The Hunger Games: Comparing The Book And The Movie

As J.W. Eagon once said “NEVER judge a book by its movie”.Suzanne Collins’s “The Hunger Games”, is a novel created into a movie in 2012 by Gary Ross. Both the book and novel study the life of Katniss Everdeen, who happens to come from District 12 which is the poorest district because of District 13s horrible downfall. When Katniss’s sister Prim is chosen for the reaping she wants to volunteer to save her by taking her place in The Hunger Games, but what she doesn’t know is that the male tribute for the hunger games is someone who saved her life of starvation when she was younger. Although the movie and novel share important information about each other they do contain various differences that impact the story.The book is better because the

Only there were still several weeks to go. We could well be dead. Starvation’s not an uncommon fate in District 12. Who hasn’t seen the victims.”,(pg 27-28).This detail is vastly different in the movie, where there is no mention of Katniss’ background and life at District 12 before The Reaping. In the film, Katniss, played by Jennifer Lawrence is she is in the woods hunting in the beginning. Once she gets to the arena, Lawrence's character is tormented by forest fires, savage beasts, and the other tributes.In the novel she starts off in bed feeling prims warmth.The change is the movie is less powerful than the book

We barely notice her struggle, her thirst, or the pain of running in the dangerous forest area of the day. On the other hand, in the novel, Collins writes,”The fireball hits the tree off to my left , engulfing it in flame. To remain still is death. I’m barely on my feet before the third ball hits the ground where I was lying, sending a pillar of fire up behind me. Time loses meaning now as I frantically try to dodge the attacks.” (175).These lines show how desperate and in danger she is on their way to pond she barely survives. As we read, we worry about whether or not she will make it to the pond and on top of that, we worry that there might not be a pond once they get there. Collins writes many pages about her journey and all of the pain and sacrifice it took them to get to the pond, until finally Peeta is too sick to go on, and Katniss has to carry him up on her shoulders to the end. All of the details in the rising action not only make us tense and wanting to know what will happen next, but they also show us how hard Katniss had to work and all she had to sacrifice in order to lift the curse on her family. In the film, all of this feels less serious because it is so much