Mandy Kaplan
Hello everybody, and welcome to Make Me A Nerd. I’m Mandy Kaplan, a mainstream mom whose mission it is to explore the world of nerd culture one entity at a time. And I am thrilled to be revisiting The Hunger Games. Last week, my wonderful guest, Mona Chatterjee, and I talked about the book. And this week we’re gonna talk about the movie. This is a first for Make Me A Nerd.
Mona Chatterjee
Is it really?
Mandy Kaplan
It is. I haven’t done any adaptations.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. The movie follow-up, yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. So I wasn’t invested enough to read the Twilight book for your husband.
Mona Chatterjee
Fair enough. I haven’t been invested enough to read it for him either, so you’re not alone.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, let’s forget the podcast. Let’s talk about your marital troubles. Let’s go for it.
Mona Chatterjee
Okay, great.
Mandy Kaplan
I’m assuming you told me in the last episode you read all the books before you saw the movies.
Mona Chatterjee
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, thank you for doing that correctly. When I said to Jer and Casey, “Oh, I haven’t ever seen this movie,” they were like, “You’re lying. We watched it with you.” That is not true.
Mona Chatterjee
No.
Mandy Kaplan
No. I had never seen this movie.
Mona Chatterjee
Okay. You’ve never seen it.
Mandy Kaplan
Not at all, not a minute.
Mona Chatterjee
Okay. Wow. It’s definitely making me realize this maybe is a more nerdy movie than I thought.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, this is a very mainstream movie, but these themes, these dystopian themes, I do think of as in the nerd culture, but I also avoid them. I can’t handle them for my anxiety.
Mona Chatterjee
That is fair. This is not a calming movie, not a calming story.
Mandy Kaplan
No. This was not what I expected. This was a much more artistic visionary film than I expected. I think I expected just a big studio, splashy hot people killing each other thing. And that is not what we got here.
Mona Chatterjee
For me, I remember because I loved the book so much, I was very apprehensive. But for me, the movie just brought it to life. You’re right, it wasn’t — I was worried it was gonna be like, okay, everyone’s beautiful. We’re gonna miss the gritty depth of terror that’s in this. But it was the opposite. It for me just visualized everything that was in my brain and almost made everything scarier because I was like, oh my God. It was one thing where I’m in it reading my book in my room and being in my world, but to have it come out at me like that and have it be so close to what I felt and imagined and envisioned.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And you can’t deny it once you see it. When you read it, there’s something like, well, it’s still — this would never really happen. But then when you see it happen, it’s hard to deny. Oh shit.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, well they did make a lot of changes. And we did these very close together, whereas if you had read this book in 2008 and the movie came out in 2012, I think.
Mona Chatterjee
I’ll never make the face.
Mandy Kaplan
Look at us both making the same face.
Mona Chatterjee
I have to make the face. The thinking in my back of my brain face.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. But one of the first things I noticed — and yes, it’s 2012, we nailed it — is they changed how she gets the Mockingjay pin. They cut a lot of the backstory of District 12. And so we don’t see the hunting — it’s limited.
Mona Chatterjee
Yes. So small. Yeah, it’s so quick.
Mandy Kaplan
Which I had a problem with later. But she doesn’t go — it was at the mayor’s house and the daughter answers the door and gives her the pin.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, the mayor’s house.
Mandy Kaplan
None of that’s there. Do you have any sense of why? Just too much to pack into a movie?
Mona Chatterjee
It really was probably too much to pack in. So they did — I feel like they were like, oh, we know we have to bring it somewhere, so they brought it into somewhere else. But I always wondered, do they feel like everyone who’s gonna watch this is obsessed with the book and already has the backstory, so they didn’t need as much of it? Or they just made that choice.
Mandy Kaplan
They still showed us something. It was like a merchant lady who was like, take the Mockingjay pin. It’ll keep you safe. Or whatever.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, something like that, but it just felt unimportant as opposed to the book where a special moment happens that connects that and why it’s meaningful to her.
Mandy Kaplan
Uh-huh.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. And I feel like you don’t get enough of the pain that is described in the early parts of the book.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, one of my essential complaints about the movie is that there’s no food in the movie. And the book is called The Hunger Games. She talks about her hunger throughout the actual games. She goes into such beautiful detail about the rich roast beef that she eats with the peas and the bread and butter and all of that before she gets to the games. And that’s all gone from the movie. There’s really no talk about food.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, you’re not feeling it. And even in the early parts where the lack of food, right? The reason for the hunting, what is happening with the scarcity and then the big juxtaposition of overwhelming food all of a sudden and it’s kind of like it’s just there.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. Yes, it is there. They have a spread.
Mona Chatterjee
They have a spread.
Mandy Kaplan
They have a nice-looking buffet. I’m not gonna lie, it looks good, with like pink liqueur or something. But I do miss — I love one of the things I noticed in the lack of detail about food. So Andy Cohen, back to my housewives. Andy Cohen as the executive insisted when the housewives started, when they would go to a restaurant, they would say, let’s just cut and see them eating and drinking. And he would say, no, we have to hear what they ordered. People want to know that kind of stuff. And God bless you, Andy Cohen, I do.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, I do. That’s true.
Mandy Kaplan
I always want to know what people are eating.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. If I’m at a restaurant and I’m looking around, like, what is that? I ask, what are they eating?
Mandy Kaplan
Right, yeah.
Mona Chatterjee
You want to know. You want to hear about it. It’s like the human-based thing that we all do every day. Gotta eat.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. And you and I are foodies, so that is —
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. Maybe that is us. Like I’m obsessed with food, so maybe that’s it. But it’s part of the senses.
Mandy Kaplan
Right, I’m sure many people are like, oh —
Mona Chatterjee
I think you mentioned the last time, we were talking about smells and things like that, but food is very connected to that. The smells of the food and what it evokes in you.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, and I’m not a vegetarian, but I really don’t like to think of eating animals at all. So my dear friend Tommy Metz always says, like, if it’s a patty, I’ll eat it. But I don’t eat anything on a bone or anything that looks like what it came from. And in the book it’s hard to read, but I appreciated the details of killing rabbits and cooking them over a fire and eating them. That goes a long way to show what kind of situation she’s in.
Mona Chatterjee
The level of survival, the level of need to survive already, just day-to-day.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And she was doing that back in District 12, too.
Mona Chatterjee
Just day-to-day in her regular life in 12. You need a little more of that because there’s extremes. And so you could have had the extreme shown through food for sure.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, and I am assuming no buffalo sauce, which is just a crime. It’s a shanda. One of my first things I loved about the film is the color. When they cut in, District 12 looks very bleached out and gray.
Mona Chatterjee
Gray.
Mandy Kaplan
They cut from the — it’s not a game show, it’s a talk show with Stanley Tucci, which is so saturated with bright colors. And then they cut to District 12 and it’s like, oh God, these people can’t even afford color. That’s how poor they are.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. Drastic. They use that visual color stimulant in huge ways throughout the movie.
Mandy Kaplan
Uh-huh.
Mona Chatterjee
And you feel every second of the bleak dark versus this great bubbly, we’re all excited and happy and everything’s wonderful. And you’re like, what are we — what? Why?
Mandy Kaplan
Right. Are they all on the same planet? How is that possible?
Mona Chatterjee
You don’t know what’s going on or what you’re doing.
Mandy Kaplan
And then we get to the reaping very quickly, as we should.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And there’s a video they show to explain the history of the reaping, which I thought was a great way to clue us in.
Mona Chatterjee
With the backstory, yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And I was like, huh, that’s Donald Sutherland narrating that video. That’s exciting. And then he’s in the movie.
Mona Chatterjee
He is in it, yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, I didn’t know that. I’ve learned to not IMDb when I’m watching because you see actors and you’re like, oh —
Mona Chatterjee
Smart. Because we pre-judge and pre-expect. Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
That’s part of my nerdification. This is where the quote is. Donald Sutherland says, “Hope, it’s the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous.”
Mona Chatterjee
Yes, that’s the one. That’s the one. The core crux of every evil plot.
Mandy Kaplan
Give them a little bit of hope just to keep them alive and keep them going.
Mona Chatterjee
What a way to describe it. Keep people hooked, but not too much, because then it’s a whole different conversation and people get wild.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. It’s chilling and brilliant. And then they go to the reaping. Was the reaping in the movie the way you pictured it in the book?
Mona Chatterjee
You know what, it was. I felt like it was. Maybe a little more layers of pain, but they describe everyone separated out, the kids are grouped by ages, and the look of the district, like weakness, like no one — everyone is sad but can’t show anything. I think that deadpan did echo what I felt in the book.
Mandy Kaplan
I guess I didn’t read as carefully as you did. So I imagined more hubbub at the reaping. More chaos, more cheering, more applause. I expected it to be a little more Running Man-esque. And it was so bleak and so quiet. I wasn’t expecting that.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh yeah. And I think what I had remembered was the big districts, the ones that are having their kids train for the event. Like that’s where it’s like —
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, where Cato comes from.
Mona Chatterjee
Where Cato comes from and they’re trained for it. The girl who cuts her teeth like crazy. But then this poor district with nothing, it does kind of show we are not happy about it, there’s nothing we can do about it.
Mandy Kaplan
They’re just already defeated.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, just given up everything. Everything is nothing.
Mandy Kaplan
And little Prim, her name is Willow Shields. She’s a fine actress. A damn fine actress.
Mona Chatterjee
She was amazing.
Mandy Kaplan
I don’t mean, oh, she’s fine. I mean she is — oh God, watching her suffer was so hard.
Mona Chatterjee
Seeing a small being like that physically versus how I imagined in my head, because I think you equate it to your own siblings and things like that a little bit. It’s very imaginary, but to physically see her reactions and personification was so good and it was gut-wrenching.
Mandy Kaplan
I’m glad there wasn’t a lot more Prim. I couldn’t take it.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh my God.
Mandy Kaplan
And then we get to when Cinna dresses her up with the flames, because she’s the girl on fire. What did you think of that as it is in the film?
Mona Chatterjee
That felt different to me than what I had pictured in a massive way. I had never imagined it like that. It’s so grandiose and the scale of having them come out on the chariot, going around — I just had not pictured the whole thing in that massive an arena form. I did not picture it like that at all. So I was blown away a little bit by it.
Mandy Kaplan
The pageantry of it made sense to me. But the actual fire dress disappointed me because it was so CGI’d and it was like a little tail of fire. And I imagined them being engulfed by the flames, and I was dying to see how that would look. And that let me down as a movie interpretation.
Mona Chatterjee
That’s true. You know what’s interesting? There’s Indian mythology and stories about a woman setting herself on fire to prove her love for a god. It’s a big mythological story. And I always felt like it would be this massive explosion, right? She survives through this because she is so pure. And yeah, it seemed beautiful and exciting, but it wasn’t the most awe-inspiring thing, the dress itself when she spun.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, it was cooler when she spun around later. That was cool. And I feel like with CGI advancements now, maybe I’m spoiled.
Mona Chatterjee
I loved it though. It probably would have been different now. I wonder if that’s a little bit of the moment it was made, of what was imagined at that time.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. And the people of Panem are just freaking weird. And I don’t remember them being described that way in the book with all of their strange facial hair and the colors and the weird hair — and I’m doing a lot of gesturing right now and it’s like an interpretive Madonna Vogue dance and nobody can see it.
Mona Chatterjee
There is something about the description of the over-the-top opulent kind of thing. So I think I was thinking like very wealthy old school concepts of it, but then to see it be almost avant-garde and wildly meeting some sort of imagined future state of what opulence is gonna look like in this crazy way. Definitely not what you would think about when you’re like, oh, the people who are rich and affecting everybody else’s life and not being affected by anything, but are enjoying this cocooned moment of glam.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, it was a really fun design choice, particularly all the facial hair. I don’t know why I’m hung up on that.
Mona Chatterjee
All the hair. There’s a lot of hair things.
Mandy Kaplan
Imagine how all that facial hair smelled. No, I’m just kidding. But I pictured more like — I’m not gonna describe this well — Marie Antoinette wigs and pale skin.
Mona Chatterjee
Regency.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, that’s what I pictured. And this was just bold bright colors and almost Andy Warhol meets Pablo Picasso. Strange, strange looking people.
Mona Chatterjee
Very Picasso-esque. Strange. And it was meant to challenge all of our beauty norms, I think. Because what you were expecting when you read and you’re like, oh, these are the most wealthy, well-to-do — we have a very clear picture of what that beauty norm is. And this flipped it up so that you can really not be in our world.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, it was very cool. And watching them all delight in the pageantry of look at these kids off to die. Oh, what are they wearing? It’s sickening in a great way.
Mona Chatterjee
The level of how they’re consuming this, basically their favorite reality show, to me was like they’re consuming their favorite reality show with no connection to what’s actually happening. But we’re making comments. We’re all in. We’re in to see all of it. And it’s so intense because the juxtaposition of what they’re cheering and talking about and discussing and debating — I think for us in our world, reality TV seems a little bit like, especially at that time, we were like, okay, whatever. It’s a fun little game or whatever.
Mandy Kaplan
It’s harmless, yes.
Mona Chatterjee
And that’s how they’re looking at this. They’re like, oh, it’s our fun little game. Versus what’s actually being described.
Mandy Kaplan
It’s macabre. And then she gets into — and none of this looked the way I pictured — the train and the fancy hotel. That’s why I called it a hotel when we were talking about the book. I thought it was gonna be more institutional, more like a dorm or something.
Mona Chatterjee
I thought so too. Like a giant building. But not like a Ritz-Carlton tall building.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. It was really gorgeous and weird. I loved the wall where she could see — like you could touch the wall and it would become the forest or become other things. It was really cool.
Mona Chatterjee
That’s a cool feature that I feel like is coming soon to a window near you. Unfortunately.
Mandy Kaplan
However, she’s in the Capitol and they cut the girl with no tongue from the book. And I missed her. So in the book, there’s a waitress with red hair, and she comes over and never speaks, and Katniss recognizes her, and she didn’t help her when she was trying to escape.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. That’s true.
Mandy Kaplan
Way back in the forest and they captured her and cut out her tongue. And there was something about that that I really liked in the book. And I liked their connection and I liked how that messed with Katniss’s mind and it was gone.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. Definitely had to make those edits and cuts, and I get that, but there are so many little nuances. You’re learning more about Katniss through those experiences that you’re seeing her go through. Because it’s a little side moment, but it’s so pivotal to us understanding and feeling what she’s feeling and understanding how she’s processing what’s happening.
Mandy Kaplan
Yep.
Mona Chatterjee
Not as much of that in the movie.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. And again, I understand you have to make a vision and go for it.
Mona Chatterjee
But you miss it because you’re like, what would that have looked like? Because you’re already seeing the rest of the world now and you’re having to picture that in there.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And having just read it and cared about that character, so it’s like a week later I’m watching this movie and where is she? I miss her. Lenny Kravitz as Cinna? Is that what you pictured?
Mona Chatterjee
No. No, that was a choice.
Mandy Kaplan
I pictured — he’s in the movie, what the hell is his name? Toby Jones. I pictured him like a slightly effeminate, goofy, sweet guy designing her costumes.
Mona Chatterjee
Yes. A little softer, someone a little softer almost, but with fierce attitude. Like an affected costume maker, fun attitude.
Mandy Kaplan
Not sexy.
Mona Chatterjee
Not sexy. But with fierce attitude of like, that’s fabulous, I have visions. But this was a very different angle for sure.
Mandy Kaplan
Lenny Kravitz was too mellow and sexy. It was for me a big misfire, to be honest.
Mona Chatterjee
Very mellow and sexy. He looks amazing, but it doesn’t feel like the character at all. That was one moment where I was like, hmm.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. I mean, I agreed with a lot of the casting. While we’re there — alternative casting. Nineteen actors who were almost in The Hunger Games.
Mona Chatterjee
I love it.
Mandy Kaplan
This is my favorite stuff. So first of all, I love Josh Hutcherson. Did you ever see the movie Little Manhattan?
Mona Chatterjee
No.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh, I highly recommend it. It’s like an old rom-com back when we could like Woody Allen. I don’t anymore, but when we could. It’s like Annie Hall, but about 11-year-olds in Manhattan. And Josh Hutcherson is the star of it, and he is perfection. So I’ve always loved him since he was a little kid in movies. And so I wouldn’t replace him. I love the cast of this movie other than Lenny Kravitz, but Saoirse Ronan as Katniss — I don’t quite see it. Hailee Steinfeld, I could see.
Mona Chatterjee
Yes.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, that works for me. Zoey Deutch, Shailene Woodley, Emma Roberts, Emily Browning, who I don’t know, but I think all of them could have been great. Do you know Emily Browning?
Mona Chatterjee
I don’t know Emily Browning.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. And then for Peeta, Evan Peters — he doesn’t have the romantic appeal to me.
Mona Chatterjee
I don’t know about that. Well, maybe.
Mandy Kaplan
He doesn’t work for me. I’m glad they didn’t go that way. Hunter Parrish, who I love from Weeds. A guy named Lucas Till, I don’t know — X-Men films. And Austin Butler.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh. That’s interesting.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah, he bugs me.
Mona Chatterjee
Maybe? I mean, I don’t know about that.
Mandy Kaplan
Me neither. And then the Gales — David Henry, Drew Roy, Robbie Amell. I don’t know these names.
Mona Chatterjee
Am I supposed to know those names? I don’t know those names.
Mandy Kaplan
So that doesn’t count. Who cares? But then this one is really good. Kristin Chenoweth as Effie.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh my God. That is very good.
Mandy Kaplan
Wouldn’t that have been amazing?
Mona Chatterjee
That is very good.
Mandy Kaplan
And this one I questioned — John C. Reilly as Haymitch.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh man. You know what’s so amazing? Ever since I watched the movies, I can’t picture anyone other than Woody Harrelson.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. I know. John C. Reilly, I think, would have made it feel comedic even if he weren’t being comedic. And I don’t think that Woody Harrelson did that.
Mona Chatterjee
No. The right choice. Those main characters.
Mandy Kaplan
So well done. They went with the right people. Although Hailee Steinfeld would have been really good. I love her. And back from our casting meeting, the movie’s almost halfway and the games haven’t even begun. That’s how much world building they’re doing.
Mona Chatterjee
They did. I think they also knew they were gonna make all three. So I think they really did go into that part of it, especially once you’re on the route to the Capitol. They really wanted to build that part of it to set you up for what comes next. And I know you haven’t seen —
Mandy Kaplan
No, but I was just about to ask, are there more games in the second and third? Like do they go back into the arena? Oh, you’re giving me the “I’m not telling you” face. Okay.
Mona Chatterjee
I don’t know if I should spoil it for you now.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, it does make sense what you’re saying if they’re spending more time in the Capitol.
Mona Chatterjee
There’s so much that unfolds throughout the trilogy that it made sense that because all of them were out, they played the long game of that part of it a little bit.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay.
Mona Chatterjee
And when you read or at least just watch the movies, you’ll see what I mean.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay. I will. So one thing about the movie that I really preferred — how many times when we were discussing the book did I say I wanted to know what was going on at the Capitol? They have a control room like Apollo 11 where we’re seeing the game masters controlling the environment in the arena and all of that.
Mona Chatterjee
Yes, you see all the views.
Mandy Kaplan
That was cool as shit.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. You got a version of that. So you asked and it showed up in that way. You get the whole mastermind feel of it behind the scenes of choices being made to torture the kids, and it elevates the whole — you’re like, oh no, they actually are in real time trying to kill these kids in the most interesting, entertaining ways for their situation as they can.
Mandy Kaplan
It’s twisted and I loved it. And again, I wanted to know more about those people working in the control room. I don’t know why. I’m obsessed.
Mona Chatterjee
Like the people — you’re like, you’re in here, what are you doing? What is your thought process of sending scary beasts after these kids?
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. There was one woman who got — I did look up this one woman, and I don’t know if I’ll quickly find her or not. But she was great and she was the one who had the most to do with — and she was talking to Wes Bentley. Who was Wes Bentley’s character in the book? Seneca? I don’t think he was —
Mona Chatterjee
Yes, but not really. He was not a main character in the book the same way as they pulled him out. I think there’s a nod to who the game maker is as they’re meeting people, but there wasn’t a lot more around it in the book.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah.
Mona Chatterjee
But they definitely drew him out as the enemy in the movie.
Mandy Kaplan
I had a cat that looked like Wes Bentley, and so that was a little difficult for me. Just my personal journey. I don’t know why. I don’t know if you remember Lola, my black cat, but one day I looked at her and I was like, she oddly looks like Wes Bentley.
Mona Chatterjee
I did not make that connection. She was very cute, but I did not make that connection.
Mandy Kaplan
Neither did Jer. But I really thought she looked like Wes Bentley and I don’t know why.
Mona Chatterjee
That’s a special cat. That’s funny.
Mandy Kaplan
So here’s my second Apollo 11 comparison, because even knowing the ending of this movie, because I just read the book, it does nothing to alleviate the tension. And I credit Jennifer Lawrence with a lot of that. I thought her performance was fantastic. And you’re inside her. Like you said, all we see is what she’s seeing.
Mona Chatterjee
Her performance is spectacular. The silence where it’s literally just — you’re just having to feel an experience, which is experiencing. And there’s space in this movie. Because in the book, it doesn’t feel like space. You’re reading all the words, but you feel every bit of it still. It’s so good.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. And not to criticize, but they didn’t spend much time hunting in the beginning. A little bit. We saw that she was a good hunter. Although she missed a shot in the beginning and in the book it made her sound like a master shot. But we also got a sense of how much she knew about what you can eat and not eat and how to survive. And in the book, I think, she ties herself up in a tree or something.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. She talked about how she learned how to hunt and all of that.
Mandy Kaplan
None of that was in this movie. So they drop her into the arena and she’s a master hunter who knows what to eat, who knows how to climb a tree and tie herself in there and secure herself. I just wished they would have shown us 45 more seconds of that in the beginning.
Mona Chatterjee
Extra backstory of why. Without context of having that background from the book, I’m sure that is kind of like, how does she know how to do all this?
Mandy Kaplan
Right. And you know, millions of people watched the movie without reading the book.
Mona Chatterjee
Very different perspective. Read the book. Did not read the book. Of course. It could have probably helped to have a little extra context.
Mandy Kaplan
If you were in the Hunger Games — would you be an aggressor that was out to kill, or would you be hiding?
Mona Chatterjee
I think I would be hiding, but probably setting traps and plotting strategy. But I would be hiding. I would be doing it as hidden as possible.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. I would just be wetting myself.
Mona Chatterjee
Mm-hmm.
Mandy Kaplan
I would never think, oh, I’ll climb a tree and strap myself on to go to sleep. That would never occur to me, so I wish we had seen her doing that as a hunter.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, of her understanding the terrain like that, being in that hunting space. See a little bit more of it so that when they put her in this dome forest, you kind of equate them where you’re like, oh, it’s terrain she’s familiar with. So this is a bonus for her.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. What a question, imagining being in the games.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
Because I don’t eat anything on a bone, so I would have survived for a minute.
Mona Chatterjee
And also part of me would be like, I hope I just die right away. Just someone quickly end it right away.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, let’s not go there. I know.
Mona Chatterjee
I know, it’s terrible.
Mandy Kaplan
So I read they toned down the violence to get a PG-13. The movie was still pretty violent, but not gory, and there was a lot of implied — like bang and we knew somebody was dead.
Mona Chatterjee
It was still pretty violent. Right. They didn’t show a lot of it. A lot of the — there was panning away from the moments where you see the scary violent creature or thing coming at people, but you don’t see the exact moment of it. So I can see the moments where they’re like, oh, we have to pan away here. But in the book, you’re reading the whole thing. You’re visualizing the whole thing.
Mandy Kaplan
So why is it that we’re like, oh, our kids can read graphic violence, but they can’t see it? It’s strange.
Mona Chatterjee
It is. People still don’t equate reading with the same ability to imagine and really truly visualize a full piece of that versus your brain processes so fast when it’s on a screen. Somehow people don’t connect it the same way with reading. I find the violence in the book even more intense.
Mandy Kaplan
Absolutely.
Mona Chatterjee
It’s young adult, that’s the audience. So if especially they’ve already read it and it was this huge moment, they’ve already seen it. They already know what it is.
Mandy Kaplan
Right. I mean, as a wimp, I appreciated it.
Mona Chatterjee
I did too. I get scared from stuff like that a little bit too. I can’t take that much of it. I have to close my eyes, the nightmares get a little — too much of it. It’s a lot to really see.
Mandy Kaplan
And with how invested we are, it’s different. I can watch a Scream movie or a slasher movie, because I don’t care about those characters. But you care so deeply about these characters. They cast very similar-looking guys as Peeta, Cato, and Marvel. Jack Quaid before anyone knew who he was. So in action sequences when they were all running or getting in a fight, I didn’t know who was who. They cast pasty white guys with light hair. They all just looked so much alike. I thought that was a strange move.
Mona Chatterjee
I thought so too. I think that happens enough to where I kind of gloss over it, which is not great. But it’s a good call, and it’s probably something I think about more now than I did when I first watched that movie. But yes, everyone kind of blurs together and there’s less distinction sometimes between the men.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. I mean, the girls — they had red hair and black hair and blonde. They were like little Charlie’s Angels. You could tell them apart.
Mona Chatterjee
A little bit, yeah. Especially because that goes so fast, you do need some sort of quick visual differentiation because it’s different when you’re reading it, but when you’re quickly watching that visual input, you do need to see who’s the good guy, who’s the bad guy, who am I following.
Mandy Kaplan
Right.
Mona Chatterjee
You get a little blurry.
Mandy Kaplan
Maybe they all shouldn’t have been white is also a complaint I have.
Mona Chatterjee
I had that complaint before too.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. She couldn’t scream out for Rue or Peeta when she’s trying to find them. Two different parts of the movie — when she and Rue make the meeting place and then Rue’s not there. But in real life you would go, “Rue, where are you?” But obviously that would reveal where she is and she’d get killed. And again, when she’s desperate to find Peeta, she can’t scream out. I was aching for her to be able to scream out.
Mona Chatterjee
You just feel that — the thing in her voice, her physical movements, where you know she’s desperate to — oh, I gotta find you. And then she has to — oh my gosh. I think she does a good job of that too. I distinctly remember feeling where she was — the tension, her breathing, all of it. She really wants to scream out and the fear instantly — you feel fear coming out of her pores. And it can’t escape. It can’t escape out of anything.
Mandy Kaplan
So tense. We’re going lightning fast because we just talked about the book, but I missed so much of the tracking of kills and survivors. The book did it really well.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And in the movie you barely know who’s left. I barely had a sense. Are there four people left or fourteen?
Mona Chatterjee
And the time in the dome kind of feels just like a blur. The dings that go off — I think there’s one scene where they show who’s gone, but it was very early. It’s the first moment of who’s gone and who’s left. And then after that, it is super hard to be like, how many people are still there? What’s going on?
Mandy Kaplan
I think it’s an easy enough fix. Maybe they thought it would be a redundant moment in the movie. But I needed that. I was like, wait, who’s left? There was no thread of that.
Mona Chatterjee
How many days has it been?
Mandy Kaplan
And they took out the part where they somehow lifted the bodies out.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, the weird things that come in and lift the bodies. You don’t ever see that. But it would have been impactful.
Mandy Kaplan
But in the book you needed them to remove the bodies because they put the soul or something into those creatures, those canine creatures at the end. Remember in the book, it’s like, that’s Cato — not Cato — but that’s Blaze, that’s Marvel. And the —
Mona Chatterjee
Oh yeah. They’ve put the — yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And those creatures — oh God, it was so —
Mona Chatterjee
So weird. It was so yucky. I can’t.
Mandy Kaplan
Yes, but in the movie, those creatures let me down. They looked very CGI’d.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. It was just like a big monster bear thing.
Mandy Kaplan
They were weird looking. They looked like Doberman Pinschers on steroids. But we lost that element that, oh God, he has the eyes of — and that’s Rue. Rue is now one of them. I mean —
Mona Chatterjee
That whole creepy, super scary part of it. Yeah, you lost it. I wonder if that’s something they had to tone down or couldn’t address because it’s so gross.
Mandy Kaplan
Well, and so science-fiction-y.
Mona Chatterjee
It is. It’s fascinating actually to talk about it on the science fiction level, because you are truly feeling the technology and dystopian future and how quickly what they’re doing to manipulate things in a way that you would never imagine. And they do kind of cut a lot of those elements in the movie too.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. And how would they have explained that it was Rue’s soul in that beast? Because there’s no voiceover. In the book, she can say, oh my God, I’m looking at those eyes and I know that this is — am I crazy? She sees Rue, right? She sees all the tributes that have died become those canines at the end.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah, she’s seeing them in there. And I don’t know if it was actually there or if she was imagining it a little bit. I always kind of pictured it that she was hallucinating almost. So I don’t know if it was the actual thing, but I always interpreted it that way. But honestly it could be the other way too. I gotta read that again.
Mandy Kaplan
Okay, let me know what you find out, because I thought it was really them, but you could be totally right. That makes more sense that she’s delirious and —
Mona Chatterjee
Traumatized, trying to ingest all of it. I think she — in her state —
Mandy Kaplan
Yes. And thought they were the — oh, that’s really smart.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. But I gotta read it again because I don’t know if I missed something.
Mandy Kaplan
You’re wicked smart.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh là là.
Mandy Kaplan
And the last thing — I thought this movie wasn’t as cliffhanger-y as the book. I thought this movie showed some resolve, which is strange because they knew they were making the next one. But it didn’t do that thing to me where I was like, well, I have to know.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. I wonder about that. I wonder if they just wanted to see how it did or what happened. Or they took it out for some reason. But yeah, you’re right. It didn’t have a “the story continues” feel at the end.
Mandy Kaplan
Yep. Like no hand popping out of the grave at the end of Carrie. Spoiler. Were there things about the movie that you wanted to dive into that I didn’t get to?
Mona Chatterjee
No. For me, I just thought it was one of my favorite adaptations. I mean, nothing is ever perfectly to the book. You can’t describe the same way. So I know there’s a lot of pieces that get missed, but something about the energy that comes out of that book with the devastating depravity that comes with what this is really resonated for me on the screen in this movie. And while I miss certain little details, the performances and the visual simulation of the juxtaposition of district, Capitol, the dome — all of it was so experiential to me and I loved it.
Mandy Kaplan
Yeah. I agree.
Mona Chatterjee
I was like, whoa.
Mandy Kaplan
By the way, just because I find things that I wish were different, that is not to say I didn’t like the movie. I really loved the movie.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah.
Mandy Kaplan
And if it wasn’t completely faithful, I don’t think I would have known that had three years passed since I read the book.
Mona Chatterjee
Yeah. I think when I originally — it had been a while since I read the book. It wasn’t right away. So I think it is interesting that you read the book and consumed the intensity of the book and then immediately watched the movie right after. Because I always had full space in there.
Mandy Kaplan
And then I took a lot of showers. Because the movie smelled too.
Mona Chatterjee
Oh yeah. In the woods, bleeding.
Mandy Kaplan
Oh my gosh, Mona, we did it. All right. Let me tell the people that Make Me A Nerd is a production of TruStory FM, engineering by the peerless Pete Wright. My theme song is “Wonder Struck” by Jane and the Boy. You can get me on Instagram at Mandy_Kaplan_Klavens, or on TikTok at Mandy Miscast. If you are feeling supportive and you like what you’re hearing, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you are feeling extra supportive, please go to makemeanerd.com/join. Help me continue this journey by becoming a member. You get your episodes ad-free and early and my eternal gratitude. Okay. I need to go take a shower after this and probably eat.
Mona Chatterjee
Hungry? We’re hungry.
Mandy Kaplan
I’m probably gonna go kill a squirrel and put it on the spit.
Mona Chatterjee
Like you do.
Mandy Kaplan
Like I do. It’s a Friday.
Mona Chatterjee
You’re surviving.
Mandy Kaplan
Mona, I love you. I love your beautiful family. Thank you so much for doing this.
Mona Chatterjee
I love you, thank you for having me.
Mandy Kaplan
Absolutely. And we’ll nerd out again sometime. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Mona Chatterjee
May the odds be ever in your favor.
