Time for the second installment in my new Page to Screen Discussion series. The latest movie I’ve watched (where I read the book first) was The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I actually saw it opening night, but I’m giving you all a little time hoping that you were able to see it.
The Movie was released on November 22nd, 2013 and stars Jennifer Lawrence, directed by Francis Lawrence. The book was released September 1, 2009 by Scholastic, written by Suzanne Collins. Here’s some pros and cons of each.
Book cover from Goodreads.com
The Book
Pros: Katniss’s growing animosity toward the Capitol is very prevalent. Her relationship with Peeta seems more strained wich works better (in my opinion) with her character. Better understanding of Katniss’s complacency toward the revolution and how she doesn’t want to be a symbol of it.Cons: First person POV limits the action because the capital perspective is unavailable. Katniss’s cold personality made the capital citizen’s anger at the games less obvious because of the lack of emotional detail.
Movie Poster via MyHungerGames.com
The Movie
Pros: Ability to have scenes of Snow and Plutrarch talking while Katniss is in the games adds a lot to the plot development of the revolution, which is kind of sudden in the book. The scenes of the capital and their clothing is hard to describe in text but the movie did a fantastic job of depicting it.
Cons: The scene depicting Haymitch’s time in the games was cut and this was a scene I really wanted to see. Because the part about her ear being surgically replaced was cut from the first movie, she doesn’t make any excuse for why she can see the forcefields. The painting of Rue that Peeta did was supposed to be better concealed when Katniss entered the training room and it wasn’t which made the capital seem careless and cocky instead of scared.
So, what’s my end opinion? I was very happy with how close to the book the movie stayed. This was my favorite book of the trilogy and I think Jennifer Lawrence did an amazing job. Visually, the movie was great and I think it added a lot to the story to have multiple points of view. Ultimately, I have to stick by my guns. The book was better.
What did you think? I’d love to hear other opinions. Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought.
Until next time, write on.
Taking On a World of Words 