2012-03-24, 09:56 PM
FelixTM Wrote:Enjoyed it, I guess. I reeeeally like Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss so that's what's holding me to it, but it's definitely just not the same. I felt like...nothing for the characters. At least not anywhere near as much as when I was reading them for the first time. I miss being inside Katniss' head so much. I miss the feeling of attachment, the raw emotion, the tragedy and horror of it all as it comes together.
I did think they did a good job with the Reaping. Felt quite powerful to me. But I honestly felt like a lot of the major power moments in the Games were lacking. The Muttations at the end were a HUGE let down. Probably my biggest disappointment of the movie. Excluding the eyes altogether? Terrible. The scene on the Cornucopia was just nowhere near as amazing as it was supposed to be.
As far as adaptations go I guess I can't complain too much. I understand they have to make many sacrifices for it to work financially/time wise, but it's still always kind of a let down, you know? And I know they had to greatly employ all of that silent pain, jerky camera and cut aways from graphic violence to keep the rating down, but it still really kills the majority of the emotion and intensity. It's a vital part of what makes The Hunger Games so tragic. I truly got a sense of how screwed up the Capitol was with the Muttation scene. The raw violence, the use of the Tributes' eyes to mentally horrify Katniss... I didn't feel any of that in the movie. Because it wasn't there. So many exclusions of detail and even some characters. You have no idea how long they're in the Games in the movie...it all feels so fast and short-lived. Which is totally wrong.
That said, I did like some of the little things they threw in, like locking Crane in that room with the berries. Good scene that I wasn't expecting.
I wasn't disappointed with that muttation scene because it wasn't realistic to have their eyes there. For them to do that you would have to actually see their eyes, a lot. You didn't. It didn't make sense for them to include something that didn't work in the context of the movie.
While I would have liked Katniss to be voiced over, I didn't see it happening as the movie wouldn't have enough time to do it. There is so much internal dialogue in the books that I am surprised that they pulled this movie off in a decent fashion.