Reviewed by: Ashlie B.
Originally Posted: 1.1.2015
Book or Movie first:
The book, I had to read it for a Young Adult English course.
What we got into:
A future America known as Panem, deliberately segregated by districts and run as a 21st century style dictatorship, holds an annual event to remind citizens of what can happen when they try to fight against The Capital. Nationally televised, The Hunger Games, follows 24 tributes – one boy and one girl from each of the remaining 12 districts – on a journey as they are picked from the Reaping, as they train, and finally as they face one another to the death in the arena. In the 74 years since the first Hunger Games district 12 has only ever had 2 victors – however, as Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sisters place, 12 has some hope.
Katniss makes every effort to stay strong and hard in order to keep herself alive. But the odds are not in her favor. Everyone she knows seems to be colluding against her sense of survival. Without any hope to do so, she manages to win the admiration of the citizens from the Capitol, and more importantly the sponsors. Although she enters the arena with high marks from the judges (highest and near perfect) and years of experience in the woods and hunting, she suffers as any tribute might. She survives dehydration, burns, numerous attempts on her life, and tracker jacker stings before she finds herself an ally – Rue, a young girl from 11, that reminds Katniss of her own little sister.
Katniss and Rue deiced to hit the other tributes where it hurts: their cache of supplies. A group of them, dubbed careers for coming from districts with the wealth to train them early in life, allied early in the game. Together they gathered the supplies that had been left for tributes to fight over at the opening of the game and hoarded them near the lake. As Rue led the tributes on a wild goose chase through the woods, Katniss went to the lake to destroy their loot. As Katniss finds success, Rue finds herself trapped.
Katniss isn’t fast enough to untangle Rue and get them moving before a spear finds it way through the little girl, and Katniss makes her first direct kill. Uncommon to the games Katniss stays with Rue as she dies. Taking to heart something Peeta had told her while they trained – that he didn’t want the games or the Capital to change him – she gathered nearby flowers and placed them around Rue’s small frame, giving her and her district a more respectful goodby than a hover craft plucking her corpse from the arena. As a final gesture, she kissed her three middle fingers and outstretched them to the camera she was sure was watching her.
As Katniss works through her grief there is a game changing rule; there can be two victors as long as they hail form the same district. With a new sense of purpose she searches out Peeta – the boy who allied himself with careers, the boy who told Panem he loved her. Peeta suffered too, and nursing him to health was just the Star Crossed Lovers story that the citizens of Panem would swoon over.
A look at the Book:
Through first person narrative Suzanne Collins focuses on Katniss. We see her strengths and weaknesses, her hopes and fears. We understand that her sole motivation is survival, though it is not just for her; she lives to protect her sister.
It’s easy to see how terribly unfair the world is through her eyes, and how difficult is can be to fight against the injustices when there are people to take care of. As a reader you can sense that there is something bigger happening around Katniss – the Girl on Fire – but you know how little she wants to be a part of it. All she wants is to live, to take care of her family, but forces she wasn’t even aware of keep pushing her into something grander.
A look at the Movie:
The movie takes that sense of something bigger left by the book and lays it very plainly. Every action Katniss takes, just to survive, is paired with how the world or President Snow reacts. The danger that may have been tugging at the reader is confirmed, over and over again. This one girl, who just wanted to save her sister, is setting the stage for something Panem hasn’t seen in nearly 75 years. As clueless as she is about it, the world isn’t. Her mentor Haymitch, her stylist Cinna, the viewers in the districts, even some of those in the Capitol, are all to aware of how to use her and her actions.
Movie compared to the Book:
The movie is a decent adaptation. The writers knew what to keep, what to alter, and what to add to make it a whole new story. Most enjoyable where the snippets with President Snow, how he calmly tries to control a situation that can turn into a wildfire. The writers did an amazing job at showcasing the masses that just see the games as the long awaited event of the year, and of the oppressed who need a spark of hope to make changes.
My biggest complaints against the movie are how they handled setting up Katniss as the face of the revolution. Granted, this isn’t clear until late in book two, but there are hints that the angle was worked from the moment she volunteered. Her Mockingjay pin wasn’t smuggled into the arena but worn openly as a token of her district. Having the tributes from 12 holding hands at the opening ceremony was direction from Cinna, not an impromptu action from Peeta. Small things in the grand scheme, I know, but irritants nonetheless.
And the winner is:
Both are good, but the book is better. Though I appreciate the different view points the movie offered – President Snow, Gale, Seneca Crane – being there as Katniss put pieces together, worked out each situation, and tried so hard to live for herself and her family, even though so many were against her, was much more moving. Her story stays with me far longer than the movie.
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