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!

All,

what was the point of that scene in the film where Haymitch seems to be staring at a family or something? Did someone catch what the audience was supposed to get there?

When's that? There's a moment when they are getting together at the beginning of training where he notices Cato giving them the stinkeye.

le nubian, I think it was because the family had given their little boy a toy sword in honor of the Hunger Games, and were smiling indulgently as the kid pretended to go after his sister.

OH! I forgot that entirely. I think it was just to show that everyone in the Capital is terrible or whatever.

Or, more kindly, how everyone views the Games as entertainment.

thank you. I missed the significance of that entirely. I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a flashback or what.

I appreciate your explanations.

it felt like they just didn't care

Why do you say that? There were a lot of choices made to avoid showing direct dealing of more visceral violence on the kids, just the aftereffects. Why wouldn't this be another example?

Reading the page of differences between book and movie, it made me feel like the changes were really trivial, more than I did after having watched it, but I guess it's because they left out stuff like the shifted focus on certain characters (way more Seneca Crane this way--I was thinking they'd undersold his murder, but now I'm reminded it's much more in your face than in the books) and focussed on things that were easy to put in a table.

I did miss the Avox, though. I thought that really showed what sort of control by force the Capitol was exerting over the Districts. It's not like the movie makes it look like happy fun times, but a clear divide between the makes and the makes not was really driven home by that little subplot.

It kind of explains why the Districts are as numb as they are. I've seen some people asking why they don't fight back more, why all of them don't train their kids, not just Districts 1 and 2.

And I'm not sure how/if they could have worked it in with the way they had them react in the movie, but I did like that District 11 sent Kat bread. It was a big gesture from people who had little. But what happened in the movie was one of the most touching points for me anyway, so I'd just be asking for more, not instead of.

Okay, I really had to edit that page for grammar and spelling. How do people not do that?