The Vent Thread

[BasharOfTheAges]

Woke up with what almost feels like bruised ribs. It's mostly in my back, but the pain hits the front when it gets bad. Luckily it only hurts when I breathe, and how often do you do that, right? I seriously think it's stemming from my shoulder issues, going to try to selectively apply pressure to see if it gets any better. Really wish I had ice packs at work.

[ZephyrStar]

SO. MUCH. THINGS. To do between now and my vacation in a week. Chances are I'll spend most of my long weekend wrapping everything up, which will feel really good, but I'll also lose my long weekend to chores and shopping and getting the oil changed in the car and preparing food and...

[Emong]

Not really a vent but more of a disappointment...not that I were expecting much of the movie. What's the hype about Hunger Games? Perhaps it's too early to judge as it's only the first part of the trilogy, but..

Spoiler :

..the film had much potential, which was totally lost to the simplistic schema of true love between two people somehow challenging an authoritarian regime. Apparently the author of the book says that the story is an attempt to deal with issues "like severe poverty, starvation, oppression, and the effects of war among others." And how exactly did she intend to do this? There's no real revolt here - there was nothing subversive about the leading characters' actions - and on the top of that we get the same old fake admiration of the poor and oppressed and what I'm tempted to call the liberal upper class fantasy of the cruel and egotistic human nature playing a game of survival. Nothing revolutionary here. Just move along people.

I was expecting at least a stab at reality-tv or cruelty as entertainment but the author didn't get much out of these topics. If I were to add a detail to the story, a pessimistic one, I would have had one of the tributes martyring him or herself, getting killed voluntarily and totally refusing to play the game. But, in a tragi-comical twist, the hosts of the show and the audience would only embrace such an act, finding in it an act of poetic resistance and self-sacrifice or whatever. The actual trauma of such a scene would be lost to the media spectacle.

[JaddziaDax]

Spoiler :

Revolution doesn't really start until the third book and then it focuses too much imho on the love triangle...

and yet I still somehow enjoyed it... maybe it's the Star Trek lamp?

[CodeZTM]

Not really a vent but more of a disappointment...not that I were expecting much of the movie. What's the hype about Hunger Games? Perhaps it's too early to judge as it's only the first part of the trilogy, but..

Spoiler :

..the film had much potential, which was totally lost to the simplistic schema of true love between two people somehow challenging an authoritarian regime. Apparently the author of the book says that the story is an attempt to deal with issues "like severe poverty, starvation, oppression, and the effects of war among others." And how exactly did she intend to do this? There's no real revolt here - there was nothing subversive about the leading characters' actions - and on the top of that we get the same old fake admiration of the poor and oppressed and what I'm tempted to call the liberal upper class fantasy of the cruel and egotistic human nature playing a game of survival. Nothing revolutionary here. Just move along people.

I was expecting at least a stab at reality-tv or cruelty as entertainment but the author didn't get much out of these topics. If I were to add a detail to the story, a pessimistic one, I would have had one of the tributes martyring him or herself, getting killed voluntarily and totally refusing to play the game. But, in a tragi-comical twist, the hosts of the show and the audience would only embrace such an act, finding in it an act of poetic resistance and self-sacrifice or whatever. The actual trauma of such a scene would be lost to the media spectacle.

The second book gets into more details about everything, and the third one brings it all together. The first one is mostly stage/world/character setting.

Although there is one thing you said about it that really nagged me about the books, and you hit it right on the head.

Spoiler :

I loved the books, but DAMN they didn't go as deep as they could. You can tell this is marketed at young adults, because I was honestly hoping/expecting for something MUCH darker. Book 2 tries REALLY hard to be scary at the beginning, but not as bad as it could have been.

oh, and you'll be happy to know that this is a martyr in the second book like you said. Actually, there's 3-4 of them, but the whole damn scene is a dissapointment, because you don't know what the hell really happened until the third book, and the actual martydom is like "oh well, she/he is gone", "boo hoo" "moving on".

[JaddziaDax]

I agree with code's spoiler O:

[Emong]

I suppose I need to watch the next films now that I saw the first one (no way I'm spending time on reading the books.. ) Although from your descriptions it looks like there's going to be a lot of drama at the expense of politics. Screw the drama. No matter what the target audience is, books or films like this should have a proper subversive edge!

[JaddziaDax]

Now you just gotta wait for it to be made O.o

I think what draws you in with the books was the fact it was fairly suspenseful and that both of the first two books left you on a cliffhanger that made you want to know what happened next.

Don't stress it. The hype I think is a little too hyped, it was good but not the most amazing thing ever. I think that they were trying to market it a little too close to the same way Twilight was marketed to try to drag in a similar audience, but the triangle isn't as over the top stupid as Twilight was.

It still is worth the watch... Plus Star Trek lamp.

[Ileia]

I think that they were trying to market it a little too close to the same way Twilight was marketed to try to drag in a similar audience.

Yeah, I agree with this. I even recall Formspring having a sponsored Question of the Day that was "Twilight or Hunger Games?"*




*to which the answer is, of course, Harry Potter

[Qyot27]

As I posted when it happened, my grandfather died in June. Today was the memorial service...2½ months later (it was a nice service, though, even if it was difficult to understand the priest). And the jury still seems to be out on when the interment at the cemetery will take place (hopefully within the next couple days, though).

My sister really phrased it best when saying that our family puts the 'pro' in 'procrastinate'.

At least one positive of waiting this long is that there wasn't a lot of opportunity for those in attendance to get weepy. Most of that got worked out 2 months ago.