NOBODY is picking teams.
Anyway, i really like this movie! It kept a lot from the original book and managed to make it into a good movie.
Exactly. Katniss eventually develops strong feelings for Peeta but the romance subplot to the first book/movie is supposed to be fake. As Haymitch put it, they played it up so they could get sponsors.
And yes, I HATE the whole “Team Peeta/Team Gale” thing. That’s not what the core of the story is about at all. It is far more grim in its moral themes than Twilight.
Jennifer Lawrence was a perfect Katniss too. I love how, despite having not read the first book in a long time, the way I pictured certain scenes was so vividly portrayed in this movie. It’s satisfying and a little surreal.
Do you think so? It seemed to me that she struggled a lot to make a choice, if any at all.
Instead, I think it was very obvious that Bella had chosen Edward from the beginning. She mostly rejected the other one. The love triangle was formed more because of Jacob’s insistence than because of Bella’s actual interest in him, and she always labeled him as a friend.
I think both triangles are pretty different, but for me, who thinks that kind of stuff is utterly ridiculous, both were painful to read.
At least I like the reasons for the fake romance in the first book of the Hunger Games (the sponsors), but I don’t think the ones in the sequels are very believable. In fact, I think the first book is stronger than the rest in about every aspect.
For real. s there any reason to pick teams? I think not.
I hate the teams because I hate everything related with shippers, but there’s nothing more natural.
Most people will like a character more than the other (in any source), unless you like both about the same, which isn’t common or you hate them both, like I do.
I must say, I laughed when the film cut to Gale angsting during the Katniss/Peeta scenes. Most of my theater laughed too. They kept Katniss/Peeta to a minimum, though, I definitely didn’t feel like it overshadowed anything else.
Overall, I thought it was excellent, but I do know someone who saw it without reading the book, and he didn’t think they developed the characters enough or really got into the whole psychological aspect of kids killing kids. We probably projected a lot from the book on the movie. I know I did, anyway- even stuff like Peeta shaking his head at Katniss before they step off the plates. We know what’s going on there, even though the film doesn’t explain it and it doesn’t really have any significance to an outside viewer. Though I do think the film definitely touched on the child slaughter thing. I especially liked that quick scene where you see Capitol kids playing with swords, or “playing” Hunger Games, which is surely a comment on the whole situation.
Not seen it yet, but it’s already doing crazy numbers at the box office. Maybe one of the dark horses to be the highest (of realisitcly) top 3 highest grossing movies of the year?
It made $155 million this weekend domestically… in March! Third highest box office weekend ever. Congrats to them.
I think both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises will get better numbers, and probably the last Twilight. But this one will surely be among the firsts.
I certainly agree with Spirit!
I just saw it - having not known anything about it beforehand - and I don’t know what to think. By the end I had really gotten into it, but for entirety of the film I found it hard to suspend my belief about the depicted future world. I also wondered if people from Pixar would watch it and think, “damn”, when the film heavily features a female archer as the main character, and in a forrest no less.
Donald Sutherland was just brilliant. His acting at the end, when without saying much you just know he’s up to something evil is enough to make me want to see the next one.
I’ll leave you with something I saw on IMBb that I thought was perfect:
What do they call The Hunger Games in Japan?
Battle Royale with cheese
I doubt it would be relevant for them.
On “Conan,” Josh Hutcherson brought up how people combine couple’s names into one name (e.g. Brangelina), and he named a particularly bad sounding one some fans have been using. I’ll let you use your imagination to figure that one out. But Andy Richter came up with another good one on the show! Katpee. I was laughing so hard listening to that. 
>sets up defense wall
I don’t like The Hunger Games, and I think it borrows from to many elements to offer anything new, and while it has a pretty interesting story it’s watered down with somewhat boring prose.
>ducks behind wall while being pelted with rotten vegetables
I also don’t understand how it’s okay to hate Avatar because it borrows heavily from Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas, Titanic, and Princess Mononoke, but it’s not okay to provide criticism to The Hunger Games because it borrows heavily from Battle Royale, 1984, The Running Man, and Lord of the Flies.
>continues ducking behind wall as the rotten vegetables being thrown increase
(And yes, I own and have read the trilogy) 
Well, I personally think the dystopian societies/survival theme is more valuable than the civilized-man-meets-savage theme. I’ve been very familiar with (and a huge fan of) both the film and novel version of Battle Royale for quite some time, around 2005, and there are certainly similarities between THG and BR, but I’m still not sure about whether Suzanne Collins was aware of BR in the first place. In other words, “borrows heavily” is a questionable phrase. Many people will bring up the theory that there are only a few basic story types, so similarities will inevitably be found in anything with a coherent, linear storyline. My problem with a movie like Avatar is that it’s incredibly cliché, even for something that is quite visionary on the surface. I don’t know if THG would fit that well into the mold of the movies/books you say influenced it, however.
I don’t think THG trilogy is flawless at all, especially the second and third books, so I won’t be throwing any rotten vegetables at you for your opinion. It’s very valid. 
Personally, my issue with the series (even the first book) was that there were too many “lucky” moments.
Me and my mom saw this movie that day it came out with some of our friends. The entire theater was packed, all showings were sold out, and I wasn’t looking forward to the movie. The movie started, and I had one of those “What the heck is this?” expressions on my face. But, as It progressed, I got really into it. And that scene [spoil]with the dogs[/spoil] literally made me jump out of my chair, which is embarrassing when you’re sitting next to some girl that you just met, and they’re like “are you OK?”. But, all in all, I liked. My mom said she hated it, but i really liked it. Heck, I like it so much that I’ve been playing the Facebook game for it recently. If you haven’t seen the movie, go see it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the highest grossing movie of all time.
Oh, I hate when people do this. Oh, how I hate it!
‘Shipping’ characters together, in my opinion, is completely ridiculous. The Author of the book is in control of who’s doing what to who, not the fans. The even more annoying part of it is the fans who have clearly not read the books and just jumped from the Twilight fandom across because of the film and start pairing random couples up for the sake of it, completely unaware that the character is probably dead by the end of the third book. Especially [spoil]anyone who tries to pair up Katniss and Gale, because Suzanne Collins made it perfectly clear what happens to him. Plus, the whole ‘totally visibly in love with each other’ vibe the movie gave off is completely absent in the books, at least in the first one.[/spoil]
I could prattle on for hours about how the sudden influx of fans has ruined the franchise. Not in a ‘I was into it before it was popular’ kind of way, more of a ‘jump online and rant about characters, plots and stories that you know nothing about purely because the two lead actors are hot’ kind of way.
I’m just thankful there’s not some kind of ridiculous term made up to label fans of the series, like ‘Beliebers’. Hopefully there never will be, because the only two real options are ‘the hungry’ or ‘the gamers’ and they’re not stupid enough to become popular.
Spoilers, man!
In my own experience, I don’t frequent any forums or have friends who discuss THG franchise like you say. I don’t have to hear about that stuff, so it just doesn’t bother me.
Thanks! You’re my new idol for saying that.
But q_o_p is right, use the spoiler mark when necessary.
I didn’t notice this thread until after I posted about this movie in the movie thread.
This movie didn’t do to much for me other than make me want to read the book. I wanted to know more about what was going on in the minds of Katniss, her little sister and Peeta before they made certain decisions and after. I also wanted to know more about Katniss when she was poor. I’m assuming the book would give me what I want. I started getting a little bored half way through the part when Katniss and Peetas competed in the Hunger Games. I couldn’t get emotionally invested in any of the characters, and Panem looked to clean to me. I don’t think the world looked appropriate for what went on in it. But on the plus side I thought the acting was great. I had way more fun watching John Carter.