Two Opposites

You might think you were in a graveyard because the grasp that silence had on everyone. All you can do is hope. Hope that you will be safe. Hope your family will be safe. Hope that you can keep going until at least next year’s reaping. This is the effect the book the Hunger Games (By Suzanne Collins) and the movie the Hunger Games (Directed by Gary Ross) put on you. But the two tell their tale differently than each other. There were few similarities but many differences between the book and the movie of the Hunger Games.

The book is viewed as a beginning to something great, in this case the main character, Katniss is going to start an uprising on their controllers, the Capitol and it’s leader President Snow. The movie makes Katniss appear more as a hero embarking on a dangerous quest with no other major story, almost like the Lord of the Rings (J.R.R Tolkien) series. However the movie does provide some detail on this hidden story in the Hunger Games. The scenes that are not in Katniss’ point of view such as President Snow’s conversations with Seneca Crane, the Head Game-maker or the father of Rue attacking the peace-keepers and starting a rebellion in District 11. However a major difference between the two are the way certain scenes played out.

Changes made in the scenes are the major difference of these two tales of the Hunger Games. Scenes such as Katniss and Peeta in the cave during the games. In the book Katniss is not sure what to think about Peeta. She doesn’t know if she loves him, hates him, or if she just needs to get him out alive. For instance, when the book says, "Getting the broth into Peeta takes an hour of coaxing, begging, threatening, and yes, kissing." (Page 262) the reader is not sure what Katniss thinks of Peeta. The movie it made Katniss appear to be grateful to find Peeta and then go straight from that to loving him. Or in the scene with the mutation wolves. In the book Peeta and Katniss go out to hunt the last tribute and win the Hunger Games together and when they find the last tribute, Cato, they then meet up with the wolves as they were chasing Cato. How the movie portrays it is they are attacked by the wolves before they meet up with Cato. The scene changes really provide how different the book and movie are but there is a similarity needle in the difference haystack.

One  thing that was similar between the book and movie was they always showed that Katniss always had her hands full. She never got to not worry about anything that went on. She solved one problem just as a new one appeared. The situation may be presented differently in the book from the movie but the general idea still got across to the viewer.

A whisper of similarity is very unnoticeable in a crowd of difference but it is still there for these two stories of the Hunger Games. While these two amazing stories shock and entertain many people around the world, everyone will like one better than the other because of the few similarities. However, could other movies and books prove to change a viewer’s mind on how some different scenes change the story entirely?