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The Hunger Games movie was phenomenal. It stayed true to the book without getting caught up on unnecessary details, making it a true gem in the book-to-film variety. I can’t honestly think of anything that I disliked about it, and I’m sure that everyone is going to pour in with praise, so I’ll leave that to those who are more inclined to write it.

Instead, I am here to tell you that the fans at the midnight release that I attended, for want of a better word, completely sucked.

I have been to many midnight releases in my life, from Harry Potter, to Batman, to Twilight, and I know that the initial excitement gets the best of us sometimes, especially those who are young and stupid. There’s the cheering, laughter at “inside jokes” and nods to fans of the books, and clapping that I’m sure the actors on screen would appreciate if they were master telepaths.

The Hunger Games, however, was not a movie for clapping or cheering, and if you are like the people in the theater I saw the film at, you completely missed the point of the books. Aside from this behavior in a movie being incredibly annoying, it was beyond inappropriate for this film. There is a time and a place, and this movie was not either.

Some things in the Hunger Games film adaptation are fair game for laughter. Caesar Flickerman’s ridiculous smile, for instance, is hilarious. Some things are worthy of clapping, even though I find clapping in a movie to be insanely idiotic; nonetheless, clapping can occasionally be appropriate, like when Voldemort is finally vanquished in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. When cheering and clapping are not appropriate, however, is when an innocent teenager dies on screen.

I am absolutely horrified at how many people in the theater cheered when each member of the career tributes was killed. These characters, albeit brutal and ruthless, are not the enemies of this film. If you disagree with me on that point you must have misunderstood the message behind the books. The enemy is the Capitol, who made them that way, who brainwashed them, who made them crave the glory of winning the Hunger Games. These are children dying in these books and this film, not evil villains.

There’s an irony to this as well. If you clapped at the death of one of these characters, you are exactly the kind of person that these books were written about. Those cheering derived enjoyment from their deaths, from their pain (albeit fictional, but the point remains valid). Is this kind of blatant disregard for human life not the exact message that Suzanne Collins was warning us about in her books? Not only not caring about it, but actually relishing in the death of children? You’re supposed to be appalled, disgusted, and ashamed of a society that could come to this. You’re supposed to be anything but joyful at their deaths.

Editor’s note: How did the audience react to specific scenes in your theater? Let us know in the comments!