"The Hunger Games" Did your kids/family catch the hype?

Daniel Dorn

Daniel Dorn

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Until the trailers started playing, I had no idea that "The Hunger Games" existed. Then some friends started talking about the books, and all sorts of folks began recommending them. So, about a month ago my wife picked up the first book and we both read it. It actually took me just a week to read it on my limited reading schedule. (Fast for me.) Then the movie was released this past week. My wife was going goofy trying to get the family schedule in line so that we could all see it (my wife and our 2 older sons @ 12 and 10). She watched it Saturday with her best friend and I'm going tomorrow with our oldest. I convinced my wife that the 10yo would not see it, based on the kid-on-kid violence.

Anyway, it seems like "The Hunger Games" hit my community of friends and family more swiftly and with more force than even the Harry Potter stories or the New Moon stuff. Anyone care to comment on their experience?

I loved the book, BTW, and am looking forward to seeing the movie, and have heard good things about it.
 
I haven't seen it yet but from the buzz I hear it combines lots of elements that worked for me in other movies. I am talking about things like the Mad Max movies, Lord of the Flies and Robin Hood....sounds like it could be good.
 
ive read all three books and saw the movie. I thought it was one of the best done book based movies i have ever seen.


Great books, and a very good movie. I would highly recommend seeing it
 
My teenage daughter talks about it almost every day. She is on the 3rd book. I don't know anything about it but after trying to watch twilight (sorry didn't like it) I was not too excited to try this one.

I took her to the movies last Friday night to see The Hunger Games. I dropped her and her friend off and went across the street to Bsss pro shops and had a great dinner and shopping trip.

She raved about the movie and wants to go see it again asap.
 
I liked it except for the obnoxious camera work used in several parts of the movie, it was hand held so shaky (which isn't too bad by itself think like Cloverfield or Blair Witch) but they also combined it with switching cameras every 2-3 seconds it gets annoying, luckily it only does that for a small part of the movie. Besides that good overall. Also if you liked the books, I'd recommend Battle Royale, It's an extremely simliar storyline, a little grittier/violent with the love story/triangle removed which came out 12 years before Hunger Games, I actually like it better than Hunger Games.
 
1 hour and counting. I'm actually taking off work early to catch it at matinee prices. I'll report back tomorrow.
 
i was never really interested in it. never even heard of it. till i saw on the news a while back that it was being filmed outside of Hickory, NC. i may watch it at some point.
 
I finished all three books in at the most, 1 week, but closer to 4 days (if i remember correctly, I read a lot of books).

Hopefully gonna see the movie this weekend, if you saw it, how was the movie compared to the book?
 
I took my grandkids, & they liked it. I agree about the shaky camera work. The movie was nicely done considering it came from a book written for young adults. All in all I thought it was pretty good.
 
I picked up the first book on a lark and was quite pleasantly surprised. Well written, very easy reads situation very dark plot. I can pick plenty of nits about the movue, I agree the camera work was shoddy at times and some of the special effects were disappointing considering the budget, but it was fairly well done. My main complaint was that they didn't do a great deal to portray the main character as the cold, calculating survivor that made her such a unique character in the books.
 
After watching it, I agree with I. M. above. Pretty good movie, and it does follow the book well. Without having to get into voice-over narrative from Katniss's POV, they did a great job of getting the meat of the story out there using the whole televised portion and Seneca and President Snow. I too, would have liked to see a bit more on Katniss's motives being examined more closely.

Definitely worth the time to see. I just started the second book, and see they already have plans to shoot the next movie.
 
I'm a fan of the series, although the last book was a bit of a let down. I thought the movie missed some really important beats, but wasn't horrible. After reading the first book, my wife did the same and we went through the series together.

I'll be done with my Masters in Library Science in May. With a likely future of working in a public library ahead of me, it makes sense to keep up with youth literature. Heck, I even enjoyed the Twilight series for what it was.
 
I think as a book to movie endeavor, it's just under average.

Things that tick me off the most, changes like how Katniss found the mocking jay pin at the hob, instead of having it gifted.

Another thing that ticked me off was the wardrobe choices, sorry off the shelf 'old timey' clothes... in a world of hover-ships?!

Casting was a problem in my opinion too.
 
I read the first book. I enjoyed it, but in retrospect it was very badly written from an objective standpoint. If not for the survival aspect I would have been completely disinterested.

The characters are clichéd. The plot, especially the romance, is beyond predictable. And if I were to pick up the second book, so soon after reading "The Hobbit" for the first time, I would almost certainly hate the prose too.
 
I think the movie missed some crucial plot points, but i also understand they can't fit the whole book in a movie. Form 1 to 5 stars I would give it a 3.

I spied a hibben throwing axe and some kind of falcatta. Katniss seemed to be using some kind of Tops survival knife. Anybody ID'd other blades?
 
I read the book. For the target audience of teenage kids it is probably written about right. I liked it but it is not going to teach you a lot about hunting or survival. The thing that was good was how it gives value to learning traditional skills such as hunting, crafting and using plants for food, medicine or other darker uses. If kids today would put some time in paying attention to the things outdoors they would have some real world life skills to build on in addition to all the tech skills they pick up as the normal way of learning today.
 
Hadn't heard about it until a month or two ago when I saw a trailer in a movie theater. Then again, when girlfriend brought up that she wanted to go see it.

Took her and her 13-year-old niece, who hates violent movies and is quite squeamish, to see it. She insisted when she found out we were going. I think it's really popular among her friends.

I liked the movie, but it was hard to watch at times, given the kid-on-kid violence. Niece covered her eyes lots of times. Good call on not taking the 10 year old to see it.

It's an interesting social commentary, but doesn't have too much depth to it. Maybe the books do. Haven't read them.

Lenny Kravitz is in it -- which is weird but interesting.
 
willseeyalater said:
The thing that was good was how it gives value to learning traditional skills such as hunting, crafting and using plants for food, medicine or other darker uses. If kids today would put some time in paying attention to the things outdoors they would have some real world life skills to build on in addition to all the tech skills they pick up as the normal way of learning today.
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I agree.

Considering that it was my girlfriend (who hates knives outside the kitchen and outdoors adventuring, generally speaking) and her teenage niece who were stoked to see the movie, I'd say that there is definitely a positive influence here in terms of at least getting those who normally wouldn't think about surviving without modern technology (and self-defense from brutal attacks) to do so.
 
Gale is a tool. All 3 books were amazing and the first movie was very good. Not at all a harry potter twilight series stuff although its geared towards young adults since the characters are 12-18. Arrows in the neck, slicing throats etc.
 
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