This is the transcript of my latest podcast episode.
Hello and welcome to Resurrected Reviews Revisited, part of the Will You Still Love It Tomorrow podcast. I’m Annie and, in each Reviews episode, I pick something I’ve reviewed sometime since 2005, reread or rewatch it, and then compare my reactions. Fair warning: there will be spoilers.
This month, my pick is Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.
It was published in 2009 and picks up pretty much straight after the first book, with Katniss and Peeta living in the victors’ village in District 12. But President Snow has a new twist in store for them, as he announces that the tributes for the 75th annual Hunger Games will be picked from previous victors. So, Katniss and Peeta are plunged into the Games again, but it’s a very different arena this time around, and there are people working behind the scenes to bring about a rebellion, with Katniss at its centre, whether she wants that or not.
Before revisiting it, my recollections of my original experience of encountering this book are as follows:
I’m pretty sure I read this fairly shortly after reading the first one and watching the first film in 2012. I remember liking a lot of the new characters, particularly some of the other tributes we meet for the first time in this book. The arena is pretty weird, with all its different zones, but it’s the various factions that come into play that make this instalment interesting. While the overall structure of the plot is quite similar to the first book, since it centres around the Hunger Games again, it’s a very different experience for both Katniss and the reader, because she has to figure out who she can trust and there’s a lot more going on in terms of the global situation outside the arena that affects what goes on inside it.
Here’s what I thought on revisiting it this year.
Six months have gone by since the end of the first book and it’s time for the Victory Tour!
We get District 12 Peacekeeper characters for the first time, rounding out the world a bit more, though they only get a couple of lines showing them frequenting the Hob, which is the black market. This demonstrates how lax they are, setting up the situation to show the contrast when things change.
There are hints about PTSD, with it saying that Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch each have ways to keep busy (hunting, baking and drinking respectively) to help keep the memories of being in the Games at bay.
And then there’s the confrontation between Katniss and President Snow when he turns up at her house to talk to her before the tour. The scent of roses and blood becomes his signature, and he also mentions Seneca Crane being executed after allowing Katniss and Peeta to manipulate the outcome of the Games, which is something that was transplanted into the first film to great effect.
The fact that President Snow comes to District 12 and talks to Katniss bluntly about the effects of her act of rebellion, as well as the danger of the spark being nurtured into a blaze, demonstrates how precarious the situation must be from his viewpoint. But, of course, he still has all the power when it comes to what he can do to her family or close associates. So the dynamic between them is fascinating and the book evokes how creepy and frightening he is really well.
I like the fact that Katniss has made an effort to improve her relationship with her mother on her return from the Games, now she understands trauma better and can forgive her mother for her mental collapse when her father died. Katniss also has flashbacks to events from the Games in a very believable way, with Prim reminding her of Rue. She and Peeta also talk on the train about them both having nightmares, and consider that Haymitch must too.
The start of the victory tour is incredibly painful, with a select few citizens of District 11 rounded up for the speeches in the square, and the families of Thresh and Rue seated on the dais. The whole thing is appalling, with everyone supposed to celebrate Katniss and Peeta in their victory, which of course meant the deaths of the District 11 tributes. It does lead to Peeta being brought into the inner circle and told everything that’s going on, which adds to him calling a truce with Katniss before they set off and deciding it’s better if they can be friends. That forms a tight-knit group of three with Haymitch, all working together to try and get through the tour without causing anyone any more trouble.
The moment when Katniss and President Snow are face-to-face again at the end of the tour, after Peeta’s proposal sends everyone in the Capitol into raptures, is really effective. She raises her eyebrows at him and he gives the tiniest shake of his head to say that she’s failed in her attempts to calm everything down. And her reaction is relief because she doesn’t have to worry about it any more and she can think about how to escape once she gets back to District 12, which is very believable.
And then someone introduces her to the new head Gamemaker – a man with the awesome name of Plutarch Heavensbee – and my love of the films means that all I can picture is the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. He’s a really interesting character because he’s right in the centre of everything to do with the Games, he’s close to President Snow and he’s taking over from Seneca Crane, who was executed for screwing up the last Hunger Games. And he’s also part of the growing Rebellion, which makes his position even more precarious.
It’s fascinating to listen to the story knowing that from the start, so as to be able to look for clues that I’m absolutely certain I would have missed the first time around because I’m largely oblivious to that kind of thing. And there’s one immediately because he has a holographic Mockingjay on his pocket watch, and that’s the symbol of the Rebellion, though Katniss doesn’t know it yet.
Katniss’ immediate decision on realising there’s no point still trying to appease President Snow is to gather all those who might be at risk – her family, Gale and his family, Peeta and Haymitch – and flee the districts altogether to try and survive in the woods. Even Gale’s insistence that they need to stay and fight doesn’t sway her – it’s President Snow actually taking action to punish District 12 by replacing the head Peacekeeper with one much more strict and sadistic – with Gale as his first victim – that changes her mind and convinces her she needs to take some kind of stand and support the Rebellion.
There’s another small hint about the mayor of District 12 already being part of the Rebellion when Katniss sees a broadcast in his office with a message from a woman with grey hair about an uprising in District 8. This is probably Alma Coin, calling from the hidden District 13, though there would be no way to guess this without having read the books before.
Katniss discovers the Mockingjay is the symbol of the Rebellion about halfway through the book, when she comes across Twill and Bonnie hiding out in the woods and they have bread rolls stamped with the image to prove their allegiance. This is also the first reference to District 13 still being in existence as a haven for people fleeing the Capitol regime. The suggestion is that everyone moved underground and that they’re holding the Capitol to ransom with the nuclear weapons they’ve developed, so the Capitol doesn’t try and wipe them out again.
There’s another hint of what’s to come when Katniss’ reaction to hearing about District 13 is to hate them as much as the Capitol because they’re not helping anyone else break free of the Capitol’s oppression.
When she gets home after having to find a way over the electrified fence and the Peacekeepers are waiting for her, the way everyone immediately bands together to create a nonsense story about Katniss trying to find someone to breed Prim’s goat is genius. Haymitch, Peeta and Prim all work together with Katniss to endorse her story in a way that’s largely believable, especially since it presents Katniss in a bad light.
Thinking back to reading this book before, the thing that stands out most clearly is the arena for the Quarter Quell Hunger Games, as well as the other tributes who get introduced as Katniss’ allies. But it’s nearly halfway through the book before the Games are really even mentioned, so there’s an awful lot of buildup with Katniss’ growing conviction about joining the Rebellion and the gradual clues about the existence of District 13. All of which is really setting things up for the third book.
Though, by the time of the announcement that the Quarter Quell will feature tributes selected only from existing victors, Katniss and Haymitch have worked out that about half the districts have staged some kind of revolt, which is a lot more than I remembered.
Everything speeds up massively after the announcement, with Peeta’s training regime, the reaping and the journey to the Capitol zooming by really fast. A few of the other tributes are mentioned, but Finnick’s is the only name that stands out, as he’s another of my favourite characters from the films.
The recitation of what happened in the previous Quarter Quell, when Haymitch won the Games, is interesting, but it’s stripped of any emotional impact because it’s just Katniss’ narrative voice describing what she sees on the video, as if it’s some kind of dry history book.
Much like President Snow’s threats eventually cementing Katniss’ resolve to join the Rebellion, his attempt to rid himself of Katniss and Peeta legitimately in the Games also backfires, since the Capitol citizens have grown fond of the other victors over time, so they’re upset at the prospect of 23 of them being killed. The victors also all know each other, so they’re less inclined to play the Games as designed. They’re also mostly clever and strong and experienced at dealing with Capitol politics, so they can fight back in more ways than physically killing each other in the arena.
One Katniss accepts the fact that she’s going to die in the Games, because she’s committed to protecting Peeta this time around, she actually comes to life in the narrative. It’s like she’s released from the fear that’s kept her so closed off up till now – she’s snarky and defiant and confident and it’s great.
Wiress and Beetee, the victor tributes from District 3, don’t appear until well into the second half of the book, but they end up being pretty important – and very distinctive characters.
After the stripped-down cast of characters in the first book (with only two of the other tributes even named before the Games begin, and only three or four more really featuring during the tournament), we get nearly all of the other tributes named and discussed during the training sessions this time around, with quite a few of them actively interacting with Katniss. It’s an awful lot to keep track of, all of a sudden, and a very different approach to the previous book, especially given there’s not actually that much of the book left by this point.
Peeta’s largely underestimated by everyone – but he’s actually really good at strategy. He builds a rapport with Caesar Flickerman, manages to protect Katniss in the first Games, understands all the ramifications of everything long before Katniss does – and in this book, comes up with the plan to announce their secret marriage and Katniss’ pregnancy in the interviews.
Cinna’s arrest is really horrible – especially because President Snow arranges for it to happen once Katniss is trapped in the tube that will raise her up into the arena, so Cinna being brutally beaten is the last thing she sees before the Games begin, and she can’t get to him.
When Katniss enters the arena, there’s only a third of the book left, which doesn’t feel like enough for everything else I know has to happen before the end.
The way the prearranged alliances come together and progress in the arena is really interesting and how the different zones of the arena itself work is very imaginative.
Several of the other tributes sacrifice themselves to keep Katniss and Peeta alive, and the first person perspective means we experience Katniss’ confusion along with her. As usual, she hasn’t been included in the plan, because the others don’t trust her to react the way she should.
Joanna Mason is brilliant. It adds so much to have someone who’s a reluctant ally. She works hard to support Katniss in the arena, but she resents it and blames Katniss for the situation she’s in, which makes for a very amusing dynamic.
Katniss describes her as: “naturally opposed to liking anything I suggest.”
The climax with the supposed trap to take out the remaining careers and Katniss thinking Finnick and Joanna have betrayed her would probably have been pretty tense and exciting the first time around, when I didn’t know the plan to destroy the forcefield around the arena and everyone working towards saving Katniss as the face of the Rebellion.
It’s pretty brutal when Katniss thinks she’s a prisoner of the Capitol and decides she needs to find Peeta and kill him before President Snow can devise a terrible fate for him.
And then Haymitch defuses the tension with a quip when Katniss bursts into the room where he’s strategising with Plutarch and Finnick. Katniss is brandishing a syringe, planning to use an air bubble to kill Peeta when she finds him, and Haymitch says: “Just you and a syringe against the Capitol, sweetheart? That’s why nobody lets you make the plans.”
Of course, Katniss is enraged that everyone else was in on the plan and she was kept in the dark. The narrative says: “It’s an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan, in which I was a piece, just like I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games, used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with. My supposed friends have been a lot more secretive.”
Which sets things up very well for her attitude towards District 13 and its continuing plans to use her in the third book. Her importance to them is as a symbol, what she represents to the Rebellion, not as a person in and of herself, so she doesn’t think they’re much better than the Capitol, at the end of the day.
Katniss retreats entirely into herself, not wanting to interact with anyone or play into the role they want her to take on, leading into where the next book starts.
I tracked the romance throughout the book again:
From the outset, the ways in which Katniss and Gale’s existence have diverged are made very clear – he is now working in the coal mines, while she lives in the victors’ village and has nothing to do all day – though she’s taken over hunting duties to help feed his family, now he can’t spare the time. He won’t take any of her victor money and there’s a new distance between them, caused by the Games, which she says has spoiled even them hunting together, which they still do on Sundays.
Peeta, of course, is irrevocably connected to Katniss by their shared experience of being tributes, but also because he, too, lives in the victors’ village and shares her lifestyle. But there’s distance and tension there, too, because of his realisation at the end of the first book that she was only pretending to like him in the Games, and also because of the requirement for the pretence of their love to continue for everyone’s safety.
When Katniss drops the game off with Gale’s mother and offers to take her next oldest son out hunting when she’s back from the tour, Hazelle says, “Gale means to, but he’s only got his Sundays and I think he likes saving those for you.”
And Katniss thinks, “I’m sure plenty of people assumed that we’d eventually get married, even if I never gave it any thought.” She also reveals that she now knows that the pretend romance between her and Peeta was “nothing but painful for Gale”, so she’s at least aware of both boys’ feelings for her, even if she’s still confused about her own.
It turns out, when Katniss and Peeta made the top eight in the arena, the Capitol sent people to District 12 to do interviews and everyone sent them to Gale to get info about Katniss. He was apparently “too handsome, too male, and not the least bit willing to smile and play nice for the cameras” so he was deemed inappropriate to be presented as Katniss’ best friend and someone decided he should be presented as her cousin instead.
On Peeta’s first appearance in the book, we get this:
“Just the sound of his voice twists my stomach into a knot of unpleasant emotions like guilt, sadness and fear – and longing. I might as well admit there’s some of that too. Only it has too much competition to ever win out.”
Then, when President Snow reveals he’s been tracking Katniss’ hunting trips with Gale, she thinks back to the first one after she got back from the Games. She throws herself into his arms on first seeing him in the woods, but nothing more. Then, after the hunt, when they’re preparing to head back into town, it says: “Then, suddenly, as I was suggesting I take over the daily snare run, he took my face in his hands and kissed me.” Surprise kissing bad! There’s such a thing as consent, Gale! Perhaps that’s why I never accepted him as a valid option for Katniss.
Anyway, she talks about how his lips were warm against hers and how his hands, so clever at setting traps, ensnared her, so she isn’t totally averse to his attentions. Then, he says, “I had to do that. At least once.” And then he just leaves! So, not great in terms of either consent or subsequent communication.
Katniss doesn’t know whether she liked it or resented it. And she says it’s pointless trying to compare it to all the kisses with Peeta as she hasn’t figured out if any of those counted – so the confusion continues.
She prepares a speech for the following Sunday about how she doesn’t want a boyfriend and never plans on getting married, but she doesn’t get to use it because Gale acts as if the kiss never happened. Definitely not big on communication, that boy! Just takes a kiss without permission and then doesn’t give Katniss any opportunity to react or have an opinion about it. Red flags all over the place, if you ask me.
President Snow’s directive for Katniss to convince even him of her love for Peeta brings the pretence right back to the fore for the tour, and it made me ache when Katniss realises Peeta won’t betray her, but will wholeheartedly throw himself into the act to support her.
Haymitch, as ever, is the voice of reality, when Katniss tells him about President Snow’s visit and he says:
“It’s not just this trip. Even if you pull it off, they’ll be back in another few months to take us all to the Games. You and Peeta, you’ll be mentors now, every year from here on out. And every year, they’ll revisit the romance and broadcast the details of your private life and you’ll never, ever be able to do anything but live happily ever after with that boy.”
When Katniss eventually tells Peeta everything about President Snow’s threats, including the kiss with Gale, he asks if that’s really the only time they’ve kissed and she wonders how he can be focused on that, when they’ve seen people outright executed in District 11 earlier in the day, and it does feel a bit disingenuous, especially for Peeta.
They get closer because of their shared trauma and the forced proximity on the tour, with Peeta trying to help Katniss through her increasing nightmares, which leads to them starting to share a bed, though only for comfort.
As things are clearly getting worse rather than better over the course of the tour, Katniss suggests a public marriage proposal. Peeta agrees but then disappears to his room. Katniss expresses confusion to Haymitch over his reaction, because she’s apparently still incredibly dense, and Haymitch has to explain to her that Peeta wanted their eventual marriage to be real rather than staged. When Katniss goes to bed, it says, “I lie there, trying not to think of Gale, but thinking of nothing else.”
When they get back to District 12, Katniss has decided they need to run away because of the threats from President Snow and she orchestrates a meeting with Gale deep in the woods to tell him the plan. He’s delighted because he thinks it means she’s decided she wants to be with him and he tells her he loves her. Katniss’ reaction is as follows: “That’s why I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second, you’re proposing an escape plan and the next, you’re expected to deal with something like this?”
What Gale doesn’t know is that Katniss is planning that they take Peeta and Haymitch along with them when they go, as well as both their families – it’s not a romantic flight, it’s a survival tactic to protect those at risk. But of course Gale misunderstands.
Katniss tries to explain that she can’t think about anyone romantically because fear is her constant and overwhelming state of being, which is entirely understandable, if you ask me.
Gale’s more committed to the Rebellion than he is to Katniss – as soon as he hears what’s she’s seen and found out about the uprisings in some of the districts, he rejects the escape plan and Katniss in one fell swoop, saying he’d rather stay and fight.
Katniss’ overwrought and violent reaction when Gale is whipped is very reminiscent of her reaction at the end of the Games in the first book when she thinks Peeta might be dying – but this time, it leads to the following realisation:
“Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it?”
And that’s the first time we get a definite swing in her feelings towards one of the two options, rather than just confusion and refusal. It’s also when she decides she can’t run away, but has to stay and help fight – so it feels to me more like a gesture of defiance against what the Capitol is pushing her towards (ie Peeta) than a genuine expression of love for Gale. But maybe I’m just reading into it because I don’t like Gale as a romantic option.
Peeta finds Katniss holding Gale’s hand while they’re both sleeping and looks at them with a sad expression but tells Katniss she doesn’t have to explain anything to him when she says the escape plan is no longer on the table.
Then Katniss has a nightmare and when she wakes up, it says: “I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I’m not supposed to wish that any more. I have chosen Gale and the Rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine.”
But she’s clearly drawn to what Peeta can offer in terms of understanding, companionship, support and comfort. And the only seemingly true feelings of attraction she’s shown in the series so far are towards Peeta, never Gale. But they’re both so wrapped up in what they represent in terms of Capitol versus Rebellion that she seems to think her decision to fight means she has to choose Gale over Peeta.
She is sure she loves Gale, but also thinks: “What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don’t know.” And then comes perhaps the best but most ridiculous YA dystopian line ever: “I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite.”
When Katniss gets hurt climbing back over the newly electrified fence, her mother gives her some sleep syrup and Peeta carries her up to bed. It says sleep syrup removes people’s inhibitions like alcohol does – and her immediate impulse is to ask him to climb into bed with her and stay the night.
Then, when they’re working on the book of plants together, she gets mesmerised by his eyelashes. So, her attraction to Peeta is pretty clear!
Gale is barely in it after the whipping, apart from turning up to give Katniss a hug and say they should have run, after the announcement that she’ll be in the Games for a second time. It says he helps with the training, but otherwise, he basically disappears from the story, and can’t be included once Katniss leaves District 12 for the Capitol, because the narrative stays so closely with her.
Once she leaves, Katniss decides nothing she does can matter any more, since she’s agreed with Haymitch that they’ll try and save Peeta, so she thinks she’s definitely going to die. So, she allows herself to accept comfort from Peeta, and admits that she enjoys his physical proximity at long last.
And then he makes a joke after the opening ceremony about her being ‘pure’ and she shuts him out again, vowing to herself that she’s going to save him in the arena but that ‘she doesn’t owe him anything more than that’.
Not long after that, though, Katniss finds out that Peeta painted a picture of Rue covered in flowers during his private training session with the Gamemakers and suddenly she wants to snuggle with him again. So the back and forth from the first book is firmly in place once more.
Peeta says he wants to spend as much of his last few days as possible with Katniss so she lets him back into her bed and is physically affectionate with him during the day too, and not just for the cameras.
When they meet up after the interviews, in which Peeta has told the Capitol they’re already married and Katniss is pregnant, he’s nervous that she’ll be angry with him. Katniss thinks it was better he didn’t prepare her beforehand, because that means she didn’t have a chance to think about Gale and what he would feel about it.
Once the Games start, the romance aspect fades into the background almost entirely, because it’s suddenly all about survival and there’s no room for anything else for a while.
And then it comes back in full force a couple of day into the Games, with Peeta bringing up the deal they’ve each made with Haymitch to save the other. He says Katniss has people to go back for, whereas she is his whole life and he won’t ever be happy again if she dies and he survives. He gives her a locket that has pictures of her mother, Prim and Gale in it, letting her know that he’s okay with her going back to Gale, if it means she’ll have a proper life after the Games. But Katniss realises that she’ll be irrevocably damaged if Peeta dies, which is a pretty strong lean in his direction. Especially since she decides to keep to her plan for him to be the victor, even given his arguments about her family needing her to come back. And then they start kissing and she says it’s only the second time she’s experienced real desire – both of them when kissing Peeta.
After the destruction of the arena and District 13 rescuing the surviving tributes, Peeta is the only one Katniss feels she can still trust, since she feels betrayed by Haymitch and the others for not letting her in on the plan. And Peeta was kept in the dark, as well – the only other person not part of the secret. But then she discovers he’s been captured by the Capitol, which prompts Katniss to physically attack Haymitch – it’s a similar reaction to her when she thinks he’s dying at the end of the first book, and probably has a similar source in terms of the trauma she’s experienced in the second Hunger Games. But I also think there’s more of love for Peeta in it by this point.
And then the very end of the book brings the love triangle right back to the fore again, with Gale turning up to tell Katniss about the destruction of District 12. So, after Peeta being the only one present for the second half of this book, we go into the final instalment of the trilogy with Peeta in the Capitol’s hands and Gale the only one present where Katniss is.
Diversity:
This time we get more of a description of Katniss – “dark, straight hair, olive skin, grey eyes” – which potentially suggests some mixed heritage, at least.
There isn’t much description of ethnicity for any of the other characters, though there’s diversity in the casting for the film again, but not a lot, outside of Cinna, Cedar, Chaff and Beetee – plus most of the extras in the crowd scene in District 11.
There’s some disability representation in the book with Peeta’s artificial leg and Chaff missing an arm, but only the latter is carried over into the film.
Overall thoughts:
All the love triangle stuff comes much more to the fore in this book and it gets a bit wearing after a while. It’s an interesting way to show the complexities of Katniss’ situation, trapped between the Capitol pulling her one way and the Rebellion pulling the other way – but wrapping Gale and Peeta so firmly in them being representations of those two options muddies the waters a great deal in terms of both Katniss and the reader being able to figure out how she really feels. Which is clever and effective in some ways, but annoying in others.
Brief notes on watching the film:
It’s all incredibly close to what happens in the book – just sped up even more.
All the relationship dynamics at the start are so well portrayed in just a few glances and lines of dialogue – it’s very well done.
The sets are incredible, which isn’t something I commented on in the first one – but the viewing car at the back of the tour train, in particular, with the panoramic windows, is gorgeous.
District 11 made me cry again. As did Effie showing her support by getting gold jewellery for Haymitch and Peeta to show they’re all a team.
There’s quite a big difference in that Peeta is there both when Katniss tells Haymitch about President Snow’s visit and Haymitch points out that they’re mentors now and the pretence of their love can never end because they’ll be in the spotlight for the rest of their lives.
We also get snippets of what’s going on outside of where Katniss is – there’s one particularly effective scene where President Snow is having breakfast with his granddaughter and notices she’s wearing her hair in Katniss’ signature side braid and she says everyone at her school in the Capitol is wearing it like that now.
Katniss is a bit too honest in her chat with Plutarch Heavensbee at the Capitol party – he’s one of the President’s closest confidants, so she ought to be on high alert with him, like she is in the book.
In the film, it shows Plutarch recommending that President Snow crack down on the illegal goings-on in District 12 and increase the oppression from the Peacekeepers, which seems to be rather out of his jurisdiction as head Gamemaker. – I guess it serves his purposes because it spurs Katniss on to deciding to join the Rebellion, but it also shows he’s just as cut-throat and ruthless as Katniss decides he is when she finds out about the plan for the Games at the end. It weakens President Snow, as well, because it shows him being manipulated.
Gale really doesn’t come off very well – while Peeta is upset that Katniss deceived him about her feelings in the previous Games, he also acts in her best interests and he understands and forgives her for it. Gale, on the other hand, makes a big deal out of the continued pretence when she’s trying to tell him they’re all in danger, focusing on entirely the wrong thing and being a petulant child about it. He’s also very selfish in the way he acts, with the surprise kiss and making her feel bad about everything, while Peeta is all about what’s best for her, even if he’s not happy about it.
Gale gets whipped in the square for trying to protect a woman from getting beaten by the new head Peacekeeper, rather than for hunting illegally, so he isn’t specifically targeted for being close to Katniss.
Prim actually takes charge when they bring Gale to the house after the whipping, setting her up more clearly as a capable healer and showing how much she’s grown up since the start of the first book. She also talks to Katniss directly about the potential for an uprising and says Katniss shouldn’t worry about trying to protect her, which certainly doesn’t happen in the book.
We also get more insight into the rationale behind using the existing victors as tributes in the Quarter Quell, since President Snow talks to Plutarch Heavensbee about Haymitch and Peeta also standing up to the Peacekeepers when Gale is being whipped and says Katniss’ ‘entire species’ thinks they’re invincible and could cause more trouble.
As so we get the Quarter Quell announcement (which happens a third of the way through the film rather than halfway through the book) and when Katniss goes to Haymitch to make the deal about saving Peeta, Haymitch says it’s taken her 45 minutes longer than Peeta to turn up and ask him that – which leads to the best delivered line in the film: “You could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve that boy.” I do like that Katniss has flaws and the narrative isn’t afraid to point them out.
Katniss smooches Gale a lot more in the film than in the book, which I’m not all that happy about. It’s pretty much the only thing I don’t think is better in the movie.
I love Effie’s butterfly outfit at the reaping, and also how clear it is that’s she’s unhappy about what’s going on, even though she’s trying to keep her Capitol cheer intact. It’s a great performance from Elizabeth Banks and a really effective contrast with her attitude at the reaping in the first film. Woody Harrelson is also amazing as Haymitch, as is Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman.
Sam Claflin and Jena Malone are perfect as Finnick and Joanna, and Jeffrey Wright makes a great Beetee, so the casting continues to be fantastic throughout the series.
And then Alan Ritchson turns up as Gloss, the male tribute from District One! I now know and love him as Reacher, so it was hard to see him being a bad guy.
Mags doesn’t really spring off the page in the book, though her death is impactful – but she’s immediately engaging in the film – another great performance.
In the book, Katniss’ individual assessment by the Gamemakers is delayed because they have to spend ages cleaning up Peeta’s painting of Rue. But in the film, she crosses over with Peeta as he’s leaving the training room and she actually gets to see the painting – and so do we. And it’s gorgeous. But it’s made clear that’s what spurs Katniss on to do her trick of hanging a dummy with Seneca Crane’s name on it, rather than her and Peeta coming up with their defiance individually. Plus, we miss out on her reaction to Peeta telling her about the painting, which was one of my favourite moments in the book.
We get to the arena just over halfway through the film, which means it gets more time than in the book, as I remembered.
The whole section in the arena feels a lot more dynamic and exciting than in the book – because the visual representation of all the threats has more impact than a text description can.
The rescue plan isn’t as complicated as in the book, where Haymitch sends in batches of bread rolls on different occasions in varying numbers that tell those in the know when to destroy the forcefield. In the film, there’s no bread and it seems like Plutarch Heavensbee just figures out when to send the transport to pick them up, based on the timings described in Beetee’s plan.
The reveal of District 13 isn’t set up at all, so if you’re just watching the film without reading the books, it’s not going to mean anything. In the books, it goes through the whole thing of District 13 being destroyed and then Katniss finding people in the woods who’ve heard rumours it’s still there, so it’s planted in the reader’s head that something might be going on. The first we hear of it in the film is when Plutarch Heavensbee says that’s where they’re going after Katniss is rescued from the arena right at the end.
So, looking back to my original reviews, it turns out I read the book for the first time in April 2012, very soon after seeing the first film, and I saw the Catching Fire movie for the first time in December 2013, when it came out in the cinema.
My review of the book is combined with my review of Mockingjay, because I read them back to back in just a few days, but I’ve managed to separate out my thoughts, which were as follows:
“Suzanne Collins impressed me more and more as I read Catching Fire.
The book has a strong opening, that isn’t quite borne out by the second half – I’m much more interested in the politics and wider-world presentation than I am in the action sequences – but overall I thought it was really good.
The teenage angst aspect does rear its ugly head in places, but mostly not in an annoying way. I actually really respect Collins for her approach to the consequences of the violence and trauma suffered and committed by the characters – she doesn’t ignore this as I have found in some young adult books and TV shows; in fact, you could almost say she revels in it. Katniss completely falls apart on more than one occasion, and her physical and emotional responses to everything that happens to her are never far from the narrative. The book is pretty dark, and gets more so as the story unfolds, and the narrative doesn’t shy away from that at all.
The ambiguity of the rebellion is also very well handled – there are no clean hands in this story, and it’s that as much as anything that causes Katniss’ dilemmas throughout.
I also thought it was really interesting that a lot of important action takes place without Katniss’ involvement or even knowledge in the books. This avoids the ridiculous “teenage protagonist saves the world single-handed” situation that you often get in these types of things, and is also quite a brave choice, considering the first person narrative – but it works.
The relationships are also handled well – it only very rarely devolves into wet lettuce hand-wringing, and is mostly explored in interesting directions that I wasn’t expecting.
The central twist in Book Two with the Games being made up of past victors was clever, but I found the second half of the book quite repetitive. I’d been enjoying seeing the wider world and finding out about the situation in different districts, and it seemed like taking a step back to be going back into the arena. I also found the set up of the arena and the challenges it presented a bit over the top – it all seemed very real in the first book (and film) and the spinning island and the deadly clock took things away from that sense of reality, making them less effective.
However, there was also a great deal to like.
I really liked all the evidence of the rebellion leaders being no better than President Snow. It was great to have that ambiguity – that there were no clear-cut good guys.
What I liked most, though, was the fact that Katniss’ weaknesses were demonstrated throughout, just as much as her strengths. She was deeply flawed, and came to realise it herself, and I think that was both brave and very effective on the part of the author.”
My review of the Catching Fire film reads as follows:
“It will say much about my opinion of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire that I have been to see it twice in the cinema. I went with my dad on a recent visit and then again yesterday with James and Dave. Yesterday was Hunger Games-tastic, since we started the afternoon with the first movie, then dinner, then the second. I think I actually enjoyed it even more the second time around – its impact certainly wasn’t lessened, and I think I was closer to tears at a couple of moments than I was on the first outing. This may have had something to do with being somewhat emotionally primed by a pre-movie trailer that hit a little close to home, but doesn’t, I think, take anything away from the main film itself.
Anyway, another stonkingly good adaptation of the book, with depth added by the scenes that take place away from Katniss (especially the machinations of President Snow, and the horrifically amusing facial expressions of Caesar Flickerman. I agree wholeheartedly with Empire, however, in that Philip Seymour Hoffman seemed to have forgotten both his costume and his charisma, which was disappointing, since I had greeted announcements of his casting with keen anticipation. Still, maybe he’ll come into his own in film three…
I do not agree with Empire, however, that the first half of the film was a bit too much of a slow build and that the masterstroke was the Games themselves. I actually thought the first half of the film was stronger than the second – the exploration of the emotional, financial, and lifestyle consequences of the first Games for the main characters was much more interesting to me than the running and fighting in the arena, though the capitol sections prior to the second Games were also really good, introducing the other victors and broadening the scope of the impending doom.
One of the things I liked best about the books was that they didn’t ignore the emotional fall-out of the characters’ experiences, and this was touched on very effectively in the film in a couple of scenes demonstrating that Katniss was still very much haunted by the events of the first film. I loved these scenes, but thought more could have been made of them.
The arena was better than I expected, too, since the second half of the second book was my least favourite section of the trilogy – it just seemed too ridiculous for words and difficult to visualise. It was presented very effectively in the film, though, which was impressive – the threats of the island were very credible and the action sequences just as visceral as in the first film.
I came out of the cinema desperate to see the next film – I love the first half of the third book and, since they’re splitting it into two films, the next segment should give me all my favourites bits. I just hope it lives up to the series so far.”
So, as I remembered, my love of the films was stronger than my love of the books, which is still the case now.
And that’s it for this episode of Reviews Revisited.
Next month, I’m going to be revisiting – you’ve guessed it – Mockingjay!
Many thanks to Cambo for our theme music. And thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you have any comments, or if you want to tell me about a time you revisited some media, and whether or not you still loved it afterwards, you can email me at willyoustillloveit@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Lastly, please join us for the next main episode of Will You Still Love It Tomorrow in two weeks to hear what happens when I get Dave to watch The Ten Commandments for our fifth anniversary episode! Will Dave like it at all? And will I still love it after our discussion? I’m looking forward to finding out!
Bye for now!