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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    Sorry, I only have the movie to go by.
    Also, forbidden and not done are two completely different things. The heroine was able to get enough hunting practise to pick off squirrels on a regular enough basis to be well known in a rather formal looking 'black market' with a home made bow. My point is the system encourages this form of rebellion implicitly while trying to avoid the repercussions explicitly.
    And, as a I said, what do they do if they do rebel? You can't keep destroying Sectors without bringing the entire means of production, and hence your civilisation, to a screeching halt.
    You give them just enough that they have something to lose by rebelling, and any that do (which by the nature of the districts is very likely to be an isolated affair) get shut down hard, potentially using them as an example as what happens to people like them. Let the sparks die without spreading.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    Sorry, I only have the movie to go by.
    Also, forbidden and not done are two completely different things, just ask any teenager.
    The heroine was able to get enough hunting practise to pick off squirrels on a regular enough basis to be well known in a rather formal looking 'black market' with a home made bow. My point is the system encourages this form of rebellion implicitly while trying to avoid the repercussions explicitly.
    And, as a I said, what do they do if they do rebel? You can't keep destroying Sectors without bringing the entire means of production, and hence your civilisation, to a screeching halt.
    It is mentioned within the story that twelve, being the poorest district has much more lax security and treatment than other districts. If they weren't all starving, they'd be much better off than most of the others. What's more Katniss is an exception not a rule. The poorer district's children very rarely win because they are malnourished, and completely unprepared as opposed to the healthier well trained champions of the districts that have benefited the most from the situation.

    I'm not saying the concept is perfect but we see the system as it falls apart, and less of the seventy four years in which it worked so well as to see little change in form. Not to forget that if it hadn't been for

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    the stunt Katniss pulled with the berries, the system probably would have continued to work.

    Which is a much bigger plothole. In that why they didn't just hit them with a sleeping drug and then have them wake up hours later without the berries and no other options (possibly walled in with only a knife so they don't try some other clever trick) is most likely because the author wanted the heroes to win and didn't think too hard about it.
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  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Xondoure View Post
    Not to forget that if it hadn't been for

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    the stunt Katniss pulled with the berries, the system probably would have continued to work.

    Which is a much bigger plothole. In that why they didn't just hit them with a sleeping drug and then have them wake up hours later without the berries and no other options (possibly walled in with only a knife so they don't try some other clever trick) is most likely because the author wanted the heroes to win and didn't think too hard about it.
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    I think it's because the games are televised, live, for the entire nation to see. Pretty much everybody knows that the games are rigged, but for the Gamemasters to blatantly pull a stunt like that is a whole other thing entirely. Also, everyone was paying attention to the "star-crossed lovers of District 12" narrative; quite a few people were probably pretty upset with the Gamemasters' about-face as it was.

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Xondoure View Post
    I'm not saying the concept is perfect but we see the system as it falls apart, and less of the seventy four years in which it worked so well as to see little change in form. Not to forget that if it hadn't been for

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    the stunt Katniss pulled with the berries, the system probably would have continued to work.

    Which is a much bigger plothole. In that why they didn't just hit them with a sleeping drug and then have them wake up hours later without the berries and no other options (possibly walled in with only a knife so they don't try some other clever trick) is most likely because the author wanted the heroes to win and didn't think too hard about it.
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    Leaving aside that they only had seconds to come up with a response in the first place, if the two are willing to both kill themselves, then they will kill themselves. Leaving them with a knife for example, doesn't prevent them from killing themselves, they'll just each stab themselves to death instead.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    After reading thread and others about the Hunger Games I feel the urge to come out with a versus thread. The basic idea is simple, a band of heroes was mystically conveied to just outside Panem and their plan is to attack the Capitol and kill President Snow. The heroes, or as I like to call them, The Fellowship of the Black Blade, consist of Emperor Elric VIII of Melnibone as the leader, Nemesis the Warlock as second in command, Midnighter, Basin City's Marv, the enemy of Norsefire known simply as V, Beatrix Kiddo, deadly little Miho, Lelouch vi Britannia as the tag along kid and of course the group's wise old mentor. He's retired Lt. Aldo Raine. "We ain't in the takin' prisioners business, we in the killin' peacekeepers business. And business is a boomin'!" Is something wrong with me?
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Guys, I'm not talking about the contestants, I am talking about the potential contestants.
    You know, the thousands who, thanks to the "get aid, get more of a chance of being sent to a very good chance of a rather unpleasant death" have every reason to work to be independent of such needs, and no loyalty to the larger government, who, as pointed out, are, in the lower sectors, are relatively unguarded,. Unguarded enough for a someone to gain relative expertise in a weapon that takes years of practise to gain proficiency with.
    Who knows how many others, a lot of weapons have being improvised over the years from farm tools. Early pole arms developed from a a farmers sycthe reforged in an upward direction, Nunchaku and flails likely developed from grain flails, used for separating wheat from chaff.
    Let's see, unguarded, hungry, resentful, independent, disloyal masses.
    That's a revolution waiting to happen.
    And what's worse, the elite are screwed if the Proles do rebel. I don't think some of you realize how screwed.
    Let's say put down the uprising, brutally and with devastating force. Great, your production of raw materials is devastatingly disrupted, the raw materials that allow the high tech wonderland of the highest Sectors to exist.
    But, let's say they are 'lenient', don't go for all out devastation, because otherwise the civilisation will collapse.
    OK then, they are doomed, because tyranny can never survive when it becomes known that it can be fought against, that it can be resisted.
    Think of a bully. Everyone is afraid because they think they'll get beaten, but if someone stands up to that bully, and they don't get beaten up, or not as much as feared, then the bully has no power.
    The system was not stable, it was a powder keg.
    Our characters set it off, but it was doomed to blow anyway.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    See district 12 could probably get away with rebellion because they have so little. Even then they're starved so they don't really have the means to rebel in a meaningful way. It takes a rare person to be willing to throw their lives away to rebel. It takes a rarer person to throw away the lives of their family to rebel.

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    The only reason the rebellion works is because District 13 is so advanced and is FULL of people who are already willing to rebel. Otherwise each district would have just been crushed under the thumb of the capital and they would have continued working. The technological superiority of the capital is too great, if district 13 weren't around

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    Guys, I'm not talking about the contestants, I am talking about the potential contestants.
    You know, the thousands who, thanks to the "get aid, get more of a chance of being sent to a very good chance of a rather unpleasant death" have every reason to work to be independent of such needs, and no loyalty to the larger government, who, as pointed out, are, in the lower sectors, are relatively unguarded,. Unguarded enough for a someone to gain relative expertise in a weapon that takes years of practise to gain proficiency with.
    Who knows how many others, a lot of weapons have being improvised over the years from farm tools. Early pole arms developed from a a farmers sycthe reforged in an upward direction, Nunchaku and flails likely developed from grain flails, used for separating wheat from chaff.
    Let's see, unguarded, hungry, resentful, independent, disloyal masses.
    That's a revolution waiting to happen.
    And what's worse, the elite are screwed if the Proles do rebel. I don't think some of you realize how screwed.
    Let's say put down the uprising, brutally and with devastating force. Great, your production of raw materials is devastatingly disrupted, the raw materials that allow the high tech wonderland of the highest Sectors to exist.
    But, let's say they are 'lenient', don't go for all out devastation, because otherwise the civilisation will collapse.
    OK then, they are doomed, because tyranny can never survive when it becomes known that it can be fought against, that it can be resisted.
    Think of a bully. Everyone is afraid because they think they'll get beaten, but if someone stands up to that bully, and they don't get beaten up, or not as much as feared, then the bully has no power.
    The system was not stable, it was a powder keg.
    Our characters set it off, but it was doomed to blow anyway.
    Problem is, just because a couple of people can get away with sneaking away and hunting and gaining some useful skills without getting caught doesn't mean a large number of people can do that. A larger group of people is more likely to get noticed and make them increase security to the point that even a couple of people wouldn't be able to get away with it. Also, on this point:

    Let's say put down the uprising, brutally and with devastating force. Great, your production of raw materials is devastatingly disrupted, the raw materials that allow the high tech wonderland of the highest Sectors to exist.
    Then you just relocate some people from each of the other districts into the rebelling district, using the dead rebellious members as an example of what happens (and potentially subtlely increase quality of life for a while to give less incentive to rebel).
    Last edited by Reverent-One; 2012-03-30 at 08:49 AM.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    I don't think the Capitol was ever supposed to be an especially effective dictatorship. I've only read the first two books, but I got the impression that the only reason the Capitol lasted as long as it does is because of it's incredible technological superiority, and by making sure none of the districts can work independently.

    Each district is ultra-specialized in some industry. All the districts that do not produce Food are reliant on the capital shipping them food from the districts that Do, and the districts that DO grow food are kept heavily repressed. Since communication between the districts is all but impossible, districts can't rebel without suffering the risk of starvation, unless they know that one of the agricultural districts is ALSO rebelling, and is willing to ship them food.

    But in the end, it's still a very unstable system. It appears to be designed to produce the highest-possible quality of life in the Capital, rather than to ensure stability as long as possible. Consider, for example, 1984, which was an incredibly stable Dystopia, where the apparatus of state was designed to keep The Party in power by keeping the people Terrified, Brainwashed, or Mindlessly Content.

    In Panem it's more like a mercantilist system, the Apparatus of state is designed to ensure that the Capital gets to live it up as much as possible. As a way to keep Rebellion down, the Hunger Games are very stupid. It's a annual humiliation that also encourages children in the districts to be prepared to fight a brutal guerrilla war. I guess it has the side effect of encouraging districts to think of each other as enemies, but that's kind of mitigated by the fact that they're all FORCED into fighting each other.

    The Hunger Games is so the Capital can feel good about how powerful it is.The Capital is like Tarquin, they realize that, no matter what they do, all empires fall, and eventually their reign will end. In the meantime, they might as well live life as a 24/7 Party.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Xondoure View Post
    If I recall correctly they weren't allowed to. Training was in fact strictly prohibited (you know, unless it was a favored district that just happened to have academies where most of the tributes come from. That would be inconclusive.)
    All tributes get training prior to the games. The ones that survive get to go home. Nothing is stopping them from training other kids once they get there, though they of course have to be secretive about it.

    And even without the government's training the kids can learn some stuff on their own. Katniss didn't learn how to hunt in the games after all.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    And, as a I said, what do they do if they do rebel? You can't keep destroying Sectors without bringing the entire means of production, and hence your civilisation, to a screeching halt.
    Yep. Snow even knows this - he explains to Caesar that the far-out districts supply coal and crops, "things we need." If they ALL revolted that would be the end of it, his only solution is to keep them mostly placated and make harsh examples of any upstarts quickly.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    All tributes get training prior to the games. The ones that survive get to go home. Nothing is stopping them from training other kids once they get there, though they of course have to be secretive about it.

    And even without the government's training the kids can learn some stuff on their own. Katniss didn't learn how to hunt in the games after all.



    Yep. Snow even knows this - he explains to Caesar that the far-out districts supply coal and crops, "things we need." If they ALL revolted that would be the end of it, his only solution is to keep them mostly placated and make harsh examples of any upstarts quickly.
    I didn't think the winners went home. I only saw the movie but I thought the mentor lived in the capital full time and that winning the games brought fame and riches.

    I'm not sure how much training they could give anyway. It would be swords and bows against hovertanks and pulse rifles.

    I did get the impression that the capital could be sieged if all the districts rebelled but how likely are the districts going to work together? Every year they get to see Jack from District X slaughter someone from their district. I would imagine that there is a strong rivalry between districts.

    In the movie I thought that was the point of the flowers and the gesture when Rue died. Katniess showed that she actually cared about another district.

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Megaduck View Post
    I didn't think the winners went home. I only saw the movie but I thought the mentor lived in the capital full time and that winning the games brought fame and riches.
    Yeah, my mistake. But past winners may simply not have wanted to go home. Even if they did though and were physically prevented, that just means the districts have to prepare for battle on their own, which has been done before in history.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megaduck View Post
    I'm not sure how much training they could give anyway. It would be swords and bows against hovertanks and pulse rifles.
    Now where have I seen that before?

    All kidding aside, it wouldn't be "guerilla warfare" if the other side didn't have better gear. You have to fight smart, until you can steal some of their pulse rifles and tanks, then keep fighting smart. And however high-tech the Capitol's technology is, clearly they still need necessities like coal etc., so a long bloody war will hurt them as much as it does the rebels.

    Quote Originally Posted by Megaduck View Post
    I did get the impression that the capital could be sieged if all the districts rebelled but how likely are the districts going to work together? Every year they get to see Jack from District X slaughter someone from their district. I would imagine that there is a strong rivalry between districts.

    In the movie I thought that was the point of the flowers and the gesture when Rue died. Katniess showed that she actually cared about another district.
    And that's the point - by allowing the games to continue, you create the opportunity for more inspiring moments like that.

    But as someone pointed out above, any inter-district rivalry is undermined by the fact that all the districts are in it together.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reverent-One View Post
    Problem is, just because a couple of people can get away with sneaking away and hunting and gaining some useful skills without getting caught doesn't mean a large number of people can do that. A larger group of people is more likely to get noticed and make them increase security to the point that even a couple of people wouldn't be able to get away with it. Also, on this point:
    No one seemed too shocked when it was revealed she could shoot. In fact, the boy openly revealed that she got squirrels to sell, and no one seemed off put by it. The market also seemed to be a fairly open thing from what I could tell from the film, at most an open secret.
    Then you just relocate some people from each of the other districts into the rebelling district, using the dead rebellious members as an example of what happens (and potentially subtlely increase quality of life for a while to give less incentive to rebel).
    Even if all the physical infrastructure is still in place, which I find hard to believe, and you decided to resettle, you still got a bunch a bunch of people with no training in work that often requires at least some level of specialized training and no one to give them training.
    That means poor productivity at best.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Megaduck View Post
    I didn't think the winners went home. I only saw the movie but I thought the mentor lived in the capital full time and that winning the games brought fame and riches.

    I'm not sure how much training they could give anyway. It would be swords and bows against hovertanks and pulse rifles.

    I did get the impression that the capital could be sieged if all the districts rebelled but how likely are the districts going to work together? Every year they get to see Jack from District X slaughter someone from their district. I would imagine that there is a strong rivalry between districts.

    In the movie I thought that was the point of the flowers and the gesture when Rue died. Katniess showed that she actually cared about another district.
    They live in big fancy mansions with lots of cameras in the center of their districts. I'm guessing most are as drunk as Haymitch.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
    Each district is ultra-specialized in some industry. All the districts that do not produce Food are reliant on the capital shipping them food from the districts that Do, and the districts that DO grow food are kept heavily repressed. Since communication between the districts is all but impossible, districts can't rebel without suffering the risk of starvation, unless they know that one of the agricultural districts is ALSO rebelling, and is willing to ship them food.
    So District 12 is the same dirt-poor coal miners of Applachia except they can't grow their own food or hunt on their own.
    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
    In Panem it's more like a mercantilist system, the Apparatus of state is designed to ensure that the Capital gets to live it up as much as possible. As a way to keep Rebellion down, the Hunger Games are very stupid. It's a annual humiliation that also encourages children in the districts to be prepared to fight a brutal guerrilla war. I guess it has the side effect of encouraging districts to think of each other as enemies, but that's kind of mitigated by the fact that they're all FORCED into fighting each other.
    So the mercantilism as in "you ship your resources to us, not them" types system. That gotta make the districts poor since they cannot diversify their economy.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by t209 View Post
    So the mercantilism as in "you ship your resources to us, not them" types system. That gotta make the districts poor since they cannot diversify their economy.
    Which is the point. The districts can't diversify their economies, they export everything, and only import what the Capital sends to them.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    No one seemed too shocked when it was revealed she could shoot. In fact, the boy openly revealed that she got squirrels to sell, and no one seemed off put by it. The market also seemed to be a fairly open thing from what I could tell from the film, at most an open secret.
    Peeta also revealed it among friends/allies, not authorities. And while Katniss does mention making some sales to Peacekeepers, there's also a difference between one of them looking the other way for a kid who can get you some stuff and ignoring widespread subversion of the government's control.

    Even if all the physical infrastructure is still in place, which I find hard to believe, and you decided to resettle, you still got a bunch a bunch of people with no training in work that often requires at least some level of specialized training and no one to give them training.
    That means poor productivity at best.
    Poor productivity for a while as you move in the new people and retrain them is a heck of a lot better than doomed.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Reverent-One View Post
    Peeta also revealed it among friends/allies, not authorities. And while Katniss does mention making some sales to Peacekeepers, there's also a difference between one of them looking the other way for a kid who can get you some stuff and ignoring widespread subversion of the government's control.
    It shows that it is accepted as an open secret.
    Poor productivity for a while as you move in the new people and retrain them is a heck of a lot better than doomed.
    Poor Productivity at best. Who retrains them?
    And, as said, that assumes the physical infrastructure remains in place.
    Let's say a farming Sector rebels. Now, if I knew that the Capital was going to come to rub me out, I'd burn crops and storehouses as a last act of defiance. That means famine, huge, and wide spread enough to also affect the Capital, famine.
    That is assuming the act of destroying a Sector wouldn't do it already, the film doesn't exactly make clear how Sector 13 was destroyed.
    If I was an industrial Sector, same deal, sabotage and destruction, a scorched earth policy.
    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    It shows that it is accepted as an open secret.

    Poor Productivity at best. Who retrains them?
    And, as said, that assumes the physical infrastructure remains in place.
    Let's say a farming Sector rebels. Now, if I knew that the Capital was going to come to rub me out, I'd burn crops and storehouses as a last act of defiance. That means famine, huge, and wide spread enough to also affect the Capital, famine.
    That is assuming the act of destroying a Sector wouldn't do it already, the film doesn't exactly make clear how Sector 13 was destroyed.
    If I was an industrial Sector, same deal, sabotage and destruction, a scorched earth policy.
    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
    Sounds a bit like what Sector 11 started to do after Rue died.
    Anyhow, the whole regime sort of make a lot of sense. Stupid and convoluted sense, but sense nevertheless.

    Now, keep in mind that I've just seen the movie, but did they ever explain how the hunger games appeared originally? I can't imagine that they made this show overnight but it must've been some gradual shift from what snow said "putting 24 children in front of a firing squad".
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Given the fairly short time frame we see of after the games, they may have succeeded.
    We don't hear of another Sector being wiped out for rebellion, the worst looks like water cannons and other riot gear.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Just saw the movie. While I did have a fair number of nitpicks, for the most part I liked it, and I thought it was well put together. I do think the fight scenes weren't done that well, though...it was too freaking hard to figure out what was actually happening with all the camera cuts. And the shaky-cam was rather annoying at points.

    One thing that did bug me was the premise. The whole purpose of the tributes makes no sense to me. It's supposedly done to prevent the districts from rebelling...but how does it do that? By making a guarantee to randomly pick people to (most likely) die? That does the opposite. It means that the people have less incentive to obey because people will die regardless of how hard they work or how much respect they give the government. The way actual dictatorships work is that they punish dissent, they don't punish completely random people. (okay, granted, the people they punished weren't always necessarily an actual dissenter--forced confessions mean you might not have been guilty, after all--but it was people who at least looked like they might be, which of course provided incentive for everyone else to make sure they didn't look like they were rebelling)

    I can't even buy into the idea that "well, it keeps the people entertained and willing to put up with their poor state," kind of like the War World episode of Justice League. That doesn't make sense either. First, this is an annual thing, so that hardly helps lift people's spirits overall because it doesn't happen that often. Second, the people dying are people that the audience who this is supposed to entertain and keep subdued knows of already. Harder to enjoy something when people you know and care about are at stake.

    Granted, enjoyment of watching people kill each other has real world counterparts, the best known probably being the gladiators in Ancient Rome. But in Ancient Rome--at least from what I can tell--the gladiators were composed of people like criminals or prisoners of war, which avoided the above problems. The regular old people probably didn't care much about prisoners of war, and the criminals...well, were criminals. Thus gladiatorship allowed a form of what I was talking about: If you commit crimes, you can be forced to become a gladiator and have a high chance of death. This discouraged people committing crimes or rebelling. There were also some volunteer gladiators who did it for things like money or status, but they were...well, volunteers. So unlike The Hunger Games, they didn't just randomly pick people and somehow expect that as a way to discourage insurrection. Plus they had fights more often than just once a year, which helped keep people more entertained. And not every game had the guarantee of only one person surviving (people would frequently die, but many--possibly most--of the games did not have death as a requirement for the ending).

    So the whole premise really didn't make much sense to me.

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    How many of you Appalachians reacted to having a Appalachian Protagonist?
    What's the difference between Appalachia and Deep South? (All I know is that Deep South is agricultural while Appalachia is rely on mining and trade since mountains is not good for farming).
    Which part of Appalachia does Katniss came from?
    edit: I already edited it!
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by t209 View Post
    How many of you Appalachians reacted to having a Appalachian Protagonist? Well, District 12 is the same old Coal Mining Poverty stricken Appalachia.
    Which part of Appalachia does Katniss came from?
    Um. How are we defining Appalachian? Because there are a whole lot of people who live near that mountain range. I've lived in the shadow of NYC most of my life but have spent many weekends at my house in the mountains? Am I Appalachian?

    I feel like something about this is a little offensive, but I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps its the suggestion that 'Appalachians' somehow only connote dirt poor coal miners living in the depths of American poverty? Anyone else? Nah, probably just this pony.

    As for Katniss' specific region of Appalachia, I'm not certain.

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ursus the Grim View Post
    Um. How are we defining Appalachian? Because there are a whole lot of people who live near that mountain range. I've lived in the shadow of NYC most of my life but have spent many weekends at my house in the mountains? Am I Appalachian?

    I feel like something about this is a little offensive, but I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps its the suggestion that 'Appalachians' somehow only connote dirt poor coal miners living in the depths of American poverty? Anyone else? Nah, probably just this pony.

    As for Katniss' specific region of Appalachia, I'm not certain.
    I thought Appalachia is located in deep south (Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia).
    P.S- by your request, I changed my earlier post.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ursus the Grim View Post
    Um. How are we defining Appalachian? Because there are a whole lot of people who live near that mountain range. I've lived in the shadow of NYC most of my life but have spent many weekends at my house in the mountains? Am I Appalachian?

    I feel like something about this is a little offensive, but I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps its the suggestion that 'Appalachians' somehow only connote dirt poor coal miners living in the depths of American poverty? Anyone else? Nah, probably just this pony.

    As for Katniss' specific region of Appalachia, I'm not certain.
    Well, most of the districts are based off of stereotypes of that region. For example, apparently the deep south is a heavily black giant cotton plantation and New England doesn't exist/has been blown away by nuclear war.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by t209 View Post
    I thought Appalachia is located in deep south (Georgia, Kentucky, and West Virginia).
    P.S- by your request, I changed my earlier post.
    Thanks, I appreciate that.

    The Deep South generally connotes Texas to South Carolina, IIRC the first seven states to form the Confederacy. Historically this is where the bulk (but not all) plantations were.

    Appalachia stretches from Mississippi up to New York. As indicated by the post that set me off a little bit, there are a lot of stereotypes. Specifically that they are inbred moonshining hillbillies. I've spent a good time in Eastern Appalachia, and everyone seems pretty fine to me. Whenever asked about those stereotypes, people say "oh, you're thinking about West Virginia." Having not been to West Virginia, I'm fairly certain most of the stereotype fails to hold up there as well. Early on it was thought logging and mining were the two moneymakers, but those really haven't worked out well for the cultural region you have in mind. Farming, by the way, is possible, but most people don't have the resources to work with the topography, despite having a decent climate and reasonably healthy soil, for certain crops, anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by Copper View Post
    Well, most of the districts are based off of stereotypes of that region. For example, apparently the deep south is a heavily black giant cotton plantation and New England doesn't exist/has been blown away by nuclear war.
    Yeah, I think the intention was to evoke hate of the capital by implying they had set it up in such a way. Pretty sure the Peacekeepers in (8?) where white, of course.

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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Copper View Post
    Well, most of the districts are based off of stereotypes of that region. For example, apparently the deep south is a heavily black giant cotton plantation and New England doesn't exist/has been blown away by nuclear war.
    Actually District 11 is a typical fruit plantation in California except the farm workers were black (The author make it intentional to make an allegory on Southern Slavery minus tobacco, cotton, and iced tea).
    I think District 3 is new england or district 4.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    I got the impression that there wasn't really a whole lot of people left and that the districts were fairly close to one another in a geological sense (It would still take you days on foot trudging through illegal territory swarming with dangerous genetic crossbreeds and old mines. After all, there are some areas in the united states where many different types of geography appear naturally in a reasonable distance of one another.

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    I got this from the travelers searching for district thirteen. If these places were spread out all over the entire country; their story just got a whole lot less believable.
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    I'm not sure if I should see this film.

    On one hand I'm interested why so many people are so worked up over this piece.

    On the other hand the premise itself doesn't interest me at all: "Dystopian future, yadda-yadda, death matches, etc." No offense but doesn't some action hero-wannabe actor make one of these every summer (w/cars, rollerblades or virtual reality mixed in for flavor), starting from the 80s? Didn't really help that I heard later it's a so called "young adult"-story.

    Perhaps I'm just not the target demographic?
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    Default Re: The Hunger Games film thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    No one seemed too shocked when it was revealed she could shoot. In fact, the boy openly revealed that she got squirrels to sell, and no one seemed off put by it. The market also seemed to be a fairly open thing from what I could tell from the film, at most an open secret.

    Even if all the physical infrastructure is still in place, which I find hard to believe, and you decided to resettle, you still got a bunch a bunch of people with no training in work that often requires at least some level of specialized training and no one to give them training.
    That means poor productivity at best.
    That was in what equates to a black-market. Not to mention, the Peacekeepers there are rather lax and somewhat corrupt. They let things slide.

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    In the later books, new peacekeepers arrive that do punish poaching. Severely.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    It shows that it is accepted as an open secret.

    Poor Productivity at best. Who retrains them?
    And, as said, that assumes the physical infrastructure remains in place.
    Let's say a farming Sector rebels. Now, if I knew that the Capital was going to come to rub me out, I'd burn crops and storehouses as a last act of defiance. That means famine, huge, and wide spread enough to also affect the Capital, famine.
    That is assuming the act of destroying a Sector wouldn't do it already, the film doesn't exactly make clear how Sector 13 was destroyed.
    If I was an industrial Sector, same deal, sabotage and destruction, a scorched earth policy.
    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
    It's implied to be a nuke in the books. I think.

    Considering they show the reporter in some kind of hazard suit, anyway.

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    Though the footage is just a recording that they replay over and over.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ravens_cry View Post
    Guys, I'm not talking about the contestants, I am talking about the potential contestants.
    You know, the thousands who, thanks to the "get aid, get more of a chance of being sent to a very good chance of a rather unpleasant death" have every reason to work to be independent of such needs, and no loyalty to the larger government, who, as pointed out, are, in the lower sectors, are relatively unguarded,. Unguarded enough for a someone to gain relative expertise in a weapon that takes years of practise to gain proficiency with.
    Who knows how many others, a lot of weapons have being improvised over the years from farm tools. Early pole arms developed from a a farmers sycthe reforged in an upward direction, Nunchaku and flails likely developed from grain flails, used for separating wheat from chaff.
    Let's see, unguarded, hungry, resentful, independent, disloyal masses.
    That's a revolution waiting to happen.
    And what's worse, the elite are screwed if the Proles do rebel. I don't think some of you realize how screwed.
    Let's say put down the uprising, brutally and with devastating force. Great, your production of raw materials is devastatingly disrupted, the raw materials that allow the high tech wonderland of the highest Sectors to exist.
    But, let's say they are 'lenient', don't go for all out devastation, because otherwise the civilisation will collapse.
    OK then, they are doomed, because tyranny can never survive when it becomes known that it can be fought against, that it can be resisted.
    Think of a bully. Everyone is afraid because they think they'll get beaten, but if someone stands up to that bully, and they don't get beaten up, or not as much as feared, then the bully has no power.
    The system was not stable, it was a powder keg.
    Our characters set it off, but it was doomed to blow anyway.
    Yeah.

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    Unless I'm mistaken, that's exactly what happens in the second and third books. The Districts start to riot and rebel, causing problems for the capital. President Snow paints the problems as merely a bad year for X product, and since the general resident from the capital is rather ignorant, they go with that.

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