tea and hunger games.

[rmd]

If you enjoyed Professor Elemental's Cup of Brown Joy and want more rap about tea, check out Doc Brown's Angry Rap about ProperTea


So, I saw the Hunger Games movie last week and then went off and borrowed the book and read it. IMAO, the book has better worldbuilding, but the movie is much tighter - a well-done adaptation of the source material, I think. I have one question about the plot and one comment on the book/movie difference below, however, after an lj-cut as spoiler-space.


So, Peeta goes off and joins the career tribute alliance when the games begin. This seems somewhat out of character for him based on everything else we know. Is this just weirdly characterized behavior, or is it foreshadowing for something later in the series?

Also, the mutant dog/attack-critters near the end are much creepier in the book. I'm not sure it would've worked well on-screen, so it's a good call not to, but, yeah, creepy.

Comments

[donnad.livejournal.com]

I read the whole series in about 4 days.

I didn't see anything more about that in the other books. I think it was a "make friends and they are less likely to want to kill you right away" move rather than something the author was planning to build on. If she was planning more with that, it didn't happen.

I have not seen the movie yet, did they actually cut out the mutts? That seems odd. I can't recall which book so I wont say much more about it, but Katniss refers to them a couple times after the games.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

They didn't cut them out, but they didn't make them obviously the dead Tributes, or even anything other than dog-like monsters. But rmd is correct in that it would've been really hard to pull it off on-screen, I think, though it was indeed creepy in the books.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

Yeah - they were just vicious hyena-like killer canine things. None of the creepy recycled tributes "Maybe Rue will eat your face off" stuff.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Considering that Peeta led the career Tributes away from Katniss and told her to run after the trackerjacker wasp attack, I took it as that he was effectively working as a mole on her side, plus allying early with them meant living longer.

[solarbird]

Except.

They did acknowledge what happened in the book with the hounds, visually, very briefly, in that you get a brief but clearly intentional shot of what looked like awfully human eyes on one of the hounds.

I took this as a reference to what they couldn't do from the book, and I think taking it out was the right call - as a fan. It wouldn't've worked on screen.

Peeta had done a pretty good job chatting up some of the pros beforehand in training, or so I remember. I took it as part of that. You saw more of that at the end of the first book and the first film where he turns it on and suddenly he's Mister Television during the post-Games interviews.

Unrelated to any of this, last weekend's Foxtrot made me very happy. :D

[irilyth]

I thought Peeta's joining up with the careers was just another example of him using his charisma to get an edge. (And that it was genuinely a ruse to help Katniss all along.)

[irilyth]

Also, if you liked Hunger Games, you would probably also enjoy Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. (You might not enjoy its pseudo-sequel Fire, at least not as much; at least, I didn't.)

[shadowsmark.livejournal.com]

You should really read all the books. It's really one book in three volumes: the arc of the whole story is pretty different than the arc of the first book, and much more powerful, to my way of thinking. Not sure if the movies will successfully portray that arc, but I guess we'll see!

[kellyjmf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Peeta joins the Careers to keep them from killing Katniss. But on the meta side, it allows the author to keep Katniss off-balance about Peeta and his motives and actions.

I mostly liked the choices they made for the movie except cutting the bread from District 11 after Rue's death. And I wasn't thrilled about adding a riot in its place.

I read all three super fast over the winter holidays and read them again last month. My 11-y.o. was obsessed with them and kept bringing up tiny details I couldn't remember.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I thought the bread thing was a really nice touch, but in order to put that in, they'd have to include the backstory on bread and how she knew it was from D11, which might be a bit too much detail to stuff in.

In general, yeah, a well-done adaptation -- so much of the book is internal to her thoughts, and they did a good job of extracting the story without losing too much.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh, the next one is in my queue. :)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

cool. thanks for the pointer.

[lil-brown-bat.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie. I thought the worldbuilding in the book was not bad for a YA novel (which is what it is; I find it endlessly amusing how the novels have caught on among adults, when I don't find it horribly depressing), but when compared to the genre as a whole, somewhere between "poor" and "on the low side of average". But it's probably the best that the genre will ever do in popular culture.

[rdhdsnippet.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. I am also hoping against hope that nobody convinces the author to take the story further than Mockingjay. It's a beautifully completed arc.

[skreeky]

Yes and no. I've heard a few people complain about how *unlikeable* Katniss is, and therefore they didn't like the movie at all. I think that the lack of her internal dialog is why they are completely missing that this is the point of the character. Her internal journey is how she deals with the pressure to "be likeable or DIE" and later become Someone Important while knowing perfectly well that she doesn't have the charisma to pull it off (and being just fine with who she is thankyouverymuch except that she might DIE).

For some reason, I seem to identify with a strong but unlikeable female that deals with people by minding her own business. But anyway...

So apparently something was badly lost in translation.