Think Hunger Games but turned to 11. Group of kids have to kill each other and, if they don't, bombs strapped to their necks are set off. Each kid is given a weapon when they first start out, although the definition of what constitutes a weapon is very subjective; you could get an AK or a soup pot lid. It's been banned in the US for violence (the movie anyway).
I'm confused, because I picked up a Region 1 DVD Director's Cut a few years ago. Looking at Amazon now, there's almost a whole page of various Region 1 DVDs, new and used (including the edition from 2004, which is the one I got), original and sequel, but there's also a four-disk Complete Collection which just released 5 days ago that curiously bills itself as: "One Of The Most Controversial Film Series Of All Time Now Available For The First Time In America".
Anyway, my point is, there's no excuse now. With Blu-ray, Netflix, and old-fashioned DVDs available, not to mention the novel and the manga adaptation, everybody ought to check out Battle Royale!
They have the same concept (kids forced to kill each other in a competition/wargame) but they do not have the same plot. For one thing, in Battle Royale I was cheering on the antagonist for a large part.. Kazuo has flair.
I think Battle Royale handles the emotional realities a lot better. That may well be because kids in the Hunger Games 'verse are used to the concept as it's been going longer, but I find it hard to believe that steels them to the reality any better than it does in BR. Also the fact that it's a class fighting each other leads to a lot more exploration of relationships/where's the breaking point therein than strangers fighting each other.
I was thinking about that because a friend was trying to explain Battle Royale to me and the background of characters and why it's happening and I thought as far as the film went it was much more effective in the "because fuck you that's why" explanation.
I found that a whole lot of things weren't anywhere close to explained enough, in the movie alone - from "They're called the Hunger Games because people are starving and the winner's District gets bonus food" to "District 1 and 2 have won so many times that they can afford Hunger Games Training Schools" to "Katniss didn't realise what being on TV the whole time meant with the first kiss, and the note was intended to make her realise that she needed to FAKE TWOO WUV".
I mean, in a movie that finds screen time for Your God And Mine Stanley Tucci to explain everything else directly to the camera, they couldn't find 15 seconds for the first two points?
(My judgement of "dammit, they should have explained more for the average person and less for the idiot" is maintained because the people beside and behind us had exactly these questions, and also groaned at the hamhanded repetition of the "magic bees have magic venom" explanation.)
It was pretty obvious that the people in the "outer districts" were destitute and subsisting on almost nothing (of course I live not very far from where those non fiction people are still dying a little bit in coal mines every day and they really are living on the edge of starvation). Her warning to her sister was another clue. The capital (and I assume other districts that weren't part of the rebellion) are still making the losing side pay while living off their labor in decadence. It's very much like the reconstruction era south and Weimar Germany.
In the film, only the title "The Hunger Games" indicated that the districts were starving, and Katniss wasn't just poor.
I would also have liked to see more indications of how the names were chosen, beyond just "you won't be chosen" followed by "OMG YOU WERE CHOSEN never add your name for more food because SHIT".
Also: Weimar Germany, maybe. Reconstruction South? Fuck no. The South were never "driven to starvation" to appease a rapacious North profiting from their toils. All that was asked of the South was that they stop raping and murdering non-white people, and they couldn't even begin to manage that until, a century later, sane people finally got fed up with their shit and *re-conquered* them.
The south was devastated after the war; its economy was in shambles, what little industry existed prior to the war was mostly in ruins, and the railroad network (also far smaller than the north) was non functional (I grew up here, and I've never understood how the antebellum south had any illusion it could win a fight against the north, they were outnumbered, had less materiel and manufacturing capability, and had half the transportation network over a much larger area, and let's not forget the hostile captive population in their midst). Abject poverty and subsistence farming were how most people, white or black, lived during that period. The south was occupied territory during reconstruction as well (granted, they earned it...). The dress of the people and building style is also very southern (though oddly, Great Depression era).
How they would win: Because slavery is explicitly endorsed by God, and their sole difference from the North is "slavery". Since their only difference is slavery, and slavery is outright and explicitly encouraged by God Himself, the South could not possibly fail to release itself from it's non-God non-slavery compatriots.
As I recall, Mark Twain felt that a lot of the "We'll win this!" came from people reading Ivanhoe to many times and believing that their "noble" cause would give them the courage and strength to win.
A lot of the economy was devastated throughout the United States and this was a time when corporations profited off of everyone because there were absolutely no government regulations and you could work 10 year olds 12 hours a day and call the national guard in to kill your workers if they went on strike.
According to the Ron Paul campaign this was the golden age.
Gonna have to disagree; while it's clear that Katniss and her family, and arguably Gabe are on the edge of not having enough food, it's not clear that everyone in the district is starving, or that everyone will benefit hugely (in the form of OMG food) from having the Tribute from their district win. A family where the father was killed and the mother shut down into near catatonia being close to starvation? Not indicative of the general state of the community, and at that point her warning to Prim only reinforces her family's situation, not the state in general.
Honestly, the impression I got from Gabe was that you get your name dropped in more times for misdemeanours-and-the-like, not for extra food; the big healthy guy who wants to move out and leave the restrictive District life reads as "troublemaker", not "starveling". (Yes, I've read the book.)
Also, no districts "weren't part of the rebellion"; one and two just got creepily into the new world order.
I hadn't read the books, and I thought those points were explained well enough with good acting and dropped lines here and there. I don't like when things like that are smashed in my face when I could easily figure it out by just thinkin' about it for a second. I do plan to read all the books like this week, though. = P
Edit for example: Like the names in the bucket things, Katniss asked Gale how many times his name was in, and his response made me think that it was a punishment system. Then she told Primrose not to take food so she wouldn't have her name in more. That was perfectly adequate. I don't need both those things in the same scene to make it go right.
No, both those are pretty clear--but the movie really didn't cover "if you win, your entire District will get enough food for an entire year, there will be meat and oil and even actually candy, holy shit, and this is a huge deal because everyone has not enough food." Even in the discussion with Haymitch, it's always portrayed as a very "The Long Walk" scenario; it's the victor who is rewarded, it's the victor who gets the spoils.
Honestly, Peeta was throwing food away in the flashback; even Katniss assumes (in her entirely valid ignorance) that it was because he had food to spare because his family were bakers. There's nothing in the movie that covers the idea that not only does Peeta's family not have food to throw away, no-one does.
You're right, those things aren't explicitly pointed out, but here's what I figured. The folks who win have been through a lot, and they've been living in that for at least 12 years. District 1 had enough money in their economy obviously from previous wins (and most likely nothing else) that they could build the schools. So even if it was just the victor who got piles of money and food, I figured it's common for that district to benefit that way.
Yeah, we did plan ahead and brought someone with us who had read the book so they could explain if there were any flat "wtf?" moments. Peeta's throwing the bread bit made me think like Katniss did. I wish he had explained himself on-screen.
They mentioned that 1 and 2 have schools and the kids volunteer, but they did *not* mention that the reason 1 and 2 can afford the schools is that they win so often, and that 12 is so poor because their last winner was a quarter-century ago, and they only ever won once before that.
Since you don't get, or need, a 1 page flyer explaining what the odd names and words mean (I gave mine back, as I'd read the book several times by the time the movie was released) I don't think it's an apt comparison.
I wouldn't have minded a few more moments of exposition, but overall I think they did a good job moving it from book to movie.
As an aside, Collins was a TV writer,before she took to books. cleolinda makes the argument that the movie is a better expression of the story than the book, as we get to see things that occur outside of Katniss's view; i.e. how the environment is managed, the riots in District 11, etc.
It wasn't that I wanted more exposition, it's that I wanted different exposition. They were really ham-handed with cutting to Stanley Tucci explaining things straight to the camera a bunch of other times - I would have cut a few of those and added 15 seconds of basic worldbuilding.
The comparison is "this movie is completely incomprehensible without reading the book first". And for The Hunger Games, it's not that it's incomprehensible, it's that you're going to have to guess about a bunch of things and some of your conclusions will be wrong. And also there are a couple of things that, had they been mentioned in the movie, would have made it better.
That's the same with every book to movie translation. For example in Twilight, you might think that from the movies alone that Bella is a vacant idiot and Edward is a twitchy creep but if you read the books you know that Bella is perfect and Edward is the ideal man.
More on Battle Royale, the book was written 15 years before The Hunger Games. When The Hunger Games was first released as a book it was slammed for being a blatant rip-off. The film version of Battle Royale was banned in North America until very recently. The author of The Hunger Games claimed to have never heard of Battle Royale. Even in pre-production, The Hunger Games was getting a lot of flack for being so similar to Battle Royale.
I think it worked fine as a standalone film, a very good adaptation in fact. None of the skipped bits were essential, nor detracted from the film - sure, there was more in the books, there always is.
I'm unsure how they'll do if they make the sequels though, given the additional exposition / background material they'll need to fit in.
Oh, and off Twitter:
Do you know what they call The Hunger Games in France? A Battle Royale with cheese...
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theweaselking
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Date: 2012-03-25 05:27 pm (UTC)Anyway, my point is, there's no excuse now. With Blu-ray, Netflix, and old-fashioned DVDs available, not to mention the novel and the manga adaptation, everybody ought to check out Battle Royale!
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Date: 2012-03-25 02:03 am (UTC)I mean, in a movie that finds screen time for Your God And Mine Stanley Tucci to explain everything else directly to the camera, they couldn't find 15 seconds for the first two points?
(My judgement of "dammit, they should have explained more for the average person and less for the idiot" is maintained because the people beside and behind us had exactly these questions, and also groaned at the hamhanded repetition of the "magic bees have magic venom" explanation.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-25 02:41 am (UTC)I think the film makers did a good job of balancing Katniss' inherent 'fuck all of you I'll eat your lungs' self with the wide eyed naïveté of being in that sort of environment for the first time. She's also not some closet genius but neither is she stupid, and she's pretty quick to catch a clue.
I suspect the book was a little less "in media res" but that's the cost of moving from a written to a visual medium.
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Date: 2012-03-25 02:44 am (UTC)I would also have liked to see more indications of how the names were chosen, beyond just "you won't be chosen" followed by "OMG YOU WERE CHOSEN never add your name for more food because SHIT".
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Date: 2012-03-25 04:07 am (UTC)For something similar, see also, Japan and WWII.
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Date: 2012-03-25 06:49 pm (UTC)According to the Ron Paul campaign this was the golden age.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:30 pm (UTC)Honestly, the impression I got from Gabe was that you get your name dropped in more times for misdemeanours-and-the-like, not for extra food; the big healthy guy who wants to move out and leave the restrictive District life reads as "troublemaker", not "starveling". (Yes, I've read the book.)
Also, no districts "weren't part of the rebellion"; one and two just got creepily into the new world order.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-25 03:35 am (UTC)Edit for example: Like the names in the bucket things, Katniss asked Gale how many times his name was in, and his response made me think that it was a punishment system. Then she told Primrose not to take food so she wouldn't have her name in more. That was perfectly adequate. I don't need both those things in the same scene to make it go right.
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Date: 2012-03-26 10:36 pm (UTC)Honestly, Peeta was throwing food away in the flashback; even Katniss assumes (in her entirely valid ignorance) that it was because he had food to spare because his family were bakers. There's nothing in the movie that covers the idea that not only does Peeta's family not have food to throw away, no-one does.
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Date: 2012-03-27 02:08 am (UTC)Yeah, we did plan ahead and brought someone with us who had read the book so they could explain if there were any flat "wtf?" moments. Peeta's throwing the bread bit made me think like Katniss did. I wish he had explained himself on-screen.
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Date: 2012-03-25 04:13 am (UTC)I wouldn't have minded a few more moments of exposition, but overall I think they did a good job moving it from book to movie.
As an aside, Collins was a TV writer,before she took to books.
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Date: 2012-03-26 01:16 am (UTC)How much filler is there if there is still stuff unexplained?
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Date: 2012-03-26 09:04 am (UTC)I'm unsure how they'll do if they make the sequels though, given the additional exposition / background material they'll need to fit in.
Oh, and off Twitter:
Do you know what they call The Hunger Games in France? A Battle Royale with cheese...
Prk