The Hunger Game
Have you ever seen The Hunger Games movie and read The Hunger Games book? Well, if you did you will see that both the book and the movie are based on the same plot, but with small differences. The Hunger Games is a science fiction novel written by Suzanne Collins. It is narrated by the voice of Katniss Everdeen, who lives in nation of Panem which used to have 13 district but now only 12 districts. The Capitol is the advanced city that takes control of the whole nation. The Hunger Games are a series of yearly events in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death. The Hunger Game book contains the original ideas; however, The Hunger Games movie has some different contents that don’t resemble the same contents of the book. In other words, there are some characters and scene that are different. The book mentions characters that were omitted in the movie such as Madge Undersee, the Avox girl, and Peeta’s father. In the other hand, some characters are presented in both similarly such as Cinna and Rue. The book and the movie are narrated in two different styles; the book as a first person narration whereas the movie as a third. As a result, some scenes are added to the movie and are not in the book.
Madge Undersee is the daughter of the mayor of District 12 and Katniss’ best female friend. She is one of the first characters that are introduced in the book; however she is not mentioned in the movie whatsoever. Madge goes to the same school that Katniss and Peeta attend. She is the only one who sits with Katniss during lunch at school. She is one of the people who come and say goodbye to Katniss and she gives her the mockingjay pin. Nevertheless, in the movie, the pin is given to Katniss by a dealer of the Hob. The movie goes on to show that Katniss gives the pin to her sister Prim to protect her at the reaping day and when her sister comes to say goodbye, she returns the pin to Katniss as a symbol of protection as well.
The movie completely ignores the Avox girl “maid.” The character in the book represents a person who has been punished for being against the Capitol. The Avox girl shows up when Katniss, Peeta and the rest of the team are having dinner. Katniss believes that the Avox girl’s face is familiar; she gets some flashbacks reminding her that when she was hunting with Gale, this girl asked both of them for help since this girl got caught running away from the district. According to the book every time Katniss sees the Avox girl, she feels guilty that she didn’t help her.
Another character the movie did not talk about is Peeta’s father. Peeta’s father comes and says goodbye to Katniss and gives her cookies because Katniss has mentioned that she never tried cookies because they are very expansive that she can’t afford them. Katniss makes Peeta’s father promise her to take care of her sister and mother. The book and the movie had some similarities in the characters especially with Cinna and Rue. In both book and movie, Cinna is Katniss’ stylist and also a good friend of her. He used always to make creative outfits for her. Rue is the youngest tributes in the game. Katniss used to see her sister in Rue. Rue helps katniss from the tributes who are trying to kill Katniss.
The book was written in the first person. This means that Katniss is narrating the story and she is using “I”, “Me”, “My”, etc. Yet, the movie is demonstrated in a third person narration. This means that there is a third person telling the story. That’s why there are many scenes in the movie that the book never mentioned. One of the scenes takes place when the president of the Capital is talking with the game maker about the game and asking him why only one person wins. According to President Snow “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous.” This scene is only found in the movie.
Another scene that was presented in the Movie only is that when Rue, the 12 years old girl from district 11 who is very close to Katniss gets killed. Rue's father gets angry of his daughter's death and starts a riot. His district follows him and they destroy the stage showing the games. As Katniss makes a peace sign to the camera, the 'Peace Keepers' of District 11 arrive and shoot Rue's father dead. President Snow gets worried about the riot that happened in district 11 and he changes the game’s rule from one person to two people from the same district just to make sure that Katniss will die. Meanwhile, in the book Katniss receive bread from district 11 as an appreciation of what she has done to Rue.
In conclusion, the hunger game is a really interesting story that talks about the world in the future and how our lives will be if humans keep killing each other. The book and the movie have a lot in common with few differences. In my opinion, the book is much more interesting than the movie; however the filmmaker did an amazing job telling the whole story in less than an hour and half.