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LIFESTYLES
April 17, 2012
Crossed Sabres
The world will be watching
The Hunger Games makes the transition from page to screen novels. Young adult book franchises such as Harry Potter and Twilight have made especially popular and lucrative transitions to the screen. The Harry Potter movies have earned a total of over $7 billion at the box office. Occasionally, a movie can make a book famous, but in the case of The Hunger Games, as in Harry Potter, the movie will be aimed at an audience already very familiar with the books. “For movies, I think it’s really important that they stay true to the book because that’s why readers want to go and see the movie,” said Rowell, “They’re going to be, like, half the people going to see the movie.” The Hunger Games stayed true to the book for the most part, but the filmmakers did make some N E changes to minor characters E AH and plot points. Kaku thought M Y TB R that although the movie was faithful A to the book in details and appearance, “They missed the main plot of the whole story, how the Capitol is supposed to be the scariest thing in the whole entire world, and how gross and how evil the Hunger Games really are. It just seemed kind of easy for Katniss.” A second film, based on the next book in the series, Catching Fire, is in development. The main actors are signed on to act in the films for all three books. ID
On March 22, a few minutes before midnight, fans waited breathlessly in the movie theater at Ballston Common Mall, where The Hunger Games would shortly be playing. Despite record-breaking ticket sales of $155 million for its opening weekend, The Hunger Games had mixed reviews from fans of the book series upon which it is based. The Hunger Games is a dystopian story about a girl named Katniss Everdeen, who must fight twenty-three other children to the death in a fierce battle for survival on live television. The government that rules her world chooses children to participate in these “Hunger Games” by lottery. When her young sister Prim is chosen, Katniss volunteers to take her place--the first-ever volunteer. Through her participation in the Games, Katniss inadvertently sparks a revolution against the government. The novel, written by Suzanne Collins, was released in 2008 and has spent 80 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The novels Catching Fire and Mockingjay complete the Hunger Games trilogy. The popular books have a base of highly devoted fans. “I think it was seventh grade that I read the first one, and I finished it in about two days. I thought it was one of the best books ever written, so I immediately got the second one when it came out and read that,” said freshman Becca Rowell. Fans of the books had been eagerly anticipating the film adaptation. “I’m really excited for the movie,” said Rowell prior to the movie’s release date March 23. “[The previews] look so awesome! I love the makeup of the Capitol people.” Although all three books in the series are highly violent with many gory deaths, the producers of The Hunger Games were careful to keep violence and gore at a PG-
13 level for the movie’s largely teenage audience. After seeing the movie, sophomore Jennifer Kaku did not like the way the director chose to portray the deaths. “I know that they didn’t want it to be super brutal, but...I couldn’t really understand what was happening.” In the film, Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson plays Peeta Mellark and Liam Hemsworth plays Gale Hawthorne. Lawrence has received positive reviews as Katniss, but some of the casting choices were more controversial. “I think they did really well for Katniss, that is how I imagined her completely,” said Rowell, “I thought Gale should be so much better looking, and I don’t really like the actor who plays Peeta.” Kaku said, “I expected Katniss to be a lot younger. I think [Hutcherson] was okay for Peeta, but I also expected Peeta to look a lot younger. I don’t like Gale in general...I thought [Woody Harrelson playing] Haymitch was a good choice.” Similarly, choosing a director that could bring the book to life was a difficult task; ultimately, Gary Ross fit the bill. Ross, however, has declined to direct future films, despite the fact other recent book-to-film adaptations have been highly successful. At the Academy Awards this year, five films nominated for Best Picture were based on
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Staff Reporter
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Claire Spaulding, ‘15