Article Response--- The Hunger Games

            While reading the article “The Hunger Games” by Peter Travers, I noticed how the author spends a great deal of the article relating the movie The Hunger Games, which the article is a review of, to many other movies, specifically the movies from the Twilight series. I think the comparison of these two movies really helps Travers to get his point across about this movie. I think it helps him to get his point across because both these movies have a lot in common. They were based of books, and the directors had to figure out where to make changes so as to keep the movie appropriate while balancing both the romantic and violence from the books.

            Both The Hunger Games and Twilight were originally books, that were turned into movies. This is not the only similarity they share. They are both about strong willed girls, who end up in a scary, violent situation, where they are put between to guys, both who they care a lot about. In the article, Travers mentions this, and noticed how although in the book The Hunger Games there is more of a focus on the love aspect, it as not as intense and as important to the situation as in both the book and in the movie Twilight. Travers mentions this when he says, “Are you Team Gale or Team Peeta? You might not care as much, since neither has the exotic allure of a vampire or a wolf.” While saying this, he is shortly saying that although there is romantic competition, it doesn’t not bring you in, like it does in Twilight between the wolf and vampire. He goes on the mention that he thinks this is one of the reasons that viewers and critics have rated The Hunger Games as the better movie.

            In the article, it is mentioned that although the movie is great, it is hard to compare it to the book because of the restrictions that were put on the movie. Since The Hunger Games is a young adult book, it would do extremely poorly in the box offices if it were rated anything worse than PG 13. Because of this, much of the violence that was included in the movie had to be toned down, to keep it appropriate. Although this is not one of the comparisons Travers makes in the article, his past comparisons make you think further. While making Twilight, I’m sure the directors were faced with very similar circumstances as The Hunger Games. Although, like earlier stated there restrictions were more romantically sided, as oppose to The Hunger Games, which had to be more careful with violence.

            Overall I think the article was very well written, and Travers did an excellent job writing it. One thing he did that improved the article was the comparison to the Twilight books, and movies. This made you look at the movie in a different way and really made you think about some of the challenges that went in to making this movie, or any movie based on a book for that mater. Considerations that take place go way further that just restrictions of violence. It also makes me wonder, if there were no restrictions, and it could be exactly like the book, would it be better or worse?


Article: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-hunger-games-20120321