Before we begin, I must warn you that this post contains more giant picture than any other blog post I have ever made. If the sight of large images of people causes fear, severe amnesia, cramps, baby lumps, or general vomitous confusion, STOP READING NOW. If you are okay with obnoxious pictures placed by a lone Hunger Games blogger just — *sobbing* — trying to make points, please continue…!
I present to you: Cinna. The super awesome *spoiler! don’t read!* secret-double-agent- *end of the long spoiler section* -also-stylist-man-o-combos! I always particularly liked his character in the books. He was the only sane part of the Capitol. He was the calm, normal looking voice of reason for Katniss. While everyone else had crazy hair and body changes, he only had golden eye-liner. And let’s be honest, that was probably just so he could blend in. He was the one who knew everything. He was the one who knew his fate, accepted it, and sacrificed himself. He was awesome. On a side note, I think Lenny Kravitz was a good choice! Weirdly enough, I also pictured Read the rest of this entry »
Let the discussion begin! Discussion of what? Of the Hunger Games trailer, of course! Sure, we got the posters a while back showcasing what some of the characters would look like, but now we have them in action! So let’s make like the true voyeurs we are and stare! And discuss!
Here’s Gale looking at Katniss during one of their wilderness excursions. While the trailer does indicate the film will follow the book very closely, they have to trim or change some things to fit the time. We just have to accept it. The book lists and mentions several of their excursions outside the fence which introduce important story elements. I’d bet Lionsgate combines some of the excursions into one, or else introduces plot points in other areas of the story. My worry about Gale is the fact Liam Hemsworth is playing him. He did a Miley Cyrus movie before this, for crying out loud. I hope he can actually act worth Read the rest of this entry »
As any good reader of the book series can tell you, the trailer didn’t show any of the games themselves. Personally, I found that to be pretty cool. The trailer ended with the countdown to the games starting and the tributes sprinting towards the cornucopia. EPIC ending. However, there was a reasoning behind this! In a statement released by Lionsgate last week, they said:
“SANTA MONICA, CA (November 14, 2011) – The full trailer for the highly anticipated upcoming film THE HUNGER GAMES…. only shows footage from the first half of the film, chronicling events leading up to but not including the Games themselves.”
This was apparently done “In an attempt to preserve the anticipation and mystery that fans are relishing”.
Veh-hy interesting! Expect a two-part dissection of the trailer coming later this week.
My thoughts are, and I quote, “HOLY-MOLY-ME-OH-MAH GIMME MOAR” end-quote. It looks fantastic. Really. What I was most surprised about was how faithful to the story it looks like the film will be. Too often do we get annoying summary films of books that leave out so much that you end up walking out of the theater making excuses to your illiterate friends like “I swear, the original is wayy better than this was! Really!” *cough* The Last Airbender *cough* *cough* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – no, seriously. That book was the longest of the first four, and the shortest movie. I hadn’t read the fourth book at the time I saw it. It made no sense. It was awful. I was confused. End of example. *cough* The Hunger Games, however, looks like it will really stick to the original book.
One worrisome thing is the rating. The trailer was rated PG. In Canada it was rated G. That worries me. Thankfully, the rating only applies to the trailer, not the film itself. After all, the film is still in post-production, there’s no way it has a rating yet. So why did Lionsgate try for the “G” rating? Down With the Capitol says what they think the reasoning for this is:
The ‘G’ Rating only applies to the film’s trailer– probably a move on Lionsgate’s part to ensure that it can run before as many films as possible (trailers rated above a G are limited as to which kinds of movies they can run with).
So I really don’t think we have much to worry about on this front. But this does bring me to the point of ratings. Anyone who read the book would (or should) say that the film clearly deserves an “R” rating. This isn’t Harry Potter at school. This isn’t some teenage vampire drama. This is a film about children dying of hunger and murdering each other, usually in rather gruesome ways. However, the film will get a PG-13. We can be pretty sure of that. Lionsgate is laying everything on the line with this movie. If Hunger Games does poorly, it’s questionable whether they will be around to make movies for our kids to see (to put it nicely). They need to get the young-adult audience Harry Potter and Twilight captured.
Another thought occurred to me last night: did this trailer make the least bit of sense to anyone who didn’t read the book? I don’t know a single person who saw the trailer who didn’t like it, but did it make any sense. I know for myself, if I randomly saw that trailer at a theater my first reaction would be “what the heck is going on here??” I asked my dad, who saw the trailer and didn’t read the books: he said he thought it looked great, but had to have some parts explained by my mom and sis. All-in-all, I think we can say the trailer was clearly made as fan-service.
If you HAVEN’T seen the trailer yet, what the &*@# is wrong with you??watch it here!
According to Mockingjay.net, it’s been confirmed that the Hunger Games trailer is going to run at the beginning of Breaking Dawn (you know, that mushy mess of sparkling vampires movie?). Not that you should go see that movie. I fully expect it will be bad. It would be very cool, however, to see this amazing trailer on the big screen!
In case you missed the epic reveal on GMA this morning, here’s the second official trailer for The Hunger Games movie. I need more time to take this all in, I may or may not be hypervenhilating right now….
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*Phew* Okay, my heart rate is slowing again. I’ll put up more detailed thoughts tomorrow, once I take some time to look through the whole thing in detail. In the meantime:
This has been a week full of a lack of anything worth noting in terms of what would be news but isn’t because it doesn’t exist. Therefor we have some random stories all piled into one!
First up, Vanity Fair recently did a photo shoot with the cast of The Hunger Games film. You can see the main image of the entire cast below. You can check out the rest of the photos over at Vanity Fair. The photos are very well done, even if they’re the same scenery as most Vanity fair photo shoots I’ve seen… though I must admit I don’t know what on earth they have to do with The Hunger Games at all. I realize these are just promo photos of the cast in general, not necessarily related to the film. However, these types of shoots always seem pretty pointless. Honestly I’d like some more pictures of the cast looking grimy and bloody and in the environment the characters will actually be in. The photos remind me of Twilight for some reason, and everyone knows how I feel about that series.
You thought I was going to miss this, didn’t you? The sudden release of SEVEN new Hunger Games posters by Lionsgate featuring some of the main characters of the series? Yeah. Those. Lionsgate brought on some top-level marketing staff from around the industry to help promote the Hunger Games film, and this looks like their big push out the gate. The seven posters were released strategically to seven of the biggest internet outlets on the web. These include Yahoo!, MTV, Moviefone, MSN, IGN, EW, and Teen. No doubt there was probably some bidding Read the rest of this entry »
The new South Park season has started. The Hunger Games film is drawing closer. What better way to celebrate these two clearly related events than by combining the two? That’s just what one fan has done. Utilizing some of the internet’s many “South Park character generators,” Hunger Games fans have made South Park avatars for the book’s characters. I’ve included a few of my favorites here. You can view the lot of them over at Hunger Games Examiner. Can you tell which characters are which? I think comparing Gale’s rough-n-tough appearance and Peeta’s clean-n-artsy appearance is pretty funny.
You might notice on the Hunger Games Examiner site a lack of captions denoting which character is which. I find it fascinating that, even without captions, one can clearly tell which avatars represent which characters. Even the more vague ones without backgrounds like Haymitch. It’s a testament to the character writing in the series. Either that, or the representational power of the South Park art style. Given the choices, however, I’d have to say mostly the first.
Ever wanted to be part of the horrific, impoverished, post-apocalyptic, ruthlessly controlled country of Panem? Well you’re in luck! There’s a new Hunger Games viral site up by the catchy URL of “http://thecapitol.pn/,”
What’s this “districts” mumbo-jumbo about? Well, person-who-hasn’t-read-the-Hunger-Games-trilogy, in The Hunger Games, Panem (North America) is split up into twelve different “Districts”. Each district specializes in a different economical commodity and each serves the Capitol (probably located somewhere in/near Colorado). Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a New York Times bestselling series… It has a major motion picture on the way… With The Hunger Games growing more popular by the day, Scholastic is really trying to get the word out and get people to read the series. This includes major price cuts (great news for anyone who is still pointlessly holding out on reading the series). Basically: you have no excuse to not read it now.
Do you have one of them fancy Kindles? Well then just meander on over to Amazon and download the first book for only $4.69! (the physical copy is still $10)
The Kindle edition of the series was up for $4.38 yesterday (92% off the suggested retail price)! OR… Have one of dose hawt Android devices? They got you covered, too! Only $4.69 in the Android Market to read your future favorite book on a tiny phone screen!! In fact, most of Suzanne Collins’ books are $5-7 on the Market… which means I’m thinking about picking one of her other works sup. If I do happen to read one, I’ll let you all know what I think.
Long story short: you have no excuse not to read the series. So quit making excuses. Just. DO IT.
Believe me at all times with sincerity and respect, your faithful and obliged servant,
Samuel P. Jackson
