Last week I watched The Hunger Games. It seemed to be getting good reviews and the prevailing thought was that it held true to the book. This made me excited because I was a fan of the books and usually that kind of remark means it will be a good movie. However, this time holding true to the book was to it’s detriment. It seemed to me that the director and producers were so concerned over making sure it followed the story in the book that it forgot one crucial thing. That the way you tell a story in a book is different than the way you tell a story in a movie.
This is probably my biggest critique in movies today. The art of storytelling has been lost. To replace it is non-stop action sequences, 3D, special effects and remakes and sequels. Truthfully if I were a businessman than I would probably go that route as well since it brings in the most money. Which is what I think the producers of The Hunger Games thought about. They knew that if they angered their fans by taking risks in the adaptation of the story then there could be a backlash, which could cause their boxoffice numbers to lag. But that’s where the problem is. Everyone’s thinking about boxoffice numbers.
One of the specific things that failed was chemistry between characters. In a book you can actually describe how people felt about each other. Suzanne Collins can devote pages on how the Rue character in the arena reminded Katniss about her sister Prim. She can talk about in detail what Katniss felt about Peeta. But in a movie it’s more subtle. It’s through actions and conversations and looks. It takes careful thought from the film-maker.
Another way that the movie failed was development of the world in which the characters live in. A lot of things go unexplained. In fact the whole beginning was a straight conversion of the book. We get her going through the fence and spending time in the woods hunting with Gale but while the author at this point in the book can explain how their culture got to this point the movie is left with only being able to express that the place looks somewhat dirty and the people not very happy. Even just expressing the idea of what The Hunger Games was all about and how society got there was kind of dull.
The movie still was somewhat entertaining as movies go so it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it could’ve been so much more. I’m sure they’ll make the next 2 books into movies since it’s a huge boxoffice success, which doesn’t bode well for doing anything different in terms of adaptation is concerned. Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the remake to come in a few years…
1 comment:
HI CHONG!
I would actually disagree with you..sorry... I think the fact that they did stick with the book made me appreciate the movie a lot more, yes I know that people said that because they stuck so closely to it, it made the movie boring and predictable, but there are so many movies where the director chose to change the movie from the original story line and I think it's more the problem that they made it different from the story that people have grown to love. It's kinda like a double edged sword, look at Harry Potter, there weren't any significant changes and people still liked it. If anything the idea that they left out some things angered a lot of people as well, I know that the very end of Harry Potter was changed and I still have yet to meet someone who was pleased with that change.
As for the character development, I feel like the movie decided to go the Harry Potter route, where the audience of the movie is geared for those who have read the books and understand everything. Granted because they go that route they have to leave out some things, and that's obviously the interaction between the characters. So I would disagree with you on the chemistry between the characters as well. I think they portrayed it pretty well for the amount of time they had and the amount of information they had to put into the movie. They are making the two other books...the last one in two parts~! So I think through those three other movies that's where the character development will happen...since..that's pretty much what happens in the books.
Anyways...my two cents :)
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