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I’m unreasonably excited for the upcoming Hunger Games movie. Feast your eyes on THIS:
DOESN’T IT LOOK FREAKING AWESOME??
I know, whenever a movie comes out that is based on a book, I get all sniffy and complain about how the movie makers totally missed the point of the story.
There’s a chance that could happen with The Hunger Games, too, but I have hope.
For one thing, The Hunger Games is naturally action-packed. They won’t have to make many changes to the story to keep the action going.
For another thing, The Hunger Games doesn’t have as many points as a complex story like Harry Potter.
I can never quite explain why I like The Hunger Games so much. It’s brutal, thuggish, and the story just gets more and more heartwrenching as you go through the series. By the end of Mockingjay, you begin to realize that nothing is sacred, and that Suzanne Collins doesn’t have any intention of showering you with a fluffy deus-ex-machina ending.
It kind of reminds me of 1984.
More than a little, actually.
I don’t LIKE 1984.
Furthermore, The Hunger Games is written in first person present tense.
I don’t DO present tense. I think it’s stupid and pretentious. The only time I can handle it is when it is journal format, like the Beka Cooper series or Bridget Jones’s Diary. Even then, most sentences are in the past tense because the protagonist is summing up something that happened earlier in the day.
But The Hunger Games is so gripping that I don’t even notice the tense.
That says something.
Maybe it’s not so much that I like The Hunger Games as that I like the reading of it.
The fact is, ultimately, that it is good writing. The story sucks you in, you rarely see the plot twists coming (even once you begin to realize that nothing should be as it seems) and the characters are believable and will stay with you after the series is done.
Katniss is frustrating as a protagonist, sometimes, because she tends to float along on the winds of fate much of the time, afraid to take a real stance on the political issues in which she finds herself entrenched.
That being said, you can’t really blame her, once you understand that her loved ones come first and see what a rat bastard President Snow is.
Peeta is a likeable character, too – he fits the teenage-novel-boy-swain mold well without being sickening or Edward Culleny about it.
The world is believable, too, and despite it’s awfulness, it’s one you sort of want to go back to, because it is just so different from our own…
If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, should you?
If you like a good read, definitely.
It is gripping, intense, and it is political at the same time.
If you like to debate morality, this series will give you lots of fodder.
Is it right to lie to someone to save their life?
Is it right to kill someone who is trying to kill you?
Is it right to kill people in the name of freedom?
How about in the name of peace?
If so – how many people?
Is it right to support an evil regime to save your family?
Is it right to fight an evil regime, knowing that someone you love will be tortured if you do?
Could you die for someone you love?
When you have to choose between two different kinds of evil, which do you choose?
The entire series is a frigging ethical debate that will set your mind spinning until you don’t know WHAT is right, or WHAT you would do in the same situation.
It’s a damn good series.
It’s not a comfortable series.
I think it should be awesome to translate to the screen. Although they may have to tone down the violence a bit.
Especially if they make Mockingjay.
And then, of course, there’s the ultimate question that stems from The Hunger Games:
Are you on Team Gale, or Team Peeta?
If By Yes 