Since it seems to never stop raining in Escondido
In my opinion this was a horrible movie. Mostly it was about the premise—that of 24
children being forced under the guise of "patriotism" to kill each
other till only one remains alive. This
is supposed to be a reality type show to the death, whereby the whole thing can
be watched on TV, including by the parents of the children being killed. This is an annual event perpetrated as
"payment" for the debt of insurgency against the government several
years before. I liken it to worse than a
volcano sacrifice to keep the thing from going off and blowing everybody
up.
Then I can't help but get carried away regarding our society being reduced to the basest thoughts held to
idealism. The idea of our young people
finding this amoral hogwash to be a valued movie curdles my blood.
A supposed "romance" is laughably cellophane, no
matter how one looks at it, and the ending of the show is the very best
part. Will the heroine continue the ruse
of "loving" the male lead, or will she dump him at her first
convenience since she's now "won" the war and doesn't need him any
longer.
Now let me see, we've got lying, killing and stealing for
our model movie. How about
cheating? Ah, yes, the manipulators of
the "show" have it in their power to create monsters, aid any of the
24 participants on a whim and kill off anybody who rubs them the wrong way.
I remember very well teaching my children to not lie, to not
cheat, to not steal. In one two hour
movie I've been undermined by a much more exciting and glamorous production
than the life I tried to give them over twenty years. Society has been suffering for many years
because of writers and producers of products like The Hunger Games. As movies are manipulated in their roles, they get worse and worse and in fact train our
children on brilliant massive screens that values mean nothing.
I've never felt like burning a theater down before.
Now, now. The book was great and reading it made the movie much easier to understand. Yes, the book has the same horrible things in it you're complaining about in the movie, but it's a framework for larger issues.
ReplyDeleteThis is a story of what might happen, what could happen, in a society gone wrong. The games are so much like the dumb reality shows everyone watches today. Only much deadlier. The Capitol is much like our own DC today: its politicians debased, devoid of morals, eager for personal gain and gratification. The parallels are so frightening, I couldn't put the book down.
Think of 1984 by Orwell.
Oh, and there are two sequels before the happy ending. Neither is quite as good as the first in the series, but they're all well worth reading.
Well, of course I know all that. But how do these ideas get started? Lord Of The Pigs was blown off, not lauded and attended by everybody under the age of 20. "Reality" shows hadn't been invented yet at that time. The only reality of reality shows is an underbelly of excitement based on deprivation of character. Just because a human is an animal is it reality to glorify his acting like a jackal? The movie/book probably has some shock merit for people who haven't noticed where reality shows are going. It's hard for me to accept that people are blinded by excitement/bizarre behavior.
DeleteI was in error with the above post. The movie I mentioned was not called "Lord Of The Pigs," but "Lord Of The Flies."
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