Excellent Book - Very Ordinary Adaptation

Rating: 7/10 (29 November 2015)

Like many adaptations, this one leaves you amazed at Lionsgate's staggering contempt for the movie viewing public, a contempt similar to the "Capital's" contempt for the populations of the "Districts"; so perhaps their attitude is appropriate.
Susan Collins' source novel (she is complicit in this insult as she had a least some part in the adaptation), the first of a trilogy, is the story of an existential heroine (Katniss Everdeen) who performs a single heroic act, volunteering to take the place of her younger sister in the post-apocalyptic games from which the grim trilogy gets its name.
But Katniss immediately knows that there was nothing heroic about her action, that her lightening fast decision required no contemplation but was something she was compelled to do. For the rest of the first book (upon which the 2012 film is based) Katniss is buffeted along by mix of free will and destiny, second-guessing each of her decisions and feeling far more guilt than satisfaction over the consequences and (more fundamentally) over her decision to essentially prostitute herself to the Capital in the service of survival.
And the reader gets full access to the inner working of her mind because the story is told entirely (100%) from her point of view. This storytelling device shrinks the scale of the story, as a reader never goes out beyond the reach of the first person storyteller. This fosters the sort of reader identification Edgar Rice Burroughs brought to his "John Carter of Mars" series.
Apparently Lionsgate felt that viewers were not up to the mental challenge of Collins' storytelling technique and they converted to a third person POV, going so far as to completely dispense with a voice-over narration by the main character. A puzzling decision since film offers wonderful opportunities for the juxtaposition of objects of contrasting scale.
Lionsgate also felt the need to draw in characters and events from the second book in the series (endless scenes of President Snow and signs of the beginning of dissent in the Districts). These immediately destroy the scale unique to the first book and the concept of a faceless enemy, so that the progression of the trilogy from small to vast is compromised. Overt dissent in the Districts appears far too soon in the adaptation, effectively spoiling both the intimacy of the first book and the expansion of the struggle in later books.
The film's ham-handed treatment of the story is reflected in Haymitch's explanation for the high score Katness receives after shooting the apple out of the pig's month. He says it is because they liked her guts; but his explanation in the book is that they liked her temper, that this exhibition of her fierceness has made her a player who they believe will bring some heat to the games. Guts are not going to attract sponsors or win the games, nor are they going to incite anyone to revolt. It is a critical change of phrase because throughout the trilogy it is not her courage but her mix of fierceness and humanity that is the difference maker for Katniss, and it is this mix that gives the character the dimensionality necessary for reader identification.
Most remarkable, however, is Lionsgate's inexplicable failure to feature the most powerful and most memorable moment in the entire trilogy; the moment Katniss receives the bread from District 11. Arguably the most intense segment ever written. This is really the first book's climatic scene, as Katniss slowly grasps that the bread was originally intended for Rue, with those in her district making a great sacrifice in order to support her. And that after Rue's death they elected to redirect the gift to a participant from another district, the first time in the 70+ year history of the games that such a gesture was made. And the first hint of a unification of the twelve intentionally isolated districts.
This is the turning point of the entire story, much like the moment in "The Magnificent Seven" when the Villagers tell Chris they collected everything of value in their village to hire him and he accepts this small sum, saying: "I have been offered a lot for my work, but never everything".
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.