Hunger Games Box Office prediction (biography, watching, The Godfather, Forrest Gump)

[ronyusa]

Thanks. To me even suicide seems like an easy way out. In a perfect apocalyptic scenario the girl would just kill the lover boy too just so she can return to her family. Let's face it the girl did not really have "feelings" for him....it was the guy with a crush on the girl...the girl was kinda "forced" to fall in love with him given the circumstances....for me, it would be nice for the guy to get a reality check in the form of getting killed by his beloved crush in a "gotcha" kind of way !! Enough with cheesy teen love stories how about a teen hate story for a change where the "emo" characters really are emo and don't have feelings for anybody whatsoever !!

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

As it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed the deus ex machina technique being deployed in Hunger Games. This blogger Deus ex Machina and Foreshadowing: Advice for Writers | The Spectacle noticed the same thing.....about the book itself. The blog is for sci fi writers.

I haven't read the HG novel. Just saw the movie. So I can't comment on that.

But I don't care if 50 bloggers accuse the movie of deus ex machina. If they do, then they have a serious misunderstanding of what the term means as a storytelling device. (And there's certainly no shortage of misinformed people on the internet. )

Deus ex machina does not mean what you are trying to make it mean. Other peaves of mine: "fascist" has been so misused that it no longer has any real meaning. Another is "decimate." It doesn't mean what most people think it means. It means to kill 1/10th. Words mean things. Let's get our terms straight.

Even by the Wikipedia definition, this story isn't a deus ex machina.

You can certainly argue that the writers and/or director manipulated the story to set up this ending. You can even argue the author did it for the express purpose of a sequel and making more money. You might have a good case. Whether they did it poorly or well is a matter for debate. But you can't in one breath accuse a storyteller of manipulating the story to an ending, then in the next breath accuse the storyteller of deus ex machina at the ending. One method cancels out the other.

If you didn't see this ending coming from a mile away, then I'm sorry, you just weren't paying attention. In fact, my biggest criticism of the story was that the ending was a bit too predictable.

[ndfmnlf]

Originally Posted by ronyusa

Thanks. To me even suicide seems like an easy way out. In a perfect apocalyptic scenario the girl would just kill the lover boy too just so she can return to her family. Let's face it the girl did not really have "feelings" for him....it was the guy with a crush on the girl...the girl was kinda "forced" to fall in love with him given the circumstances....for me, it would be nice for the guy to get a reality check in the form of getting killed by his beloved crush in a "gotcha" kind of way !! Enough with cheesy teen love stories how about a teen hate story for a change where the "emo" characters really are emo and don't have feelings for anybody whatsoever !!

Actually, your ending is brilliant. First, make the movie look like a budding love story...have Katniss flirt with the guy a little bit...maybe even have sex with him inside the cave......until the very end, when Kat shows her true colors and kills the guy. It's a shocking ending, but not unexpected and totally consistent with the zetigeist of a dog-eat-dog apocalyptic world. It's a risky ending, but brilliant directors take risks.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by ronyusa

Thanks. To me even suicide seems like an easy way out. In a perfect apocalyptic scenario the girl would just kill the lover boy too just so she can return to her family. Let's face it the girl did not really have "feelings" for him....it was the guy with a crush on the girl...the girl was kinda "forced" to fall in love with him given the circumstances....for me, it would be nice for the guy to get a reality check in the form of getting killed by his beloved crush in a "gotcha" kind of way !!

Both suicide and K killing Peeta undermine the entire morality underlying the story: Human lives have value, and destroying them is evil.

Suicide would have been the coward's way out. Cutting the nose to spite the face.

Kat killing Peeta (or vice versa) would have given the state its ultimate victory. It would have been the characters admitting that the state is right, that the people are slaves, and our best hope is to be the fittest, fastest, and strongest.

Originally Posted by ronyusa

Enough with cheesy teen love stories how about a teen hate story for a change where the "emo" characters really are emo and don't have feelings for anybody whatsoever !!

Go watch A Clockwork Orange.

[ronyusa]

Sex inside the cave would be definitely nice. Jennifer Lawrence looks good wrapped in sheets (X-men: First Class reference ). I am already getting ideas about a new age Adam and Eve movie featuring Jennifer Lawrence where they eat apples, make love and then turn against each other and start concocting plots to kill each other...and G*d is the "higher power" trying to affect the outcome in various ways but failiing miserably... a whole new twist on the highly-popular Biblical classic !!

I will go grab a pen and paper....

[ndfmnlf]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

I haven't read the HG novel. Just saw the movie. So I can't comment on that.

But I don't care if 50 bloggers accuse the movie of deus ex machina. If they do, then they have a serious misunderstanding of what the term means as a storytelling device. (And there's certainly no shortage of misinformed people on the internet. )

Deus ex machina does not mean what you are trying to make it mean. Other peaves of mine: "fascist" has been so misused that it no longer has any real meaning. Another is "decimate." It doesn't mean what most people think it means. It means to kill 1/10th. Words mean things. Let's get our terms straight.

Even by the Wikipedia definition, this story isn't a deus ex machina.

You can certainly argue that the writers and/or director manipulated the story to set up this ending. You can even argue the author did it for the express purpose of a sequel and making more money. You might have a good case. Whether they did it poorly or well is a matter for debate. But you can't in one breath accuse a storyteller of manipulating the story to an ending, then in the next breath accuse the storyteller of deus ex machina at the ending. One method cancels out the other.

If you didn't see this ending coming from a mile away, then I'm sorry, you just weren't paying attention. In fact, my biggest criticism of the story was that the ending was a bit too predictable.

Let's get this straight: all fiction stories are, by definition, manipulations by the author. But not all manipulations are acceptable or aesthetically pleasing. Deus ex machina is one of them. It is a form of cheating, a cop out, a device used by the author when he/she finds his story reaching a dead-end that he/she does not like and could not find a creative way out of that flows with the story.

Well, perhaps you need to explain what you mean by deus ex machina. The bloggers I linked to are professional fiction writers who write for a living.

[ndfmnlf]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Both suicide and K killing Peeta undermine the entire morality underlying the story: Human lives have value, and destroying them is evil.

Suicide would have been the coward's way out. Cutting the nose to spite the face.

Kat killing Peeta (or vice versa) would have given the state its ultimate victory. It would have been the characters admitting that the state is right, that the people are slaves, and our best hope is to be the fittest, fastest, and strongest.

What are you talking about? Suicide means defeat for the state. The state doesn't get what it wants out of the 2 characters, hence it loses. The simple and elegant act of suicide is already built into the scene (poisonous berries are on hand), granting moral victory to the main characters.

Meanwhile, Kat killing Peeta or vice versa would have also been an act of directorial brilliance. It would have demonstrated the dehumanizing influence of totalitarian states on the individual. The movie audience would have been so repelled by the scene that it would have come out of the theater vowing never to be ruled by totalitarianism in real life. If that is the movie's intention, it would have achieved its goal.

HG fails because it is intrinsically a dark movie that also aspires to be a teeny bopper romantic tale. What?!? The writer must be confused.

[ronyusa]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

HG fails because it is intrinsically a dark movie that also aspires to be a teeny bopper romantic tale.

That right there is what disappointed me about the movie. Still I am not saying it was a bad movie per se, but that one thing about the movie, to aspire to be a "teeny bopper romantic tale", is what killed this otherwise promising movie for me; (then again I guess I should not have been surprised given that it IS based on a teen novel), but thanks ndfmnlf for putting it in words I could not!

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

What are you talking about? Suicide means defeat for the state. The state doesn't get what it wants out of the 2 characters, hence it loses. The simple and elegant act of suicide is already built into the scene (poisonous berries are on hand), granting moral victory to the main characters.

There is never a moral victory in suicide.

"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes -- for it makes even crimes impossible." (G.K. Chesterton)

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

Kat killing Peeta or vice versa would have also been an act of directorial brilliance. It would have demonstrated the dehumanizing influence of totalitarian states on the individual. The movie audience would have been so repelled by the scene that it would have come out of the theater vowing never to be ruled by totalitarianism in real life. If that is the movie's intention, it would have achieved its goal.

Exactly. And it is precisely why Kat's refusal to do that makes her a hero and not a victim --- or worse, a villain. She defies the state and keeps her humanity.

Your ending would have made the point of the oppressive state certainly. But it would have been a pessimistic ending, showing that there is no virtue in standing up for what is right, that we all get crushed under the wheel in the end.

I can respect the Viking way: Go down fighting and spit in the face of your enemies.

I have the ultimate respect for the Christian way: Better to give up your own life than murder another.

But to become a murderer just to save yourself? That's evil, man.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

Well, perhaps you need to explain what you mean by deus ex machina.

For once, I have no big quibble with the Wikipedia definition. It explains it quite well. And HG doesn't meet that definition. At least the movie. Again, I have not read the book.