Oh--right. An actual beef I had with the movie, apart from the reasonably trivial Peeta's look thing--the fight scene editing.

I guess it might have been to make sure they got the PG-13 rating, but when two brunettes are wrestling, or two blond men are fighting, that sort of choppy camerawork and editing are really confusing, and I'm already headachey and shit. I thought that was messy.

Given that they panned over a landscape of adolescent corpses at the start of the Games, come on. Show some punches landing. I could not follow those fights well, especially Kat's.

I thought the fight scene direction and editing was malpractice.

I really liked it and thought it was fine. I thought it captured the chaos and tension well, and I didn't mind that I couldn't follow each and every motion.

I don't have any complaints about the fight choreography/direction, because I couldn't see it. I assume it was serviceable, but they just had to make everything look like nothing, in case we thought teenagers were hurting each other.

eta:

I didn't mind that I couldn't follow each and every motion

I couldn't tell who was who, who had the upper hand, what they did to win. Basically, I couldn't follow more than one motion at a time. It didn't communicate anything to me except "conflict!" Which I already understood. The fight scenes were for elaboration.

I didn't expect kung fu direction, but the fact that I couldn't see ANYTHING is problematic. Why have a fight? Do something else and imply a fight: show people at home reacting to the fight.

Showing a blur is not helpful.

I very much noticed at the time that the last fight was confusing as all get-out to watch.

Current HG numbers:

The Hunger Games' $68.3 million opening gives it the biggest opening day of any non-sequel, and the fifth-biggest opening of all time. Midnight showings accounted for $19.7 million of the film's take, which gives you a sense of how devoted fans of this series are.

I was just going back and reading the discussion that I hadn't read before, and I'm curious about this, Suzi:

I just feel for anyone who hasn't read the books or even a summary and walks in cold, just knowing it is a popular flick. They are in for a world of hurt.

Do you mean in the sense of it being a more angstful movie than you might otherwise have imagined? The most popular trailer seems to stress that, so I'm not sure what the big surprise would be.

Wow, I liked it a LOT. I cried through a lot of it, but that's just me -- even knowing how it ends, the Reaping KILLED me. I thought the sets and costumes were fantastic -- basically all I had pictured.

Just came from seeing HG. Thought Gale's part got a little screwed, because one of the things I did like about the books is that the love triangle doesn't seem unfairly weighted and the choices are all awful.

I absolutely HATED shaky cam fights. I suppose it's possible the actors were so bad they had little usable long distance footage of the actual choreography, but it felt like they just didn't care. What a shame, but then most of the fans watching the movie couldn't tell good fight moves from bad, I suppose.

Loved LOVED Woody Harrelson (but then I usually do) who was believable as a broken guy who doesn't believe he still has some fight left in him.

They should have used the Reality Show segments to set up more shorthand for the other contestants, like their names, which flashed by so fast and then never got used again.

Nothing that a four-hour movie wouldn't have cured for me.

Especially with making it omniscient, and not just Katniss's POV, I could definitely see a miniseries!