Disclaimer: I've neither read the books nor seen the movie, but ignorance of a subject has never stopped me commenting before!

I've seen Running Man referred to often in comparison to Hunger Games, but the first film that came to mind when I read about Hunger Games' storyline was Battle Royale. It's a Japanese film made in 2000 where members of an entire high school class are pitted against one another in a competition to see which one survives. In this case, this fight to the death is part of a secret government program and not televised entertainment. The class is gassed and fitted with collars that contain explosives so that if they decide to rebel by refusing to fight, the collars will be detonated and they will all die. They're each given a satchel with "weapons," but no two are the same: one student may get a machine gun while another gets a frying pan, setting them against one another before the competition has officially begun. Other students decide to kill themselves rather than become killers.

Intentional or not, it is often seen a screed against the Japanese school system, which can be so high-pressure that many students commit suicide, especially during finals.

I enjoyed the film, but not enough to go and read the novel on which it's based. It's a times hilarious and at times heartbreaking and well worth a rental.

I'd be curious to hear from folks who've read and/or seen both.

Battle Royale is often mentioned as more apt comparison than The Running Man.

Hunger Games has been criticized by many, and some wonder whether the criticism is fueled by something else, e.g., anti-feminism.

But I think it is a fair to note the work is derivative in the genre, and it isn't necessary to ascribe secret motives to all critics.

^^^^^

I stumbled across an article regarding one of the major criticisms of the movie: Was Jennifer Lawrence too FAT for the Hunger Games? Critics believe actress should have looked 'more hungry'




IOW, Jennifer Lawrence didn't drop 20 pounds for the movie, thus the movie was bad, bad, bad. Jennifer Lawrence wouldn't have been able to do such a physically demanding film had she lost weight. If she had lost weight for the film, the critics would scream about how Lawrence's weight loss for the film simply perpetuated the media message that girls/women must look malnourished and emaciated to be an actress.

"OMG, Jennifer Lawrence is promoting poor body image and eating disorders!"

In the Twilight series, the lead female is weak, indecisive, moody and always in need of rescuing. I don't recall ever seeing a movie review criticizing the films for having the definitive "damsel in distress" theme continue for 4 (to be 5) films.

The idea that a young woman could have the physical ability and drive to survive the Hunger Games is obviously too much for many Hollywood critics. I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't judge it. But criticizing the film because the actress isn't emaciated enough pisses me off. Such criticisms are blatantly anti-feminist. After all, women aren't supposed to compete. We need men to help us survive.

Yeah, she's a total cow:

As much as I like dystopian fiction, angsty teens and tweens killing each other until they make angsty alliances and then angsty rebellion against teh ebil adults who made them all angsty? Sounds way too much like a My Chemical Romance concert. (Disclaimer: I am, in fact, a big fan of MCR, just not a fan of their fans.)

I don't want to see Hunger Games any more than I want to see sparkly vampires and angsty werewolves feuding over a really bad teen actress.

You know what they call The Hunger Games in France?

LOH!

I thought having a girl as the best warrior/survivor was true to life, nothing unexpected. Can you imagine calling that feminism? Didn't a lady win the first episode of Survivor (and a gay guy won the second episode, or was it the other way around)? OK, that's not true life either. I knew that. But between women in the Olympics and women's soccer and basketball, we've all learned that the speed and power of an athletic woman can compete with all but the top male athletes. We've learned that women are our equal in any field mentally. Girls mature faster than boys, though the boys in the film were certainly mature physically. I'd expect a girl to come out as victor in about 65% of the Games over the course of time, wouldn't you? That seemed perfectly natural to me.

Katniss looked like an athlete, and her hunting ability explained her muscle tone, to my unread eyes -- I haven't read the books. If she can hunt deer, she eats better than her fellow slave peoples.

They ain't in the same category, man.

In the first book, her hunting background is well-developed -- so much so that, by the age of 15, given a home-made bow and arrows, she could average killing about 32 rabbits and 14 squirrels per half-hour.

BTW, she always hits 'em square in the eye at 50 yards, even when they're running. Less meat spoilage that way, don't ya know.

I just finished Book 1. Have not seen the movie.

It was gripping and fun, not a bad read at all (I couldn't bear Eclipse, couldn't get past the dreadful writing).

I made the observation to Listeme yesterday that the Hunger Games themselves are the story's MacGuffin. She didn't seem to agree. But I ask myself what Suzanne Collins was really interested in, in writing this book; and I think it's Katniss. Character, character, character. And she delivers a wonderful, tortuous reveal, through this girl's eyes. Katniss who sees so much, but misses a great deal more -- just like all of us. Katniss who is not hardly at all a sexual being, which is so very refreshing. And I think the entire plot and the games are there as a foil to push Katniss into all these choices and all this personal growth.

I don't mean that cynically or dismissively at all.

I don't think Collins is really (in Book 1, anyway) all that interested or invested in the dystopic society itself. Its structure and mores do not make a lot of sense. If anything the country Panem (which is presumably smaller than North America today) is today's entire globe in microcosm. It's a 99%/1% dichotomy, where the slave-like 99% might as well be Lesotho gold-miners or Sudanese refugees, not Wilkes-Barre shop girls or Sanford, Fla., teens with Skittles.

And yet ... millions of comparatively privileged American teen girls have gobbled this up. The yearning for control and freedom is universal in 16-year-olds, yes -- that's part of it. And Trayvon Martin and Jamey Rodemeyer and Palestinians and Afghanis and Norwegians DO pay the ultimate price, and sometimes it's on the evening news, and grotesque grownups with inscrutable motives DO seem to spend an awful lot of time angrily insisting that society will only work if everyone behaves precisely SO -- precisely as THEY dictate. (Yes, Santorum, Breitbart, and Palin, I'm looking at YOU.)

So obviously I found it thought-provoking, but I don't think the subversive progressive message I'm hinting at is what centrally engaged the writer's Id. I may be wrong.

The Road hit me the same way. However, I continue to be in discussions with friends about the ending. Did the boy find a community where he could live in peace and love? I don't think so, but others do.

I have the movie on my DVR but have not yet watched it. I am not sure that I want to go through that again.

Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West hit me about the same way.

Teenagers would probably consider movies of either book not to be really scary, unless the director jazzed up what McCarthy wrote. Some unseen images in The Road are scary, and a director might have brought them to the front.