Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Now see, I really could have just listed every scene from the book and made everyone happy but let’s face it, the movie would be too long by Hollywood standards.  But I wanted to give some scenes that I believe I just can’t live without that may be at risk.  I had to lump some together because I think they could be overlapped and still hold onto the whole of the story or reflected one another.

1. The Morning of the Reaping/ the Reaping Scene : This sets the pace and introduces key characters. Parts could be summed up with narration as Katniss head out of the Seam to met Gale. It is very important to introduce Gale as he will play a bigger part in the following potential movies. Bringing Madge her strawberries is a bit of foreshadowing; being as Madge has a bit of status in District 12.  She is akin to the Capitol in this aspect.  Gale’s dislike of her also foreshadows his faults to come in Mockingjay.

2. Katniss’ Father Singing/Death Flashback : They could show a very compelling scene with Father Everdeen and young katniss hunting with bits of flashes of the coal mine and his funereal.
3. The Peeta/Katniss Flashback Scene: This will show a extra depth to both main characters. Also shows that even the Girl on Fire needs some saving sometimes. This could really be done well with the right young actors.
4. Death Scenes: We don’t need it to be gruesome but we also don’t need the deaths to be unrealistic. This will be PG-13 but to neglect it would cheapen the integrity of the story.
5. The Avox Girl: It’s kind of creepy and shows just how far the Capitol will go to silence you. Is it just me or does President Snow have it out for red heads?
6. The Prep Team: Sure we will get at least Cinna. But I think that showing the nievity of the  Capitol’s people could shed light on how our own culture seems to neglect the negative things happening all around us. How being born in the right place can produce a completely different person than that of someone born in poverty.
7. The Training Center: Somehow I could see this getting cut. Not much really happens other than training. But it could setup subplots with the other Tributes.  I don’t think we should lose the Final Scores/ Pig getting shot scene, either. It shows Katniss being defiant for a third time. First : hunting. Second: volunteering for Prim.
8. Katniss Singing to Rue: This is another defiance by our hero. Placing the flowers and singing to Rue is just another piece in the grand scheme of the puzzle.
9. Drunk Haymitch: Do I really need to say more?
10. The Berry Scenes: Both when Foxface dies and at the end. Even little berries are deadly weapons against the Capitol.

    What are your must have scenes?

    What scenes do you think are most likely to be cut?

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Over at NYTimes.com’s Room For Debate, some of our favorite authors debate and dissuss dystopian books.  Of course, Hunger Games gets some mention.

Teenagers face a huge number of choices and an almost paralyzing array of expert opinions on what constitutes right and wrong. In a culture defined by shades of gray, I think the absolute black and white choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers.

- Maggie Stiefvater

I don’t wonder that, with klieg lights trained on kids these days, they resent it, shrinking from the glare. They feel trapped, forced into a world of tests that humiliate and unnerve them. And so we have “The Hunger Games” books by Suzanne Collins, or any number of young adult novels that eerily reflect aspects of our current world — or the least attractive aspects of this world.

- Jay Parini

Teenagers are at a stage of life where they must tangle with almost adult responsibilities — school, work, college applications — and yet they haven’t been granted many adult powers or respect. They’re encouraged to work, but generally at menial jobs, and when they show up to spend their money, they’re carefully watched, assumed to be shoplifters and loiterers.

Schools are places where teens are subject to dress codes, have few free speech rights, and are constantly surveilled, where they rise and sit at the sound of a bell. Is it any wonder that dystopian novels speak to them?

- Scott Westerfeld

Find it all at NYTimes.com

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Follow them at @thehungergames !

Thanks to  Mockingjay.net for the tip!

Also, don’t forget to follow use on twitter for your chance to win a SIGNED copy of Catching Fire!  @jabberjayscom

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“Mockingjay” is not as impeccably plotted as “The Hunger Games,” but none theless retains its fierce, chilly fascination. At its best the trilogy channels the political passion of “1984,” the memorable violence of “A Clockwork Orange,” the imaginative ambience of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the detailed inventiveness of “Harry Potter.” The specifics of the dystopian universe, and the fabulous pacing of the complicated plot, give the books their strange, dark charisma. It would take too long to catalog the elaborate gadgets and gizmos and creatures and torments that Collins has devised, but among them are the jabberjays, birds that reproduce the screams of loved ones being tortured, to rattle the tributes; the brilliantly conceived costumes that seem to trail flames as Katniss rides into the arena for her first Hunger Games; an arena in the shape of a lethal ticking clock face; and tracker jackers, genetically altered wasps that can hijack memories and distort them to change the very essence of who a person is.

The trilogy balances seriousness with special effects, a fundamental furious darkness with fast-paced storytelling, so that the books manage to be simultaneously disturbing and fun. They contain a sharp satire of celebrity culture, mindless tabloidism and decadence, as well as crusading teenagers trying to save the world; but they also resist our hunger for clear definitions of good and evil, our sentimental need for a worthwhile cause, our desire for happy or simple endings, or even for the characters we like not to be killed or tortured or battered or bruised in graphic ways. Like the evil Capitol that controls and shadows its world, the trilogy tends to use the things we are attached to against us.

Source: NYTimes.com

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