Red Series

Saturday 9 April 2016

Hunger Games Movies

HungerGamesPoster.jpg

Source: Wikipedia

Summary on Google for the first film: In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.


There are four movies in all for this franchise and I enjoyed everyone of them. This is also the first movie series which I have seen every movie made for it in theaters. Ironically I saw both the first Hunger Games movie and the last one with my mother. She is a moderate fan of the franchise while I'm all out. Got all three books in hardback which is not often for me (more so back when Hunger Games first came out) especially since I bought the first book locally and the prices for books have only continued to jump leaps and bounds in Jamaica. For a country that is working on increasing the literacy rate I frankly find this ludicrous. Which is why last year for the first time ever during a year of buying books that I never bought a single one locally. A travesty but I refuse to pay ridiculously high prices for books. When one tax increase takes a book series that usually cost $800 (Mortal Instruments) and it jumps to $1400 - $1650, I'm not buying it. No. Anyway back to writing about movies.

The Hunger Games follows in a long tradition of dystopian young adult but where it shines is in both amazing reading material with a stellar movie adaptation. Multiple adapted books have suffered via poor adaptations, e.g. Divergent series, but Hunger Games shone in it's own way with each movie. Our teen protagonist goes through various challenges as she tries to beat a sick game both in a challenge pitting kids to kill each other and in the 'real world' where she has to follow the word of a dictator to protect her family and later after rebelling trying to pull the pieces back together by becoming the Mockingjay. Katniss and the actress who plays her Jennifer Lawrence, shines on screen whether fighting for her life, having a quiet moment with Peeta, doing an interview at the Capitol or being the Mockingjay and a symbol of the rebellion. 

With the close of the last movie Mockingjay Part 2, I truly believe we have seen one of the best movie series come to amazing dramatic close. While some critics try to say the final movie was a failure because it did not beat the box office amount of the first, I highly disagree. First off the final movie still made leaps and bounds more in the young adult movie adaptation industry than most other movies with rare exceptions like the Harry Potter movie franchise. Which first off had twice as many movies and secondly a more rabid and open minded fan base. It really bothered me that one of the reasons cited for the lowest United States box office numbers was the lack of arenas with kids killing each other. Indeed some fans turned into the Capitol and refused to go because there was not more childhood carnage. Personally I find that very disturbing. Still I loved the political intrigue as well as deep story line and tragedy injected into the final film. It did not baby it's audience and I'm sure I'm not the only fan or movie goer who was satisfied with that. There were funny moments however like when Coin was mourning a certain 'death'. We the audience knew she was faking but she acted so convincingly that the theater filled with laughter. Talking about working a crowd and I'm also glad that the actress Julianne Moore will be in Kingsman 2 next year. 

At the end of the day I highly recommend all the movies in this franchise. Also I'm happy to say while not in production yet it has been said there is supposed to be a Haymitch movie in the future. From reading Catching Fire (second book and movie in the series) I wondered what Haymitch fighting back in his teenage years would look like and it's good to know that we might see that one day. Sadly yet again the claim came up that this was a good idea since fans wanted more arenas. Seriously? I guess the deep story line and evident message not to sacrifice children is not good enough but moving on. Thanks for stopping by and we're eight letters in guys! Woooh!

16 comments:

  1. I had to skim this post with an eye closed because I've only seen the first movie and haven't read the books yet!

    But I really enjoyed the first one.

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  2. I am yet to watch part 3 and 4. The first one was really good, even the book. But the rest of the books were alright. After reading your post I feel like watching Mockingjay :)

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  3. not into the movie, but I do adore me some Sam Claflin! And I like Josh Hutcherson as a person too. Jennifer Lawrence not so much.

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  4. Sorry, didn't care for the first two. My wife really disliked the first one and that's as far as she got. But if you enjoyed them, then that's what matters.

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  5. My girls were huge fans of this movie, but I dint' really care for it when I finally saw it.

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  6. I caught bits of pieces of the first one on TV and was fascinated enough about it to then rent it to see it start to finish. I had heard of the hype about it, but hadn't read the books. Anxiously waited for the second one to come out to rent and enjoyed that and the third, also a rental. I said to hubby we should see the final one in the movie theater but then we never got around to it. Hope to catch it soon on DVD :)

    betty

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  7. I just keep looking at those prices, and thinking that's a lot of tax! I feel for the poor booksellers there, but I definitely see where you're coming from.

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  8. Yet to read the book and watch the Hunger Games at any given time. Though I have read reviews about it. Warm greetings!

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  9. Wow, that's crazy that series can cost that much! I don't blame you for not buying locally when they're that expensive!

    I didn't love the first Hunger Games movie, simply because the camera shook so much and it made me sick. But I loved all the rest of them! I'm not too happy to hear about the Haymitch movie, though. I hadn't heard about it before now, and I really feel like we don't need another movie. If Suzanne Collins was to write a novella about Haymitch back when he was in the arena, I would read it, but I really don't think we need another movie. But that's just me.

    Great review of this movie series!

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  10. " When one tax increase takes a book series that usually cost $800 (Mortal Instruments) and it jumps to $1400 - $1650, I'm not buying it. No. "
    Wait... what???? Huh?? I mean... gees, tell me that isn't American dollars!

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    I enjoyed the movies and the books. I liked the Divergent books a bit more (don't ask me about the movies, especially that... last one *shakes with anger* ), but yeah.
    At least the Hunger Games movies were somewhat close to the book. And main character who were supposed to live or die managed to do just that by the end of the movies... (bitter... very bitter... freakin Allegiant)

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  11. I've never read the books nor seen the films, but I hear very good things about them both. A friend of mine read the books well before the films ever came out and she praised the entire series a lot.

    Well, I hope it isn't true that the last film was seen by less people becuase there was less fighting. As you said, that would indeed be very sad.

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  12. I read the books and saw the first movie...and the first part of the last two-parter...whichever that was. I only saw that last one because I was dragged to it...I'm kinda over the dystopian thing at this point. Once an agent told me the genre was dead, it was dead in my mind, so I just didn't even bother reading any more. I remember reading the first book, though, and thinking, "This is how a book is DONE!"

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  13. I saw the first one. I thought it was pretty interesting. Not enough to go out of my way to see the other ones, though.
    I am stunned by the cost of books in Jamaica. My goodness!

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  14. I'm completely with you. I love this series, both book and movies. I think the trouble for some (not me) with the last is a series called Hunger GAMES not having GAMES. It may have been a change in series title might have done it, or maybe if that war in the capital had been framed as a different sort of game. The last two did have a different flavor, too--more political. And so MAYBE this appealed less to the actual YA market. I love YA, but to give an idea--I saw all these movies with my teenage kids.

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  15. Well bravo for a brave post!
    1- can’t agree more, book prices are the same here in Sudan, completely ridiculous.
    2-what the critique said was quite disturbing indeed.
    3- I love the Hunger Games! read the books, seen the movies, except for part 2 that I’m planning on watching tomorrow, my sister just saw it actually and said it was amazing. I think they did a good job with these movies, aside from HP and The Lord of The Rings, Hunger Games is pretty awesome.

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  16. My daughter loves both Hunger Games and Divergent but we were both much happier with the Hunger Games movies. Divergent just was changed too much.

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