BEDA 4/2: You here to finish me off, sweetheart?

Today, I went to see The Hunger Games in theatres for the second time. The first time I saw it was, of course, at midnight the day it came out. (Remember how I'm a nerd and everything?) But my dad hadn't yet seen it and wanted to, so I went again to see it with him this morning. I never did get around to vlogging or blogging about it the first time, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to share my opinions on how I felt about the movie.

This review WILL contain spoilers, so if you haven't read the books (all three books, probably), you might want to skip this one.

First of all, I need to say that it was the best book-to-movie adaptation I've ever seen. I heard this before I even saw it, but it was absolutely true. I have never seen a movie stay so close to the book it was adapted from. It's not possible for them to include everything, but even after seeing it a second time, I can't think of anything they left out that was super important or will have a big effect on the next two movies.

There were a few things I would have liked them to keep in, like Peeta finding out at the end that Katniss's affection was all just part of the Games, and the mutts having dead tribute's eyes, the fact that Katniss's mother is a sort of doctor and that Prim helps her tend to the sick and wounded (it just seems like this comes up a lot in all three books, and I feel that it would have made us see Prim as a stronger character), the rest of Peeta's story about the first day he met Katniss and how the birds fell silent when she sang, as well as a few other things. But although I would have loved to see these things in the movie, none of them were truly big enough to make much of a difference to the plot or the furthering of the story.

For the most part, the important things were there, and the most important thing- the emotional chaos you go through while reading- translated fabulously to the screen. I sat in shock and tears for most of my first viewing of this movie, laughing rarely. Not because there were no funny parts, because there were quite a few, but because the movie did such a fantastic job of sucking me in and making me feel exactly what it was meant to make me feel. Horror. Disgust. Sadness. Shock. I felt the same way I imagine any citizen of Panem, besides the citizens of the Capitol, would feel watching their very own people go off to fight to their almost certain death. It was amazing the way it affected me just as strongly as the book had. And Jennifer Lawrence's performance as Katniss was absolutely brilliant. I believed 100% that she was our Girl on Fire.

I may write another post on a different day about the different things they added to the movie that were not in the books. Mostly little things, but a lot of little things that I really loved. But this is it for now, and I need to get to bed.

Happy April, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Currently reading: The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Song of the Day: Over You- Miranda Lambert