Monday, March 26, 2012

Following Up on The Hunger Games

I saw the film and finished the final book over the weekend.  Where to begin?

The book got real philosophical at the end and chalk that up as a win for the author.  One of my issues with the books was the relentless first-person medium.  It couldn't help but make you (eventually) a little tired of the protagonist and find her a bit self-centered and her self-depracations ... hmmm ... disingenuous.  Shorter version:  I sure wish I had some points-of-view described belonging to some of these other very (otherwise) well-developed characters.

Then I'm constantly reminded of the target audience.  Certainly not a ... ahem ... thirty-something male who was taught to examine the viewpoint of every author who ever wrote and insist that there is no such thing as a truly unbiased accounting even in fiction (brought to you by the fine folks at the University of Georgia's History Department at Leconte Hall).  They also taught me better sentence structure than that but I sometimes ignore that one.


Which brings me to my next point.  I'm reading a review of the film and the reviewer alludes to some deeper meanings found in the fabric of the story.  The idea is that the author left these things for us to chew on.  But I strongly suspect, as I said in my first analysis, that the author got a little bit lucky.

Such as in the case of the young competitors, some of whom were reluctant and some of whom were enthusiastic participants in murder.  The author gave no suggestion that the existence of bloodthirsty children was symptomatic of a larger problem.  Nor did the author explain how those in Capitol City could be so cruel.  These facts are explained to us and critics can and are dissecting them.  But the author herself shows no motive behind this setup except to put Katniss (protagonist) and the residents of District 12 - in the most sympathetic and positive moral light possible.  Sum:  Them, bad.  Us, good.  A bit oversimplified for my taste.  And somewhat irritating that the author will credit for 'making us all think and examine ourselves' when I'm not sure her writing actually deserves it.

OK, enought negativity.  The book ended well.  I particularly like the way the author did NOT choose the path of least resistance with a non-storybook ending.  There were storybook elements, sure (and after all this time invested in these characters, I think we have to have some of that).  But for the audience's sake, especially the young people who are so enamored with the story, the message was a little bit mixed. 

1  Do the right thing.  Always.  No matter what the cost. 
2  Always be ready to be surprised by people.  In both hugely positive and negative ways.
3  Don't expect to be rewarded for doing the right thing.  People may hate you for it.

Basically, life isn't a fairytale and kudos to the author for explaining this.  The books were big enough that it was set up for a huge win in the end.  Did the good guys win?  Well ... sort of.  Is it even clear who the good guys are?  Nope, not at all.  I like it.  I like it alot.

THE MOVIE was fantastic!  I think the movie was actually better than the book.  First, it took all the first person junk that bored me to death and either left it out entirely or when the film felt the audience really needed to know something, someone other than the main character told us what we needed to know.  Shorter version:  we weren't told everything through the lens of a teenage girl.

Second, I can't remember a film where the casting was so dead-on.  Katniss in particular.  I found her completely believable.  I found her to be the heroine that the book tried to make her to be.  I actually cared what happened to her.  Gale too.  And President Snow.  All good choices and well-acted.  Peeta was OK but I thought he was totally outclassed and overshadowed by the others.

Third, the film was visually stunning without limiting your impression from the original text.  We were showed just enough to get a picture of District 12 and the contrast between there and the Capitol.  But it wasn't intrusively defining so that we're left going, "this isn't what I picture at all".

And finally, pacing.  And I guess I said this already.  I loved the pace of the film.  It moved very quickly and I really can't think of anything that the book had the movie missed that was important.

I can recommend both the movie and the books but for the first time ever, think the film was actually better.

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