Amph The Hunger Games - best-selling trilogy, in production for a movie

Fans of The Lord of the Rings books often complain about the changes made to events and characters for the films. Yeah, they were successful, but many of the deviations they made from the original texts were unnecessary and unwelcome.

There are some changes you have to make when switching mediums because the method of storytelling is different, but not all the changes made in adaptations are actually necessary - sometimes they are done so the story can reach "a wider audience", which can often mean changing characters so they are more conventionally appealing, changing the story to give it a happier ending, or any number of things which the studio might think may make it more profitable.

Sometimes I hate it when they do that, other times (Fight Club, for example) I find myself liking the film version more than the original book. In The Hunger Games case I think the first film weakens the character of Peeta without good reason, which I find annoying; on the other hand I keep hearing the third book is not well-liked, even amongst long-time fans of the series, so I kind of hope they use a bit of creative license there.

 

...
You're kidding, right?

 

Eh I don't think so. I love both but the books are way more superior to the movies. No contest.

 

I love the Potter films, but they're incoherent and sometimes inconceivable if one has not read the books.

 

Also, unlike the LOTR films, there's precious little internal consistency and continuity between the HP films.

 

I think the third book is still a good book. I do think it is the weakest of the trilogy but it is still an above average book. You probably need to take all the internet chatter about it being horrible with a grain of sault. Remember the people who are saying that are probably individuals who had their expectations set way to high after reading the first two books and were disappointed by the ending (which isn't uncommon at all for many people to dislike the ending of a popular series).

The reason I feel the third book is the weakest of the trilogy is because I think the scope was to wide in it. The first two books have a pretty closed in scope where the action is really set in the small world that Katniss inhabits. But in the third book Suzanne Collins tried to bring an entire war into the story while keeping Katniss in her closed in world. It seemed a struggle at times to tell the story of both the war and Katniss's own little world all in the same book. The result ended up being that you did have pretty satisfying conclusion to Katniss's story but there was a lot of things about the war that weren't really delved into.

I'm hoping that with them choosing to split the third book into two different movies that they do plan on giving more depth to the war. But at the same time to do that they are going to have to stray from the book quite a bit which is something they have not done up to this point.

 

I hope they change the ending because if they don't, from the sounds of it (I haven't read it yet since everyone seems to hate it) there will be riots in the streets.

 

Go ahead and read it. It's not nearly as bad some people are trying to make it sound. Remember for a lot of people (especially for the ones that go to the trouble of posting their thoughts on a message board) if it doesn't end in the exact way they would have liked it to end they think the ending completely sucks.

 

I, for what it's worth, loved Mockingjay just as much as the others.
Just throwing that out there. Not everyone hates it.

 

Can't be as bad as the conclusion of a certain video game that rhymes with Gas...er...um...what rhymes with Effect anyway?

 

That's one thing you should never do. Go in with high expectations for a video games story.

 

My wife and I watched Catching Fire for Thanksgiving and I loved it, she hated it. She hadn't read the books, so I should have prepared her for the second story in a trilogy non-ending. She was P.O.ed that she watched for 2.5 hours and got no real resolution at the end. Ha.

 

Yeah the ending felt very abrupt, but we got to see J-Law in close-up.

 

Direct
Select
Elect
Correct

All other words that continue in this fashion. This is hardly an "orange/door hinge" situation.

 

Dammit forgot about the -ect suffix.

 

I feel that my current avatar can summarize my feelings towards your post.

 

I finally got around to seeing this movie tonight for the first time, and just, wow.

I'm sorry Harry Potter and The Hobbit, but THAT is how you do an adaptation from novel to film!

 

You don't need to apologise to the Harry Potter films.

 

I thought you of all people would like that post.

 

Oh, I quite agree with you that both Hunger Games films are excellent adaptations. My point was that it should be the other way around - the HP films should apologise to the fans for being a complete mess.

 

What was frustrating about HP were the various times that some of the films did reach cinematic excellence ("The Prince's Tale" is perhaps the most obvious example of this), but then would invariably ruin it with something awful and inexplicable.

Catching Fire (and to a lesser extent, the first Hunger Games movie) were awesome for being such faithful adaptations all the way through. It helps of course when your lead is such a legendary actress.

 

There's a creepy photo going around switching Hutcherson's and Lawrence's faces. I don't want to post it, for I will die of fright.

 

In fairness, mine was a sarcastic sort of apology.

I've seen loads of those kinds of images, on all sorts of things. The worst was one where a woman was walking her dog--and someone switched the woman's and dog's faces.