By Sarah Sluis
Last month I was on an airplane, when I recognized the Hunger Games font in my seatmate's book. "She's reading The Hunger Games!" I thought. Conversation ensued. We were both in our mid-twenties. She was reading the second book on the recommendation of her sister. These are what Hunger Games fans look like. We're not as swoony and crazy as the Twi-hards, but we also don't include the younger fans of the Harry Potter series. Quite a lot of the readers have long aged out of the young adult category but still find themselves turning to the series, which has an immensely satisfying dystopian vision. Twelve districts, used only for their natural resources or manufacturing capabilities, must sacrifice a male and female teen to play in the Games as a Tribute. Armed with weapons and survivalist gear (if they're lucky), they fight to the death in the Arena, a natural environment that's been tweaked by the Gamemakers to make it more dangerous.
The trailer for the movie, which opens on March 23, 2012, released yesterday, unleashing a furor of comments and posts from the blogosphere. I list the trailer's biggest disappointments and successes.
1. District 12. The poor coal town looked exactly as I had envisioned it. The (un-)electric fence looked old and rusty, the citizens downbeat and drained of hope. The platform Effie (played by Elizabeth Banks in makeup that appears to channel Johnny Depp in Alice in Wonderland) uses to announce the Tributes is bigger and grander than I imagined, with lots of extra screens to amplify the action.
2. The city shot of the Capitol looked bland and boring, like a modern Star Wars ripoff. No budget was spent on this. The interiors were much more promising. Hollywood knows how to create futuristic, modern interiors without a problem. It's the special effects that are lacking here.
3. The makeover. For me, the biggest Jennifer Lawrence transformation was seeing her first as a poor Ozarks girl in Winter's Bone, then as a glamorous blonde at the Oscars. The Hunger Games can't replicate that kind of transformation. She does look prettier and more done up after receiving her makeover at the Capitol, but don't expect The Princess Diaries.
4. The Games. This is really the most important part of the story, and so far there's nothing to disappoint. The trailer stops after all the Tributes enter the arena, and Katniss (Lawrence) grabs the same, single bag that she does in the book. The initial bloodshed occurs just moments later.
Some of the book's biggest assets can't be intuited from a trailer. Suzanne Collins' novel reads like a screenplay at times. There aren't a lot of superfluous details to edit out, and the action is brisk, satisfying, and extremely page-turning. If the actors and director can transfer that energy to the screen, The Hunger Games will have no trouble being a huge success.
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