My friend is reading this book.  She told me all about it.  I think its horrible.  The plot.  Yet, it reminds of the time just after Bible times when people had to fight lions or bulls in the arena.  Parhaps this was the first reality tv program.

Yeah I'm reminded of Christians in the gladiator ring too. I just first heard about the film this morning, but my 10 year old son knows about the books from school. Sounds dreadful, and not the direction we want our culture to go. I was also reminded of Conan, there's a scene like that where he has to fight friends for entertainment of the audience, and also of Dragonslayer, where the girls of the village are all in the lottery to be drawn as dragon food.

I've read the series a few times and I love it.  It's part of a hugely popular genre right now: teen dystopian novels.  Because these series are usually written in trilogies, the first book is usually the one where things aren't challenged so much but the problems become evident, the second one is when the challenges to authority begin and the final book has the resolution.  

Hunger Games is very much like the show Survivor, but to the death.  I haven't seen the movie yet, and I know that the messages are often lost in movies, but in the book there are a lot of good ideas.  Katniss represents a lot of things...she's a good friend and takes care of her family, she is resourceful and independent, she is selfless when she volunteers to go instead of her sister, and once there she cares for others as much as possible in a kill or be killed setting.  At the end of the book, she also makes the first move that ignites the revolution against Panem by sharing the poisonous berries with Peeta instead of fighting with him, which would leave them without a champion.  

I think that sometimes kids learn about big ideas better through fiction than non-fiction.  Hunger Games points out the disparity between rich and poor in our world.  There are a lot of connections to be made between the government in the novel and many other governments in today's world.  No, we don't have a reality TV show in which kids kill each other, but we do have a world in which some powerful people have a lot and others have next to nothing.  There is a lot of substance in this series.

i've got the impression that this book is like a mixture of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" & "The Running Man" with that nihilistic paen by Cormac McCarthy "The Road" but all marketed toward 'young adults'?

Talking aboot teachers, did yous all hear of that teacher who was fired because two of her 3rd grade students were allegedly engaging in oral sex in the classroom?  I'm sure there is going to be a thread on that soonishly here :3

I have not read the book but what I would have liked to have seen was the kids getting together. I know this is only supposed to be the first book but I have to wonder how many of the youths and adults left the theatre with the rather suble message of resistance rather than just a good bit of the 'ole ultra violence.

I haven't seen the movie or read the book but as a point of interest I heard that there are similarities between a Japanese movie called "Battle Royale" that came out in 2000. It was rejected by most countries to distribute but is one of the top films ever in Japan. I think there was some controversy going around that the author of Hunger Games had plagarized.

My son (13, but was 12 when he read the books) is a huge HG fan and felt the movie was a pretty good translation of the book. He even liked some of the new bits that the director and Collins (who co-wrote the screenplay) added that weren't in the book.

I'm halfway through the first book myself (he has the trilogy in e-book format on our Kobo) and like it so far. It is a true trilogy, not a series of separated stories, so it's appropriate that not everything is resolved in book 1. I'm game to see how she ties everything up after book 3, myself, so I'm not too concerned about this one ends beyond how it sets up the second book. Certainly, Little Mendalla was more than happy with how the trilogy as a whole ended.

And as for whether she plagarized, I doubt it. Maybe picked up some ideas along the way and worked in some existing tropes and cliches, but that's not plagarism. That's literature. Even Shakespeare didn't come up with most of his stories on his own.

And if we're looking at possible influences and antecedents, Stephen King's "The Running Man" (filmed with Ah-nold in the lead) predates Battle Royale by a couple decades. It's about adults rather than teens competing in a televised battle to the death in a decadent, totalitarian America but certainly hits on some of the same tropes. The film version is one of Schwarzeneggar's better movies, though it's Richard Dawson's role as the deadly game show's host (sort of riffing on his then popular role as host of Family Feud when "on screen" but a scheming villain in the background when "off screen") that really shines in the movie.

Mendalla

As to your original post elisabeth we are closer to Panem than most people realise.  we don't see it because we are the Capitol.  Just look at the division of wealth in our world and suddenly Panem doesn't seem so far fetched.  The point of the Hunger games is simply an exclamation point on a society that divides wealth so that many scrape and starve while others are blatantly wasteful.

Peace

Joel

I think we have had lots of cultural touchstones about what levels of depravity we can sink too .  Lord of the Flies certainly pops into mind.

the study at Standford where students were put into two groups, prisoners and jailors is another.

Mob mentality, descending to the lowest common denominator, it is realistic i think.

I will be glad to see the preteen crowd move on from Harry Potter and Vampire books

Donald Sutherland, who plays the President in the movie, raised the parallel to the Occupy movement and the 1%/99% issue. Interestingly, the first book was written and published just before the 2008 crash and the rise of the Occupy movement though the movie postdates them so could have taken account of them.

Mendalla

Donald Sutherland was at the Occupy Vancouver protest on the first day...there was a now famous photo of him with his fist in the air published in several papers. There was a buzz about the movie then too. I wonder if it was also a PR move.

I read the book and found it disturbing. No interest at all in seeing the movie.

I wonder why we have to have so many movies that portray humans as having to kill each other to survive, rather than love each other to survive?

The point of the story (at least in the books), waterfall, is that they are forced into this position by the power eliltes of their nation (a future American state called Panem) and the trilogy becomes the story of how Katniss and her friends overcome that situation. IOW, it's not about killing to survive but about breaking down a repressive regime that forces its subject to do so. What makes Katniss Everdeen stand out is that she doesn't want to kill to survive and that she's a good, caring person trying to deal with and survive a situation that she's been forced into by her government.

A local movie critic (actually it may have been the Globe) did a very good job of picking up and explaining the political satire/commentary of the story. He pointed out that it's about the 1% dressing up young men and women from the 99% and sending them out to kill and be killed to keep the 99% under control and to further the agenda of the 1%. IOW, Bush's America or maybe 'Nam.

EDIT: And, yes, lest you think all this social satire is lost on the pre-teens and teens, it ain't. My rather politically astute 13 year-old certainly gets it.

Mendalla

Hmmm ... Mendalla, there is a piece in the Toronto Star today about the Hunger Games. It suggests a few other possible interpretations :)

Hi Elisabeth,

At the high school where I work, the teens all have their noses in "Hunger Games" books. Five years ago, the teens were all reading "Twilight" books, and five years before that they were all reading "Harry Potter."

I haven't seen the movie, but I can well believe it's quite violent.

But it's good to see teens reading as opposed to playing video games on their I-pods or Facebooking on their phones. The content of "Hunger Games" may be violent, but the books are certainly promoting daily reading for kids who wouldn't otherwise be reading.

The theme of people hunting people for sport isn't new. A famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game" features a man hunting another man for sport, and that short story is almost 100 years old. (In fact, one of my grade 12's is doing an independent study unit on "The Most Dangerous Game," "Hunger Games," and the "Running Man" movie.)

I notice there's a lot of political interpretations on this thread about "Hunger Games." But I think it's just the latest serial book trend.

One thing I have noticed: there's a lot more of anti-bullying conversations going on among the teens reading the books. The books do feature examples of extreme bullying, and as teens read these books they are reflecting on the bullying they see in school and thinking twice. Great food for thought.

I read the trilogy last year at the request of my 16 year old daughter. It is disturbing in the ways in which many before these books are disturbing - titles already mentioned come into play. The movie does a great job accentuating the dark side of the book, and accordingly discounts the revolutionary aspects which are more important to the second and third books. The only hint about what is ahead is Catniss' three finger salute leading to the scenes of uprising in district eleven.

I wondered while watching the movie how much it might apply as a metaphor of the current status quo in the United Church...the implications that might be drawn between the General Council and Executive as the capital with the congregations seeking new ways of being relevant in a secular world as the teens...or the Harper government and Ottawa as the capital and the Environmental groups protesting the Enbridge pipeline as the teens...Certainly the role of celebrity and the media as propaganda are also significant themes.

Perhaps if you haven't read the books you should before dismissing them as crass violence and irrelevant...the are most certainly worthwhile commentary for this era.

Happy Hunger Games Day!

arrows to move

A = use weapon

S = interact

D = use item

The description for next week's service at my UU fellowship:

April 8       Hunger Games and Easter Politics          Rev. Myron Andes

On Easter Sunday, we reconsider the political nature of Jesus’ life and work, especially in the last week of his life. The same story of oppression, privilege and resistance is laid out clearly in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, and the new movie of the same name. Perhaps these stories can each help us understand the other, and both of them enlighten us about the dynamics of the present situation in our world and our city.

Mendalla

Have you seen:

3rd World Canada - 5 min Preview from Andree Cazabon on Vimeo.

and of course, there is a Hunger Games "RPG"

Here

and Here

myself, I'd be more partial to using a rules-lite system like Over the Edge or Gumshoe...rolls tend to slow down gameplay a lot (i remember Champions, where the fights would LAST FOR HOURS while rolling BUCKETS OF SIX SIDERS...)

*coughs*

Be careful how you speak of that game. There's an ex-Hero afficianado on this board.

Though I must confess to having rarely, if ever, actually played Champions. I started with using Danger International, their modern action game, for my spy-vs-spy campaigns and then used the generic verson of the 4th edition Hero System for a variety of genres. With modern action and fantasy, the dice pools tend to be smaller (most guns are between 1d6 and 4d6 damage for instance) and characters less resiliant.

Today, I'd probably agree that the system is a bit clunky though I still admire the flexibility.

Mendalla

Play Cormac McCarthy Pictionary

(might be fun to actually try -- theme-based board games)

My grandchildren - 14 and 12 got the message and the satire... told me I must see the movie

I just finished reading the book.  It was well written and kept you wanting to read more.  Husband read it and found it disturbing but loved the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. I enjoyed the Dragon Tattoo but it made me cringe in parts.  My daughter got Hunger Games as a birthday present two weeks ago and read it already. I find it is good to be in the know about the stuff that 'all the kids' are reading, especially the controversial books.

I haven't read the Millenium Trilogy (The Girl... books) yet, but the Swedish movie version of Dragon Tattoo sure creeped me out in spots. Haven't seen the American version, yet.

Of course, the whole premise behind The Hunger Games is pretty creepy when you think about it. It's a loose riff on the myth of Theseus (in which Athens must send groups of youth to Crete as tribute who are then fed to a monster called the minotaur) but with  sympathetic characters like Katniss and the fact that it's a satire on modern culture, HG captures the horror of that scenario in a way the Classical myth never did.

Mendalla

Here's a bit on Richard Bachman's "The Long Walk"

(I see that someone's bought the movie rights...)

Champions was my favourite super-hero simulation system.  One could create nearly anything well with the system (the only problem was vehicles; it didn't make sense with vehicles having a speed stat...).  I had fun testing what the system could do, like having explosive strength or Sticky presence :3

I still have my 36 die dice cube somewhere as well.

One of my favourite moments was a Gen Con (the literal MECCA of gamers worldwide -- the convention centre was called MECCA, so I guess gaming was my religion?) during a scenario where the big baddie was Tiamat, and she was attacking the white house and had just slain everyone...the GM let us do a fastball special at terminal velocity plus a maximum energy blast for some 45d6 damage...we hit and Tiamat of course survived...

another fun adventure was with the same GM (Rob Bell, he used to edit the game) where we played US soldiiers during Desert Storm where we found out just what Hussein had been really up to-- his WMD was Cthulhu ;3

You RP'd with Rob Bell? That's almost the Hero equivalent of gaming with Arneson. Not quite Gygax, but getting there.

And the scenarios you've given illustrate why I love Hero. There just aren't many games out there that could do both of those well.

Mendalla

He's a total drama queen :3  I remember in the Iraq game, there came a point where we met the only remaining survivor of an archeological dig and he was batshit insane and nearly dead...so I said I was going to restrain him and then Rob stood up and asked me to come over and to show him how while he then proceeded to flail aboot shouting and screaming nonsense :3

That is awesomely fun gaming :3

pandemonium & i finally saw the Hunger Games and it wasn't what we expected at all...we both were expecting some kind of blood bath celebration...

it had story

it had plot

it had cute guys

it had cute gals

it had cute other'd

it had magic faerie castles and magic potions and spells (stuff the booms whenever someone died, the announcements on the field of force surrounding the Hunger Games area...) and magic creatures (the wasps, the really bad CGI monkey-pitbulls at the end)...

i liked how they decided to do the life-or-death violence -- brutal, staccato and quick

and the little touches; Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, the good dental work of everyone...

i don't know how to categorize the movie (parts of it reminded me of the Wizard of Oz and Brazil) -- i found myself trying to; if someone asks me what is it aboot, i'll just say "see the movie"

Now, of course, I could try to find 'the message' of the movie...HA HA!

It could be a good movie aboot the poor Capitalists who lost against the fiendish Authoritarian Communists...aboot the unlucky Socialists who were under the thumb of the rabid Capitalists...or how humanity (the members of each district) is always under the thumb of Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw...and those are just 3 possibilities...

i think i'll check out the first book to see how it is

(and I find myself wishing Donald Sutherland's character suffer a very ironic demise...)

EDIT: the is for Mendalla -- I can see you racing one of these across to your Desert Congregation :3

From what I've heard about the books, the message isn't complete. Hang on for the other three movies (they are splitting the last book into two movies a la Harry Potter and Twilight) before trying to fully discern it.

Mendalla

I just finished reading the trilogy;  the third book less than two hours ago, in fact. I think they could split "Mockingjay" into two movies.  A LOT went on in that book and if they tried to make it into one movie they would lose so much.  It. It would be a hack job.

Now, I'm intrigued enough that I'll have to get hold of the books...my children are well into their twenties and so I'm currently out of touch with this generation. (And I'm in no hurry to have grandchildren; my children seem very likely to continue my family's "long generation" trends.)

I loved the Harry Potter craze (as did my retired librarian godmother, who pre-ordered most of the books and made sure she had a copy for my children to read when they arrived for our annual summer vacation at her cabin).

I watched the movie this week, actually, and quite liked it without knowing any of the back story. I had managed to not read any of the controversy surrounding it, so I went in prepared only with the guy's caution, "this may be too violent" and "we'll stop watching if it is". I was dissatified with the ending, which is now understandable, if it isn't 'finished'. I'm also a huge fan of Sutherland and Harrelson, which helps. I'm loving Donald S. in old age.

They are making a movie of the second, "catching fire", as we speak.

I rented the movie this weekend.  I found it slightly disappointing, and I'm glad I haven't read the books yet.

I found the movie was missing way too much of a backstory, and in some ways it was too rush.  Plus Rue was black (j/k, reddit anyone?).  To be honest, I didn't feel much of a connection to Rue because it seemed like she had maybe 5 minutes of screen time.

I was glad I had a bit of background info just from getting a very quick overview on the internet.  I do want to read the books, but after seeing this movie, I think I might wait or else it might not be worthwhile watching the movies!