I'm about a 1/3 of the way through the first book, the premise is great but the writing isn't very good, I'm actually much more excited for the cinema adaptation as a result. I'm confident Lawrence can act out the emotions that the author can't quite seem to adequately express on paper.
This actually looks great. I was pretty into the cast already so I'm excited that it's all coming together well (it would seem).
Also appreciate that they didn't go the route of "She thought the Hunger Games were hard? Choosing Peeta or Gale will be even more of a challenge!", and that they kept all of the arena action out of the trailer.
Only casting choice that was terrible and is still terrible is the guy playing Gale. Never liked the character anyway, but god, the actor is not particularly good, nor is he cute (books do mention him being ~oh so dreamy~).
Nothing in the books struck me as particularly R rated other than perhaps the last kill
of Cato. Even the description of the sounds of him being eaten alive were really creepy, as well as Katniss' thoughts of how he looked like a piece of raw meat when she went to put him out of his misery. It was all pretty gross.
Why did you read all of them if they were so terrible? Genuinely curious. I can't imagine finishing a book I really hated (actually, that's a lie, I've done it a few times when I was totally desperate), but I definitely can't imagine reading a whole series I didn't care for.
Why did you read all of them if they were so terrible? Genuinely curious. I can't imagine finishing a book I really hated (actually, that's a lie, I've done it a few times when I was totally desperate), but I definitely can't imagine reading a whole series I didn't care for.
I get the feeling the publishers pushed the author to play up the love triangle stuff in the later books.
I mean, it was sort of set up in the first book, but never really followed through on in any way. She was all about survival and shit, not about ZOMG boys!
a love triangle completely ruins the suspense of the first novel. Who lives and who dies plays far less of a role in the next two books, but in the first one it's everything and a triangle means nothing if only one of them survive.
I think that's where the 1st person perspective helped the most because Katniss went with only what she knew.
I disagree, wholeheartedly. There is a little romance in these books. It's there, but its not at the forefront like Twilight. It's also much better written.
One must remember these books were written for YA aka preteen.
Is the Hunger Games series the best series ever written? Absolutely not. That said, it's pretty damn good for a YA series, and it blows Twilight out of the water and I don't see how ANY comparison can be made to that book.
While I didn't like the third book really at all, it wasn't because they were Twilight-lite. Collins is by no means a good writer, her prose is very simplistic, but she's so much better than Meyer in every way. Her main character is a strong, capable woman. Something Bella is not in any sort of way you could possibly quantify. The scene in the first book with Rue is the best scene in the entire series for me. I haven't read much of Twilight, it was hard to wade through the first book.
I guess you're going to have to be more specific on what you mean, because throwing that out is rather dangerous.
Katniss suffers from severe paranoia. And I remember a blog pointing out that most if not all the main females in the trilogy suffer from some kind of mental illness.
Read all three books - last one sucked hard, but I'll probably watch these anyway just because I'm curious. Sadly, the books were very violent but they're going to tone that shit way down to capture a PG-13 :\
I always pictured their adviser as Brendan Gleason.
Katniss suffers from severe paranoia. And I remember a blog pointing out that most if not all the main females in the trilogy suffer from some kind of mental illness.
Most if not all of the male characters are in the same boat or heartless. Even Gale & Peeta have issues. Peeta is a straight up stalker
This is the problem with 1st person. She is thinking normally imo (Especially as a teenage girl who is adamant about not wanting to fall in love due to living conditions) but some of it is unnecesary to know. By the end she is understandably unhinged. Heck, in Mockingjay, she's not even paranoid- she's facing total reality. You could see it coming by the non-Capital characters that went through what she did. They all lived a sucky life.
GAF judges too much.
The series is aimed toward middle-schoolers. Anybody expecting mind-expanding narratives is looking in the wrong place.
I definitely don't understand the comparisons to Twilight (which I've never read) though. The "love triangle," which isn't even a love triangle, is a really minor part of the series.
Battle Royale is a better comparison, but the actual games are also a fairly minor part of the series.
I was strongly reminded of The Giver and Brave New World when I read the series. The politics and social commentary were way more prevalent than any love interest or mindless action.
EDIT:
As for the actual movie...
Most of the actors look twice as old as they should be (Lenny Kravitz at 2:15?) and the camera shots don't focus on the unique world enough.
Should be a fairly decent middle-schooler movie though.
I don't get where the Twilight comparison is from. The only similarity is that it's written from the perspective of a teenage girl and will have a love triangle, but that's it. The rest of the book is brutal with people getting stabbed and shit.
As for the trailer...It just doesn't click with me. The slum people looked too clean and healthy, and the city people doesn't look artificial enough.
I only read the first half of Twilight so I can't really base this on fact but I'm pretty sure Twilight has a lot more romance than this. Yeah there's the love triangle but that isn't the story.
In my younger years I fucking loved the Gregor The Overlander series. Never did read these since I told myself that I outgrew her style. She knows how to write a page-turner.
Read all three books - last one sucked hard, but I'll probably watch these anyway just because I'm curious. Sadly, the books were very violent but they're going to tone that shit way down to capture a PG-13 :\
I always pictured their adviser as Brendan Gleason.
I think Harrelson is a good pick considering how Haymitch acts. He has the abilty to convey seriousness and goofiness
which matters more as the series progresses. He really became my favorite character by the end - especially after learning how he won the games and what happened afterward.
However, he is a bit too tall for the role. Reading the novel, I envisioned a stockier guy- like a young Ernest Borgnine type- or maybe even Robin Williams if he were a smidge younger.
One quibble: I'm kind of annoyed by the fact that Katniss and Peeta don't speak with a more Appalachian/Southern type of accent, given the location of District 12. I assumed that was one of the reasons they cast Lawrence - because she has experience playing a poverty-stricken rural teenager.
I have to warn anyone interested in getting invested in these - the third book is awful, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. It's like, Matrix Revolutions bad. Still excited for the adaptations of 1 and 2.
I have to warn anyone interested in getting invested in these - the third book is awful, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. It's like, Matrix Revolutions bad. Still excited for the adaptations of 1 and 2.
I have to warn anyone interested in getting invested in these - the third book is awful, and the ending leaves a lot to be desired. It's like, Matrix Revolutions bad. Still excited for the adaptations of 1 and 2.
That's not what I want to hear after finishing Catching Fire last week. Regardless, for someone who doesn't do a lot of leisure reading....I've burned through the first two books in the series.
Everything I've seen looks great. And Lawrence is about as dead-on casting as it gets. She plays all of her roles in a somber dead-pan sort of way which is perfect for Katniss.
