superdeluxe

A question for the book readers:

Raul3

It was the same in the book. Almost.

bluetoast

I just got back from it, and I've read the books. I enjoyed it. While reading the book, I had imagined Haymitch looking like Hagrid, something like that, so I was surprised at Woody Harrelson as a choice, but I'm a big fan of his, and I was expecting him to be one of the better parts of the movie, which he was.

A bit disappointed that Gale's presence wasn't as prominent at the beginning, and that their hunting partnership was just glossed over.

I liked the colors, wacky styles and the atmosphere of District 1, that was well done.

Some of the relationships were, again, glossed over especially during the games. Like others said, despite being a long movie, it didn't feel that way, but by that same token, things also felt rushed.

While reading the first book, I was very interested in what Haymitch was doing in terms of making decisions. The book had more of a psychological aspect to sending the gifts. For example (minor spoiler),



Second book spoiler:

But that's another tangent!

Brooklyn

That last bit should probably be in a spoiler tag, moreso than the minor one you included. as from it it now looks like I know who gets picked for the next games.

OldBoy

bump for anyone that sees it this weekend.

Dr. DVD

Tarantino

I saw this last night and thought it was complete garbage. This movie should be shown in film school as an example of how not to make a movie. Terrible...TERRIBLE camera work. Yes, I know it's supposed to be 'frantic', but the camera work just looks amateur. The fight scenes were just awful and incomprehensible. Someone needs to take the money set aside to send M. Night back to film school and give it to Gary Ross.

Jennifer Lawrence did give a good performance as Katniss and Woody Harrelson was great. Those are the only redeeming qualities about this movie. The characters besides Katniss were not fleshed out at all, and I felt nothing when they were being killed off because of this and I thought the ending was ridiculous.

Maybe I hated it because I didn't read the books, but I love a lot of movie based on books that I've never read. This one just failed on every level.

davidh777

I loved it. I did read the book and therefore can't interpret how someone would experience it without having done so. But I thought it was quite faithful given the need to shorten, and didn't feel long despite its running time. The cast was great. Woody Harrelson didn't fit my vision of Haymitch and took me briefly out of the movie, but I really liked him in the role. Lawrence may have been a little well-fed, but her toughness and lack of classic beauty fit. I didn't like the shakycam, though I see the point as far as obscuring the violence. Given the demographic of the readership, an R rating never would have flown. It did have emotional impact for me, especially Katniss' relationship with the younger girls.

Solid Snake

That should never factor in. If the movie rocks or sucks...it does so on it's own terms. Fuck the book in this case.

Tarantino

That's what I think as well, but I've been hearing that from a lot of people.

Solid Snake

Which is failure on the film in that case. I still need to see this. I guess I'll see this Thursday to understand all the big hooplah.

asianxcore

I totally understand the shaky-cam for the violence. I can also understand it for a lot of the more kinetic shots/scenes.

I mentioned it previously, but my issue was the camera work was still the same way even when it was shot of two actors speaking. The scenes with Peta and Katniss in the woods speaking sometimes looked like a drunk person was behind the lens.

Tarantino

You can make competent action scenes in PG-13 movies. I don't get the rationale that all DVDTalkers are suddenly accepting shitty camera work because of its rating. People would have shit bricks if The Dark Knight action was like this...and it was also PG-13.

Draven

The camera was swinging past images like an 18 year old slashing the throat of a 12 year old. If there is the equivalent of that shot in Dark Knight, I'd love to see it. I think a "frantic camera" was necessary to depict these kids killing each other and not get an R rating.

I never even noticed the "shaky cam" in this movie because whenever it happened, it fit the mood of the scene. And I shoot video for a living, so I do notice bad camera work. Didn't seem bad to me at all.

Solid Snake

I haven't seen it, but I will. Just cuz it's an interesting discussion on there from you guys. But...does it do that to make it more "viseral" or "gritty" or what?

dino88

Just go see the damn movie, Snake! You're going to know every scene of the movie before you see it if you keep reading this thread.

Solid Snake

Who cares? I'm not a bitch about spoilers. I can understand others' feelings about such things but they don't affect me. I can know everything but until i actually experience it. They're just things that I know about...but didn't experience it.

asianxcore

Batman Begins had tons of shaky-cam in it's action scenes and I think a lot of people here were annoyed by it.

Also the action in a film like Dark Knight and what was depicted in the first Hunger Games book are two different beasts in terms of rating.

You aren't going to see:



As I mentioned many times before in both Hunger Games threads, I understand the shaky camera work in terms of the violence depicted, but not in the scenes where there was just dialogue/non-kinetic scenes.

davidh777

To me, it's less about the rating than the target demographic of the original material (and yes, Dark Knight was somewhat targeted to kids because they knew it would sell stuff)

I agree that a movie should be able to stand on its own. As I said, it's hard for me to judge how successfully it did that since I read the book.

PopcornTreeCt

I just got back from this and I really liked it. I think Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson really held it together but especially Lawrence. The scene where she's with Kravitz right before she's about to leave, you can see her visibly shaking. I thought that was pretty well done. She definitely elevated it.

The only problems I had with the movie were story related so I imagine that had to be on the author. I just didn't expect her to:



I'll also say, this and Battle Royale were very different. They definitely took very different approaches to the material and I was happy about that too.

Tarantino

A simple fight between

Yes, I understand that certain images needed to be seen certain ways by the audience, primarily at the beginning of the games in the clusterfuck equipment scramble. However, all of the other action in the movie, including was so cut/cut/cut/cut/cut and so horribly done that it was impossible to see what the fuck was going on. The action was downright awful. If these fight scenes (with their same outcomes) were done say, the style of Haywire's fight scenes, it would have been a million times better and would have still gotten a PG-13 rating.

The fact some of you are chewing this shit up amazes me and tells me that you must be absolute head over heels in love with the source material and you're ignoring the movie's insane flaws.

Another glaring problem with this movie is the fact that we're told that

There was never a sense of urgency to survive. It was more like everyone was just there for a walk in the park. Even the main antagonist, Kato (yes, I know the main antagonist, as people tell me, is the President, but I just didn't get that sense here) is completely wasted. At first, when she sees him after the parade, I got a sense of...ah, here's the guy that's going to be a real challenge. He's the badass. Then, in the games, he's more like the ringleader of a group of bullies straight out of an American Pie direct to DVD high school movie.

I get that a lot of you are in love with the books. So be it. They're probably great books. However, this movie was fucking terrible.

RichC2

I didn't think it was terrible as it wasn't a chore for me to get through by any stretch, and I liked some concepts (Advertisers for the reality aspect was a nice touch) but I also didn't think it was particularly great.

Felt like a nicer version of Battle Royale. The action scenes were very poorly done, and I usually can handle shaky cam without a problem (can't remember the last one that bugged me.)

SuckaMC

Saw it, liked it. I did read the books so I was constantly comparing. The point above about most dying from exposure, etc. was a bit of detail carried over from the book that applied there but not in the film. The book has Katniss wandering for a long time and almost dying of thirst. Time issues I guess.

The cornucopia scene was surprisingly brutal and I can see why it was shot the way it was. It allowed for a lot more blood.

The only thing I didn't like was that the flashbacks show them as the same age. In the book it was when they were children, before Katniss was a hunter. It made sense that she would be starving then.

davidh777

This is also the 74th Hunger Games so it's possible exposure could have played a bigger factor in previous years, and maybe this year's tributes are better at killing. Yeah, that bit of dialogue could have been trimmed to be tidy, but it seems like kind of a minor point to get upset about. Everyone has an opinion but I feel like Tarantino is getting a little personal over the kind of shit I like.

Tarantino

Not personal. I just don't understand the "the flaws don't matter because it's PG-13" argument I'm hearing from DVDTalkers and critics alike.