Xena Dyball in Year 8 has some strong opinions on The Hunger Games Book VS Films. What do you think? Here are her ideas, feel free to ask further questions...

BOOK VS FILM

The Hunger Games is an award winning, best-selling trilogy written by Suzanne Collins. In brief, it is about a futuristic world, where once a year 2 tributes from each of 12 districts are picked at random and forced into an arena where they have to fight to the death on live television. For entertainment. Until there is one left. The books follow 16 year old Katnisss Everdeen and how the games affect her life.

The first book in the trilogy, The Hunger Games, has recently been turned into a film, which we went to watch. Before seeing the movie I had read the first book and was half way through the second book - Catching Fire. I wanted to see how the film makers had portrayed the characters in their own way as I was very opinionated about what I was imagining. I decided that overall, the film was good, particularly the acting and how they had filmed it etc. I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed as the actual characters weren’t what I had expected but I think this was down to me having already imagined the characters in my head while I was reading the book.

Also, in the film they had actually missed out a lot of parts from the novel that I personally thought were some of the most important and gave the book more of an edge. They also added in other parts that kind of confused me, as I thought that they were from the other books. Apart from that I thought it was a complete bonus that I had read the book first as I knew what was going on, whereas many of my friends hadn’t read the novels and were a bit confused at the end of the film.

This was understandable as The Hunger Games is a very complex and detailed read and if the filmmakers would have put as much detail in as the book contains, the film could have gone on for hours! That is one of the main reasons why I loved the books so much, it isn’t only action-packed, but there is so much detail and description, it is as if Suzanne Collins is painting a picture with words. In the script I liked how they had tried to stay as close to the words in the book as possible which was good as it made the film feel like it still had a link to the book. Before I watched the film I had a few queries like whose perspective would they do the film from because in the novel it is from Katniss’ point of view. In the book we read about her thoughts. My other query was how were they going to explain how The Hunger Games started?

After watching the film I thought the way they had explained how the games had begun was pretty ingenious, as I would of never of thought of that, however it didn’t really tie in with the rest of the film as smoothly as I would of liked. They could have considered maybe putting in a voice over and maybe Katniss narrating it as if it had already happened and she was telling her story to us.

I thought that the special effects in the film were very good and realistic but was disappointed at the end with muttations. Also I liked the costumes of the characters and even though Katniss dresses weren’t what I was lead to believe they were in the book. I still thought they were good but I thought they could have done with making the people of the capitol look more outlandish.

The actor choices were good as many of the characters looked vaguely how I had imagined them although in my opinion they could have done with looking thinner to show their struggle to get food more obvious, especially Katniss.



Should Katniss have looked as healthy as she does?



I also think she could have appeared more confident and strong as the whole point of the trilogy is that Katniss is defying the capitol and is the face of rebellion. Although it seems as though I have criticized a lot of the film, I did like it a lot!

If I had to choose which was better, the film or the book, I would definitely choose the book 100% and would recommend reading the book before seeing the film and even if you are not even going to see it as these books are my number 1! The reason I personally would choose the book over the film is because I think the book makes you feel more engaged and as if you know the characters and you are part of the games with them - that is why I love The Hunger Games!