fray-adjacent

Note: major spoilers for all books and currently released films below!

I love the Hunger Games, but I don't love it the way I love other books and movies and television shows. I don't love it for the characters -- though there are many that I like, or admire, or care about quite a lot. I love it for the story, the themes, for what it does. (Not to say that I don't find much to love in story, plot, and theme in other media, but in The Hunger Games this plays a much more prominent role vs characters than in anything else I love.)

( The Hunger Games is the multi-million dollar franchise of my marxist anarchist heart. I'm only slightly kidding. )

( An aside about movie Coin vs book Coin. )

...to see Catching Fire at the Imax. !!! It's funny, I usually see things, especially movies, 6 months to 10 years after they're released. (I still haven't seen Avatar.) It's a little weird to me that I'll be among the first in the world to see this. For once the international dateline is working for me. :)

Relatedly, last night I rewatched The Hunger Games with some friends and was reminded that I do indeed love this series a bit more than it deserves. More than any other fandom, I love THG as much for what it could be, i.e., what it is in my head, than for what it actually is. But that's a big part of what fannishness is about, I suppose.

My brain doesn't usually come up with strong visuals when I read fiction.  If anything I tend to imagine places I've already seen and characters who vaguely look like people I know.  Imagine my surprise when I watched The Hunger Games and was overcome by how odd President Snow looked.  Then I realized that I had very strongly pictured Joel Gray in the role.  Wouldn't that have been fun?



Then again, Donald Sutherland did a fine job so far.