The Hunger Games
Jan. 16th, 2018 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAt last I have watched the first Hunger Games movie! After a year of trying to get together a slightly larger group for a (re)watch, Julie and I have bowed to fate, admitted that this will never happen, and started in on the movies ourselves.
A few scattered thoughts! Behind the spoiler cut I guess, just in case.
1. There is a scene in this movie where President Snow tries to explain to Seneca Crane about how the Hunger Games are about giving the people the perfectly calibrated level of hope to keep them compliant, which totally blows my entire "How to Be a Better Dictator" section about hope out of the water. Dammit, movie!Snow! Why you gotta upstage me like that?
The worst part is that Suzanne Collins co-wrote the screenplay for the movie, so this is not even really a difference between movie!Snow and book!Snow - it's just that we don't get a behind-the-scenes look at Snow in the book like we do in the movie so he never has a chance to give this speech.
On the other hand, I guess it's shows that I was picking up on something that's actually in the books, so that's good I guess? My high school English teacher would be proud.
2. These behind-the-scenes glimpses are one area where the movie really improves on the books, to my mind. It gives us a much bigger view of what goes into creating the games and also really sharpens the critique of sensationalized violent entertainment. There's a moment at the very beginning, for instance, where Crane is going on about how the Games have become something that "brings us together," which encapsulates everything wrong with Panem in a way that packages it palatably - which is just perfect.
I don't think the books could have incorporated this in the same way: it's a very cinematic story and I think it needed a visual medium to make certain aspects of it pop.
3. On the other hand, the books gave us a much clearer sense of District 12 as a place, partly because we spend a bit more time there, but also partly because the shaky-cam makes it hard to get a good view of anything during Katniss's run through the district at the beginning. We could get a lot more out of this if we could see it clearly!
I actually thought the shaky cam was used to wonderful effect in the Games portion of the story (and I'm usually not big on shaky cam), because it gives a real visual understanding of Katniss's disorientation - but that effect would have been stronger if the movie hadn't started using shaky-cam earlier, when Katniss is in her own district and presumably pretty well oriented.
4. The movie super strengthened my belief that every single district would have a training program, no matter how rudimentary, and all of them would be sending eighteen-year-old volunteers. The twelve-year-old tributes are just too tiny to have much of a chance, and the rewards for a win are too substantial for every district not to give its all to sending a tribute who might win.
And even without a training program, there would be volunteers. There would probably be volunteers fighting each other for the opportunity to be tribute, just because it is the only opportunity many of them will ever get to live anything but hard and miserable lives.
But it would be a completely different story and Katniss a completely different character if she volunteered for the honor of her district and the possibility of personal advancement.
5. I really like the way that the Katniss/Peeta partnership switches the gender roles around. Katniss is the emotionally stunted violent one, while Peeta smiles, bakes, has people skills, and generally tries to keep their ratings high enough that people will root for them. If Peeta hadn't laid the groundwork, Haymitch could never have convinced Crane to make that rule change for the sake of the star-crossed lovers.
6. Crane, dude, you signed your death warrant the moment you changed the rules like that. Snow made it perfectly clear he wanted Katniss dead and you should have ensured that it happened early on. Don't give her an escape route from that forest fire! This is a dictatorship, you don't have to play fair!
A few scattered thoughts! Behind the spoiler cut I guess, just in case.
1. There is a scene in this movie where President Snow tries to explain to Seneca Crane about how the Hunger Games are about giving the people the perfectly calibrated level of hope to keep them compliant, which totally blows my entire "How to Be a Better Dictator" section about hope out of the water. Dammit, movie!Snow! Why you gotta upstage me like that?
The worst part is that Suzanne Collins co-wrote the screenplay for the movie, so this is not even really a difference between movie!Snow and book!Snow - it's just that we don't get a behind-the-scenes look at Snow in the book like we do in the movie so he never has a chance to give this speech.
On the other hand, I guess it's shows that I was picking up on something that's actually in the books, so that's good I guess? My high school English teacher would be proud.
2. These behind-the-scenes glimpses are one area where the movie really improves on the books, to my mind. It gives us a much bigger view of what goes into creating the games and also really sharpens the critique of sensationalized violent entertainment. There's a moment at the very beginning, for instance, where Crane is going on about how the Games have become something that "brings us together," which encapsulates everything wrong with Panem in a way that packages it palatably - which is just perfect.
I don't think the books could have incorporated this in the same way: it's a very cinematic story and I think it needed a visual medium to make certain aspects of it pop.
3. On the other hand, the books gave us a much clearer sense of District 12 as a place, partly because we spend a bit more time there, but also partly because the shaky-cam makes it hard to get a good view of anything during Katniss's run through the district at the beginning. We could get a lot more out of this if we could see it clearly!
I actually thought the shaky cam was used to wonderful effect in the Games portion of the story (and I'm usually not big on shaky cam), because it gives a real visual understanding of Katniss's disorientation - but that effect would have been stronger if the movie hadn't started using shaky-cam earlier, when Katniss is in her own district and presumably pretty well oriented.
4. The movie super strengthened my belief that every single district would have a training program, no matter how rudimentary, and all of them would be sending eighteen-year-old volunteers. The twelve-year-old tributes are just too tiny to have much of a chance, and the rewards for a win are too substantial for every district not to give its all to sending a tribute who might win.
And even without a training program, there would be volunteers. There would probably be volunteers fighting each other for the opportunity to be tribute, just because it is the only opportunity many of them will ever get to live anything but hard and miserable lives.
But it would be a completely different story and Katniss a completely different character if she volunteered for the honor of her district and the possibility of personal advancement.
5. I really like the way that the Katniss/Peeta partnership switches the gender roles around. Katniss is the emotionally stunted violent one, while Peeta smiles, bakes, has people skills, and generally tries to keep their ratings high enough that people will root for them. If Peeta hadn't laid the groundwork, Haymitch could never have convinced Crane to make that rule change for the sake of the star-crossed lovers.
6. Crane, dude, you signed your death warrant the moment you changed the rules like that. Snow made it perfectly clear he wanted Katniss dead and you should have ensured that it happened early on. Don't give her an escape route from that forest fire! This is a dictatorship, you don't have to play fair!
no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 01:25 am (UTC)What is the in-world rationale for having twelve-year-old tributes at all?
no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 01:41 am (UTC)If all the tributes were chosen by lottery and volunteers weren't allowed, then it wouldn't cause a world-building problem. But because volunteers are allowed - and winning the Hunger Games has enormous benefits not only for the victor but for their entire district - yeah. Every district would try to train the kids up to be tributes.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 03:40 am (UTC)Agreed. What an odd hole to leave in the worldbuilding.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-17 06:03 pm (UTC)And I see how we get there, because Theseus volunteers to take the place of one of the seven youths sent to Crete—it's a major scene in Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958), which Collins may have read—but then Collins should have worked out some device whereby this option is plausibly unusual or loophole-y but not the norm, or you'd get the system you describe. At the very least, you should have eighteen-year-olds stepping in all the time when twelve-year-olds are drawn, because they have a better chance.