{"id":357,"date":"2012-04-16T14:14:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=357"},"modified":"2012-04-16T14:14:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T18:14:41","slug":"hunger-games-book-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Hunger Games (book & movie)"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, we gave into our children\u2019s pleadings (whinings?) and took them to see the movie, Hunger Games, since everyone<\/strong> in their grades had seen it already.\u00a0 After getting home from the movie, I then promptly read the book to see how true to the book the movie was.<\/p>\n

Book first (priorities are priorities).\u00a0 Hunger Games<\/span> is classified as a Young Adults book and is a quick read for adults.\u00a0 That being said, the book is well-written, well-paced and with an original, if dark, plot.\u00a0 The characters are complex, neither entirely good nor evil and are well-rounded.\u00a0 The heroine, Katniss, is both likeable and unlikeable.\u00a0 It is a surprisingly sophisticated novel.\u00a0 I enjoyed it, although the premise is extremely dark.<\/p>\n

Now, the movie.\u00a0 The movie is very true to the book (not surprising, since the author, Suzanne Collins, co-wrote the screenplay).\u00a0 It is, however, much more graphic and violent.\u00a0 The book, while it contains violent scenes, does not go into overly detailed descriptions of the violence.\u00a0 And the movie does as much violence offscreen as it can.\u00a0 (The movie is rated PG-13.)\u00a0 However, the plot is by definition violent, and the movie can\u2019t hide that fact.\u00a0 It is beautifully filmed, with the director doing a lovely job showing things from a particular character\u2019s perspective, and the actors and actresses all do a good job (with a particular shout out to Stanley Tucci).<\/p>\n

All that being said, the plot is disturbing, especially since it deals with children and violence.\u00a0 I like violent movies and even darkly comic violent movies, but this is neither.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult to have any light moments when you\u2019re reading or watching about a group of children who have to kill each other until a single victor emerges.<\/p>\n

If you can get past the plot, the book is well written and enjoyable (I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads) and the movie is an excellent adaptation of the book.\u00a0 You just have to get past the plot.<\/p>\n

I am told (by the aforementioned pleading kids) that the second and third books of the trilogy (Catching Fire<\/span> and Mockingjay<\/span>) deal more with the possibility of impending rebellions against the totalitarian government.\u00a0 Now, that is a plot I can get into!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, we gave into our children\u2019s pleadings (whinings?) and took them to see the movie, Hunger Games, since everyone in their grades had seen it already.\u00a0 After getting home from the movie, I then promptly read the book to see how true to the book the movie was. Book first (priorities are priorities).\u00a0 Hunger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,3,41],"tags":[336,42,337],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-family","category-movies","tag-books","tag-hunger-games","tag-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-5L","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}