We saw The Hunger Games yesterday, and the general consensus among our group was that it was pretty good, though not as emotionally involving as it could have been. (Though I did cry when Rue died. Oh man. And I loved the three-fingered salute, and the riot it sets off in District 11.) Also not quite as horrifying dark as I'd been expecting, but I was OK with that. It did make the two people who hadn't read the books want to read them.

I liked Jennifer Lawrence, but I felt like she came across as frustratingly opaque a lot of the time. It makes sense for the character -- Katniss plays things pretty close to the chest -- but you're right in her head in the books, and I found I missed being privy to her thoughts and reactions to everything. So opening out to an omniscient POV didn't really work as well for me as it did for some of y'all.

I loved Lenny Kravitz -- Cinna's one of my favorite characters from the books, and I felt like Kravitz got him really right. He felt like an oasis of sanity and support in the Capitol. I really liked his last scene with Katniss before the Games start. And I agree with Plei that the kid who played Peeta was very good too, better than I'd been expecting. We didn't get to see as much of Gale, so I don't have a good read on him yet. He seemed kind of generic, but that could be because he wasn't given much to work with in the script. If I hadn't read the books I would have left the movie thinking that Peeta was clearly the guy Katniss is "supposed to" end up with, whereas I really enjoyed that the books were much better about making both boys seem appealing and right for her in different ways.

I have to say, I was not sorry that they changed the muttations and just made them regular scary beasts instead of horrifying creatures made from the dead bodies of the other tributes. That image freaked the hell out of me in the books, and I'm really OK with not having a visual from the movies to go along with it.

In conclusion, RUE.

Ayup.

Ugghh, Hil. We watched in an "18 and older only" theater, so thank heavens we didn't have to deal with any of that crap.

Kate, I do agree with you that I missed getting Katniss' perspective on things. I'm glad they didn't go with a voiceover, but a few muttered asides in the woods might have helped.

I can't speak for all the viewers that haven't read the books, but I think the relationships between Katniss and Gale and Katniss and Peeta do come across.

I didn't read the books, but I had read enough of the posts here that I had a grasp on what they were about. I never read the Harry Potter ones either, but loved the movies...most of them.

What was the significance of the three-finger salute? I got that it meant something to her district but wasn't sure.

quester, it was their way of showing respect. I don't think it was ever explained beyond that -- just that it was a custom unique to the district.

Oh, another difference that disappointed me a bit. They really downplayed that Katniss stays very ambivalent about Peeta throughout the games, and is laser-focused on survival. At the end at the Cornucopia when they announced that only one tribute could win, book!Katniss turns her bow on Peeta only to realize ashamedly that he has thrown his knife aside. It's a shame to lose that kind of nuance in the characters and their feelings.

Another thing I noticed was that they didn't really play up the "hunger" part of it too much. They didn't really say why Katniss and Gale hunt, the part about getting more grain if you put your name in the lottery more times was barely mentioned, and they cut up the conversation between Katniss and Rue where Rue talked about how they'd get punished if they ate the crops. And in the book, there was a real sense that Katniss was eating every bite of every meal in the Capitol, because she's known her whole life that any meal might be the last one for a while, and that wasn't really mentioned at all.

A friend is trying to figure out if the film is okay for his 9-year-old son to see. He has seen all the HP movies and all of the new Doctor Who and did fine with those. How "real" is the violence?

This does not seem appropriate for a nine-year-old to me; the premise is insanely dark. The violence is not gory but it is specific. You witness the killings of some 20-odd children.

How "real" is the violence?

Very. You really feel it. It's not for nine-year-olds.