The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the highly anticipated upcoming sequel to the 2012 box office hit, The Hunger Games. It had many great qualities about it, but like every other film, it had a few flaws, too.
Those flaws do, however, have the oppurtunity to be improved in the next installment. Here are four improvements The Hunger Games: Catching Fire needs to make:
1. Character Development
The Hunger Games has received some criticism for not developing the characters enough. Rue’s death scene was a direct result of this; it felt only slightly sad, but was quite forced in my opinion. I was not as emotional during that scene as I thought I would be, and this is coming from a guy who cried during Marley and Me. Peeta was another character who was not very developed either. Even though he received a lot of screen time, we didn’t learn much about him. A friend of mine, who hadn’t read the book before he saw the movie, was wondering how old Katniss and Peeta were and why he had the motivation to give her the bread.
Catching Fire needs to expand the characters. If you have only seen the film, you know very little about Haymitch. You could argue that in the first book we know little about him, but his character was still well developed in the book. Haymitch has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which could make for excellent character exploration in Catching Fire. What do people who have only seen the film know about Effie? Nothing, they don’t even know her name for crying out loud! Catching Fire could use some character development because the only character who I established an emotional connection with is Katniss.
2. No shaky camera!
Another criticism of The Hunger Games film is Gary Ross’s decision to use the Shakycam technique in order to “show the urgency inside of Katniss’s head.” That is a bunch of baloney. It wasn’t artistic at all, it was a thinly veiled and unsophisticated attempt at masking up the violence. Then for good measure, he shook the camera an exorbitant amount in the beginning of the film to make it look unsuspicious.
All the Shakycam did for me was give me a migrane. In films like Cloverfield, the technique works, because in Cloverfield we are supposed to believe that the entire film is being shot with a guy’s camcorder. I highly doubt that fans and people interested in Catching Fire would want to pay eight to ten dollars to end up with nausea. Based on what we have seen from the trailer of Catching Fire it looks as if this time around we are being blessed with a steady cam, but there could be a surprise in store for us.
3. Explain important plot points
This will be short and sweet, Catching Fire needs explaination. Many people had no idea what the heck was going on when Peeta threw Katniss the bread due to the fact that you couldn’t tell that Katniss was starving. Why did Peeta join the Careers? Why was Gale’s name in the drawing 42 times? Catching Fire needs to take time to explain everything.
4. Take more chances
The Hunger Games took quite a few chances, but in the wrong direction. The filmmakers decided to break the 180 degree rule causing disruption in the flow of the film, use awkward cuts and uneven shots, and force intimidation in an uncomfortable manor.
The Hunger Games did come across as genuinely unnerving in several scenes, but was forced in others. Cato slicing the dummies seems so forced to me that I find it kind of comical. Catching Fire needs to come out and say, “because our government and society got careless, this happened.” That would be a successful risk and a dig at both our government and society today.
I also felt like The Hunger Games was holding out on the violence. We saw very little combat and only a small amount of gore in the film. Catching Fire will need to show us more and to make us feel uncomfortable and set a dark and urgent tone. Perhaps it would be ideal if Catching Fire was rated R so they could establish the doom that awaits the victors in a concise and elaborate way. However, many fans, like me who are only 13, wouldn’t be able to see the film if it was rated R. So Lionsgate is probably willing to cut down as much as they need, to receive the PG-13 rating in order to make more money.
If The Hunger Games: Catching Fire makes these improvements, it is sure to be successful with fans and critics alike. Do you think there are any other improvements that could be made?
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