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.
Oh, I wish those council guys would let me have an hour alone in the room with her, if I was larger and had grenades.
Willow ,'Storyteller'
Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Hil R. - Mar 25, 2012 6:39:14 pm PDT #19009 of 30000
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Scrappy - Mar 25, 2012 7:23:59 pm PDT #19010 of 30000
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
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?
bon bon - Mar 25, 2012 7:36:42 pm PDT #19011 of 30000
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
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.
Polter-Cow - Mar 25, 2012 7:47:48 pm PDT #19012 of 30000
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
How "real" is the violence?
Very. You really feel it. It's not for nine-year-olds.
le nubian - Mar 25, 2012 11:17:20 pm PDT #19013 of 30000
"And to be clear, I am the hell. And the high water."
Scrappy, I concur. I don't think this is a great movie for 9 year olds. Children die in this movie. Not particularly graphically, but if I saw this movie when I was a kid, I would have been traumatized. Nightmares for 2 weeks.
I almost feel like if the child is too young to read the books, they are probably too young to see the movie.
Jesse - Mar 26, 2012 2:57:42 am PDT #19014 of 30000
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
I almost feel like if the child is too young to read the books, they are probably too young to see the movie.
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it's going to be kid-by-kid for a 9 year old, really. I was nervous about the little girls in my row at the theater, but they were at least quiet and seated throughout -- can't say if they had nightmares!
flea - Mar 26, 2012 4:36:08 am PDT #19015 of 30000
information libertarian
I will say there is certainly talk of Hunger Games in elementary schools. My 8 year old 3rd grader asked me about it, and that definitely came from school. I would not let her read the books at her age (she is sensitive and also not a good enough reader yet), but some kids not much older are.
Matt the Bruins fan - Mar 26, 2012 5:41:26 am PDT #19016 of 30000
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
Ha! Fair assumption considering it broke a shit ton of box office records.
It started making a profit on its production budget with the Saturday matinees, so I'd imagine there was a Brady Bunchopening credits-style conference call among studio execs by dinnertime.
§ ita § - Mar 26, 2012 5:49:17 am PDT #19017 of 30000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I see fandom from a really biased angle, so I don't actually know--are teenaged girls really the key to riches? I mean, if Hunger Games is battling for a Twilight record, is that the demographic from which everything else starts? Even if it's not actually teenaged girls spending all the money, is it the works that are initially written with them as the key audience that have the best chance of making lots of money?
If so, why?
Gris - Mar 26, 2012 6:02:25 am PDT #19018 of 30000
Hey. New board.
Teen girls are very obsessive. I'm not sure why, but they are. That leads to lots of money.
A partial list of teen-and-preteen-girl-obsession money-makers:
Justin Bieber
Boy bands in general (One Direction is the big one right now)
Miley Cyrus
Titanic (yes, others liked it and saw it too, but it was the three-peat teen girls that pushed it so high)
The aforementioned Twilight
I'm not sure teen girls are the only key to riches. They didn't see The Dark Knight much, which still holds a bunch of records. And I doubt they saw Avatar dozens of times each, either. Fandom types are also obsessive, so comic book fantasy type movies do well. If you bridge the two, as The Hunger Games does, then you are doing just great.