So I went to see the Hunger Games movie.
It was pretty good with some underlying issues.
The opening has a little ramble at the capital where they’re chattering about how really, the Hunger Games are about bringing everyone together and everyone loves them, so there’s not the same insistence that this is actually how you prevent rebellion and that’s just one of the many excuses they use to justify the games. And then once they finish talking about how everyone loves the games it cuts to Prim sobbing, which was wonderfully done.
Katniss’ actor does an even better job at acting decent. She really sells Katniss as having concern for others. I was expecting Katniss to be more tolerable just because we’d be lacking the internal narration about how everyone else is evil and deserves to die, preferably at her hand, unless they’re a capital guy with power, but she actually comes off as a good person in this. Prim’s less of a nonperson as well – she did well at sobbing and screaming during the many points this was necessary.
The look of the place was nice – I was initially bothered by the fact none of them look properly emaciated, but then, the movie doesn’t make the same extravagant claims about starvation as the book in the first place. They’re not starving but they’re obviously dirt poor, and everything is faded out. I would have liked it to look even more miserable and threadbare, though – as it is it seems like their lives would be okay if only the capital stopped killing their kids every year. But it’s not like the book ever seemed to realize the capital’s wealth was built off the deprivation of everyone else either.
The fence was good too. It’s just a regular electric fence designed to keep people in instead of a long bit about it keeping animals out, and Katniss casually stepping through next to the HIGH VOLTAGE TOUCH AND DIE sign was a good image.
Gale is better. He’s more of an asshole in that he screws up Katniss’ attempt to shoot a deer because he says they shouldn’t sell to peacekeepers, at least not today, so you can see he’s extreme in his anti-capital sentiment to the point he doesn’t like collaboration. But in the other direction, his bit about running away into the woods has him saying he’d take his family instead of sounding like he’d ditch them. So he’s hardline but not exactly selfish.
Also we don’t get the constant NOT MY BOYFRIEND refrain throughout so the implied love triangle works better. Oh, and you see Gale actually being helpful and doing stuff, like when he comes to get Prim after Katniss volunteers.
And they see a hovercraft while they’re out, which helps establish that the capital is everywhere and terrifying, and give a counterpoint to Gale’s otherwise quite convincing claims that they could escape easily.
Instead of the mayor thing, Katniss gets the pin while she’s trading things, and it’s a gift (and no bit about how it’s made of gold and super valuable) so we have random people in the district not being dicks too. And she then gives it to her sister as a good luck charm because Prim is still terrified, and Prim then gives it to Katniss before Katniss leaves.
We get more time spent on the actual assembling for the reaping, more panic from Prim. They use a blood test as everyone signs in. This and other little touches are a good contrast from the otherwise impoverished but normal district.
Effie is…I didn’t have high hopes, and this was wise. I think what I dislike most about her portrayal is that she’s not treated as normal – when we get to the capital itself, we see extravagant outfits, but she’s one of the most extreme, and all the other main characters are quite moderate. Most of them don’t have the painted white face, just minor touches like blue hair or gold eyelids that keep them looking like real people. There’s no real sense that her frivolity and such are examples of the capital at large and not her just being a callous airhead.
We lose all the humanizing bits with her. I’m not sure what her purpose even is in the movie, maybe just to keep an eye on them for the capital.
Katniss is the first volunteer ever for the district, which I dislike. Forget if it was said outright in the book or just that it was unbelievably rare. Sacrificing yourself for your sibling is a big enough deal without people lining up to say how extra-special you are.
I liked Haymitch when he shows up. He was prettier than he should be, but that’s always true with movies, and he made it clear that he was drinking and blowing them off because they were going to die and nothing he or anyone did would change that, so eat, drink, be merry and fuck off. He turns into generic non-alcoholic mentor guy pretty fast, though.
There’s less attention given to the luxury aspect. It’s there but after the first time the cameras stop focusing on it (they remember when showing off the apartment the two get, then forget again). No one’s gorging on food, but that works fine because in the movie starvation seems to be a threat, not a constant companion. Would have liked them to either wonder over it or be repulsed, though. As it is it’s mostly set dressing.
Cinna is still inexplicably BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST but at least he’s better written and makes it clear that he’s doing this just to help her get sponsors, instead of talking about how awesome fashion is at points.
Unlike in the books, the costumes all suck except District 12’s. District 1’s is not complete shit like the rest, but still ridiculous. Oh! And they ditch “synthetic flame” in favor of “fake flame”, thank god. In general the capital just doesn’t live up to its hype – Katniss doesn’t get a dress made out of gemstones, and her outfits in general are…well, not exactly low budget but not that awesome either. (We don’t even get a clear shot of the other tribute’s costumes and most we don’t see at all except at a distance.) Neither are other parts of the capital that impressive. I suppose this is a an inevitable problem you’d run into when dealing with a story where part of the plot is a place where people have a ridiculous costuming budget built in, and it’s definitely a known problem when an author mostly describes the outfits by how they perfectly convey the idea of X or Y thing, because that really does take a lot of talent and effort. Still, where were, say, Phantom Menace sort of ridiculous outfits? I also was disappointed by the fact only the girls got the ridiculous outfits, the boys were all in various colored suits. We even see plenty of weird fashions on the men in the crowds, so why not stick them in frills and stuff?
They’ve retconned out District 4 as a career district, which will help with the future movies. I’m not sure quite how I feel about it – on the one hand, it was a bit odd that we’re told the higher the number the nicer the capital is to them yet District 3 wasn’t a career one, but on the other it was a rare point when there was less of a sense of inevitability, that the career thing was in part just about people deciding to go one way or another, and 3 chose not to try it. Might have been nice to make, say, 6 a career one instead, but I assume they’re making minimal changes.
The training scenes went on and on. Half of it is just that Cato is a violent dick. The reality clip and news bit had a similar issue where everything seemed to be in slow motion. Everyone pauses after every line or midsentence like they’ve forgotten their lines and need a second to remember. I think this was done to try to emulate unscripted/reality shows, but trained commentators are better at babbling fast, so they could have accomplished the same thing by contrasting the chatty capital members with the uncertain, stammering tributes. And there’s no excuse for newscasters talking like they’re concussed. In general, the capital just didn’t seem flashy and fast-paced enough. (They did have the vapid part absolutely nailed, though – the way Ceasar babbled on about how “you’re assured, you’re self-assured, I love that” kind of thing with everyone made me want to shoot him right there.)
Because this isn’t restricted to Katniss’ POV, we see other characters doing things. This helps the narrative, but they introduce some issues of their own, like Snow being concerned about Katniss before she’s even done anything. We also have Snow pointing out that Katniss could have shot the gamemakers and not the apple, which on the one hand is good because it’s obvious, but then again it’s pointing out an obvious plot hole in that shooting the gamemakers is what Katniss should have done. But it’s a lot easier to overlook in the movie where you’re not getting page upon page about how obviously doomed Katniss thinks she is anyway.
(I would have really liked something making it clear that Katniss is chasing to kill kids and struggling with this choice – a mantra about how she has to do this for Prim or something. But the book goes out of its way to keep her quiet when she’s alone throughout this, which I think was worth it – it requires everything she do be clearly shown and ensures there’s no chance of any of the endless awfulness that was her inner monologue appearing.)
The interviews are greatly cut down, which removes a lot of the horribleness. I particularly missed Rue saying that she can run fast so that’ll help. (Rue could also have looked more starving and pathetic – she’s apparently thirteen, and certainly within the size range twelve year olds have, but we don’t get in hammered in how frail and obviously doomed she is and how especially awful it is the games force twelve year olds like her into this.) Also the sexualization of the tributes is cut out – I’d make a comment here about how turns out the real capital turns out far more squeamish about sex than violence, but actually the violence was correspondingly toned down (though not to equivalent levels) so you end up with the same ratios as the book. So I guess it was pretty good at portraying us all and/or just a perfect product of its time and place.
There’s an unpleasant scene where Haymitch compliments Katniss’ dress then turns to Effie and says that of course he didn’t mean Effie’s, which I guess is meant to be hilarious.
There’s less super-woobie Peeta – Katniss still flips out over him confessing on TV, but it doesn’t lead to his hands being slashed up.
Katniss throughout shows more fear, which is good, if a bit repetitive in some points.
One of the things I noticed is that things are diverse – all the areas have a range of ethnicities. While this does lack the interesting speculation about just how shallow their gene pool is, I think visually it reinforces the sense they’re us. Also, making District 11 not the district for black people was good, particularly given they end up rioting. (I still find it weird she made District 11 be a riff off oppressed black slave farm workers and not our current Mexican slave farm workers, but I think having that in the movie would just have had similar bad implications for the riot. People are even more irrational about Mexicans than Muslims. You can at least follow the chain of logic where terrorists are Muslim therefore all Muslims are terrorists. How are the Mexicans stealing our jobs though laziness?)
The cornucopia looks lame and not like a cornucopia at all, but it’s necessary they do that, because they need a big flat area for the climatic fight scene to involve more of Cato kicking Katniss’ ass and needing Peeta to help her so…huh, yeah it was kind of a poor decision. They could at least have made it pretend solid gold.
Because we lack inner monologue, we don’t have Katniss insisting that the only reason Peeta was shaking his head about her suicide run for the bow is because he’s obviously evil, and going on just their actions without her inner monologue the scene looks perfectly sane.
The cornucopia scene, like all of the violence, was…unfocused. I’m not sure what to think about that. I’m not really a gore fan so I appreciated the decision on a watchability level. On the other hand, it really does remove a lot of the condemnation. I was considering if it’s just that I’m jaded and the book’s intended audience would have a stronger reaction, but then I remembered I’ve always been on the far end of bad reactions to violence among any of my peers. I’d have flinched more when I was younger, but it really was done to show just the minimum needed to get the idea across coherently. The only gruesome things are Glimmer’s death and Cato at the end, and Cato comes off as pretty fake – it’s hard to believe you’d be talking coherently and choking someone while blood is spewing from your mouth.
And the unfocused/quick cut nature makes it hard to see what’s actually going on. The book manages to portray it as chaos while still being clear about what’s actually going on, kids fighting over supplies, while here the cameraman apparently just starts juggling it. And instead of Katniss wrestling with another kid over the backpack she goes for it and he tries to kill her.
We do get a great scene after this in which Katniss bumps into another kid (the redhead) and the two just run in opposite directions. In general, the scenes where there’s acting were far better at getting a reaction from me than the violence. Following this, Katniss immediately gets water and then willingly sets out to just walk as far away as she can. The fire is not boredom-induced but because she’s nearly wandered off the set.
About the set – we regularly cut to the gamemakers, who seem to have incredible power over the environment. The sky is covered in a grid somehow, and they seem to be able to make things materialize at will. (The grid sky was good because it let them avoid the nonsensical bit about flying up a giant screen, even if it’s not clear what the hell it is, and also for the delicious touch of oppression in the fact they can’t even just look up at the stars.) There’s fridge logic problems if I think about it – you have this much power and you’re using it to make a tree fall across her path? Surely you can be more interesting about these games than just a forest… – but that’s something that occurs on reflection.
Oddly, despite the super control of the set, we finally see some sign of the cameras, with Katniss noticing one inside a tree.
The girl who sets a fire the first night is killed quickly in this, and I like a lot of what little we see of the trained kids. You can sort of see how things might end up like this. Cato is the clear leader, but he’s actually decent at it. When they find the girl Cato hands over the sword to his psycho female partner who wants a kill so much more, and they get along decently despite their failure to get Katniss after she climbs the tree. You can sort of picture the two districts that train kids ending up with a gentlemen’s agreement type thing where they work together to eliminate the competition, ensuring that one of their districts usually wins. After all, directly competing would mean they’d probably kill each other off and make it more likely someone else would win. (And the fact 4’s been retconned out helps here, because it means the trained pack is smaller and there’s only two districts involved – three is more unstable because there’s more chance for an alliance to kill off one.) The bit where Cato and Clove are sleeping together under Katniss’ tree is cute. Is there any Cato and Clove win the games fic? The capital would have less reason to renege on the two winners thing when they’re winners they want.
Peeta, oddly, suffers in his portrayal because he says he’s leading them to Katniss…while he seems to be leading them to Katniss. They happen to miss the fact she’s in a tree and walk by, but that isn’t Peeta’s doing. While we can assume it’s a plot and we do see him first suggest leaving Katniss treed and waiting for her to come down and then later telling her to run, it’s not clear what the hell he was thinking originally when he did appear to be walking them toward her. Maybe he just has a grossly inflated belief in her ability to kill them all. He’ll take one, she gets the other three…
The games in general are greatly sped up, which improves so much while eliminating the question of why anyone’s watching such a boring thing. Between that and the lack of monologue explaining her actions, you have things like after being burned Katniss runs right into the water, so we never have her sitting there trying to decide if it’s a good idea to put cold water on her leg for ten minutes. I think stories would benefit from applying this logic more and asking how much they’re relying on internal monologue to explain why a character isn’t doing something obvious instead of just having them do the obvious. We also lose Katniss’ “character flaw” of being shit at medicine, which not only removes her being an absolute moron half the time but also makes it less irritating to have her end up in that role.
Which, now that I write it, is an incredibly odd thing to think when the author of the book is supposed to be a screenwriter. I can only guess that she was so sick of not being allowed to use internal monologue in scripts that she uses it every chance she gets.
The wasp scene was improved, possibly just because of the same issue. Katniss only finds out about the wasps in the morning, so she doesn’t chose to get stung because she wants a better chance of the torture wasps killing the other kids. We also get an expository scene that does establish that trackerjackers is the capital’s official term, but it makes it sound like they were invented for the games, so that both justifies the absurd name and covers the plot hole of why the hell would you make the wasps for anything else? It also tones down the deadliness so that it’s no longer primarily fatal with horrible hallucinations if you’re lucky and survive. Instead, it’s horrible hallucinations with death if you get a lot of stings and are unlucky.
The Rue scene makes so much more sense and also works so much better. Rue is in a net as bait. Katniss cuts her loose and, as part of her being a far better character in this, hugs her in relief, and then the boy appears. Rue getting hit was probably accidental because Katniss was a moving target at the time. The spear goes in higher up so she just bleeds out. We still have the perfect victim problem, but it’s not as jarring when all the deaths are handled with kid gloves, and we get more of a focus on Katniss breaking down over it instead of the quiet depression. Also, no special bread. Instead, Katniss does the same mourning gesture of her district, and then District 11 riots. Yay rioting! Also, this does a better job of selling why Katniss is a big deal and why Snow cares – they aren’t rioting because Katniss is perfect but because Katniss is refusing to go along with the fiction that what happened to Rue is okay, and they’re upset about <i>Rue’s</i> death.
She then finds Peeta – his camouflage is far too perfect, but hey, movie. His wound is less of a disaster and Katniss isn’t incompetent and spitting into it.
The “star-crossed lovers” thing is vastly improved, mostly because Movie Peeta doesn’t keep making comments about how since they’re in love she should kiss him. Instead, Katniss initiates the kissing – it’s far easier to see how Peeta would take this as actually in love despite being there for the earlier conversations where Haymitch is telling Katniss to play along for sponsors. And he understands that loving someone for ages and never doing anything is at best pretty cowardly and regrets this, which makes it clear he didn’t plot this out and gets rid of the book’s issue where he seems to be trying to back her into a corner where she can’t turn him down. He still doesn’t want Katniss to get the medicine, but he doesn’t threaten to get himself killed to force her to stay. He also doesn’t pitch any of the fits he does about Katniss being the competent hunter and how he can totally take care of himself, and we entirely skip the irrational Katniss screaming at him about eating cheese scene.
Really, the only issue with Peeta is the bread scene is incoherent, and it at least gets across the basic thing where Peeta had bread and Katniss, presumably, wanted it, and he throws it on the ground instead of into the pigpen so she can get it, and that for whatever reason this was a huge deal to her.
…Thresh is a scary black man. I know there’s much hate of racebending, but they really, really should have changed his race. Someone else could be black. Maybe the 3 kid with the mines. I don’t think reprogramming mines is a stereotype for them. And then Thresh could be the Asian kid.
The wolves actually work, mostly because they’re just freaky giant dogs and not dead humawolf tributes that walk on their hind legs and have razor claws. But we miss out on the squick of them being representations of the dead tributes, and we don’t have the setup of the original book that I liked, where they’re at the cornucopia area wondering where Cato is and Cato runs past them because the wolves are on his heels. (Considering the length of the movie they might have felt that was too complex to get across as quickly, but frankly, they could have cut almost every one of the behind-the-scenes bits with the gamemakers for space if they needed time. They were basically just “people going to do a thing! back to Katniss where you see a thing actually happen!”)
There’s an extended fight on top of the cornucopia. It removes the period of shared desperation to escape the dogs in favor of them immediately out of reach and shifting straight to king of the mountain. Peeta is instrumental in the fight. This does lose Peeta the damsel in distress, but eh, he doesn’t do that great and Katniss is steadfastly competent throughout the movie already without constant reminders that she’s broken emotionally, so Peeta can help out for a bit.
Cato gets a bit of humanization before getting shot, which is very nice, about how he’s dead already and how he can at least kill Peeta because that’s all he knows how to do, etc. I would have liked even more instead of his ramble getting cut off by an arrow to the hand, but hey. He’s also immediately mercy-killed by Katniss.
My main objection is that they both make it out pretty uninjured – I’d have liked them to look more battered, even if they’ve decided against Peeta’s leg actually getting mangled beyond repair. I can accept they stay Hollywood pretty, but at least slather them with blood.
And the berry scene makes it less obvious Katniss is playing chicken with the capital, which in turn makes her “no I wasn’t being rebellious your honor I just couldn’t live without him” thing actually sound plausible.
Oh, and there’s a nice scene with the gamemaker ending up locked in a room with just a chalice fulled with nightlock berries by Snow. Earlier Snow makes a good comment about how he quite likes the guy…so Snow would prefer the guy doesn’t screw up (and make Snow kill him). I like Snow. He has a lot of great lines.
And at the end Katniss is talking about how she wants to just forget everything absolutely everything that just happened and never think of it again, and Peeta isn’t happy with the everything but doesn’t do his book tantrum followed by guilting her and then getting her to go back to acting for the cameras. He takes it great, really, especially when he really has no clues to suspect the possibility she might have been acting the way book Peeta did. You’re just left with the usual love triangle setup of Peeta really cares about her and Katniss isn’t sure what she should do.
What the movie doesn’t do a good job with is themes. If you’ve been following the ad campaign, which apparently didn’t get the memo that the capital are the bad guys, you may have already guessed this might be an issue. It’s nowhere near as cringeworthy as the YAY HUNGER GAMES ads, just bland.
The opening section is excellent. You can feel the oppression. Everyone’s forced to line up and take part in this and pretend they’re not scared and upset, Prim keeps crying. When Katniss tries to run to Prim and they’re holding her back until she shouts she’ll volunteer, and then they have to drag Prim away screaming away instead… Awful. And the peacekeepers are there every second to keep pushing Katniss along despite the fiction this is voluntary and a great honor.
The rest of it’s just a movie. Rue isn’t so helpless and even pulls a trick on Cato during training, you see the redhaired girl excelling at some of the non-fighting training stations, and the focus is just on living through this, not the fact that none of this has to happen. There’s still the flash of this-isn’t-right with Rue, but it’s pretty minor. I suppose it can just be assumed that we’re all in agreement that childmurder games are wrong, but I liked how the book harped on this even if it never had Katniss actually do anything much regarding it. As I said, most of the violence is minimized, so it’s not really unpleasant to watch, although the actresses do a great job with conveying how miserable and/or terrified they are at various points. The capital isn’t even particularly rich and decadent, they’re mostly just weird.
The Hunger Games never actually involve hunger. Even Katniss blowing up the food isn’t well explained, and we see the trained kids skewering animals with their knives. No one ever gets thin or desperate – the red haired girl dies with a perfect movie face, no sign of gauntness at all. The districts don’t seem to be starving and certainly none of the kids show any sign of malnourishment. Strictly speaking, this is only a naming flaw, the story itself doesn’t require starvation, but the starvation really added to the misery and oppression. And without the starvation, the games become the only real oppression of the districts.
So it works fine as a movie, and I appreciated the nicer characters and particularly appreciated the romance cleanup, and I love how clear it always is why Katniss is doing whatever she’s doing. I just wish it’d had a harder message behind it. The opening seemed like that was what we would be getting, but then we veered off.
Yay! I don’t have to feel bad for really wanting to see this. I mean, I saw the trailers and was so hyped, and I kinda wanted this to be bad so I could hate it. At least when I go with my friends I won’t be sitting there muttering under my breath about how horrible Peeta is. Of course, most of them haven’t read the books. :P
And your part about reassembling mines not being a stereotype was laugh out loud funny. :D
Quiz your friends about how well they could follow the story! It’s very close to the books so nothing was ever really a surprise to me, and I’m curious how it holds up to people who don’t know each plot point.
I definitely will. Some of them did read it and thought it was the best thing ever, some wanted to borrow my books, and one doesn’t want to read it at all. I think most people I know like it because the rest of YA is so bad. I like Sarah Dessen’s and Laurie Halse Anderson’s books cause they tackle difficult topics and it works, but most of it is just insipid romance, so it’s kind of a take what you can get. Most people I’ve talked to loved the first book and thought the series went down in quality, which I moderately agree with, as the first was definitely the least worst.
It makes me want to dig up older YA books. I don’t remember them being so terrible, but yeah, the ones I’m seeing now have made the first book look great.
I know a lot of people here dislike Harry Potter, but I loved it and still do. I read the first book the summer before first grade so it was a big part of my childhood. I mean, there are definitely some issues, but even if you don’t like the story, it’s still one of the best books for kids/teens. I read adult fiction and non fiction mostly just cause I hate YA. I did like the Giver, Uglies and Percy Jackson. That’s really all I can think of right now, besides the stuff I mentioned above.
I don’t get that annoyed when people say they liked the first book, because I get it. It’s exciting, and it feels nice to have a female character who at least seems like she acts for herself. When people say they liked Mockingjay I just don’t get it. When I was a huge fan of the series I disliked Mockingjay.
With Harry Potter, the thing it did well was a very kid’s book thing, the setup and reversal mystery. She was really great with those and each of the first four books gets better and better. It’s a great first book for kids. It just doesn’t stand up to claims about its adult-book quality worldbuilding or characterization or larger plot.
I agree, to some extent. The third book is definitely my favorite because of the plot. I liked most of the worldbuilding because of the extent of the wizarding world. But yeah, I could talk for a while about the underlying gender issues.
I think it’s better called description than worldbuilding. She was great at description, and when she’s talking about stuff she makes it sounds awesome. It was the perfect canon for fanfic. But the bits never fit together well. Even in the first book, it’s contradictory over the issue of if wizards live alongside us and just keep their nature secret and have special wizard-only areas, or if they’re completely isolated and never even see the muggle world. Both make for great scenes, but they’re a headache to reconcile.
Oh yeah, I remember a friend of mine telling me about a great new book she was reading and almost through with when we were little and no one else had heard of it yet, and she was now going to make me play a game where I would be Harry and she would be Hedwig and we would go fight the evil Snape before he got the philosopher’s stone.
Ok, so most of my friends thought that the movie didn’t provide enough backstory for those who didn’t read the book to understand the plot.
Hm. Probably true. I knew everything that was coming, so it’s hard to tell.
It was definitely less disjointed than the first Harry Potter movie, though.
The worst part of the movie experience – for me, at least – was when Glimmer was dying (pretty horrifically, for this movie) and everyone around me was all “OOH BITCH SUCK ON THAT” and I was just left wondering how people could miss the point so badly.
The interesting part is that her death was actually incredibly tame compared to what’s described in the book. I guess because they have to keep her at least somewhat pretty, so the wounds aren’t as disfiguring. They cut out most of the trippiness from Katniss’ hallucinations in general, though that could have been a rating issue because some of that stuff was pretty nightmarish (and probably would have shot their special effects costs through the roof as well).
It’s weird in that they keep her death as gruesome in comparison to the other deaths, though. The other death closeups are of normal-looking people splashed red.
Maybe they decided it was okay to be more graphic because her death was caused by “natural causes” instead of her getting her throat cut by one of the other tributes?
It might be a weird rating thing based on that. I know the Sixth Sense got its low rating because none of the gruesomely injured dead kid ghosts were actually killed on screen.
Sadly, I think that was the point.
At my screening an old lady laughed like a hyena when Katniss dropped the tracker-jackers’ nest.
This is about what I was expecting. I do have to wonder how they’ll be handling Katniss’ decline into insanity and all the weird shit in the third book that was confusing even with her turning to the audience and explaining it, but I expected this to be a pretty significant improvement on the books.
I’ve been hemming and hawing about seeing it… on one hand, I hate it and want it to go away. On the other, I feel kind of obligated to and I honestly think it would be entertaining for the reasons you outlined.
Also, at least someone else picked up on this:
I imagine that they’ll just edit away most of her wandering around and keep only the coherent insane scenes. And judging from this book they’ll cut down the timeline so she’s no longer moping around for weeks on end each time. My guess is 13 will be consistently, cacklingly evil the whole time, they’ll immediately shove Katniss into the front lines, but she’ll survive and make it through all the way to Snow’s palace, and the bombs are meant to take her out as well. Then she just needs to actually explain why she’s killing Coin either then or, if they need to pad things, during her trial, which will actually be shown and in which she’ll actually participate.
It’s not that you can’t have a story with Mockingjay’s basic plot. It’s that the author fucked up every part of it.
Good points, I remember seeing the Roman gladiator esque outfits of one of the districts (a career, I assume) and I get the whole Panem-Rome reference, but isn’t it meant to be related to their main industry contributions? So… that district produces mercenaries? Well… that wouldn’t be that bad. A coupla of costumes just looked bizarre though.
Actually I think they were 2 so that’s the district that in the last book is where the peacekeeper guys come from. I think it was mostly for the Rome thing and trying to have a moderately non-stupid outfit, though – it’s not their official purpose.
I’m in agreement with pretty much all you said here. I did think that the whole suicide threat moment at the end didn’t feel well set up – it was kind of just “oh, you can kill me, it’s okay” “NO LET’S BOTH KILL OURSELVES” without the part where the point of the thing is to defy the Capitol being properly front and center. Which, on the one hand, makes it more believable for them to claim they were just blinded by love and couldn’t live without each other, but on the other hand fails to make it feel like anyone should find it particularly significant. My boyfriend, who hasn’t read the books or your reviews, actually took that scene as just being them playing up the star-crossed lovers thing for the cameras in the hope the sponsors would make them change their minds; he didn’t read it as them actually intending to kill themselves at all.
I also felt Rue could have used a bit more development and dialogue – Katniss finding out things may be even worse in District 11 than her home district could have been a nice moment, and like you mentioned, the emphasis on the fact she’s a twelve-year-old with no real fighting chance wasn’t really there at all.
Cinna… I really wanted there to be more in the way of showing his distaste for the Games, as opposed to his thinking Katniss is so wonderful and brave that he hopes she wins. Maybe I’m not remembering something.
Well, honestly, it was never too defiant. The book made it clearer they were playing chicken with the capital instead of trying to get sympathy, but you had the plot hole that playing chicken with the capital should ensure they won’t do what you want. And it’s happening so fast the sponsors don’t have time to react, so it was all down to the guy in charge.
Now that you mention it, the dialogue allotment in the book is odd. We spend a lot of time before the games and the meaningful silences are really dragged out. But mostly they seem to have been going for the minimum and relying on actions – except when they had commentators explaining everything or gamemakers chattering with each other.
More with Rue would really have helped. Particularly explaining why she was helping Katniss, and maybe why she wasn’t hanging out with Thresh. It just occurred to me that they could have split up because he was going to stick to the field area but told her she’d be safer staying in the forest. And that would then be foreshadowing for Thresh’s later appearance, instead of it coming out of nowhere.
Cinna at least seemed to be focusing just on helping her because he realizes the games suck and she’s in a bad position, instead of helping her and also showing off his fabulous designs. But now that you bring him up, that’s not really something that matters. If he does a great job, he’s just making it so his kid lives instead of another kid, not actually helping anyone. …which brings up the possibility he’s helping her because he thinks the trained kids don’t count as kids and he’s hoping she’ll win instead of them, in which case his behavior makes sense at the cost of being awful.
I was super surprised at how good the movie was. My nephew convinced me to see it with him and I went in all -_- and then I walked out all D= EMOTIONS ELICITED!
Honestly I’m even considering seeing it again with my girlfriend.
It’s the magic of acting!
There was apparently some information on the various districts released on a promotional wesbsite. Which I can’t figure out how to navigate, but whatever, you can read it on the wiki: http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Districts
This country makes no sense. Where the fuck do they get all of their raw materials that are not coal, stone, or plants? And whose idea was it to devote an entire district to processing grain?
Also they were apparently considering naming Foxface Marissa or Melanie.
Yeah, I heard about that over on ffa. I can’t figure out where they’re getting all the metal. Unless they’ve completely switched over to plastics, which would at least explain why everything is so flammable in the third book, and people just think it’s metal because god I don’t even know.
It’s particularly annoying because for god’s sake, she can only have twelve industries total, you should want them to be as broad as possible. Who the hell is canning things? Why is there no district in charge of just processing all the stuff the others produce? We know 12 doesn’t process the coal. 4 presumably doesn’t process fish given their tributes only know how to hunt it. Rue never mentioned that you can get a factory job if climbing trees at night doesn’t sound like fun. Where are they getting highly processed food like chocolate and syrup?
And what the hell is “transportation”? How do you have a district devoted to transportation? There’s already 3 for making cars and apparently 2 as a backup military producer. You wouldn’t need an entire district just to keep the few trains running. What is 6 doing with their time, researching teleportation?
I wish we’d gotten a real name for her. Marissa is pretty and I just hate going along with Katniss.
It really makes it look like there has to be some factory work done in the Capitol itself and they’re not all hairdressers and telephone sanitizers over there. But that still doesn’t solve the metal problem, and you can’t have any of the dirtier kinds of processing there, and oh who am I kidding I’m only saying any of this because I wanted to make the Hitchhikers joke.
The transportation thing is so painfully stupid it almost seems like it has to be a cover for something. But then really it’s too stupid even for that.
Well, they already have two districts that have other real industries, given Katniss didn’t seem to have any clue where peacekeepers came from. So it doesn’t seem like they’d need more, but then again, there’s precedent. Maybe all the districts are secretly doing some secondary job! Only 12 just mines coal. And that’s why it’s tiny and no one cares about it, it’s not secretly in charge of something else like the rest.
I really wonder who does anything much in the capital. Everyone we meet is either super competent or an idiot. Who are their doctors? Who does the practical parts of designing the games? Where are the labs churning out genetically engineered everythings? Who’s in charge of boring administrative stuff like food distribution? How do they process all the waste they must generate? They can’t be nothing but vapid “idea people” because they’d be overrun. They don’t even have the idea they’re inherently more worthy to be in charge like our aristocracies always get which slows their servants down a bit, the district people seem to just disdain them.
I had an issue with them not casting Madge. I thought it was stupid how Katniss buys the Mockingjay pin for Prim and then Prim ends up giving it back to her.
I also imagined the Tracker Jackers to be bigger. I don’t remember if it said they were big in the book but I guess I just always thought they were like cockroach size. It would have been a lot scarier anyway.
The ending was exceptionally better than it was in the book. I hated the Tribute-wolf thing, and I thought it was witty to have the bowl of Nightlock sitting on the table for the Gamemaker.
Overall the casting was okay. I love Elizabeth Banks, and I thought she was a perfect Effie, even if Effie was kind of a waste of space. I was surprised at Cinna and Portia both being black (I guess a lot of people had an issue with that). I thought it was unexpected, but nice. I had an issue with Portia though. I guess I expected her to look more normal, like Cinna.
I imagined Gale to be prettier, and manlier. I imagined Peeta to be blonder. I thought Cato should’ve been bigger and scarier. I at first wasn’t content with Katniss, because Jennifer Lawrence was mediocre in X-Men, and then I went to the movie. Thresh and Foxface were perfect, because they both fit the description in the book. I thought Rue smiled too much, especially given the circumstances. I had the biggest issue with Glimmer. In the book she was sexy, but in the movie she was just too cute. Clove on the other hand was perfect. (Everyone in the theatre clapped when she died :D)
Overall I was impressed with the movie, but there were just some things that were overlooked. A few of my friends have said that they didn’t like the movie at all because of all the things they omitted, but I thought it was good. A hell of a lot better than the Twilight movies at least.
Madge didn’t end up mattering, though. She’s given a bit of attention in the second book that never goes anywhere and ends up gone by the third. It makes sense to cut her out.
I think the wasps were always supposed to be around regular wasp size, because if they were huge they’d be more easily avoided.
Kept hearing how the movie is better than the books in a few ways, so I might watch it when it comes in DVD. I had to chuckle over your mention of Snow as I have a soft spot for Donald Sutherland, haha. Slowing reading the book from my phone at the moment and I think I’m getting to his introduction.
I just saw it with my brother, who hasn’t been exposed to my irate rants about this series. Imagine my delight when, while discussing the film afterward, he observed that Peeta was a creepy, unappealing stalker. I do agree that the romance was dealt with better in this book, but he’s still Peeta.
I personally loved this movie, if only because it met my expectation of a film conveying the plot better. Everyone was far more sympathetic, with the sad exception of Effie. Really, the only moments that were teeth-gnashingly frustrating were bookcanon that could surely never be altered lest the fans descend in an angry swarm.
Brother brought up a good point, though, and I think you touched on this as well: the movie really didn’t make it clear how awful the games were, but instead made them something people watch and enjoy. I wonder if the fandom recongizes The Capitol in themselves, or if it’ll take the Tomato in the Mirror Surprise that is Mockingjay to get the point across. (And even then, people don’t get it.)
I wonder if the fandom recongizes The Capitol in themselves, or if it’ll take the Tomato in the Mirror Surprise that is Mockingjay to get the point across.
They don’t and they’re not going to. I saw a Hunger Games map recently that hit me with sudden blinding rage because it stuck the two collaborator districts and the capital on the east coast while saying that the districts stood in for the present structure of America.
Because it’s so fucking hard to be a red state getting subsidized by blue state tax dollars for all the federal programs they keep taking advantage of while trying to destroy for everyone, and that’s exactly like living in a dictatorship with murder games.
Ew, really? Besides, applying politics to the book’s message stops being wise when you stop and notice how confused the allusions really are. It’s like the Iraq War meets reality television! Except for the part where the contestants aren’t volunteers the way they would be for either of those things, so we’ll make allusions to Theseus and the Minotaur! But, er, wait, no, that didn’t have any fighting elements, so it’s like they’re gladiators, so we’ll give all the Capitol people a vaguely Roman veneer! But, hey, can’t forget the cultural commentary, so let’s have them dress in the most outlandish fashions possible! Yeah, this is where comparisons get lost in a messy, ugly snarl and die.
Ugh, ugh, ugh. I don’t antagonize my friends who like the books, but I today I had to make a comment. We were on the Seventeen Magazine website and they had a quiz called “How Would You Win The Hunger Games”, and I said something along the lines of, “Oh yay! Let’s figure out how we’d murder other children!” I know that’s not exactly the same thing as what you’re talking about, but the fact that people really don’t recognize that we’re taking enjoyment from the idea of the games. I’m not really explaining it well, but so much stuff I’ve been seeing is all about making the situation seem enjoyable, almost.
It’s because everyone sees themselves as the oppressed tributes forced into this, so how can they be condemned for anything?
It’s not even that. People don’t even see the oppression at all – they just demonize and dehumanize everyone else in the games. Or they’re like, “Ok! I’d totally win for my district by hiding in trees and shooting at people!” (which was the gist of our quiz result). I feel like people don’t even think about how horrible the situation would be, and we’re just becoming another Capitol audience.
I know what you mean. It’s totally morally different than the Capital because this is a made up story about made up people, but really, do we have to so hyped about validating the bad social commentary that almost appears in the story?
Was so glad to see you reviewed this! For the most part I agree with your review, especially on the romance bit. Much, much better than in the book.
I knew the movie was going to be lightyears better than the book, just on account of the fact that all of Katniss’s narration is cleaned out.
The bread-flash-bits were… Odd, I though. Objectively, they made little sense to me — and when I looked over at my dad, who had gone with me, I could tell he was really quite confused. I felt that could have been extended, could have been more clear. Otherwise, though, I was really, really a fan of how Katniss’s Life Story was spliced throughout the film (especially the mine explosion during her hallucination & her interaction with her mother following it.)
I have to politely DISAGREE SO HARD with you on the cornucopia. I thought it was fantastically badass and totalitarian looking! Aesthetically, I think it was great for The Oppressive Hunger Games and went along really nicely with the grid-sky.
I’m also surprised you didn’t call Middle School Gym Class Games on the Career tributes’ relationship throughout the games. I think it’s perfectly logical for them to team up to take out the competition, but… With two different districts, there’s not a guarantee that your district will come out victorious, and so I felt their dynamics were really off. This really loud, really exuberant friendliness just didn’t make sense in the context of the Child Murder Games! Especially considering just how frightening Cato was, snapping the neck of the boy guarding their food with only his bare hands!
But, God, on a petty, vicious, and unhealthily overwhelming level, this hype is making me so ANGRY. ESPECIALLY the tremendous focus on how OMG HAWT PEETA AND GALE ARE!!!!1111!!!!!!1 Obviously it’s a given that that’s going to happen, but… Don’t you just find it ironic that the hype that’s come with this new franchise (by which I mean, actual books in Barnes & Noble called ‘The Hotties of The Hunger Games’) is supporting exactly what these books are supposedly trying to make fun of? This sex & beauty obsession that the American media so often succumbs to?
I also felt they could have done with more Peacekeepers. They were lacking in numbers to me, which took away from the Oppressive Government DON’T YOU DARE RIOT I’M LOOKING AT YOU DISTRICT ELEVEN vibe.
I wonder if that was intentional, though? That the districts have the numbers on their side, even though one on one the peacekeepers are stronger. So that while they can call in their extra enforcers to 11 to suppress the riot, if every district rioted…
It’s about what sort of story it is, though. It detracted from the sense the government was unbeatable and would need to be taken out some other way, but in the books it turns out they aren’t and they’re defeated by the usual slog of war.
The cornucopia looked very totalitarian, but it’s supposed to look enticing. I feel like if they were just going for another scoop of oppression, they should have dropped the cornucopia idea entirely.
The trained kids I feel worked – it’s not the most likely way for things to work out, but it’s one possible way, and it seemed a bit exaggerated which I thought was a sign they were under more stress than they were letting on. I don’t know how much of that was the intent, of course, so I could be reading things into it that weren’t there.
Don’t you just find it ironic that the hype that’s come with this new franchise (by which I mean, actual books in Barnes & Noble called ‘The Hotties of The Hunger Games’) is supporting exactly what these books are supposedly trying to make fun of? This sex & beauty obsession that the American media so often succumbs to?
It’s an irony I found present in the books, though they were somewhat better about it. I was hoping the movie would improve things, but it seems like you can’t expect movies to have uncomfortable messages these days.
I just
I found that an odd way for stress to manifest itself. Granted, I’ve never been tossed head first into a Murder Death Bloodbath of 24, BUT
I just felt really that the Career kids were set up to be dehumanized bullies
I personally read it as them being “dehumanized” in the sense of having had their humanity stripped from them by the Districts they grew up in. During the training scenes they did come off as plain high school bullies amped up to eleven. But in the arena, there was this weird kind of psychotic almost-innocence to the way they behaved that made me think, “Jesus, these are some deeply broken people.”
I guess you’ve been sseing everything I’ve said on tumblr.
I asked my dad what he thought and he immediately pointed out the problem with the world-building, where the Districts we see clearly aren’t enough to provide the raw materials for the sort of lifestyle the Capitol has. He also said that the Capitol people looked too alien when they ought to be a recognizable reflection of upper class Americans, and I added to that that’s it’s especially weird not to have that connection in theater setting where you’ve got people munching popcorn and rooting for their favorites to murder everyone else, just like Gale talked about (I thought the shot of him sitting out in the forest refusing to watch was a nice touch, and made me really like – especially in comparison to Peeta “wave at all the nice capitol people” Mellark)
I added to that that’s it’s especially weird not to have that connection in theater setting where you’ve got people munching popcorn and rooting for their favorites to murder everyone else
Oh, that would have been such a good scene! Once everyone’s settled in and watched, say, the initial bloodbath over supplies, cut to people at the capital staring at a screen, mechanically shoveling popcorn into their mouths.
Gale’s whole subplot was great. His revolutionary optimism that if everyone just stops watching that’ll…do something somehow, and then how he and Katniss’ family are pulled toward watching just because they want to know she’s still alive. Maybe they’ll even handle his going evil better than the books do.
I really like the popcorn idea too! That would have been a very strong and effective scene. I thought a large miss in the series, including the propaganda, was never seeing the reactions of the viewer.
Goodness I loved Gale in the movie. I really, really did love him as a confused, blind teenager — and that shot of him out on the hillside. I TEARED UP. I AM AN INFANT AND I TEARED UP.
But on the other hand, I live Peeta’s reaction to this situation, too — a smart reaction, I think. Awestruck and bubbly and likable.
Because
you know
his life depended on it.
Yeah see that would be fine except for how aggravating it makes the rooftop scene and all of the characters in the later books insisting that he is an awesome person with morals and principles and stuff.
I haven’t seen the movie yet. It seems they fixed some of the problems and continuity.
I can only guess that she was so sick of not being allowed to use internal monologue in scripts that she uses it every chance she gets.
Collins wrote for Clarissa Explains it All, which is a show about a teenage girl’s internal monologue. My guess she loves writing from first person POV.
the focus is just on living through this, not the fact that none of this has to happen.
They didn’t fix my biggest complaint about the first book combined with the careers were evil killing machines. Are you actually evil if you are willing to kill to survive? Isn’t every kill in the arena self defense? Some questions I thought would be asked by the book but no moral grey ever appeared.
I did have a friend who saw the movie who didn’t read the books. I think she liked Effie. These were some of her non-book-reading impressions:
1) She loved Katniss and thought of her as not willing to kill. All of her kills were justified. She also thinks I am horrible person for hating her.
2) Peeta does not fight in the cornucopia. (I thought that was unclear in the books?? Peeta had bruises and it stated he was handy with a knife?? No campfire girl either, it is clear he didn’t kill.)
3) She saw Peeta as useless and pathetic. She couldn’t understand how Katniss could end up with Peeta over Gale.
4) Katniss’s specialness was already being strongly stated. Not just her volunteering but the gamemakers actively make Katniss the star. (Katniss’s specialness another area of my hate.)
5) There was very large stress on the elements killing most of them. So the game was framed as the evil trained kids who were willing to kill hunting the rest just hoping for survival. (This is how the book is too but I didn’t see it being stressed as much.)
6) The evil kids are presented as vicious killers and ‘already dead’ from their training. She didn’t care that they died nor have sympathy that their training was reflective of a society with a child death game.
Well, Movie Katniss does try to walk out of the arena, which is a plus for her. But otherwise, yeah, it’s avoiding the moral questions of the premise in favor of designating one group as evil and okay to kill. Which, well, you can’t exactly expect the movie to be more radical than the book, and particularly not these days.
Since I can’t unread the book, I thought a non book readers impressions were interesting. You mentioned that Peeta isn’t as much a damsel in distress but she still saw him as useless and weak. My friend has also already bought in to Katniss’s specialness so the movies should pan out well for her. From what you wrote, it seems the careers got a miniscule amount of humanizing with Cato claiming he’s already dead. I didn’t realize it was so little since that is exactly what my friend said to me about the careers. I guess in the story Collins created and for my friend, that amount of humanizing is enough. Stepping on soap box, why couldn’t the careers just have been well-trained methodical combatants who saw the Hunger Games as honorable? So many cultures have thought of a warrior’s death as noble. Even that it is nobler to die in the battlefield than fight and run away. They could’ve simply been skilled gladiators who create a gentleman’s agreement to pick off the weak and then break apart to fight their worthy competitors. Or just kids trained by parents who want to give them the best chance to survive. You could still throw in one psycho killer just for fun, stepping off my soap box.
Anyway, you mentioned that maybe the movies will handle Gale going evil better, I haven’t read all of your posts just wondering what you mean. I know I was supposed to think Gale was evil but I personally didn’t connect with that idea. I was focused on my hatred for Katniss and he seemed more reasonable than her. I did read what you said about the Nut and it seemed you didn’t think of Gale as evil to want to suffocate the people inside – I agree. I thought, first just leave them in Nut and second, that avoiding a potential firefight is a legitimate concern when the Capitol has super science. Katniss’s hypocrisy about Gale’s vengeance also got on my nerves.
The lack of sympathy is a deliberate thing, it’s to give Katniss people she can shoot without consequence. So of course they could have done it differently, they just had no reason to want to. That’s really the problem with all of it – things only become good or evil with respect to Katniss. If Gale kills people, it’s not given excuses like Katniss, so it’s terrible.
I had read your analysis of the movie before just to see what was up but now I am back because I finally saw the movie and it was much better than the book. But the movie was still just ok for me and it points out how under-developed the characters, plot, meaning, and setting of the book are. Some of the direction was cheesy and the shaky camera should’ve only been used during the Hunger Games. I think the movie was incomprehensible at times if you hadn’t read the book, i.e. as mentioned the bread scene. Also agreeing the love cave was improved (and shorter), it’s also better because Peeta didn’t love Katniss because of his father pointing her out. Many a plot hole fixed. One of my biggest problems was the ratio of people. All of District 12 was at the reaping and it isn’t that populated. Approximating, multiply by 12 and it would equal the Capital audience at the chariot parade? Was that the entire population of the Capital? Oppression usually means there are far fewer people on the top than the bottom. And was Effie the only one with a quasi British accent?
There is one instance of an overt objection to the games by Gale. He talks about rooting for faves and crying when they die and calls the HG sick. I don’t think that’s in the book, is it? It is an improvement and a fleeting moment of focusing on objecting to the games as opposed to surviving them. I took Gale’s not wanting to sell deer to the peacekeepers not as an act of defiance but rather safety. There would be extra peacekeepers keeping things tightly in order and hauling a large deer into town might be too flagrant. I could have missed something though.
Also, it took Peeta being a murderer away. Doesn’t he run into the fight at the pathetic cornucopia? Doesn’t Cato say he is handy with a knife? I doubt Cato was talking about his food prep skills. Doesn’t he go back to ‘finish off’ the campfire girl? I liked the change since Peeta being a killer was out of character and I could never morally reconcile it in my mind. Those scenes were there for plot convenience and to make us doubt Peeta’s intentions and without it, we never doubt Peeta’s feelings – not that we doubted them in the book anyway.
I always wondered why the rule change happened after Rue died. If you want entertainment, Rue and Katniss were teamed up and their district counterparts were still alive, why not change the rule then? They explained it away with Haymitch approaching the gamemaker and selling him on a love story. I didn’t buy the scene but it does haphazardly fix the plot hole of the convenient timing of the game change. Some of my takes just to add to Farla’s impressions.
I suppose a number of things were just budget issues, like getting enough people for the crowd scenes. But by and large they did do a good job of streamlining plotholes as well as dodging future ones (like murderer Peeta having Katniss go on about how great he is).
I took Gale’s not wanting to sell deer to the peacekeepers not as an act of defiance but rather safety. There would be extra peacekeepers keeping things tightly in order and hauling a large deer into town might be too flagrant. I could have missed something though.
I’m pretty sure she says they sell to peacekeepers and Gale says yes but not today of all days.
And the unfocused/quick cut nature makes it hard to see what’s actually going on.
It’s called Shaky-cam and everyone in the world with at least partially functioning retinas hates it.
I know I’m far too late to this post to leave a comment at all but, you know, I’m gonna.
I really enjoyed your above thoughts on the film (and thereby indirectly on the book). I liked reading your Mockingjay thoughts too. You articulated a lot of my frustrations with the trilogy.
As for Hunger Games I think I detect a similar attitude of frustration in you to how I felt. I can’t but call myself a fan because I’ve spent an awful lot of time thinking about that book (and making fanart and stuff) and yet it annoys the hell out of me. Some of Suzanne Collin’s decisions are just so weird. One that always stands out is Katniss’s indifference to people. There are Tributes – quite a few – whose NAMES SHE DOESN’T KNOW! There’s only 23 others for heaven’s sake, and even supposing she’s intentionally distancing herself from their humanity etc, it’s hard to believe that she could avoid picking up the names of the people she trains with every day for a week or so, and whose names are presumably constantly used on the apparently pervasive media coverage.
Even where she ostensibly cares about characters deeply – Prim, Rue – you don’t get a sense of an ongoing attachment. Once they have served their plot purpose, Collins seems to be very bad at remembering the relationship.
And the geography is stupid, and nothing about the society makes any sense. And Collins never lives up to the moral questions at the centre of her own plot, because Katniss is never morally compromised. and Peeta is a total creeper. And there’s a stupid love triangle.
(I also think the film largely improved upon the book, but still shot a little wide of the mark).
I think ultimately the premise is strong enough, and there’s enough that’s executed well in the book, for me to paper over the cracks with handwaves and headcanon and go on largely liking the thing.
But Mockingjay really does stink.
Some of Suzanne Collin’s decisions are just so weird. One that always stands out is Katniss’s indifference to people. There are Tributes – quite a few – whose NAMES SHE DOESN’T KNOW!
I wouldn’t call it weird, just straight lazy. Katniss doesn’t know about the other people because the author doesn’t care about them. They serve no purpose to her story about Katniss, so they’re not people. It’s one of the many times she seems unaware she’d writing a story in the same way the capital people write the narratives of their games.
There’s only 23 others for heaven’s sake, and even supposing she’s intentionally distancing herself from their humanity etc, it’s hard to believe that she could avoid picking up the names of the people she trains with every day for a week or so, and whose names are presumably constantly used on the apparently pervasive media coverage.
One of my characters doesn’t care about names herself – and it’s easy to show that this is her not caring rather than me hating to think up names by having everyone else refer to each other by name. When I wrote angry Hunger Games fanfic, part of the story was the other girl asserting that, hey, I do have a name – and we never find out because Katniss does not ask, she doesn’t want to know. Having Katniss failing to know anyone’s names while those names were all over the dialogue would have been a great way to have it be a distance thing. Having those characters never get names, to the point that Katniss casually refers to one using a nickname and we learn Peeta has no clue what her name is either, just shows that they never really were people, and it’s right not to care about them.
think ultimately the premise is strong enough, and there’s enough that’s executed well in the book, for me to paper over the cracks with handwaves and headcanon and go on largely liking the thing.
Oh, there’s definitely so much there to explore. If I wasn’t already committed to the even less well constructed pokemon universes, I’d probably have been all over the fandom.