Spoilers follow.
Tonight, I saw The Hunger Games, the movie based on the novel by Suzanne Collins. I had heard praise for the film from many people, especially those who saw the midnight premiere. Even people I spoke to who went in skeptical came out happily corrected. Hearing all the praise, I went into the theater tonight a very hopeful man. And I came out satisfied. Mostly.
I don't mean to say that I didn't enjoy the movie, because I did. I just felt that the movie moved unnecessarily away from the book. I equated this film to the fourth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The plot remained mostly unchanged as it went from book to film, but there were some changes made to the details that felt wrong to me. For example, why didn't they mention that the winner of the Triwizard Tournament would receive a prize of 1000 galleons? It would have taken five seconds, and it would have explained how, in a subsequent movie, the Weasley twins manage to run a gigantic store on Diagon Alley. It's a small detail, but it's so small that I can't think of why they omitted it.
There were a few things that made me feel this way in The Hunger Games. Some of them were like the prize in Harry Potter, and those really aren't that important, just annoying. The biggest thing I noticed was the alteration of the characters. Most of the characters seemed to have different traits in the film.
Peeta, I felt, was changed to a criminal degree. I felt as though the character in the movie lacked the spirit that he had in the book. I first felt that way when I saw the train scene. In the book, as the two tributes journey by train from District 12 to the Capitol, Peeta smashes Haymitch's glass after the mentor makes a distasteful joke about their odds of success in the games. This is when Haymitch determines that these two tributes were fighters, that they had the will to win. In the movie, Peeta just tries to take Haymitch's glass, saying that enough drinking had already tanspired, but he is easily overcome by Haymitch's bare foot. In the book, this scene served to show that Peeta had strength and vigor and that he was ready to fight. In the movie, it just made him seem weak and mild-mannered.
Later on, still on the train, Peeta looks out the window to see crowds of people in the Capitol. They all smile, wave and cheer, and he responds in kind. He does this in both the book and the movie, but it felt wrong in the film. In the book, he looks at Katniss and says, "Who knows? One of them might be rich." This shows that he's clever, trying to manipulate the odds in his favor. He realizes that since he's from a backwater district he's at a disadvantage sponsor-wise, so he needs to try and win the favor of the rich by using his knack for charm. However, in the movie, he just looks like a dope smiling for the crowds. It makes him look immature and dumb, not realizing the gravity of his situation.
Most importantly, I don't think they conveyed enough how much Peeta cared for Katniss. In fact, in the movie, it was hard to tell if he really did at all. In the book, they hammer the fact that Peeta is in love with Kat from the moment they introduce him. You know for certain that he's not faking all the romance in order to win sponsors. However, in the movie, they only bring up his feelings during the interview with Flickerman, and afterwards Haymitch says that the star-crossed lovers thing will get them sponsors, so you can't tell if he's telling the truth or not. Maybe it's just me, but that seemed really important in the book.
Haymitch was also different in the film. In the book, he seems useless at first, but you soon discover that he's crafty, he's got connections, and he knows how to give you a chance in the Games. However, in the movie, you don't get that feeling as much. He also sends notes with the care packages in the movie, which means that Katniss doesn't have to figure out how to operate to get more. Lastly, the movie shows Haymitch bargaining with Crane for the rule alteration which would allow both tributes to win. That doesn't make sense to me. I figured it was the Capitol's plan all along to push the two together only to rip them apart so cruelly at the end.
The last character whose change that I thought was noteworthy was Rue. It wasn't really that Rue was different, rather that Kat's relationship with her was not explained well enough. In the book, you find that Katniss bonds with this girl not only for the assistance that Rue offers, but because she reminds Katniss so much of Prim. That's one of the reasons why Katniss was so devastated to see her die.
Aside from character alterations, there were a few other things that felt wrong to me. The main one is that the book follows only Katniss. All is seen from her eyes, and her perspective is the only one you see. This makes you identify with the character more because she's the only one you know to the core. However, in the movie, you see things from all sorts of perspectives. You view the games through the Gamemakers' headquarters, you saw Gale's reaction to Katniss and Peeta becoming close, you see Rue die through her own eyes, and you see the ensuing riot in District 11. These, I felt, took away from a viewer's closeness to Katniss.
My last big complaint is that the Games seemed too easy in the film. Katniss's experience in the movie was no walk in the park, but compared to the book it nearly was. Her agony and anguish in the book seemed to be much more real. They took away the part where she's dying of dehydration for the first few days of the Games, which was important because it was her first real struggle in the arena. The movie also didn't really convey the torturous experience she had with the tracker jacker venom. Nursing Peeta back to health seemed like a piece of cake in the movie since all he had was a limp, whereas in the book he had lost a lot of blood, was feverish, and had a gash the size of a car in his leg. Finally, she didn't have to interpret the meaning of her care packages in the movie as they came with notes. She didn't even follow up on the message in the movie. In the book, she has to pretend to love Peeta in order to get another care package, whereas in the movie she doesn't get another one and she doesn't need it.
I know I've done nothing but complain in this post, but I don't want to come across as bitter. I felt that the book was better than the movie, but I always feel this way, and I like to compare adaptations. I just wanted to note the differences in the two because, without the things I mentioned above, the movie would have been perfect.
But I think it was close enough.
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