The Underachieving Asian.

And since I’ve read the books and am I HUGE fan of the books,I had certain expectations for the movie.

First of all, I understand that one can only squeeze so much of an incredible book into two and a half hours. There were quite a lot of bits and pieces that I would have LOVED to see in the movie, like Haymitch falling off the stage at the reaping,or the importance of Madge in the series. Also, I imagined it to be more violent than it was in the movie, although since a lot of kids were expected to watch as well I could see why. I also wanted to see District 11 send that bread to Katniss. There were a lot less Peeniss makeout sessions than I thought were gonna be and they only spent like a REALLY short time in that cave. I would’ve loved to see Katniss telling Peeta about the time she brought Lady home for Prim. And in the end of the movie, it was shown that Peeta knew that Katniss was just playing along with the star-crossed lovers thing which kinda disappointed me. I preferred the ending where Peeta was hurt on finding out that Katniss had not acted out on her feelings for him.

Another thing was that I was unimpressed by the costumes Cinna made. At the tribute parade, I thought the fire costumes would be more… fiery. It didn’t really give me goosebumps. And also, I wanted to see that bit where Cinna told Katniss and Peeta to hold hands but it was cut too :(. The interview dress, didn’t get me going either. I thought there would be more fire than just the bottom as well. I would have also liked to see the rooftop scene and there were only three mutts instead of twenty-one. Oh, and Lavinia the Avox girl. She was cut from the movie too :(. And why does Peeta still have TWO LEGS???

So all in all, the movie was still a pretty great watch. The main story line was still preserved and they made the movie look shaky and grainy, which,to me, was a nice effect, not because it made the movie look like a low-budget film, but because you could really feel the poorness in the Districts. Well, to me at least. The sequence of events weren’t changed either, which is something I’m very thankful for because a lot of books-turned-films have scenes that didn’t follow the chronological order as they were arranged in the book. The most important scenes were in the movie too and I understand that it’s a difficult job to congest various scenes from the book into a blockbuster movie. In fact, if I hadn’t read the books, I’d say that The Hunger Games is a totally complete kickass movie. Then I’d go out and read the books.

So if anyone reading this hasn’t read the book yet, I suggest that you read it. Because the book is always better than the movie.

Can’t wait for Catching Fire!!!