My husband and I went today with three boys, 15 and two 13-year-olds. All of us, except my husband, have read the series. Even my normally negative 15-year-old thought the movie was really good.
The books are about a tyrannical central government (called “The Capitol”) and the 12 (at one time 13) Districts that live under its thumb. It is about the struggle to survive under government oppression, and then the desire to live in freedom, and finally the courage to rise against this power. The series was riveting, though very disturbing and very graphic. I had to stop reading a couple times because it just became too much for me. The overall concept of pitting children against each other to fight to the death as punishment for a long-ago uprising was very upsetting to me, not just as a mother, but as a human. There was no sex and no profanity in the books. In fact, there was no mention of God, not a single utterance of His name. The movie strayed from that. There are a couple of “ohmygod”s, and there are a couple of hells and damns. That’s it.
Before I allowed my kids to see this movie, and also because I am a huge wimp when it comes to gore and yuck, I read a detailed review of the movie on unpluggedonline.com, and based on that review, we went today. And I am glad we did. Except for a couple of instances, the movie stayed pretty true to the first book, without wallowing in the grotesque.
As for anyone seeing this as some sort of Occupier fantasy, I just don’t see it. And if the subsequent movies don’t stray from the rest of the series, there will be talk of a Representative Republic as “there was before the Dark Days” as the ideal government. That doesn’t sound very lefty to me. My fear is that the bigguns in Hollywood are bristling at all the conservative buzz about this movie and will do everything they can to tweak the next movie to support their distorted worldview. And that will destroy it.
Oh, and for tenderhearts like me, I got blurry-eyed twice: At the reaping, and at *the scene* with Rue.
I noted the talk of a representative republic, too, back before the “dark days.” They had one and lost it and want to go back to it. That’s my take.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but my kids tell me the Rue scene is just about like the book. And, I will probably get teary during that. I did get teary during the scene, in the book, of the reaping. I questioned how any parent could accept the reaping, for years, for 75 years, not rebel, etc. Then I had to take myself back into the book/story and imagine 75 yrs of oppression. And the hope some of these people felt and fought for (underground) hoping to change it all. Maybe this yr the reaping wouldn’t occur or my kid wouldn’t be chosen and we’d have another year before another reaping, etc. And the people, they were so crushed. Slaves really. Just like those in ancient history.
Pretty intense stuff.