The Serious Business of Adapting The Hunger Games

I remember sitting in a dark, air-conditioned cineplex as a kid, probably too young to be sitting so close to the screen as a T-Rex devoured Donald Gennaro, as my screams of terror would attest. In the summer of 1993, Jurassic Park was my world. After being amazed by the film, I became obsessed with the story and discovered the novel that inspired the movie. I tore through the book, eating up the drama again despite some glaring differences and an amazing river rafting scene that never made it to the big screen. But hey, the film got me to read a book, and was my gateway to Michael Crichton's other novels. An adult-ass novel, at the tender age of 10 or 11!

"You think this is a f*cking GAME!?"

It was also my first taste into movies-adapted-from-books, and at the time, made me think that films could never be as faithful to the original stories due to obvious limitations. My opinion was challenged by Fight Club and The Lord of The Rings. Though both omit/mix-up details, they cover the essentials and then some while having directors with a great sense of the tone and vibe of those stories. I even dare to say you could skip the books in these cases--sorry Palahniuk fans, the Fight Club movie had a better ending!

Gary Ross seems to also understand the sense of general dread and bits of hope tinged by oppression in his adaptation of The Hunger Games, though I'm not sure that I can recommend seeing it without reading the source, before or after. The casting choices were excellent, especially in the cases of Jennifer Lawrence, Elizabeth Banks, and despite my initial reservations, Woody Harrelson. I enjoyed the film quite a bit, but having read the books first, I can't help but think about what was lost in translation. Would the film still have the same emotional impact as the novel if I hadn't read it in advance?

Team Haymitch all the way.

Suzanne Collins' trilogy is told from the perspective of our heroine, Katniss, and as such, the reader spends a lot of time with her emotions and logical thought processes as she reacts to the horrors of kids killing kids for entertainment and oppression. The film thankfully avoids choosing to have Katniss narrate over everything, instead taking moments she presumes or flashes back to, and inserts them at key moments. Many explanations are conveniently handled by the TV hosts speaking to the audiences both in and outside of the film.

While some small details are left out are trivial, there are some glaring omissions that undermine the story, particularly hunger itself. Collins constantly references food in the books and it quickly becomes important symbolically as well as literally. People starve to death in the districts on a regular basis. Katniss hunts to provide for her district as well as her family. Food is often used to connect characters, build trust, and occasionally, take that trust away. Only one symbolic scene involving hunger makes it to the film but isn't handled effectively. The very real need for families to enter their children's names multiple times for The Reaping in exchange for more food rations, which still aren't enough, is never mentioned, nor is the fact that the winners each year provide extra food for their entire district for the rest of the year. The irony of this theme almost entirely missing from the movie is not lost on me.

"What's wrong?" "I'm just so tired of all these HUNGER GAMES."

I still encourage people to see the film, but also to give the novels a chance--well, at least the first entry. The book is very fast-paced, which makes the film seems frenetic at times. The screenwriters and Gary Ross did an amazing job cramming in a lot details with visual shorthand and efficient storytelling and even at almost two and a half hours, I wonder what a longer runtime could have meant. Until then, in our apparent desire to make books a giant multimedia experience, I can always hope for an extended cut when The Hunger Games makes its way to our homes. I'm pretty sure that the odds will be in my favor.