frigid watched the Hunger Games

[frigidmagi]

The Hunger Games is based on a novel written for young adults by Suzanne Collins (there are two sequels) . To be honest I never read the novel so you're getting an review of just the movie.

Jennifer Lawerence from X Men First Class returns as Katniss Everdeen, our main character. This movie is about Katniss. As such, the entire movie hangs on Ms. Lawerence performance. She is in the vast majority of the scenes and many of the scenes she isn't in are about her. Ms. Lawerence took this seriously and it shows, from what I find she put in a fair amount of training for this role, training for 4 hours a day just on her archery so she would be believable. She pulls this off wonderfully in my view, making her one of the few young actresses who can actually carry a movie on her back (I'll take her over Megan Fox any day of the week).

The rest of the cast is well chosen as well, with many of them turning in solid performances.

The writing as you can guess is well done as well. Collins, the author of the book was it seems involved in the sceneplay, the movie sticks to and develops it's themes and doesn't shy away from the characters reactions to events or the implications of the above.

And these are dark, disturbing themes. The Hunger Games takes place in North America, after our civilization has fallen and seemingly been forgotten. PanAm, an continental empire has divided it's holdings into districts (12 of them). The Districts exists to feed the Capital the resources it needs to maintain itself and it's populace in idle luxury (seriously rarely do I see any Capital Citizen doing anything I would call real work). The Districts we see (12 and a brief glimpse of 11) live in crushing poverty while enduring back breaking toil (they're coal miners). The poverty of district 12 wouldn't be out of place in the Gilded Age, Katness has to illegally hunt just keep her sister and mother fed. There's a fucking black market for food for Christ Sake! Say what you will about the modern American system, we've never systematically starved the population of entire states to the point that squirrel meat is major black market luxury! This isn't just the blind thrashing of the free market either. This is purposefully and systematically done, while the citizens of the capital get fat and happy. Nor are people forced to stay where they are under the punishment of being hunted like animals and having their tongues cut out. This is not a well or just civilization. You figure that out in 5 minutes.

As one could guess, the Capital's rule of PanAm isn't popular. In fact there was a rebellion (I doubt there was just one either). A real brutal one, where weapons of mass destruction were used to put it down. Saddly the Capital won. As eternal punishment for the having the gall not to suffer serfdom and near slavery quitely, the Hunger Games are set up. Every year, 24 children, 1 girl and 1 boy are taken from the districts and made to fight to the death for the entertainment of the Capital. The last child is declared the victor and let free. The people of the districts are forced to watch as well. The children are age 12 to 18, their names are drawn randomly via lottery. In exchange for additional food rations from the government (proving there is a surplus, the greedy bastards) one can put his or her name in extra times, the more slips of paper you put in, the more food you get. The level of sickness here is... amazing.

The Capital itself has a higher level of techonology then modern day America, while the districts seem frozen in the early 1900s or even late 1800s. The Games are treated as a spectator sport, celebrated, enjoyed, the focus of media and betting. When Katness' 12 year old sister's name is chosen, she volunteers becoming the first volunteer from district 12.

The Movie is PG-13 and a while the violence isn't graphic (not by my standards anyways) it is disturbing, because you're watching children murdering each other. The story becomes as much about Katness trying to remain a human being as trying to survive, while contesting a society that I think would even make North Korea recoil.

The themes here revolve around violence, power, grief, poverty and wealthy, helplessness and picking yourself up and fighting through anyways.

As you could guess I had a reaction to the society of PanAm. It is a society seemingly cobbled out of spare parts from the bin marked "Things Frigid Loathes." They are self indulgent, preening, over groomed tyrants. They are unthinkingly brutal and classist, grinding down those they deem beneath them and believing their poverty and their wealth to be the rightful order of things. They are slavers. They have children kill each other for entertainment... And they think it's funny.

The Hunger Games doesn't dress any of this up. It's a dark, grim movie with Katness scraping small victories against a system that is simply to vast and powerful for her to effect. I give this movie full marks for not shying away from this.

The Hunger Games gets an -A.

[B4UTRUST]

I too have seen the movie but I have read the books. The books are, granted, written and aimed for young adults so don't anything beyond that. Far better than the Twitard series though. Not that that's especially difficult to accomplish...

The movie was... rather eh. At least to me. It was a good movie but it was a decidedly average movie to me. I didn't find anything especially great about it and I enjoyed the books a fair bit more. Both the books and the movie have been done far better long before this. Battle Royale for example was a far better version of this both in movie and book form. While I won't point out any specific points that to me were lacking, I just didn't feel the depth of acting was there and the special effects weren't exceptional. But again, this is just my opinion and as we're all aware, B4 holds an intense dislike for most things...

[frigidmagi]

I never saw Battle Royale and after reading about the set up I felt no need to. I found the concept of randomly kidnapping high school classes as a way to keep people under control to be ass backwards. When you're in constant risk of the government randomly swooping in and grabbing your kids for no reason what so ever and forcing them to fight to the death... THAT'S NOT GOING TO MAKE YOU DOCILE! WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO? KILL YOUR KIDS TWICE?

[B4UTRUST]

But isn't that what the hunger games was about more or less? *shrugs*

[Cynical Cat]

But isn't that what the hunger games was about more or less? *shrugs*

No. The Hunger Games reminds the conquered that they are conquered, reinforces the belief among the people of the Capital that they are the rightful elite, and pits district against district. These are divide and rule techniques as well as a draconian punishment for rebellion. Battle Royale is "we have kids kill each other because we're dicks".

[B4UTRUST]

Huh, because I remember Battle Royale being after an uprising that the kids were tossed into the battle royale as a means to show them who is in charge and not to try to rise up against the government again.

[Cynical Cat]

Huh, because I remember Battle Royale being after an uprising that the kids were tossed into the battle royale as a means to show them who is in charge and not to try to rise up against the government again.

Which makes it much less believable and effective because it lacks the exempting the population of the dominant region (the Capital) and having the various districts compete against each other by rewarding the district of the winner.

[B4UTRUST]

I never said it was believable or effective. I just said that as an overview there's some definite similarity between Battle Royale and Hunger Games. Or maybe that's just me. As I said before, I enjoyed Hunger Games. I also enjoyed Battle Royale. Both were better, in my opinion, as books, but that's often the case. *shrugs*

[LadyTevar]

And now, despite the book stating a character had brown skin and eyes, fans of Hunger Games are throwing a fit because one of the characters is BLACK.

Hello-oo! Brown Skin usually means BLACK folks! Or did you gloss that over in your mind because the Heroine was white, so all her allies had to be white?

[B4UTRUST]

Katniss was actually most likely of Mediterranean ancestry, not truly Caucasian given the description of her in the books as having olive colored skin. Or at least on her father's side. Her mother and sister were described as being your typical blonde hair blue-eyed Caucasians. Rue, who everyone is raising the fuss about was described as having dark brown hair, golden eyes and a darker skin tone. This can imply african-american but it could also imply a darker skinned latino as well. But people want to see what they see in their heads, not what the author envisioned.

[General Havoc]

I'm beginning to become glad that I never read the damn books.