Its not very often I will admit I will fall in love with a book and then watch the movie, and I guess I can never quite get over the fact that so many things have to be changed or cut for it to be a movie.
I get that things have to be changed to shorten the run time and I guess if I had just watched the film totally on its own merit I would have thought it to be a good movie. And I really did enjoy it and there are a few scenes done spectacularly well I have to say but there are some massive omissions that I can't help but feel were crucial to the story and I can't overlook that they were neglected.
Ill try and do these in order they should appear but as im doing all this off my head you will have to forgive me if they end up scattered.
The Mockingjay Pin, now I don't mind the fact that it came from a totally different person thats fine, but every one in the book was allowed one item from their own district to take with them and in the movie she had to sneak it in. Not a big deal just found that odd.
Katniss' first days in the arena. Well time in the arena in general. In the book she was in there for weeks, and it added a much greater sense of peril, like the whole thing was more of a struggle and I think they managed to lose that in the movie. Katniss spent the first few days without water and almost died before finding it, which makes her finding the water so much more of an achievement. Similar thing with the lack of a sleeping bag she finds in the pack, you never got the feeling the tributes could die of exposure during the night while in the book as the days went on it was even stated that the days were getting hotter and hotter and the nights colder and colder.
Rue. I don't think they spent enough time with Rue. The scene when Rue dies was really sad and very well done and made me cry as I expected. But I have to wonder would it have had the same impact on me if I had not read the book, if I did't already have this emotional attachment to her. I just don't think they spent enough time building up the relationship between Katniss and Rue and I think Rues death would have had a much bigger impact if they had spent more time on this.
After Katniss finds Peeta. Again it just felt so rushed. When she finds him in the book he is in a really bad way and over the days he gets so much worse before she goes off to get the medicine. And after she gets that it still takes days again before he can really move. They have a lot more time to build up their relationship and for Katniss to develop feelings for him. And then at the end again Peeta is so close to death when the hovercraft arrives which causes Katniss to scream madly for him. I was looking forward to that scene where he is taken into the other room and she is separated by a glass door which she is banging on. And he lose's his leg. It just seems their relationship is glossed over and I wonder if that will come back to bite them in the sequels, especially the third movie.
The Mockingjay too, how it was never explained its significance, which just seems like a vital plot point to me.
In spite of the points I have made, I would like to point out I really did enjoy the movie. And who knows perhaps a directors extended cut will include some of these. But I think the movie falls short of perfection by these omissions and that saddens me slightly.
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