The Hunger Games

Hey guys!

So I went off the radar for the last few weeks, on account of revision stress, but I have made myself a promise to come back and stop neglecting my lovelies here.

Anyhow, I guess I left you hanging with my last post...which ended on me asking you whether or not I should go to the UK Premiere of the Hunger Games. Well, when I woke up at 8am and logged onto Facebook to check the Premiere page, the updates from that page said that sadly there were definitely way more than 200 people already there. So that was my decision made... :(

Song of the day: Horn of Plenty ~ Hunger Games Soundtrack (this gave me chills when I first heard it)

I'm a bit gutted as now that THG is a worldwide franchise, the UK premiere for the next movie won't be as low key. I watched the premieres for both world and UK online, and they were both pretty exciting ~ the world one more so. Now that had a buzz that the UK one definitely lacked!

Anyway, I went to watch the movie on the 23rd with a large group of fangirls. I only knew one of them but it didn't matter since we all had lots to talk about. The cinema was absolutely packed, and it was such a good feeling to be surrounded by so many fans (or potential fans)!

I guess I should post my thoughts on the movie ~ semi review style. Note, there won't be any major spoilers here, just general plot outlines. Here we go!

I found the opening of the movie to be a bit jarring ~ not gonna lie but I'm not a huge proponent of the shaky cam technique. For me, the story telling here seemed a bit disjointed, like, scenes jumped too much and the dialogue didn't flow very smoothly (Effie Trinket's intro was definitely lacking!). I think they could have done the world building a bit better too e.g. show us more of the world that the characters live in, and show more interactions between the characters. I really wanted to see more starving people, dammit! But it got better after that.

I think the first time I felt a tear slipping down my face was during the reaping scene, and from then onwards, it was just a leaky tap for the rest of the movie. Drip drip drip. So glad the theatre was dark and no one could see me cry at the most random scenes.


The stadium!

 The Capitol was absolutely breathtaking. You know the sense of wonder you get when something really epic and cinematic is presented before your eyes? Well, it was like that. The costumes, the stadium, oh, the stadium of the chariot parade ~ it was beyond anything my imagination could have come up with. Seeing the beauty of that scene was definitely a teary moment.

There was something inherently creepy about the training centre ~ forcing all the kids to train together when they know full well that they will all have to try to kill each other at some point. The scene with Foxface doing the edible plants test at lightning speed reminded me of a Doctor Who episode where kids have their brains enhanced to become superfast to solve a computer code. Random, but yeah.

And then we get onto the meat of the movie: the arena! After seeing so many awesome fan-made renditions:



The Careers, kids who team up to eliminate the
rest of the competition before turning on each other



I was expecting a hell of a lot of gruesome action and violence on the level of Battle Royale, but sadly, this was not to be. Instead, we get a watered down 12A classification version, which, whilst tasteful, really lessens the impact the movie should have had. Despite this being a book recommended for children from ages 12+, there are subtle levels of complexity in here that is definitely more young adult material, which wasn't explored well enough in the movie in my opinion.

Grargh, the cave scene...needed more tender love and time, as did Rue. I'm disappointed that she was only on screen for what felt like five minutes, and that there wasn't enough convincing in the movie to show that they had spent more than one night together as allies. Same with the Katniss and Peeta scenes in the cave. And don't get me started on the mutts...

At the end of the day, I think that a movie will never be able to match up to a book, and as I went into the cinema with the first one so so fresh in my mind, I was able to pick up on every deviation from the story. My end verdict was that the movie felt too rushed and superficial, that it skimmed over everything but never really explored them deeply enough, but ultimately was incredibly enjoyable to watch. All of the actors did their characters justice, and I was totally engrossed by the world that Lionsgate had created.

Watching it the second time round was much better because by then, I wasn't as overwhelmed as I was the first time and had loosened up enough to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show! :)

If you haven't seen it yet, then you definitely should. After all, it's not the number one movie in the world for no reason at all? ;)

Yishi xxx