The Hunger Games

[Nigel Tufnel]

Adam Jones just tweeted that he's on his way to see the Hunger Games.

[thundercleetz]

They absolutely should teach Ender's Game! There's a woeful lack of science fiction taught, at least in public schools where I am. Heck, I didn't even read Fahrenheit 451, 1984, or Slaughterhouse-Five until well after high school.

I read Ender's Game in high school (Montgomery County), freshmen year I think. I hated the book. Don't get me wrong cool concept and well written, I just could not stand the main character. I do not remember much about the book as it did not have a lasting impression on me, but instead of rooting for the protagonist the book made me hate him and root against him. The reason for this was, as a reader, I never saw the protagonist as having any true threat to his mission. Everything always fell his way, he got every break, and I never had any reason to believe something would happen otherwise. In fact, my favorite character in the book was the main character's older brother (Peter?). I kept hoping that maybe he would just kill the main character off. From my point of view, the book develop the protagonist enough for me to connect with him and get behind him.

[MikeAD]

I know 1984 is still required reading in Montgomery County -- my 16-year old son just read it, and loved it.

My 22-year old daughter, who is quite literate, picked up The Hunger Games about a month ago and couldn't put it down. She ended up reading the whole trology in about a week, saw the movie (which she also loved), and is now re-reading the series. And she is nobody's girlie-girl.

I wish they would make 1984 into a movie now. With the right direction and the right mindset it could be an amazing piece.

For those who have read the Hunger Games, do the books focus more on the over barring, future government?

[square634]

I read Ender's Game in high school (Montgomery County), freshmen year I think. I hated the book. Don't get me wrong cool concept and well written, I just could not stand the main character. I do not remember much about the book as it did not have a lasting impression on me, but instead of rooting for the protagonist the book made me hate him and root against him. The reason for this was, as a reader, I never saw the protagonist as having any true threat to his mission. Everything always fell his way, he got every break, and I never had any reason to believe something would happen otherwise. In fact, my favorite character in the book was the main character's older brother (Peter?). I kept hoping that maybe he would just kill the main character off. From my point of view, the book develop the protagonist enough for me to connect with him and get behind him.

To each his own, I guess. It's one of my favorite books, with a depiction of children that resonated with me deeply.

[allstar1579]

I wish they would make 1984 into a movie now. With the right direction and the right mindset it could be an amazing piece.

For those who have read the Hunger Games, do the books focus more on the over barring, future government?

The first book touches on it a little bit, you get the impression for sure, but it really focuses on the games. The 2nd and 3rd books are where you see that the games are made to try to distract the people from realizing the govt needs them more than they need the govt. Rule with fear and all. Then it shifts from the games focus to more rebellion against the govt.

[atom_25]

Saw the movie last night and overall I thought it was good. At the behest of my wife who read all three books in her book club last Summer, I read the three books over the past few weeks and I really liked them. I think the movie was a good (but not great) adaptation of the books in keeping the themes and all alive while appealing to the mostly PG-13 type audience. My only real complaint for the movie was the Capitol was not awe inspiring enough for me.

[Frobby]

I saw the movie this weekend, having never read the books. I thought it was very good, and set up the sequels nicely. Definitely not a chick flick by the way. It's a tense action movie that's a bit corny in a few spots.

[The Rick]

I read the trilogy and thoroughly enjoyed the books.

On a scale of "awful" to "eff yeah", I'd give the movie a "meh". The movie, while pretty long, failed to really do any in depth character development. The close ups in the arena were too much, and there just wasn't enough focus on the emotions of the whole thing. This is supposed to be this gut wrenching event that makes you hate the Capitol for what they are making these children do, but I just didn't get that sense at all from the movie. BTW, I had no problem with the liberties they took in this movie to set up the sequels (the garden scene with Snow & Seneca Crane, the foreshadowing of the revolt in disctrict 11 when Rue dies and Katniss does the 3 finger salute, etc.). I thought that was acceptable. I also liked the casting. Woody Harrelson was awesome, but they didn't really make him look as much of a drunken slob as he is in the book, Banksy as Effie was fantastic, Kravitz as Cinna was very well done and Donald Sutherland as Snow gave me the creepies a couple of times.

Now that being said, almost everyone who has not read the books seemed to really like the movie a lot, and after a couple weeks, it's holding steady on iMDB at a 7.8, which is certainly very solid to say the least. So what I have decided is that I'll give it a few months and watch the movie again and re-evaluate my take on the movie at that time. I'll note that I had just finished reading the first book just a couple days before the movie came out, which certainly didn't help matters.

[backwardsk]

How does Gillette not have Seneca in their commercials with Adrien Brody and Andre 3000?