The Hunger Games - my thoughts. Spoilers!
Finally saw the film adaptation to the amazing book. I was really happy with how it turned out overall. I appreciated how closely they stuck to the book (obviously they did take some creative license and that was to be expected). While DH had some major issues with what they left out intentionally - or what they could have added to make it even better - I can excuse the things he had problems with - most of them.
A few things did bother me. I don't think the brutality and horror that you really experience in the books is as present in the movie. The camera shots "skittering" around instead of showing what is truly happening was a bit disappointing. I know that they had to cut out a lot of the blood/gore type scenes to keep the rating at PG-13 but I think they lost some of what made the novel so powerful. The juxtaposition between the extravagant wastefulness and at times horrifying thoughtlessness that the Capitol citizens show, and the atrocity of what these poor children are doing in the name of survival is shocking. I wish there had been more of the latter and less of the former.
The cornucopia is not at all what I expected it to be. It looked like some after thought - where in the novel you could practically see the damn thing. James and I both thought it should have been gold, had a basket-weave or wavy type of texture and be in the shape of an actual cornucopia. Not some weird ass, makeshift metallic hut with angular sides. WTF is up with that?
The so called mutts near the end of the movie were pretty pathetic. I pictured them as much larger, more werewolf like, and they were supposed to have the eyes of the dead tributes. It was meant as a psychological as well as physical threat - and in the movie - the psychological is completely lost. Most likely from a budget point of view.
Speaking of budget - things they cut because of budget that should have been there - the ships that come to collect the bodies. Uh hello? For someone who has never read the books you would probably think that the bodies were just laying there forever and were never retrieved. I mean - why not? There's no other explanation.
Unexpected surprises: the chemistry onscreen between Katniss and Cinna. Oh my Gosh. I was blown away by the intimacy, the caring that is shown between the two. Beautifully done. I also enjoyed how Katniss looked before the games - the fire entrance was brilliant and the flame dress was awesome. I had no idea how they were going to pull that off but it looked really cool.
I do like the allusions they made toward the future novels. It was weird seeing District 11 rebelling like that but it manages to get across the point that revolt is coming.
I could go on and on talking about it but I think I might just go re-read the novel instead. =)