May the Odds Be Never in Your Favour

Ok, not strictly speaking a post about a book, but it is related, so I'm allowing myself to get away with it, mwha!

This was going to be a rather long, convoluted post about The Hunger Games movie, how I thought it compared to the book, what was different etc......but I currently have a hyperactive Springer Spaniel jumping on my feet trying to get me to play with him. He says hi.

Soooooooooo instead, I'm just going to post a few of my main thoughts about it. I'm going to see it again next week (mainly due to the fact that I spent most of the advanced screening fuming about a certain line that movie Gale didn't say) So I'll update/post something new after that which should be a bit more detailed.

Here goes......

I've heard massive amounts of complaints about how the film was shot, the use of jump cuts, handheld cameras & jerky steadicams as opposed stationary tripods and tracks. As a former film student, I enjoyed the cinematography (what can I say, my inner nerd rejoiced), I think it was cleverly done, emulating how the cameras in the arena would've moved, and the jump cuts imitating Katniss' confusion from the Tracker Jacker poison.

A lot of the actors (in my humble opinion) didn't really look how I expected them to, but played the characters pretty much EXACTLY how I pictured them, especially Cinna. In hindsight, Lenny Kravitz & Wes Bentley were the perfect castings as Cinna & Seneca! (on a sidenote Seneca Crane's Beard! That's gotta be worth a few months of Trending Topics alone!)

My only real (and rather infuriating) complaints are with regards to the removal of 2 pieces of dialogue: Gale's "Katniss, remember I..." line as he says goodbye had our whole entire group shouting at the cinema screen, especially as it was replaced by the (rather pathetic in my opinion) line "I'll see you soon". I was also a little annoyed and disappointed that they cut out the conversation between Katniss & Peeta on the train home about how much of what happened in the arena was real & how much was acting. For me they were both really important parts of the series.
I don't know, it just kind of felt that they were downplaying the Katniss/Gale relationship and amping up the 'reality' of Katniss/Peeta far too early, just because we know how it's going to end. Not a happy bunny about those parts :S

Nic, psycho dog & my now sore foot
xoxo