Answer:
Probably the greatest achievement of The Hunger Games, and there are many, is that in adapting a phenomenally successful teen novel its creative team have produced something that works as a film, not just as an adaptation of a book. There’s no required reading before entering the cinema in order to ‘get it’, and it’s well above the ‘all your favourite bits but with pictures’ business that has become the accepted standard. When a series has sold millions of copies, as Suzanne Collins’ trilogy has, the default position is to produce something that will look just as readers imagined, to show what we were all thinking, rather than offer something nobody had considered. The Hunger Games as a novel has been dissected, expanded and retooled into something intelligent, immersive and powerfully current.
The world of Panem, a futuristic America, is established elegantly in about 90 seconds. First we see two men discussing an event called The Hunger Games in front of an audience; both men evidently so luxuriating in time and money that they can tint and trim every inch of their surface until they resemble painted couture clowns. Then, with a literal scream, we cut to District 12, where all is grey and people dress like the cast of a regional stage production of Little House On The Prairie. This is how Panem is divided. There are the haves and the have-nots. The haves live in The Capitol, amid great wealth and power. The have-nots live in a series of impoverished districts, put under oppressive rule after a failed uprising some time in the indefinite past. Each year two of every district’s youngest members are selected to battle to the death in an arena, from which one will emerge victorious for... no real reason. The poor will do as they are told, however senseless, and the rich will keep on keeping on. The echoes of the 99%ers are clear and not unintended.Probably the greatest achievement of The Hunger Games, and there are many, is that in adapting a phenomenally successful teen novel its creative team have produced something that works as a film, not just as an adaptation of a book. There’s no required reading before entering the cinema in order to ‘get it’, and it’s well above the ‘all your favourite bits but with pictures’ business that has become the accepted standard. When a series has sold millions of copies, as Suzanne Collins’ trilogy has, the default position is to produce something that will look just as readers imagined, to show what we were all thinking, rather than offer something nobody had considered. The Hunger Games as a novel has been dissected, expanded and retooled into something intelligent, immersive and powerfully current.
The world of Panem, a futuristic America, is established elegantly in about 90 seconds. First we see two men discussing an event called The Hunger Games in front of an audience; both men evidently so luxuriating in time and money that they can tint and trim every inch of their surface until they resemble painted couture clowns. Then, with a literal scream, we cut to District 12, where all is grey and people dress like the cast of a regional stage production of Little House On The Prairie. This is how Panem is divided. There are the haves and the have-nots. The haves live in The Capitol, amid great wealth and power. The have-nots live in a series of impoverished districts, put under oppressive rule after a failed uprising some time in the indefinite past. Each year two of every district’s youngest members are selected to battle to the death in an arena, from which one will emerge victorious for... no real reason. The poor will do as they are told, however senseless, and the rich will keep on keeping on. The echoes of the 99%ers are clear and not unintended.
Step-by-step explanation: