Have you seen The Hunger Games? If so, what’d you think?

I went to see The Hunger Games yesterday. I enjoyed the book much more than the movie. However, the movie did follow the book’s storyline, for the most part, with a few added changes.

Just like in the book, the 12 districts randomly selects a boy and a girl during the reaping, to play in the Hunger Games. A total of 24 kids, aged 12-18 will fight in The Hunger Games until there is supposedly one lone survivor. I’m not going to bother repeating the plot since I already talked about this, in depth, on the link above when I reviewed the novel.

The movie made a few significant changes. The Gamemaker played more of a role in the movie than in the book. I don’t recall seeing the Gamemaker very much in the first book. (Although, the new Gamemaker is a prominent character in the second book.) Also, there’s a number of scenes with the Gamemaker and President Snow in the movie. I don’t recall seeing much of President Snow in the first book. (Although, you do see him a number of times in the second and third books.)

I felt that the character of Rue was not as deep or developed as in the book. However, in their defense, I know it’s hard to place every little thing from the book into the movie.

Also, there were a number of scenes that they added to the movie which showed the people controlling the game. I don’t recall seeing this in the book – the Gamemaker and his underlings, actually seeing them put things like fire and wild dogs into the players world. We see the book totally through Katniss’s point-of-view, so all of this background/behind the scenes stuff is not shown in the book.

The movie was just okay. I thought it had some suspenseful moments, but, I doubt I’d want to see it again. If I had to make a recommendation, I’d say to read the book before seeing the movie. The book has much more depth – more meat – in the story than the movie.

Have you seen The Hunger Games? If so, what’d you think?

~Cecelia Dowdy~

SPOILER:

I was surprised that they didn’t have Peeta to lose his leg at the end of the movie. This happens in the book.