In terms of violence/death, the tracker jacker attack was really horrific, and the District 11 riot was hard to watch.

I think what threw me, bon, was when she caught him with the berries -- her reaction seemed genuine there. She even burst into tears. I didn't get the impression before that that she was a good enough actor to do that on the spur of the moment.

I thought they played the Gale aspect well -- in the book, it was really clear to me she didn't think of him romantically, and in the movie it was clear (to me) that in her eyes they were simply good friends, but he was pining.

I think the books make that clear, too.

As far as the show aspects go, the movie spent time in the studio, which the book really didn't, so I felt that angle much more.

The other thing that was clear to me from the first book and certainly spelled out in detail in the third book! was that Katniss was fairly ambivalent about having kids period. Romance seemed almost furthest from her mind. From my recollection, she never was one to dream about having a husband and kids. She was focused on survival and taking care of her sister.

The 1st book gave me the distinct impression that her relationship with Peeta was essentially one of "trauma brought us closer together" - so that she didn't kind of hate him anymore and didn't treat him with obvious suspicion, but it wasn't even close to a full blown romance either.

I didn't realize Anne Hathaway was playing Fantine in the movie version of Les Miz.

The thing that the movie definitely DID NOT do was was show what the big beastie dogs were - in the book aren't they somehow genetically mutated versions of the dead tributes? They come out of nowhere in the movie and are just stupid. I loved the movie but the last few minutes of the actual games made very little sense.

I agree with this 100%

I don't understand how they came out of nowhere, java, any more than any other obstacle that the Gamesmaster had thrown against them, like fireballs or trees. Those were also manifested from nothing. Did that make no sense to you too?

Bon, or anyone else who hasn't read the books, did you find the muttations confusing in any way? At core they need to be scary monsters that come out of nowhere (like, that's part of the point) and present a savage threat to the Tributes, and I thought they pulled that off well, even if they didn't seem to be remade from falled Tributes.

Also, from the book, I thought it was unclear what they were, because Katniss is fevered when she first sees them, and she's unclear. But I could be remembering that entirely wrong.

ita, the book spends a lot of time telling you what exactly they were supposed to represent. So they are meaningful and the scenes with them are way more compelling and layered. In the movie, the technician just creates one in two seconds with no history and unleashes it.

Fireballs and the other need no history because those are common things in "every day life". If they just wanted something else common that needed no history, why not just send hyenas or some other scary predator after them? No, the creatures needed more background in the movie. The row around me in the movie felt the same way - I heard several of them bring it up right after the credits rolled.

(ETA: sorry, just getting used to working with spoiler font.)

But I don't think the story is bad because of that, just slightly different. It doesn't make the story confusing or nonsensical, does it? They just went into less detail on a point.