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All Things The Hunger Games


Niners Fan in CT

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I finally got around to watching The Hunger Games and I very much enjoyed it. J-LAW continues to be incredible. The only thing that was a little off for me were some of the action sequences. I didn't care for the slow motion and the quick cuts away from the violence. Understandably, they want to keep the franchise PG-13 so it's just a minor gripe. The rest of the film from the style/tone to the atmosphere was picture perfect. I loved the underlying themes going on here. I could do without a possible love triangle but we'll see where it goes. So how close was the first film to the books?

 

Anyway, the trailer is out for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and it looks awesome. Love the cast.

 

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The first film was very much an abridged version of the book.  Not much in the way of changes, except what they needed to do to keep the film at a semi-reasonable run time.

 

Despite the obvious similarities, it (especially the books) doesn't really end up feeling too much like Battle Royale.  I mean, it's not world's apart, but it's got a very different focus, for one thing.

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  • 3 months later...

Just a reminder (with Catching Fire coming out in less than a month) that there is already a thread for the movies.

 

And I know Dolfan posted this in the regular thread too but here ya go

 

 

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I finally finished the books so I can safely start paying attention to these movies.

 

I had no idea they were splitting Mockingjay into Two movies. Which is especially amusing since I kept reading it thinking "How the hell are they going to film half of this?"

 

As far as Cusack - my knee jerk reaction was that he is Boggs. I mean him playing a soldier is weird but Boggs was in his 40s and that is the biggest male character I can think of that I don't see cast

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  • 3 weeks later...

My hopes for Mockingjay went up exponentially when I saw Julianne Moore is set to play Alma Coin. Because she is 102% awesome.  Oh, and Mahershala Ali is playing Boggs in Mockingjay.

 

As of now, Catching Fire is at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and 74 on Metacritic.  Looks like this one's going to be solid.  Pretty much every column I've read says this is a much better movie due to a much better director. 

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My hopes for Mockingjay went up exponentially when I saw Julianne Moore is set to play Alma Coin. Because she is 102% awesome.  Oh, and Mahershala Ali is playing Boggs in Mockingjay.

 

Both of those are excellent casting.

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I watched this yesterday and I don't think I can share in the universal praise this has been getting.

It certainly wasn't bad, but I thought it was far from great. For one I thought they did a really poor job in making us care about anyone else besides the two main protagonists.

It takes an extremely long time before the games even start and then the movie just rushes through that entire affair far too quickly. And then the movie ends out of nowhere, just when it starts to get interesting.

 

I haven't even read the books, but this just seems like one of the cases, where you're far better off just reading the books.

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This a much better made film than the first Hunger Games, which more than makes up for it being a lesser book.

 

Is the same director doing Mockingjay?

 

Yes - Francis Lawrence is doing both parts of Mockingjay

 

In case you didn't know Lawrence also directed I Am Legend and Constantine... and Water For Elephants.

 

So I guess he only does book adaptations

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I watched this yesterday and I don't think I can share in the universal praise this has been getting.

It certainly wasn't bad, but I thought it was far from great. For one I thought they did a really poor job in making us care about anyone else besides the two main protagonists.

It takes an extremely long time before the games even start and then the movie just rushes through that entire affair far too quickly. And then the movie ends out of nowhere, just when it starts to get interesting.

I haven't even read the books, but this just seems like one of the cases, where you're far better off just reading the books.

Actually that's more or less all baked in from the novel. Easily my least favorite of the three books, but so much better made of a movie.

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Always fun hearing the reactions from people who obviously haven't read the books. Where we saw it yesterday, one woman jumped up at the finish and yelled "DAMMIT!" We were still laughing about that hours later.

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Always fun hearing the reactions from people who obviously haven't read the books. Where we saw it yesterday, one woman jumped up at the finish and yelled "DAMMIT!" We were still laughing about that hours later.

 

 I already told Pete this on facebook, but there was a guy behind me who just kept repeating in a shocked, angry voice "that's how it ends?  That's how how it ends?  THAT'S where it ends?"

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  • 8 months later...

I didn't realize it was coming this year. Awesome.

 

One of the true brilliant things about the Hunger Games series is that it is political, however its politics are so vague that everyone from Republican to Democrat to Socialist to Libertarian can find parts where their own viewpoints are validated.

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