Let the discussion begin! Discussion of what? Of the Hunger Games trailer, of course! Sure, we got the posters a while back showcasing what some of the characters would look like, but now we have them in action! So let’s make like the true voyeurs we are and stare! And discuss!
Here’s Gale looking at Katniss during one of their wilderness excursions. While the trailer does indicate the film will follow the book very closely, they have to trim or change some things to fit the time. We just have to accept it. The book lists and mentions several of their excursions outside the fence which introduce important story elements. I’d bet Lionsgate combines some of the excursions into one, or else introduces plot points in other areas of the story. My worry about Gale is the fact Liam Hemsworth is playing him. He did a Miley Cyrus movie before this, for crying out loud. I hope he can actually act worth Read more »
As any good reader of the book series can tell you, the trailer didn’t show any of the games themselves. Personally, I found that to be pretty cool. The trailer ended with the countdown to the games starting and the tributes sprinting towards the cornucopia. EPIC ending. However, there was a reasoning behind this! In a statement released by Lionsgate last week, they said:
“SANTA MONICA, CA (November 14, 2011) – The full trailer for the highly anticipated upcoming film THE HUNGER GAMES…. only shows footage from the first half of the film, chronicling events leading up to but not including the Games themselves.”
This was apparently done “In an attempt to preserve the anticipation and mystery that fans are relishing”.
Veh-hy interesting! Expect a two-part dissection of the trailer coming later this week.
My thoughts are, and I quote, “HOLY-MOLY-ME-OH-MAH GIMME MOAR” end-quote. It looks fantastic. Really. What I was most surprised about was how faithful to the story it looks like the film will be. Too often do we get annoying summary films of books that leave out so much that you end up walking out of the theater making excuses to your illiterate friends like “I swear, the original is wayy better than this was! Really!” *cough* The Last Airbender *cough* *cough* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – no, seriously. That book was the longest of the first four, and the shortest movie. I hadn’t read the fourth book at the time I saw it. It made no sense. It was awful. I was confused. End of example. *cough* The Hunger Games, however, looks like it will really stick to the original book.
One worrisome thing is the rating. The trailer was rated PG. In Canada it was rated G. That worries me. Thankfully, the rating only applies to the trailer, not the film itself. After all, the film is still in post-production, there’s no way it has a rating yet. So why did Lionsgate try for the “G” rating? Down With the Capitol says what they think the reasoning for this is:
The ‘G’ Rating only applies to the film’s trailer– probably a move on Lionsgate’s part to ensure that it can run before as many films as possible (trailers rated above a G are limited as to which kinds of movies they can run with).
So I really don’t think we have much to worry about on this front. But this does bring me to the point of ratings. Anyone who read the book would (or should) say that the film clearly deserves an “R” rating. This isn’t Harry Potter at school. This isn’t some teenage vampire drama. This is a film about children dying of hunger and murdering each other, usually in rather gruesome ways. However, the film will get a PG-13. We can be pretty sure of that. Lionsgate is laying everything on the line with this movie. If Hunger Games does poorly, it’s questionable whether they will be around to make movies for our kids to see (to put it nicely). They need to get the young-adult audience Harry Potter and Twilight captured.
Another thought occurred to me last night: did this trailer make the least bit of sense to anyone who didn’t read the book? I don’t know a single person who saw the trailer who didn’t like it, but did it make any sense. I know for myself, if I randomly saw that trailer at a theater my first reaction would be “what the heck is going on here??” I asked my dad, who saw the trailer and didn’t read the books: he said he thought it looked great, but had to have some parts explained by my mom and sis. All-in-all, I think we can say the trailer was clearly made as fan-service.
If you HAVEN’T seen the trailer yet, what the &*@# is wrong with you??watch it here!
According to Mockingjay.net, it’s been confirmed that the Hunger Games trailer is going to run at the beginning of Breaking Dawn (you know, that mushy mess of sparkling vampires movie?). Not that you should go see that movie. I fully expect it will be bad. It would be very cool, however, to see this amazing trailer on the big screen!
In case you missed the epic reveal on GMA this morning, here’s the second official trailer for The Hunger Games movie. I need more time to take this all in, I may or may not be hypervenhilating right now….
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*Phew* Okay, my heart rate is slowing again. I’ll put up more detailed thoughts tomorrow, once I take some time to look through the whole thing in detail. In the meantime:
This has been a week full of a lack of anything worth noting in terms of what would be news but isn’t because it doesn’t exist. Therefor we have some random stories all piled into one!
First up, Vanity Fair recently did a photo shoot with the cast of The Hunger Games film. You can see the main image of the entire cast below. You can check out the rest of the photos over at Vanity Fair. The photos are very well done, even if they’re the same scenery as most Vanity fair photo shoots I’ve seen… though I must admit I don’t know what on earth they have to do with The Hunger Games at all. I realize these are just promo photos of the cast in general, not necessarily related to the film. However, these types of shoots always seem pretty pointless. Honestly I’d like some more pictures of the cast looking grimy and bloody and in the environment the characters will actually be in. The photos remind me of Twilight for some reason, and everyone knows how I feel about that series.
Next up is some Peeta information. As you all should know, Josh Hutcherson is playing Peeta in the film. Along with the Vanity Fair photo shoot above, the cast was also interviewed by the magazine and posted some quotes on their site. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) had some interesting things to say:
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: “Katniss is an incredible character: she’s a hunter but not a killer, a 16-year-old who’s being forced into the arena,” says Lawrence. “These kids are killing one another only because if they don’t they’ll die. It’s heartbreaking.”
Josh Hutcherson gave some interesting thoughts on his portrayal of Peeta. However, I find his interview kind of funny. Maybe that’s mean of me, but I couldn’t help but laugh through the following quote. Particularly how he feels he and Peeta relate.
JOSH HUTCHERSON: “I literally read all three books over the course of five days,” he says. “My mind was blown by how much I felt I was like Peeta… a lot of fight scenes, very physically demanding. Jennifer and I totally hit it off. We’re both crazy people—we don’t hold anything back.”
Moving on.
The Hunger Games Fireside Chat (a pretty good Hunger Games podcast, go check it out!) had a contest to make the best national anthem for the fictional nation of Panem. The winner was one known by the rather obviously human name “Alex Pipes”. A Hunger Games musician named Sam Cushion took the lyrics and made a full audio version of the anthem. You can hear the anthem below. And be sure to go check out Senor Cushion’s bandcamp page, he’s made full albums of orchestral music dedicated to The Hunger Games, and they’re pretty great!
This has been a week full of a lack of anything worth noting in terms of what would be news but isn’t because it doesn’t exist. Therefor we have some random stories all piled into one!
First up, Vanity Fair recently did a photo shoot with the cast of The Hunger Games film. You can see the main image of the entire cast below. You can check out the rest of the photos over at Vanity Fair. The photos are very well done, even if they’re the same scenery as most Vanity fair photo shoots I’ve seen… though I must admit I don’t know what on earth they have to do with The Hunger Games at all. I realize these are just promo photos of the cast in general, not necessarily related to the film. However, these types of shoots always seem pretty pointless. Honestly I’d like some more pictures of the cast looking grimy and bloody and in the environment the characters will actually be in. The photos remind me of Twilight for some reason, and everyone knows how I feel about that series.
Next up is some Peeta information. As you all should know, Josh Hutcherson is playing Peeta in the film. Along with the Vanity Fair photo shoot above, the cast was also interviewed by the magazine and posted some quotes on their site. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) had some interesting things to say:
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: “Katniss is an incredible character: she’s a hunter but not a killer, a 16-year-old who’s being forced into the arena,” says Lawrence. “These kids are killing one another only because if they don’t they’ll die. It’s heartbreaking.”
Josh Hutcherson gave some interesting thoughts on his portrayal of Peeta. However, I find his interview kind of funny. Maybe that’s mean of me, but I couldn’t help but laugh through the following quote. Particularly how he feels he and Peeta relate.
JOSH HUTCHERSON: “I literally read all three books over the course of five days,” he says. “My mind was blown by how much I felt I was like Peeta… a lot of fight scenes, very physically demanding. Jennifer and I totally hit it off. We’re both crazy people—we don’t hold anything back.”
Moving on.
The Hunger Games Fireside Chat (a pretty good Hunger Games podcast, go check it out!) had a contest to make the best national anthem for the fictional nation of Panem. The winner was one known by the rather obviously human name “Alex Pipes”. A Hunger Games musician named Sam Cushion took the lyrics and made a full audio version of the anthem. You can hear the anthem below. And be sure to go check out Senor Cushion’s bandcamp page, he’s made full albums of orchestral music dedicated to The Hunger Games, and they’re pretty great!
Ever wanted to be part of the horrific, impoverished, post-apocalyptic, ruthlessly controlled country of Panem? Well you’re in luck! There’s a new Hunger Games viral site up by the catchy URL of “http://thecapitol.pn/,”
What’s this “districts” mumbo-jumbo about? Well, person-who-hasn’t-read-the-Hunger-Games-trilogy, in The Hunger Games, Panem (North America) is split up into twelve different “Districts”. Each district specializes in a different economical commodity and each serves the Capitol (probably located somewhere in/near Colorado). Read more »
Ever wanted to be part of the horrific, impoverished, post-apocalyptic, ruthlessly controlled country of Panem? Well you’re in luck! There’s a new Hunger Games viral site up by the catchy URL of “http://thecapitol.pn/,”
What’s this “districts” mumbo-jumbo about? Well, person-who-hasn’t-read-the-Hunger-Games-trilogy, in The Hunger Games, Panem (North America) is split up into twelve different “Districts”. Each district specializes in a different economical commodity and each serves the Capitol (probably located somewhere in/near Colorado). There. Explained. Now go check out your district, my followers! GO! FLY! Katniss and Peeta are from District 12. It’s hard to get an exact idea where the districts would be located with respect to North America’s current geography because Panem exists in a post-apocalyptic future which Suzanne Collins has said is at least a thousand years in the future. In fact, from the books it sounds as if parts of the US have been completely obliterated and some parts perhaps are now in the ocean. If we do take North America’s current geography as a basis, District 12 is probably in the northern Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York area. So… right around where I live. Represent!
However, when I registered at thecapitol.pn/ I was assigned to District 2. District 2 specializes in masonry. And my assigned occupation? “Concrete finisher”. Yeah. Well… not what I would have expected given my amazing strength and dashing good looks. In fact, if this is thousands of years in the future, why don’t we have robots to do that sort of menial labor by now? Ah well, I will be a good citizen and play along. Once you’re registered you can “Like” your district on Facebook to receive news and updates about the ARG. Plus it just looks cool to have on your profile. Side note: keep an eye out for some funny quips about the country of Panem on the site during the process of registration.
It looks like from the website there is a Reaping coming up and people will be chosen from the districts to take part in a sort of viral Hunger Games in preparation for the upcoming movie! I’ve been a fan of Alternate Reality Games ever since LOST got me into them between seasons two and three. I hope this Hunger Games one lives up the source material. A Hunger Games ARG would be amazing, and a perfect lead in to the movie! I hope you all go sign up and get ready for whatever is in store here…
I know this isn’t exactly a “new” shot of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, but man is it cool. Still my favorite of all the shots thus released. Katniss is such a great character, I really hope the team is able to translate her depth well. So I thought I’d share it with everyone!
Sam Jack Seal of Approval.
In other news I missed this photo from yesterday’s EW Hunger Games bonanza. It’s probably my favorite of the Peeta pictures so far. I especially dig it because it reminds me a bit of LOST. The way the quote in the picture is worded is a little bit silly. I’m trying to imagine someone saying it over and over in my head and it makes me smirk.
Have you been waiting for more “Artemis” calls on Facebook? Well TOO BAD. You can’t BE in the Hunger Games movie ANYMORE. But it’s for good reasons. So smile!
Lionsgate has wrapped up filming for The Hunger Games. Actually, they wrapped up on September 10. No word on what was the final scene shot was. They were shooting Capitol scenes at the end of July in Concord, NC. Though, I doubt they took this long there. The last shots were taken in North Carolina. Actually, most of the movie was filmed in North Carolina, not but a few hours from where I sit. But I didn’t make it into the movie. Why? Because I suck. Because I’m a dreamer, not a doer. Apparently… apparently… ;-|
All my dreams went up in fire and smoke. Kind of like this.
There was some talk (due to Russ Bowen’s Twitter) that Lionsgate would be doing some reshoots through October, especially in Charlotte, NC. Russ Bowen has since dispelled these rumors, though. I have mixed emotions about this. When I first heard about the reshoots, my heart sunk. In my mind that meant Lionsgate saw what they filmed and didn’t think it was good (or complete) enough. But once the rumors were dismissed, I started getting antsy… *what if they should do some reshoots, though?*
The Hunger Games Examiner pointed out two other tweets from Russ Bowen, including “Expect a few changes in film version. You will be surprised but will likely like them. I won’t give spoilers though” and “Jennifer Lawrence is without a doubt an archer”. I’m not concerned about the changes in the film from the books because Suzanne Collins wrote the drafts for the movie herself with the director. Further, I expect the changes will be slight ones to fit the film time. As long as there aren’t any stupid changes like Katniss making out with Gale, I’ll be good. (No, I don’t ship for Katniss + Gale. That’s rubbish.)
To celebrate the completion of filming, The Hunger Games examiner has put up a nice slideshow of all the official Hunger Games filming pics thus far. Go check it out! March 23, 2012 cannot come soon enough.
In other news: there is a new blog theme coming. And it’s gon’ be comin’ soon. So please stop commenting and emailing constantly asking me when it’s going to be up. It’s coming, already! As the wise, old sage Harold McGruder once told me long ago: “Hmmmmm… The greatest adventure of your blog is the journey to complete the most simple task. Also, make a new theme. Yours looks like crap!” Then he stormed off. Ever since that day, I’ve been working on a new Hunger Games-infused theme. The reveal will soon be at hand!
