I guess I don't understand how you can see enough of the fight choreography to say that the fights were put together apathetically. How could you tell, through the cinematography and the editing? And then I don't see why the choices made for the fights would have a bearing on the ability to tell the rest of the story. Those are kinda different skillsets.

It doesn't seem weird to me to hide it, since the movie's success probably hinges on the precise balance of brutality. I think we saw one death blow land, if memory serves, and one neck being broken. Everything else happened out of frame, however horrible it was implied to have been. Hiding this sustained violence, at the hands of or being dealt to our heroes--I totally see why they made it vague.

I just think they did it poorly.

Box Office Shocker: 'Hunger Games' Third Best Opening Weekend of All Time:

Lionsgate's book-to-film adaptation grosses a staggering $155 million, shattering records and surpassing any "Twilight" pic; overseas, "Hunger Games" opens to $59.3 million for a worldwide total of $214.3 million.

Suck it, Twilight!

The Mary Sue was just positing that there should have been commercials during Hunger Games, since it is the media event of the year in Panem. I find the idea fascinating.

Like this one?

That's what they linked to, yeah, although that's not quite what I'd imagine.

On the fight choreography and filming, I don't really know enough to totally analyze it, but I thought that it made sense for the first scene around the cornucopia to be confusing, since Katniss would have experienced it as confusing, and really, there's no good way to keep track of 24 people. But the last fight scene, I was having a lot of trouble keeping track of what was going on, since Peeta and Cato pretty much look the same from behind.

I also wish that they'd given names to all the tributes. There were a couple scenes where it seemed really awkward that some of them had names and others didn't. Or, like, in the interview scenes, Katniss and Peeta were introduced by first and last name, but the others we saw were just introduced by first name.

Also, I think it would have been useful to include at least one or two scenes of the Gamemakers deciding NOT to air something. There were several parts in the book where Katniss thought something like, "I'm sure no one is seeing this," that gave some good insight into what the Games were supposed to accomplish and what kinds of things would undermine that.

Hunger Games thoughts:

Personal note - as I said on fb, I knew going in that it was filmed outside of Asheville, but I totally did not expect the acute homesickness that the scenery evoked in me. Arrgh. Mountain laurels, rivers with big flat rocks, long shots of wooded hillsides.

Overall I think it was really good. I understood why they made many of the choices they did, and some were even improvements (like Seneca Crane's end and Cato's speech ). I think it was clever to use the behind the scenes Gamemakers' room and the Caeser Flickerman/Claudius Templesmith commentary to carry a lot of the exposition, and introducing us to Claudius.

I felt like the dynamics between Katniss and Cinna, and Katniss and Haymitch, and Katniss and Peeta were just slightly off. Not sure I can parse how, right now.

They missed out on one of the few funny lines in the book, though, by not having Peeta say, "Frosting - the last refuge of the dying." And I thought it a shame to not have the muttation dogs be clearly derived from the dead tributes, because that adds such a layer of cruelty to the game machinations - c'mon, you're already using CGI! It's the psychological torture, as much as the physical threats and exposure, that wear down the tributes. And we don't really get the sense in the movie like we do in the books that the Games are never over for Peeta and Katniss, but maybe that was to provide some closure in case the other movies don't get made? IDK.

I agree that the poor fight choreo and/or editing was super annoying.

They had best get nominated for makeup and wardrobe, damn. Effie was just... perfectly Effie.

I dunno. It'll be interesting to see where they go with the other two, assuming they get made.

In conclusion, RUE.

assuming they get made.

Ha! Fair assumption considering it broke a shit ton of box office records.

In conclusion, RUE.

This was the point where the four-year-old in my theater's audience, who has been maintaining an annoying low-level "Mommy? Mommy? Look at this," throughout most of the movie (she was pretty clearly bored), decided that it was time for a "I want more CANDY!"