The Movie’s Never as Good as The Book

At this point in the movie I started to dig him in the role. Ahem. (Photo Credit: Lionsgate)

If you follow me on any other social media outlet you are well aware that

A)I’m obsessed with The Hunger Games and

B)I went to see the movie last night.

My knowledge of pop culture may make it seem that I have a lot of free time. I do not. I read those books to the detriment of my job and possibly my children for 36 straight hours. The movie time was carved out well in advance, with The Husband’s support and there were also a few work things I pushed off in order to attend.

It was pointed out to me lately that I  talk a lot about t.v and movies. The funny thing is, I don’t watch a lot of t.v and movies. I used to. Before kids I watched television for hours every night as I graded papers or just relaxed. I also saw movies pretty regularly and I was known to have a book a week schedule as well-except for maybe during grad-school when my brain could only handle US Magazine.

Since having kids (little ones at least) I tend to record a lot of television and never have time (or energy) to watch the shows except when I can’t sleep. I do have times where I “catch up” on everything and then I tend to write about the shows I catch.  As evidenced in my last post, when I do watch, I watch in marathons. So, I have some knowledge of current movies and shows but that knowledge does not accurately portray the amount of time I sit in front of those particular screens. It more accurately represents the hours of recorded shows I have on my DVR and the 3 or 4 sleepless nights a month that I watch them all.

When I get the chance to read and or watch something that sticks with me, I tend to soak it into my blood. Hence the fascination with Hunger Games. The characters in those books were so well developed that I actually missed them for a few days when the reading was over.

I was pretty excited last night to meet them again on the big screen. I thought the casting was almost 100% spot on. I wanted the leading man to be bigger and stronger-not so much the slight kid he turned out to be. I know, I know,  they’re teenagers, but there are older seeming teenagers they could have used to make us love him more. The rest of the cast was perfect and it was fun to see what I had pictured come to life. That’s so often the risk of movies based on books; you have such a sure idea of who and what you “see” when you read that it’s tough when it doesn’t jibe with what’s on the screen. The people behind Hunger Games the movie did an excellent job of  mostly staying true to the book.

That said, I still missed my characters. You just can’t do the same justice to their stories in a 2.5 hour film as you can in hundreds of pages of a book. The love story wasn’t as strong. The relationships weren’t as important. The intrigue wasn’t as, well, intriguing.

All in all it gets my seal of approval (for whatever that’s worth) but I have to say if you really want to know why I was so excited over The Hunger Games, you’re just going to have to read for yourself.