I read the first book, saw the movie tonight and I really don’t get why so many people are comparing it to Twilight. The only similarity I see is that they both have trees in them and even THG trees might find that insulting. I have to agree I doubt the reviewer actually read any of the books. Sounds like he either read the Cliff Notes or asked his kid(s) what it was about.

I don’t see how the book focuses on some pouty teen love triangle… I see a girl forced to play along in a fake romance (well mostly fake) for her own survival and even that fake romance is just a sub-plot. Then putting Kristin Stewart up on some pedestal of amazing teen acting? Well I think it’s obvious someone has a hard-on for badly written teen fiction.

I can’t bash the movie, there was a whole lot to cram into one film. Cuts always have to be made. Overall I liked it even if there were elements I found myself begging for from the book. As far as the complaint about the lack of gore… dude there are going to be young kids watching this. As much as I love this book for it’s gritty details, I don’t think kids need to see an 18yo bully butcher a helpless 13yo… have a little decency.

I hope this series does well. I just hope they don’t lower themselves to the kind of “Team Jacob”, “Team Edward” marketing crap that focuses on pretty people rather than a talented cast and quality content. I actually heard a couple kids say leaving the theater “They should have cast Willow Smith in that role instead of that girl… yeah Willow Smith AND Will Smith in the next one!”… That kind of crap might sell more tickets but will butcher the quality.

Yes, the book sets up district 12 (Appalachia) as the only producers of coal. In the modern US coal is produced in about 1/3 of US states, and the mountain west out produces Appalachia. So with a capital in the Rockies, it would make more sense to have a coal district in Wyoming.

Small districts definitely make sense for controlling the population, but I just don’t think that they make sense for to spread them that far a part with such a small population. Almost any resource would be avialble with Just districts in the Rockies, or maybe adding one or 2 from the Pacific Northwest or Southern California.

And yes I know that this is ridiculous nit picking. I liked the book, and even with the mixed reviews that I have seen, I will probably see the movie in the next week or two.

Without having seen the film, I’m not about to get upset over your evaluation of its various strengths and weaknesses. (And I wouldn’t anyway — you’re my favorite film critic, and certainly I can disagree with you and enjoy your writing at the same time.)

The only bone of contention I’d like to pick, and perhaps the only one left given the ten pages’ worth of comments that precede this one, is your implication that “girl-centric” and “intellectual” are mutually exclusive. You say that “If that sounds like too much intellectual heavy lifting to apply to a girl-centric action-romance” — stop right there! Why shouldn’t a girl-centric action-romance ask its viewers to do the tiniest bit of intellectual heavy lifting? Is such a thing considered impossible? Is the general assumption (or your assumption) that girls can’t handle or don’t want anything but sparkly abstinent vampires, attempts at dystopian social commentary be damned?

And you’re not just belittling the many girls who will make this film a box-office success, you’re belittling your own point. You raise valid points about the holes in Collins’s construction of The Hunger Games, and (apparently — again, haven’t seen the film) Ross’s vision of the world. (I don’t remember Collins ever specifying the clothing of District 12′s female residents.)

Sincerely,

One of your biggest fans,

Anna

I could go on, but you get the point. I was perfectly capable of comprehending the messages conveyed by said books, even with generational discrepancies. If this is what YA “literature” has become, it really IS a cancer on AmLit because most of it is painfully derivative and has about as much substance as Jersey Shore.

Panem is a world where no one can speak openly and the misinformation and false assumptions that go with that fact is a MAJOR theme in the novels. It is possible that the film does not put that across very well.

This is all expanded on in the two other books in the trilogy. Oh, and in case anyone cares, if you are worried about Katniss not killing anyone in book 1, they do deal with that issue in subsequent books.

The whole point of the Hunger Games is to control the populace – and what better way to do that than to sacrifice children; along with deprivation, this keeps the population fearful and under control.

It’s a dystopian fantasy novel. There aren’t really any inconsistencies in it to speak of. It’s not the most wonderful novel in the known universe. It’s a good upper level effort, well written with compelling characters.

The story specifically mentions that certain technologies have been lost, but doesn’t really explain why. It bothered me, but the narrative and characters were good enough to hold my attention.

Is this really important in works of fiction? The Matrix, Terminator, Robocop, the Handmaid’s Tale, Minority Report, 1984, Alien, Waterworld, Children of Men, and countless other movies and books take place in a future very different from the present. Some explain the backstory. Others do not. Does it really matter?