#the costumes in the thg movies worked better for me

[moon-mirage]

Lucy Gray and Coriolanus to celebrate the premiere of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes".

[eerna]

So was it any good? tbosas I mean

Well,,,,,,,,, kind of? I had fun, but also went in knowing they won't pay attention to what I loved about the book so my expectations were properly low. TBOSAS is my fav THG book so a different adaptation exists in my head

Non-spoilery: The movie is divided in parts like the book, but there is no rhyme or reason why, no dramatic breaks or changes like in the books. The Reaping isn't on July 4th because of course. Tom Blyth as Coriolanus was a surprise because I expected nothing from him other than looking sort of like old Snow. The movie naturally removed any and all nuance from his character and kept spelling out everything, but there were a few scenes where they let him yknow, act out how his character is supposed to feel, and it was really good! Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray was more of a mixed bag - sometimes she was fantastic in selling the over-the-top dramatic flare, but other times (especially towards the beginning) it was just weird. I firmly believe this is because the movie didn't fully commit to Lucy Gray as a charming crowd director who keeps her heart hidden and instead made her a more honestly vulnerable girl. She dazzled in musical numbers, though, that girl is a performer through and through! Viola Davis was bad I am so sorry but I felt like I was watching a Disney Channel performance and it's entirely the movie's fault and not hers. Peter Dinklage was super good as Dean Highbottom, he makes him all sad and lost without being over-the-top. The rest of the cast was also good. I loved the sets and the costumes, very in-line with what I'd imagined. The night/dark scenes were so dark that subtitles felt like they were burning into my eyes, it was the absolute worst quality dark scenes I've ever seen in a big movie.

Spoilery:

They removed Coriolanus' obsessive love for Lucy Gray and turned it sooo muted :(((( He didn't even want to kiss her before the Games! He didn't try to control her or feel jealousy or ANYTHING that could imply he might turn on her one day!! His emotional changes and impatience and politeness and selfish kindness are also all gone now. Sejanus and he aren't nearly as close as in the book, but there was this funny moment where the two of them had a more intense forehead touch moment than any Coriolanus shared with Lucy Gray and it made me chuckle. Tigris and Coriolanus were very very well done, I loved how she was always his first bestie!!! But I am sort of annoyed they turned it from "Tigris puts Coriolanus down for the way he treats others" to "Tigris is scared Coriolanus will become his dad". Lucy Gray's Reaping was absolutely horrible, she threw a singing fit instead of being a confident performer, so it makes no sense that she just flips a switch into untouchable after. Loved the snake charmer climax where everyone stands up for Lucy Gray and proves that Capitol needs a victor! It worked better for the movie than the book version, and the way the music exists as a meta instrumental scene where the score eventually catches up to her singing - THAT is how ALL her songs should have been treated!!! The way music worked was one of my biggest issues, sometimes they were totally off tonally from what their role was in the books (The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird this is about YOU Maiah Wynne's version makes me sob to this day while the movie version is only saved by Rachel's passion) and only the snake song was properly utilized as a plot point. They were such good opportunities for exposition that is more subtle than just putting whatever is Coriolanus feeling in clunky dialogue. And the clunky dialogue WAS constantly used to make up for the amount of internal monologues, even if it made zero sense -at the end they literally had Lucy Gray say "Haha if you destroyed the guns and killed me you could go to District 2 no sweat hahahaha anyway I'll go get some potatoes bye" like what. In what world would she literally tell him that. She is supposed to be a smart survivor. They also put "it's things we love most" quote as the final line in the movie, and I can't describe what a stupid choice that was, because if it wasn't there the movie would go "Highbottom tells Coriolanus he won't be able to forget Lucy Gray-> Coriolanus' proud exit where he believes to be the victor as snow falls down -> Can't Catch Me Now end credits including the snow motif", which would have been SO much stronger since that song delivers the "Lucy Gray eventually caught up to Coriolanus" message and we don't get it spelled out like we're 5 years old. It's not the only part of the movie where references to the OG stick out like a sore thumb, and I am once again asking Why. Why don't you think your audience is smart enough to understand.

[petruchio]

Bestie I think you’re so right about the movie altering Lucy and Coryo’s romance to better convey the themes within the limitations of the medium!

Like it’s actually a huge book! I knew they would have to cut a lot for the sake of run time so I was fully expecting them to sacrifice some of the details that do so much heavy lifting for the deeper themes.

But I was so pleasantly surprised, and I honestly think that preserving the themes must have been a central goal in the production! I was noticing small changes - but they all seemed to serve keeping the major themes in tact?

Like I saw it with my family (who all read thg but not tbosas) and I went in wondering. Like how are they going to make a meaningful, faithful, adaptation of such a large book?? Will my family understand The Themes? And they did!

I think it speaks to Suzanne’s writing ability (her themes are layered throughout every level, so a few cuts won’t gut them entirely) and smart/intentional alterations.

Like you mention with cutting the kiss, I think doing so highlights the transactionality of this moment. Coryo won’t kiss her OR give her the compact until she denounces Billy taupe! Like literally he won’t save her life (do the right thing, like Tigris says) if she’s in love with someone else! Interesting!

But like you say, if they do !finally! kiss (without that monologue) it’s easier to miss how manipulative he’s being in that moment and the importance of it!

I think they made a similar smart choice with being shipped off to 8 - I might be wrong here!! But I’m pretty sure he isn’t ordered to be a peace keeper? He CHOOSES that because he sees it as his only avenue left? (Which I thought was some military industrial complex commentary sprinkled in but now I’m afraid I imagined this whole thing LOL)

So assuming I’m not misremembering - I thought making highbottom force him to become a peace keeper also worked similarly. Like letting him choose that (without the internal monologue) makes his motivations seem genuine when they aren’t fully. So it’s just better for the movie medium perhaps?

Anyways, rambling done lol thanks for listening 🌟

ohhhh how i love all of this!! i love you for taking the time to send all this to me -- and thank you for validating my reading of the altered love story!!

and YES i was so pleasantly surprised by how well they managed to maintain a lot of the thematic content of the book, esp because we KNOW how much they gutted it in the original trilogy. i have a couple theories on why: the first is that the filmmakers are devoted readers of my tumblr blog and they understood the importance of preserving the political themes from the novels when adapting them to the screen (ok obviously i am joking.) my real theories are -- the cultural conversation has shifted a LOT since the original films got made, and i think they were more aware and more *able* to be more explicit with so many of those ideas. i also wonder if the act of adapting the story of someone from capitol was easier than adapting someone from district 12 -- there's been much ink spilled over how we, the privileged moviegoers who are watching the film in theaters, are much more like capitolites than we are like katniss herself. and i wonder if that made it easier to adapt -- because one of the big critiques of the thg films is that they really glam jlaw up even when she's in district 12, and it makes scenes like the "remake" scenes kind of lose their power and biting social commentary. whereas with snow, and the capitol, and the games themselves, we're meant to understand that they ARE a facade, and the movie can really lean into that. (side note, my least fav costume in the whole movie was lucy gray's swimsuit. pretty much for that exact reason -- it was too ~perfect~ for the setting.)

to your point about the change with snow deciding vs being ordered to become a peacekeeper -- i honestly couldn't remember either so i went to see if i could find the quote from the book and it's this:

[...] But as he approached the dean, a cold dread washed over him. There, arranged on the table like lab specimens, were three items: an Academy napkin stained with grape punch, his mother’s silver compact, and a dingy white handkerchief. The meeting could not have lasted more than five minutes. Afterward, as agreed, Coriolanus headed directly to the Recruitment Center, where he became Panem’s newest, if not shiniest, Peacekeeper.

honestly i wish i remembered what exactly is meant by "as agreed" but i do think you're right that in the book it's more implied that he doesn't have another choice -- because he didn't win the monetary prize, he has to enroll. so i think you're right that the point is that the idea that it's his choice at all is in question because it's societal pressure and his family's financial status that kind of forces him into the military industrial complex. but i think, because they made this scene so explicit in the film, that you're right that having him be ordered to do it instead of hearing him justify it in his head manages to accomplish what we need it to for the sake of the plot moving forward (if kind of weakening that angle of sc's commentary)

also, here's something to chew on -- i was thinking as i was watching the film if part of the reason some of the changes didn't irritate me so much was because i was more forgiving of the need to shift things around to account for the lack of internal monologue because the book is written in third person instead of first person. i mean, obviously i am overly attached to pretty much everything about katniss, and yes that comes down even to her internal monologue, but i did wonder if that made some of the changes feel more natural to me, because we still kind of get them explained to us in the book as an observer, instead of listening to someone explain themselves to us (i don't know if that makes any sense?) -- but i guess what i'm trying to say is that maybe reading tbosas is more like watching a film, vs reading thg which is more like you are experiencing something alongside katniss? and that's because of the pov choice?

WELL that was a ramble! i'm always amazed by how much we can say about these books and films!! they're just so layered and so fascinating -- i'm loving all the conversations i've been seeing about tbosas. i feel like a lot of it is really starting to gel for me the more i read people's thoughts and analyses. (i still think the third act is messy though. no matter how great suzanne's themes are, i do think the pacing is rough. lol!)

[marietheran]

My impressions of the movies in the Hunger Games franchise now that I've watched most of them (aside from Catching Fire - will try to, ahem, catch up on it soon enough):

I liked THG better than the book; I think the story is more suited for a movie - but admittedly I didn't like the book as much as many people did.

TBoSaS is the inverse: I loved the book, but I think the movie did it some disservice.

This may have something to do with my significantly higher opinion of the prequels writing as contrasted to that of the original trilogy (huh, that sounds like star wars). The interior workings of the characters' minds are much more subtle here too; it's a hard thing to translate on-screen.

Mockingjay 1&2... I didn't like it all that much, but then I was very disappointed by the book itself, and maybe it improved on it.

One thing the movies do great is the scenography and costume design. Even here, Mockingjay disappoints me, but the austerity is hardly something that could have been bypassed I guess.

I wish they had cast actual teens as Katniss and Peeta, though Jennifer Lawrence doesn't look too grown-up in THG. She does so in Mockingjay.

Meanwhile Rachel Zegler looked much too old throughout.

You can definitely see TBoSaS is a product of our day in the casting choices.

I'm not saying the amount of PoC in the cast is bad, and whatever the justifications for disliking such casting in europe-centered period works might be, there aren't any here. Tbh the old outcry over Rue was deplorable (and she had darker skin in the book!)

But you can see a definite difference between the older and newer movies, and that's interesting.

The disability inclusive casting on the other hand... it's probably not unrealistic among the tributes, especially as only Wovey's condition is genetic, the others' are likely consequences of poverty and such.

Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom though... I wouldn't normally imagine the Capitol as a place that allows visibly disabled people to hold high-ranking positions. Other places, yes, but not the freaking Capitol.

[nightlockcake]

Any opinion about Catching Fire movie?

Do you like the change of director and the different style of the movies between THG and CF?

unnecessary long answer alert

IMO, CF is a nicely done film. It’s a bit hollywood-ish for me personally, this is why it couldn’t top the first HG movie for me. :)

I don’t know the exact reason why they have changed the director (and if someone does, please let me know, I am so curious about this change). But I do understand that Gary Ross and Francis Lawrence are two completely different people with different approaches to the shots. So no wonder films have completely different flows and structures. I personally okay with both directors, but it’s the way Gary Ross tells the story that makes me like him more. He uses close ups and very ‘’personal’’ (almost intimate) shots which correspond with the first-person narration of the books. He sort of breaks down the whole story into bits that the viewer needs to connect himself, while Francis Lawrence prefers to make big understandable shots packed with a lot of small details. It’s not a bad thing, though. I think it really depends on your personal preferences and the way you perceive information.

And we have to keep in mind that the budget for CF is almost twice as big as the budget for THG. (it’s 78 mil vs ~140 mil). And I think this is where everything good and not so good about this film is mixing up. They had more money to get bigger shots, better VFX, costumes, etc. But at the same time they had to think about the budget returns, marketing, and all that. And you can feel how it just changed the whole approach to the film completely. Once again, understandable.

The opening scene of CF is absolutely beautiful. And I really wish they made the whole movie in this slow, personal style, where we sort of follow a girl with severe ptsd. But I also get the fact that they had to do the ‘action’ stuff, and the action part really had to be entertaining for the viewers that aren’t so invested in the books/HG world itself. The film is meant to be entertaining, after all. I think this is why they sort of dropped ‘the first-person narration’ (if you can say that about the film) and went really really big, and this brought a lottttt of troubles for the director and the crew. They had to stay ‘true to the book’ while making a top-hollywood content for money. This is why CF looks a little bit unbalanced for me.

In the first film, the part before the Games looks quite similar to the part after the Games began. CF, as a film, is cut into two pieces, and that approach didn’t really work for me. I really like the change between aspect ratio when Katniss appears on the arena, though. Neat transition, both literally and figuratively.

Overall CF is a nice movie. One thing I don’t get is why it seems like Francis Lawrence and the crew cannot shoot the nighttime/dark scenes properly. It messes with my head a lot. They have the same problem with similar scenes in MJ1 and MJ2 as well. The films are so, so dark. Literally. Sometimes you can’t see a thing on the screen, and this is what makes the films hard to watch.

Sure, if it’s nighttime in the Arena, it is supposed to be dark. but if we’re talking about moviemaking then it’s reasonable to remember about different types of lightsources for the dark scenes. You cannot shoot in the absence of light, so you have to create the additional lightsources.

This is how the first film solves the same problem, for example:

they used the backlight/rim light to show the characters in the dark, and indirect bounce light on the faces (so we actually can see them and their reactions).

In CF, the dark scenes are just… dark, in most cases. The picture is dimmed to the point where you can’t tell what’s going on or where the characters are.

This is why the opening shot in CF is so breathtaking, though. Because all of the light and colours and reflections. And I don’t get why they couldn’t work the same way with the nighttime scenes or scenes with little to no light in the arena. The film crew is both talented and professional for sure.

*cheff's kiss*

oh this got a bit technical but yeah these are my thoughts

[philhoffman]

Continuing my Monday Philm watch of The Hunger Games this week with Mockingjay: Part 1 (2014)!

I love that, unlike the books, the movies show a wider perspective than just Katniss’s. It just makes sense to do that when adapting a book to the screen, so of course they did, but it’s really great. Some of those scenes with Snow and his people in the Capitol are the best in the whole film. A lot of enjoyable performances by incredible actors but on this watch, I realized Sam Claflin Is perfectly cast — his work as Finnick brings this gravity and desperation and numbness to every scene he’s in.

(Side note: the albums for all of the THG movies slap. The first movie’s is one of the first albums I can remember really falling in love with as a teenager and listening to it now is so... nostalgic. I’ve only listened to the Catching Fire and Mockingjay albums more recently but they slap!!!)

Reading the books a few weeks ago, I was struck by how funny and lighthearted Plutarch is — partly because I didn’t remember Phil’s portrayal being so goofy. But on a rewatch, it comes out a lot more in a subtle sort of way. A lot livelier than in Catching Fire. Plutarch is still the most positive thinker in 13 — perhaps it’s because he’s sheltered, but he’s so optimistic (until he’s faced with the possibility of actual death during the bombings, in which case he quiets down for a bit). He’s so smirky, and even though he lectures Effie on adjusting to life in District 13, he’s probably closer to her position and discomfort than he is to anyone else’s situation in those bunkers. I really love their scenes together, it’s so easy to tell they’ve known each other for years and the Capitol party banter between those two must’ve been incredible.

I always have to replay the “you’ve just been in BATTLE” scene a dozen times and it makes me laugh uncontrollably every time... love that glimpse at PSH the director LMAO!

Since this was my first time watching MJ1 all the way through since I first saw it (aka before I was a PSH Stan™), it was also the first time I was keeping an eye out for his missing/altered scenes. The scene when Effie gives Katniss the Mockingjay costume designs from Cinna was supposed to be Plutarch. I knew that, but it really hit me when she said the line about missing coffee — in the back of my mind I’d been wondering why they never included that little part of his character from the book in the films, and then I realized they did, but. It was really sad, just knowing they filmed it and were talking about his character after Philip’s death. And knowing that one of these scenes was likely the last thing he ever filmed, sweet boy. I also wonder if, like in the book, Plutarch was supposed to be in the post-bombing scene when they go outside to record propos among the white roses. Very few title cards hurt more than that last one (and still jarring after all these years).

To end on a positive note, this is just such a sweet performance. All the little details Phil put into this role — his notebook (which Julianne Moore said he was always writing in), the way he mouths along to Coin’s last speech that he very obviously wrote, when he wipes a tear away (after hearing the speech that he very obviously wrote). “I’m optimistic,” with his little smile. The same care and depth he put into every role. It was about a year ago, while watching his first scene (“People don’t always show up the way you want them to.”), that I texted my best friend that this Philip Seymour Hoffman guy was kinda cute. It’s really only gotten better since then.