Hunger Games: Two Thumbs Up

JLibourel said:

Okay, you who have seen the movie, who's overall hotter: Jennifer Lawrence (Kat) or Leven Rambin (Glimmer)?

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First of all, no contest, Jennifer Lawrence. But god damn, she really uglied herself up for this movie. She looks to have put on a good 25 pounds, all of them in her thunderous badonkadonk and already verging-on-troublesome thighs. And she dyed her beautiful Aryan-blonde hair a shade of mousy brown. But all is forgiven, for she is The Jennifer Lawrence.

I like JL . She's pretty hot.


I liked B.R. Better than HG. HG was rushed. Don't want to spoil it so I will stop .

Good movie, well worth seeing.

Apparently there's some controversy as to the skin colour of Rue and Thresh. And Cinna.



http://hungergamestweets.tumblr.com/
http://jezebel.com/5896408/racist-hunger-games-fans-dont-care-how-much-money-the-movie-made

lefty

Well, I got the impression from the book that Rue and Thresh were swarthy but not necessarily Negroes (if I may be forgiven that slightly archaic term). I note that the African actor portraying Thresh is only 6 feet tall, which hardly makes him a "giant" (as Thresh was supposed to be) by contemporary standards.

The actor portraying Cato looks much too clean-cut and WASPy all-American for the role--I had envisioned, from the book, a guy who looked like a professional wrestler or a football lineman.

I haven't seen the movie yet and don't know if I want to. The story is much more sci-fi-ish than I had imagined. I don't like sci-fi. I had thought it was going to be a much more low-tech post-apocalyptic culture.

If anything the movie ups the scifo factor by showing the behind-the-scenes action of the game makers. But still, good movie. Compared to the fiasco JC of M was, you could say great movie.

lefty



Mauro said:

BR was a bad ass movie. I really find it hard to believe the author of the Hunger Games never heard of it.

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I doubt most of mainstream America has heard of BR and I'm sure that's even more so for those in the 49 year old women demographic.

Does the book go into more detail on what the point of The Hunger Games actually is? I enjoyed the movie enough, but the explanation for the reason behind the child death matches was rather thin.



Nil said:

Does the book go into more detail on what the point of The Hunger Games actually is? I enjoyed the movie enough, but the explanation for the reason behind the child death matches was rather thin.

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It was to be a perpetual punishment on the Districts for having rebelled against the Capitol and to demonstrate to them the power of the Capitol and the futility of future resistance. I don't know if the movie makes this clear or not.

As a general matter, the whole plot of the story is implausible on a number of levels: I mean, you can create a low-tech post-apocalyptic world, or you can have the usual ultra-high-tech, typical sci-fi world of the future. The author tries to combine them: It's sort of a very bad 1910 company town in District 12, with a few more "contemporary" touches, e.g., Kat's family have a "grainy black and white TV." On the other hand, it's 2600 (or whatever) in the Capitol. Now, I realize that in many developing countries today you will get modern cities with a comparatively primitive back country. However, you would think the Capitol would apply their advanced technology to the extraction of resources, but they don't seem to. And they're mining coal in District 12, which seems pretty retro to begin with!

The author also doesn't seem to have a very good understanding of human nature. You'd think, knowing that they'd be subject to the "reapings" for the Hunger Games, every kid in Panem would be developing and honing combative skills from a very tender age, but most of the "tributes" except for the vicious "Careers" seem to be caught flat-footed by whole business. Moreover, early in the Games the Careers form a "wolf pack" alliance, even to the point of sleeping together. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, when any one of your "allies" can eliminate his (or her) most formidable competitors at one stroke by the simple expedient of slitting their throats in their sleep.

The author also doesn't seem to know much about combat. For instance, at the outset of the Games proper the savage Clove attempts to off Kat by throwing a big survival knife at her--a most inefficient sort of knife for throwing. This is in the book; I note that in the movie the prop masters have equipped Clove with a proper set of throwing knives. Throwing a knife is a most ineffective way to try to bump somebody off anyway.

All that I know about the movie without having seen it I have gleaned from a quick perusal of publications about the movie on sale at the local market.



JLibourel said:

It was to be a perpetual punishment on the Districts for having rebelled against the Capitol and to demonstrate to them the power of the Capitol and the futility of future resistance. I don't know if the movie makes this clear or not.

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Also, Snow mentions that the games also give the people in Districts a little hope. That one of their own can bring glory and money/goods to their district. The winning district gets like extra rations of grain, oil, salt, etc for a month or year or something. People are often close to starving so winning the games are actually important. The Victor also becomes wildly rich and famous as well.

JLibourel said:

Well, I got the impression from the book that Rue and Thresh were swarthy but not necessarily Negroes (if I may be forgiven that slightly archaic term). I note that the African actor portraying Thresh is only 6 feet tall, which hardly makes him a "giant" (as Thresh was supposed to be) by contemporary standards.
The actor portraying Cato looks much too clean-cut and WASPy all-American for the role--I had envisioned, from the book, a guy who looked like a professional wrestler or a football lineman.
I haven't seen the movie yet and don't know if I want to. The story is much more sci-fi-ish than I had imagined. I don't like sci-fi. I had thought it was going to be a much more low-tech post-apocalyptic culture.

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I dunno. The book gave me the pretty clear impression that Rue and Thresh were black, and it did not take me by surprise that black actors were cast in their roles. Cinna was of pretty ambiguous race in the books, if his race was described at all (I can't remember off the top of my head). But I actually found Lenny Kravitz to be an inspired casting choice. He did well with the role, even if it was kept pretty minimal in the movie.

^Well, the book describes Rue as having "bright, dark eyes and satiny brown skin," while Thresh has "the same dark skin as Rue." We don't get any description of racial characteristics beyond those remarks.

I was inclined to believe they were swarthy Caucasoids rather than Negroes (again my apologies for the archaic but serviceable racial terminology) because the vicious Careers invited Thresh to "join their crowd." Now it has been a convention of popular entertainment for many a year that bad people are always very racist while good people are accepting and inclusive of people of other races. Since the Careers are very bad, it seems unlikely that they would have invited him had he been a full-blooded African Negro (as the actor in movies is).

It is very Hollywood to portray the only sympathetic contestants aside from Peeta and Kat as blacks. Also very Hollywood to have them killed off, but then that is integral to the story.

But you're overlooking the contemporary racial hypersensitivity toward describing a character in a book as "black" (or negro, or African-American, or what have you, but even just black). Especially by a white author, like Suzanne Collins. When we see a modern white author's using a description like "satiny brown skin," we can be reasonably sure she's employing euphemism for "this dude is black." The technique is pretty commonplace these days. Even Rowling employed this deft bit of racial chiaroscuro in the Harry Potter series -- in her case, when describing an Asian character by way of her "almond eyes" and other hints of vaguely Oriental exotica.

If Rue and Thresh were meant to be swarthy white people, Collins would have used the word "swarthy," if not "dusky" or "tanned."



JLibourel said:

The author also doesn't seem to have a very good understanding of human nature. You'd think, knowing that they'd be subject to the "reapings" for the Hunger Games, every kid in Panem would be developing and honing combative skills from a very tender age, but most of the "tributes" except for the vicious "Careers" seem to be caught flat-footed by whole business.

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Not much time for combat training when you're busy in the fields, mines, fishing, etc. You sound like spoilt child of District 3.

And for the record, I honestly did not picture anyone being black when I read the books. Olive or brown skin was the darkest complexion often mentioned.



Neo_Version 7 said:

Not much time for combat training when you're busy in the fields, mines, fishing, etc. You sound like spoilt child of District 3.
And for the record, I honestly did not picture anyone being black when I read the books. Olive or brown skin was the darkest complexion often mentioned.

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Haha. It's true, most other districts the people are worried about being fed and making quotas at the mines/fields/etc to consider training. I believe in the books the children in the lesser districts are discouraged from training too.

Also, I believe the coal is used to power the lesser districts as a way to tie them to the capitol even more; the capitol I assume has Nuclear power (they have the technology).

The book gives the impression that District 1's primary role is to provide soldiers ("peacekeepers"). So it stands to reason that the children of this district would train extensively in combat, would excel at the Games, and would enjoy a slightly higher status than children of other districts. (If we follow the clues about the Capitol's reverence for the Roman era, then it's not a stretch to imagine a near-fetishistic honoring of the military caste).

So that part makes sense. The logic starts to break down, though, when we get to districts 2 and 3. If memory serves, District 2 mines gemstones, right? To me, that seems every bit as labor intensive and unglamorous as mining coal a la District 12, even if the gems are an ostensibly sexier byproduct of the slave labor in this case.

Or am I muddling my facts from the book? I read it a few years back and am hazy with the details, not to mention too lazy to Google them.