The Hunger Games

Yes, because no two works have ever shared a concept and been good.

Merph. I dunno. BR pretty much did everything HG did, and did it better, and I read the crappy manga version.

No other work has shared the concept of Battle Royale and been good. Series 7 The Contenders, The Tournament, The Condemned, etc...all flawed at best.

Series 7 was in development before Battle Royale was even released (if anything, it was inspired by reality television). And The Tournament was nothing like Battle Royale. That was closer to Hard Target or The Most Dangerous Game.

Hey, IMO The Hunger Games is a good read and I don't think that there are a lot of people who would compare them in the first place. Also, that's you're opinion. Just because you think any work that is similar to Battle Royale doesn't work doesn't mean everyone would agree with you. (and that doesn't mean you must to be right either)

edited 7th Oct '11 7:49:48 PM by Pokénatic

Obviously it's my opinion. Quote me on saying "Mua ha ha ha ha anyone who disgrees me is absolutely unequivocally wrong" please. It's not necessary to preface every comment on a film with "in my opinion", you know. There are a lot of people who would compare HG to BR though - look at the IM Db forums for either one

All of these films have The Most Dangerous Game as an influence to some degree. I could go on about the similarities but that would be off-topic.

Okay, it's just that the following part made it hard for me to believe that you say it isn't just your opinion.

edited 8th Oct '11 7:52:21 AM by Pokénatic

Well, I've read both hunger games and BR (albeit crappy manga version, I hear the book is better).

Has anyone here read BR, and liked HG better?

I thought you read the tainted version though.

On a side note, it was September 27th when you said you were halfway though the first book. It was May 19th when you said it wasn't better than twilight. ???

On a side side note, I've seen way more hostility from Battle Royal fans than from Hunger Games fans.

I consider Battle Royale one of the best books I've read. I thought Hunger Games was okay for young adult writing, not terrible but not great. It had some really awful moments but overall it was at least decent. I don't think HG was an intentional ripoff of BR, I just saw no actual hint of influence in the story itself.

The author has an explanation for how she came up with the story that makes sense, so I'm inclined to believe her.

I read Hunger Games in the only way I could. Summarized with analysis. I honestly could not get through the actual books, the prose was so unbelievably horrible, and the sheer amount of telling was mind boggling.

I don't think anyone thinks it's a rip off in a literal sense. I think it more has to do with the concept "she's doing an idea that another series did ten times better."

edited 9th Oct '11 7:49:23 AM by MrAHR

What's next? Tolkien's prose is terrible? Just because it tells more than shows doesn't necessarily mean it will suck.

The point of Hunger Games was for it to be mostly Katniss thinking,and how many people show everything when they think? Sure she gushed a lot about Prim,but hey Prim was the whole reason she sacrificed herself,..of course every time she's in the arena she's gonna mull over why she made that decision.

Though I do have to admit the quality greatly deteriorated after the first book,and it got to the point where actions scenes got kind of muffled (especially in the third book).

But even then it wasn't terrible prose,it was just a little sloppy.

And it's not meant for elitist adults either,it's YA first and YA's only care to know what's going on,if it's worth finding out what happens next,and if the characters are cool enough.

I didn't think the prose was horrible, but there was a lack of variety in sentence structure and the whole thing felt very stifled. She would tell us she was feeling things, rather than letting us see. Again, very stiff.

Not to mention that a lot of times important things aren't mentioned until they're important, turning what could've been Chekovs Guns into Ass Pulls. Struggling to think of examples, but I remember that bugging me when I read it.

The story and characters are good, though, and it's a fun read.

I liked the first book but the others, in my opinion, really lacked in world-building. I had no idea what everything or everybody should look like (that's why I was so surprised when everyone was saying there was a Race Lift in the movie).

Yeah, I agree. The first one was well written, but the second one dropped off a little in quality while the third one leaves a lot to be desired.*

Wait, there's a Race Lift? I didn't really recall the races of the characters except for Rue.

People are arguing that Katniss is supposed to be non-white because she was described as "olive skinned" apparently.

The book I read was catching fire, if it helps matters.

Also, Show, Don't Tell is a story telling BASIC. When you tell, you get shit writing. This is fact. I'm not talking about exposition, I'm talking about how one relates to characters. If you disagree, and I mean, REALLY disagree, go to Writer's Block. Make a thread. We'll talk there.

Saying "Sarah is a nice girl." fifty times over would not even be worth one fifth of a scene where Sarah was actually BEING nice.

edited 9th Oct '11 6:12:45 PM by MrAHR

That would make her Sicilian. Am I right?

Wikipedia to the rescue!

Thread Hop

I heard a lot about this series. Two things are putting me off though;

• Hype

• It sounds WAY too similar to the premise of Battle Royale. Sure, the latter might not be the first series with that premise but it's one of the most well known, isn't it? I keep thinking "Isn't this just an Americanized (I think?) Battle Royale?"

Then again, you never know until you actually read it...

Why would you bother doing this? I honestly cannot understand...

Yes.

It's not very much like Battle Royale. It certainly shares some similarities but in actual content and writing style they are vastly different. Unfortunately it is not anywhere close to as good as Battle Royale.

I only read the first few volumes of manga adaptation so I can't comment on that.

I say bring it on. But yeah, Battle Royale fucking ROCKED!

There's no reason why a premise should never ever be used again ever. It's Been Done is a horrible excuse to keep something from being made.

Aaaaaand here's the actual poster. I'm most likely god knows how many months late in posting this, but...

Also, is anyone else looking forward to watching Cato's freak-out scene?

edited 13th Nov '11 10:08:33 AM by Abracadavre

trailer

oh shit that looks awesome