Tuesday, May 1, 2012

May the odds be ever in your favor...

Welllll... still can't quite say whether or not this applies to the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games. Jamie and I finally went to go see it this weekend.

As you all know, I LOVED the books, so I had incredibly high expectations that this would match the adaptation level of my other favorites: Harry Potter. While I didn't hate the movie, I can't say I loved it either, and here are some reasons why:

-- Gale was downgraded to a very minor character
-- They changed the origin story of the mockingjay pin (which had Suzanne Collins' blessing, but still)
-- There wasn't enough character development and backstory for District 12 in the beginning
-- They didn't effectively convey the danger Katniss faced whenever she was outside District boundaries
-- The Games themselves were not nearly as intense as they were while reading about them, plus they seemed so short
-- Haymitch should be fat and lazy, not Woody Harrelson
-- They left out the rest of Katniss' style team
-- The CGI effects left a bit to be desired, in my opinion
-- We aren't able to see the motivation behind the characters

All that said, I thought most of the casting was excellent. And if I hadn't read the book, I probably would have enjoyed the movie more. It was still quite action packed, and is evident that they really tried to please fans as much as they were able. I heard the director of this one is not coming back, so hopefully Catching Fire will be an improvement, as it is my favorite book of the trilogy. 

This review from Entertainment Weekly echoes my sentiments, if you care to delve further:
 Movie Review - The Hunger Games

Anybody else seen it? What did you think?


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