Trailer Park: The Hunger Games

Welcome to the latest, er, first edition of trailer park! To be found exclusively on this here bullshit blog of mine. In here I will post and discuss the newest trailers for upcoming films that I may or may not give a shit about. I'll either shower it with praise or heap it with mockery! We start this first ever edition of trailer park with the first teaser trailer for the movie "The Hunger Games", based on book 1 of a three part series. Let's watch!

And by teaser trailer they sure as shit meant fucking TEASER! Christ! Apparently they are still filming the damn movie, so I guess this very brief sample is all they could stitch together. I feel bad for anyone who hasn't read the books or has heard anything about this. They'd watch this and think it's a remake of Robin Hood with a chick in the lead role now instead of an overweight Russell Crowe. I doubt that would have saved the Ridley Scott movie, but not much could have. Other than it having actually been a Robin Hood movie of course which it actually wasn't.....where were we? OH yes, hot chick Robin Hood. So yeah the teaser gives away absolutely nothing, including actual storyline. But that's what I'm here for

The Hunger Games takes place in the distant future long after the fall of the United States. A new fascist government is in power now controlling 12 districts. Each district supplies a different utility, all of which goes towards the ruling Capital City. To flex its absolute power over the districts, each year the capital forces each district to either supply, or have randomly chosen 2 "tributes" from ages 12 to 18 to compete in The Hunger Games, which are televised death matches in specially designed arenas. The games end when only one kid is left standing. The books follow 16 year old Katniss Everdeen from the poverty stricken District 12, who finds herself competing in the hunger games, and her struggle to survive against the capital city's tricks and the other tributes all trying to kill her and each other.

Now I've actually read the three books, and trust me when I say they are EXCELLENT. It's probably one of the best times I've had reading a book series. Hell I read the entire third book in one day. By the end of it my eyes were bleeding and I was in convulsions for 72 hours, but it was worth it dammit! The books do not shy away from the dire situation characters find themselves in or the world that exists around them. Very often they go into extremely dark places and rarely is anything held back. They are violent without being gruesome and once the tension starts it never lets up. Only the first book covers The Hunger Games, so whether this movie is a hit or a flop, you'll get an ending, I wont spoil what goes on in books 2 and 3, but if you're a fan of sci-fi tinged stories about all controlling fascist governments, you'll have an idea of where things head. And even then, things only become more bleak and desperate. By the looks of the footage shown, all couple seconds of it, it at least looks like they are filming this with the alarm the subject matter requires.

The film is directed by Gary Ross, who's previous films include Pleasantville and Seabiscuit, so he at least has enough talent to not make it shit. I REALLY hope this film delivers. The books scream for film adaptations and could really deliver something compelling just as long as they don't shy away from the dark tone of the stories or short change any of the character moments. This has potential to be brilliant, as the books already are. They had better not fuck it up, cause I really want to see books 2 and 3 get turned into films, as those two would be the most visually appealing. There is of course a romantic subplot in the series, as there is with every book or film that has ever fucking existed, involving a bit of a love triangle so you can fully expect the studio to try to market it this to the Twilight crowd. This to me is a great folly. They risk alienating NORMAL people who don't give a fuck about sparkly vampires. This is nothing to do with Tiwlight. It's infinitely better written and a million times the better story. So don't be turned off when you see the eventual marketing ploy trying to make idiotic teen girls pick which of the two male leads in the series are their favorites. Sigh.  I'm going to have a hell of a time yelling at people that this has as much to do with Twilight as shit has to do with apple pie. Selling this towards Harry Potter fans would have been FAR wiser. But then again Hollywood is basically a living corpse without a brain at this point. Oddly enough, the Twilight dinks who have read the books  all HATE the third book. Mainly since  it is as far from being a happy go lucky book as you can get.

So there you have it. I'm sure the next trailer will show a lot more and give a better sense of what the story is. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that they don't fuck this up. This here is right near the top of movies I want to see next year, and I'll eat live kittens if they botch it. That's it for this edition of trailer park! May the odds be ever in your favor.

By the way that little whistle you hear at the end, that's the thing that got me most excited, since it relates to one of the most tragically moving moments in the entire series. Glad they got that in there.