hunger Games trilogy (by Suzanne Collins) then you really should! I'm not going to say you have to because...well, you don't HAVE to. But the books are truly great to read! My whole family enjoyed them! My mom, dad, younger brother, younger sister, and my oldest sister and her husband! ...Well...I guess not everyone in my family likes it. My second oldest sister, Katie, hasn't read them yet. But last I heard she was going to start. So I think it's safe to say that 99.9% of my immediate family likes them.
Anyway, the trilogy was was awesome! But don't ask me if I'm "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale". The first reason is because Finnick always wins (Haha!). The second, but more important, reason is that the whole "Guy Team" thing was started by all those "Twihards".
Let me say real quick that there is a difference between a Twihard and someone someone who has read/is reading the Twilight books for enjoyment and entertainment. Twihards will fight tooth and nail over why Twilight is better than anything else you could read or watch. The others may just be simple fans, but that's still a big difference.
In the Twilight "saga" (if you can call it that...look up the definition) the story revolves around a girl with an obsession over two guys, so the "Team Edward"/"Team Jacob" thing makes sense because that's what it's about.
In The Hunger Games, however, the "team" thing has no place. In the books, Katniss's worry (as well as most of the plot) is divided like this: about 50% percent worry about her family and friends safety, 45% worry about leading a revolution, and 5% worry about whether or not she even WANTS to be with either of her suitors at all because of everything she's been through!
Katniss has different reasons to like both of them and they're actually legit reasons: Gale has been my friend since I was twelve and helps take care of my family. Peeta saved my life and can relate to what I've been through and understands me. Both of them are loyal.
Bella's reasons for liking Edward: He's like a hot, undead, oh, I mean "FROZEN", sparkly statue with "liquid topaz" eyes. He came into my room without me knowing to watch me sleep and told me I was like heroin and that he has to use all of his willpower to keep from tearing me apart to eat me.
...Yay. Great, healthy, relationship you have there Bella...At least he's "hot" because, hey, that's all that matters.
I may go more in depth on the Twilight "saga" in a later post so I won't get too into it right now.
Summing it up:
Katniss = good, fictional female role model.
Bella = horrible, fictional female role model.
So my point is, this whole "Team Peeta"/"Team Gale" nonsense probably came from some Twihards that are starting to feel withdrawal because their series ended and the movies are almost over and they needed something else to occupy their minds. At least they chose a better series.
But people, please, for the love of all that is literature, STOP TRYING TO MAKE THE HUNGER GAMES A NEW TWILIGHT!!! Twilight doesn't come close The Hunger Games so just leave it alone!
And with that being said, all Twihards may now leave.
*clears throat* If you couldn't tell, I'm prone to being intense about certain things...
Now then, I shall continue.
My dad drove my younger brother (Samuel) and I to the theater at 8:00pm so we could be in line to save seats for the midnight premier. My brother dressed up as Peeta (he even dyed his hair!) and I dressed up as Katniss (and my brother and I went all out to make ourselves look fresh out of the Games).
When we got there we were practically the only people waiting in line! There was another group waiting in line for a different midnight showing of The Hunger Games (my friend, Brandon, among them) but until almost 9:00 my brother and I were the only ones standing in line for the 12:05 showing!
My mom and younger sister came later after they finished getting ready. My sister dressed up just as a random Capitol citizen but after being at the theater a few minutes she decided she was Effie Trinket.
I was surprised at how few people were dressed up! People were either wearing T-shirts with slogans on them like "District 1" all the way through to "District 12" and others had "Down with the Capitol", "Girl on fire" "Team Peeta" (grr...), and so on. One of them looked like a homemade football jersey that said "Finnick 65" which I thought was cool. (Finnick Was in the 65 Hunger Games.)
Sometimes the extent of someones costume was simply braiding their hair like Katniss or wearing her Mockingjay pin.
All of them were cool! But I was surprised, considering the books are so popular, that hardly anyone else went all out on their costumes!
Here's what my siblings and I looked like:
(That's real dirt, by the way!)
Yes, I know, I look rather short standing next to my younger brother and sister (especially my sister). But my sister is in heels and both of them have grown a lot recently. And I'm just kind of short....But I don't really care. Haha!
But anyway, back to the movie.
I thought the movie was fantastic! It stayed very true to the book which doesn't happen a lot with book-to-movie adaptations. For example: Eragon, The Tale of Desperaux
Eragon was one of the most disappointing for me.
In Eragon they changed practically everything but the names! They did everything from creating a different plot from the book to "forgetting" to give the elf character, Arya, pointed ears! The actors didn't even have their hair dyed!
I was very pleased with The Hunger Games. The plot was same as the book and I knew what was coming because it progressed in the same way. I could tell the screenplay was written by the author, Suzanne Collins. The characters were the same and acted the same way they did in the book. Some of the dialogue was even word for word! I was quoting it as the characters were saying it!
I've been reading a lot of negative comments about the movie which don't make much sense to me.
A lot of them are people complaining about things that were left out of the movie.
Now, if I haven't mentioned this before, I want to be a filmmaker (more specifically, a director/writer/actor) so I've started watching movies with that sort of mindset especially when it comes to book adaptations.
I took a film production class a couple years ago and I learned how much work goes into making a film. And the one we did in class only lasted about ten minutes! Imagine what it takes to produce a 2hr 22min. movie!
So as the movie approached I started making a mental list of what I would cut from the movie without reshaping it.
By the time the movie premiered I had cut everything that, in a filmmaking sense, was unnecessary.
The list included:
Most of Katniss's flashbacks,
Katniss's "friend", Madge (who actually makes a grand total of two appearances in the whole trilogy),
A majority of the train ride to the Capitol,
The entire remake process shortened to maybe a handful tiny clips,
Katniss searching for water and nearly dying of thirst (this is one of the major problems people seem to have. They seem to think this is a major plot point but, of you've read the book, you would see it's barely has much importance next to the main plot issues),
And a lot of what happens when Katniss finds Peeta.
These things can be left out without altering the actually story. As I said, the story and characters stayed the same.
Something that also seems to get people upset in the parts of the movie that show the Gamemakers controlling the game. I actually found this clever.
In the book Katniss spends a great deal of time thinking about the Games and how the Gamemakers watch them and control the different things that happen in the arena.
But that's the problem. The book is written in a first-person present-tense point of view (something very new and intriguing to me) so it's like being inside Katniss's head as everything is happening. In the movie we can't be inside her head, we're watching from a third-person point of view. So rather than awkwardly having her spout random facts such as "Oh! A giant wall of fire! This must be the Gamemakers trying to corral me near the other Tributes! Everyone knows they control random events in the Games!" to herself (this would be the only other alternative when you think about it) they just show what the Gamemakers are doing. I applaud the creativity of this! It's something that needs to be done for the movie to make any sense to those who may not have read the books.
And that's another thing. I've heard people say, and I can't remember where I heard this, that they thought the movie was "directed more towards people who had read the books".
....DUH!!!
I'm sorry but they make books into movies because the books are popular! If nobody read the Hunger Games it would have been much harder to get the ball rolling on a movie adaptation.
I know they're are a lot of people who went to see it just because Josh Hutcherson was in it, that's not a problem. I watched Time Bandits because Sean Connery was in it, I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (after I'd seen it several times already, mind you) last year because some pointed out that David Tennant is Barty Crouch Junior! (Yes. I'm a major Doctor Who fan.)
So I don't consider it weird to watch a movie just because one of you're favorite actors has a part. I just dislike when those people start complaining about the fact that it seems like "you have to read the book to get the whole story".
Another duh. Sorry again.
The book is always better than the movie, no matter how close the adaptation is!
I did say the movie was great, even with things "left out". But the book is way better.
So...it's getting late. I should actually be in bed right now.
Thanks for reading!
I hope I'm updating faster now (even though this is only the first post after my resolution)!
Good night and God bless you all!
