Catching Fire
Katniss and Peeta are the winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games. Before embarking on the 'victory tour', President Snow pays Katniss a private visit.
Catching Fire, for me seemed to be a copy of the Hunger Games in terms that some of the things that happened in the Hunger Games seems to get repeated here again. District, train travel, another Hunger games. One thing I really didn't understand even after finishing the book was how the world worked. I am not sure I even was certain of how Panem was physically structured and how it made sense that if it's North America geographically more than one district should be able to have a fishing, or mining industry. The way the world seemed to run just made little sense to me. How was Snow in power the length that they seemed to allude that he had been in power. At times President Snow seemed quite incompetent.
From the start of the book, why would Snow not just kill Katniss and Peeta, instead playing this whole idea of love which was false to begin with? Why not just kill the rebellion before it really formed if that was the case instead of everything that happened. Also the whole idea of Katniss and Peeta's romance being portrayed as if it was a form of rebellion itself.
I liked the Hunger Games more than Catching Fire and despite it's flaws the books are not that bad. One thing I liked and hoped would have appeared more was Katniss's first person narrative and assumptions that she feed to us as facts being challenged. One particular example is that Katniss always states that District 12 is the poorest and worst district and at time Suzanne Collins has other characters repeat that. However, when we meet some of the other victors we discover that it's not completely true and the only reason that we have that idea is because Katniss knows nothing of the other districts and she never makes any effort to find out. I also liked Joanna, because when they group she's actually a vital part to the group. However at a point, Katniss just wants to kill her and it's because Joanna actually has a come back against her demands. Finnick was also interesting but I did not like how Katniss kept thinking about ways to kill him but not wanting to do it herself she was trying to figure out who else would be able to do it.
I really did not understand the point of having a game winner. What is the purpose? I mean what we learn about the older victors is that their lives are in no way better for having won the game. Seriously, the game winners and their families are shunned, abused, they ended up becoming addicted to alcohol, drugs or others things. In Finnick's case the moment he won he ended out being pimped out. That's just horrid and he was a kid.
I really don't understand how the author created it so that the rebellion seem to center just around one person, Katniss. Because if that really true then that rebellion is weak beyond measure. The rebellion should be based on people wanting to overthrow the government to better their very existence and not because Katniss said they should.
Catching Fire in some ways was a better movie then Hunger Games. The movie was brighter and seemed to be on a grandeur scale. I believe that many people prefer this movie to the Hunger Games in some parts there was no shaky camera work and many felt they understood the that Panem was run by a totalitarian government.
For me having read the books and seen the movies I still don't have so many questions that were not answered. For one how the government or Panem runs and how Snow is in power? How do people get to live in the capital as suppose to the district? What is it based on, wealth, lineage, job, geography? Is you earn a dollar less than a certain amount do you get sent to a district? If so what district? Can people travel and choose a district? Can you live in district 1 but making cloths is your calling can you move to district 8? Can people not travel to the capital or other districts even if they don't live there? Do people not take vacations?
The above pictures are three different maps of what Panem is suppose to look like that I found online. Just looking at them I wondered how were the district numbers designated? I mean district 4 is closer to 11 and 12 than it is to 5. What happened to Hawaii, Florida and Alaska? If they are all under water, why is it that only district 4 has a fishing industry? Wouldn't there be multiple fishing industries in other districts near a coast thus having more food for people?
To move on to the movie, these questions arose as I was watching. I still don't understand why President Snow as powerful as he seemed would want to support the fake love story? Also were all the victors being watched or was that done just to Katniss? It was always portrayed that Katniss was so dangerous but I only ever remember her killing one person in the Hunger Games. Peeta killed no one. Also during the Hunger Games and the victory tours things were always being broadcasted, especially Katniss's fake love story that was suppose to be a form of rebellion in itself and the protests. I just had me wondering did editing no longer exist? What about the districts on different coasts? Media is such a powerful tool that can be used to educate or mislead people. This had me wondering, is everything in Panem broadcast live everywhere all the time? Because if the goal especially in the Hunger Games was to have one victor, why did the game maker not just tell Katniss and Peeta they were both victors, but the killed one and then edited and broadcast a video showing only one victor? What could the victor possible do or say about that? Problem solved. Which just made me think that however powerful President Snow is, he was probably incompetent. Even that why would something like that demand his personal attention? Doesn't he have anyone he can delegate to that can do their job?
I was upset when they went back to the whole idea that Peeta had to be the one to survive the games in Catching Fire. The Hunger Games made it so that to survive you had to kill, did not matter if the person was from your own district. Peeta did nothing to contribute to their survival in the Hunger Games, the bread thing doesn't matter nor the fake love story. I did not understand nor like the constant forced idea that Peeta was too good for Katniss and that she owed him.
Even in this hunger games I did not understand the need for the volunteer rule to remain intact, because why couldn't Hyamitch just re-volunteer to go in if he wanted to save Peeta so much. If your chosen and someone volunteers for you, what's to stop you from saying no and still take your place?
Hyamitch talks about how the Quarter Quell was that much more difficult because all the previous victors knew each other, but how? We got no evidence or mention of victors meeting or really interacting besides the previous victors being mentors to those in their district. Even during the victory tour Katniss and Peeta never see, let alone meet any other victors. Also the Quarter Quell had male and female victors from each district from different years. Wouldn't have there been a district without any victors at all? We learn that most of the recent games have all been held in forested areas. So what about people from districts that are completely urban and know nothing about surviving in the wild like the two women that Katniss meets in the woods. The few days they would spend during the evaluation in the capital would not be able to repair them to find water, food and shelter let alone learn to kill. I mean the survival skills that the books portray that Katniss had as a hunter, she should be dead already.
I thought Effie was more of a fleshed out character in the movie, but it was upsetting to see that while most of the characters going into the Quarter Quell actual said things about how they felt about having to be in another game, Katniss only used her dress. Here Katniss used fashion to deliver a message yet she always seemed to be insulting Effie and everyone who used fashion. Katniss was always making judgements about other participants and what they wore but she was doing the same thing. It was only that Cinna did not wear as much make up and was a better designer?
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| Participants of the Quarter Quell |
I tried to figure out why President Snow listened so much to Plutarch? It seemed to me that Plutarch had been a game maker before Senneca then comes back. In made me wonder as to why the rebellion did not have more Plutarchs infiltrate the capital change things from the inside maybe kill Snow or something instead of resting their hope on Katniss, who knows nothing about the rebellion and hardly initiate any action.
When we enter the games, why did it take so long for the cannon to go off after Peeta's heart stop? They waited and waited for the long minutes for Finnick to restart his heart. Isn't there someone responsible for the cannon and don't they know their job? How come no one found this suspicious and reported to Snow? What about the person at fell in the water? His cannon went off immediately, countless people have been saved from drowning, but I guess he had no team mate or anyone who cared about him. The fog was a interesting way to kill people but why would the fog be held back by a forcefield that Katniss could just walk through? Wouldn't having fog and killer monkey overlap but more efficient? I understood what they were trying to do with the jabber jay but why would any of them fall for it?
So as a movie Catching Fire an okay movie, but because there were things I did not like from the books and questions I had, I also had them about the movie. I have found that with the recent trend of young adult books to movies especially series there is a problem that I see that are not being addressed. I understand that usually studios start with the first book of a series and then if it does well they do the following books. Books and movies are different mediums, somethings that work in one does not always work in the other. For me I have come to see that what seems to work is an adaptation from one to the other not a direct copy. Usually in the book things can be revealed more slowly but in movies you don't usually have the time and seeing a picture of a scene is a bit different then reading about the scene. One usually needs you to create the image out of your own imagination with the information given but the other you have the image is already there. That is why I think in a movie the world and how things work need to be set up from the beginning so you know what kind of world it is and it's rules. However, books can sometimes give you the sense of the world little by little. I usually get upset when I am given a set of rules of how a world works in a movie but then in the second or third movie starts to throw in more rules that usually contradict or make no sense with the rules we already had. So I think some of these movies need to set up the world completely in the first movie even if some of that information maybe from the second or third book of a series.
