Why The Hunger Games is Less Retarded Than Twilight

I never jumped on the Twilight bandwagon, maybe because it’s semi-embarrassing to be associated with it. Also, I was never really that into the cliche idea of vampires and werewolves. Even if The Hunger Games shares similarities to Japanese movie Battle Royale and Steven King’s Running Man there are more reasons to love this new novel-turned-movie franchise.

I didn’t have to force my boyfriend to go see it. Like I had mentioned, The Hunger Games is less embarrassing and I didn’t have a problem convincing my boyfriend to go see it. Although there is the love triangle involved, the idea of a “chick flick” is masked with the idea of kids killing each other off.

Katniss Everdeen is way cooler than Bella Swan. Katniss is pretty bad-ass, a rebel that started a revolution. She is well loved and doesn’t want to commit to either man. Bella’s just some “average girl” in which anybody can take her place (that was the point right?), but Katniss has heart, character and history. I don’t want to be in Katniss’ shoes, but I want to read about adventure. I enjoyed her fearlessness and her independence. The National Review once said that Bella gets what she wants eventually “by giving up her identity and throwing away nearly everything in life that matters” I don’t really care much for Bella’s story and the fact that she will end up marrying and having a vampire baby.

The Hunger Games mocks our obsession with reality television. Whether or not it was intentional, The Hunger Games mocks our own society. If we’ve gone to extremes of making such things as Teen Mom a hit, what’s in the future of reality television? Will we have our own version of the Hunger Games? I don’t think Twilight makes us think about society in any way, unless it’s maybe that boy down the road is a vampire.

I sort of want a Mockingjay pin. I usually don’t like movie paraphernalia, but if it’s a token of being a rebel. Something like Edward’s face on my wall would be much more embarrassing.

In 3 not-so-long books, Suzanne Collins created a complicated world and it’s movie marketing campaign ingeniously created a tour of it’s Capitol. It didn’t rely on hot men, (although Gale and Peetah’s portrayal is not bad), or overly CG’d girls. You can see every imperfection on Jenniffer Lawrence, but that didn’t matter. I loved the cliffhangers in the end of every chapter of Suzanne Collin’s books. They were intelligently thought out but the only thing that makes Twilight books look smart is the intimidating size of their hardcovers.