Sunday, April 1, 2012

Why the Hunger Games is like Turkey Bacon

So I caved and took Jacob to see the midnight showing of the Hunger Games. I'd read the whole series (twice) and Jacob was about halfway through the second book. We both love the books and had talked about them at some length. It was Spring Break and I got ambitious. Normally I'm near comatose by midnight.

Facebook was littered with posts from like-minded book lovers with movie tickets bought days in advance. So we saw the movie. And as I was leaving, I wondered what I would say if someone asked me what I thought. I had no answer. And that bugged me.

Why?

Why didn't I know if I liked it or not? I thought about it all the way home. I thought about it while I was trying to unwind enough to go to sleep. (Overshot the necessary caffeine intake.) I thought about it for several days. And this is what I came up with: the Hunger Games movie is like turkey bacon.

Think about it. If you'd never had bacon of any kind and someone gave you turkey bacon, you'd think, "Man, that's awesome!" If I had never read the books, I would have thought, "That movie was amazing!"

However, if you are a bacon lover like myself - it's a different story. Turkey bacon is... good. It's certainly not bad. It's better than going hungry. It's better than a lot of stuff. Like guacamole (shudder). But let's be real - it's not bacon.

The movie was not bad. I highly recommend it for someone who has not read the books. But if you did read the books, it's just not...satisfying. That's the best way I can describe it. You order bacon, you get turkey bacon. It just doesn't quite measure up.

What did you think?

4 comments:

Leesa said...

I have the read the books and am sure the movie won't live up to them.
What did Josh think of the book and the movie? Did you feel any underlying themes going on-what the author was trying to say to teens?

Annissa said...

There was just so much in the books that there wasn't time to have in the movie. Like the whole cave part when Peeta was sick was super short and you didn't really get HOW sick he was from the movie.

I think the biggest "message" I got- at least from the books- was to think for yourself and don't just go with the way things have always been done. That's part of the reason I wanted Jacob to read it. He's so politically-minded anyway. I thought it was important for him to see how a government's decisions affect real people. Jacob liked the movie better than I did, I think. But part of that may have just been the one on one time and treat of going to a movie at midnight. lol

Jayna Mayer said...

Perfectly said! I agree.

Jayna Mayer said...

Perfectly said! I agree.