Friday, August 24, 2012
Looks Like We Made It!
Against all odds, we reached our $1,500 goal on Kickstarter to help fund our new web series! This is so awersome! Backers will get their copy of the season and two will receive special VIP access at the premiere of the first episode party! We're so close to begin shooting, but unfortunately we had to replace ANOTHER actress, but things are looking well! We'll keep you posted and as always, thanks for reading!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
The Hunger Games vs Battle Royale
So with The Hunger Games being released on DVD, it really got me thinking about how the whole franchise is severely overrated. It's the same thing that happened with Twilight. A wholly unoriginal story with poorly developed characters and a story that actually had a chance to be good, but for whatever reason the author/director ruins it. In this post I will analyze the differences between The Hunger Games and Battle Royale in both movie and print forms. I will analyze several aspects of both works on a scale of one to five.
1. Overall Concept: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (3)
While the basic idea of The Hunger Games isn't bad at all, Battle Royale's originality is superior. For one thing, Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline in the present. This makes the horror of the situation really hit home. The date is undisclosed, but this is to make it seem as though the story is present day, especially to the Japanese audience it was intended for. Hunger Games, on the other hand, takes place in a dystopian future that is highly unlikely to take place. When you add the element of the government being able to genetically engineer new species that behave more like automatons rather than animals, this reader was left feeling that the author was insulting the intelligence of her audience. Understanding the plausibility of the Battle Royale society requires a little bit of understanding of Japanese sociology, WWII propaganda and history that the average American doesn't have, but I encourage anyone reading this to experience both books and decide for themselves.
2. Characters: Battle Royale (5), The Hunger Games (1)
This is probably the biggest difference between the two books. By my count, The Hunger Games really only has two main characters and about 8-10 important supporting characters. Battle Royale follows an entire junior high school class, but has about 9 main characters that the reader follows more closely. The amazing part of Battle Royale is that even the minor characters (who only live about one chapter) have their time to shine. The reader gets to know these individuals on an intimate level and even the bad guys (with the exception of Kazuo) are able to be pitied in their death. Many characters intersect as well, making their ultimate deaths even more horrifying. Takami achieves this largely by writing in third person, so that the reader can be omniscient. Collins chose to write the entire story through Katniss Everdeen's point of view and I honestly think that telling such a grand story from in first person was her biggest mistake as an author. How different would Harry Potter have been if it had been written from Harry's point of view? Apart from the number of characters, Takami's are much more loveable. The ever-present optimist Shuya is a character everyone can root for, whereas Katniss comes across as annoying, moody and quite frankly a bitch with an attitude. Katniss refuses help and advice continually throughout the book and one must wonder why no one simply says, "Fine! Go out and die then!"
3. Story: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (2)
This part is tricky because many will disagree with me, but please read the entire section before you skin me alive. The Hunger Games has a story that had the potential to be incredibly profound and carry some weight. That being said, it still packs a punch, I simply find it regrettable that Ms. Collins chose to focus more on the musings of a 16-year-old girl rather than the socioeconomic and revolutionary world that she created. True, the center of Battle Royale has to do with friendship and love, but survival and distrust of the government are a large part as well. Shogo's character serves to open the mind of the reader to the idea that maybe even our government (or rather the modern Japanese government) isn't so much better than the one portrayed in the book. At no point in The Hunger Games does anyone really take a step back and legitimately make the audience feel that the tribute system is wrong. In fact, the book seems to glorify the forces slaughter of children. Perhaps the author intended to show the horror of the situation in this way, but the way the story is written it honestly looks like the author got lazy. The ending is especially a cop-out with The Hunger Games. The horrible part of Battle Royale is that under no circumstances is there more than one survivor, ever. The Hunger Games conveniently change the rules to supposedly make the audience happy. I can't stress enough how disappointed I was when that happened. That development completely cheats the audience out of a real winning experience (Also this is the part where Katniss very suddenly begins to care for Peeta, it is so abrupt it shows real laziness on the part of the writer). So Katniss and Peeta win the day when the government reverses the decision, so they threaten to commit suicide together. Their logic is that martyrdom of the children would create dissent among the people of Panem (a lame-ass name if I ever heard one). Here's the problem: If you're a totalitarian regime, would you bitch out like that? Or would a more effective way of keeping order be to show that even love has no hope of winning? The one GOOD moment where dissent takes place and works is actually in the movie when Rue is killed. There is a beautiful series of shots that cut between Katniss treating Rue's body and the people of District 7 rising up and being beaten back by government police forces, but this shows the beginning of revolutionary feelings that will likely rear their heads in Catching Fire.
Adaptations: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (4)
I rate adaptations the same for a few reasons. Allow me to explain. Battle Royale began as a novel, and I feel the novel is superior to the film and manga adaptations. However, the adaptations aren't bad at all. The only complaint I have about the manga is that at times the violence and gore seem a bit excessive and playing to the audience's desire to see it rather than working for plot. Plus there is a lot more "skin" in the manga. While there is sex in Battle Royale, the manga adds quite a bit more. Granted, it works but it still feels like pandering when reading these scenes and I wouldn't say it digresses to filth or pornography (especially by manga standards where nudity can be fairly commonplace). The film was done very well, but I have to confess to what seems to be a lack of quality likely due to a $4.5 million budget. To give you an idea, The Hunger Games had a budget of $78 million. However, Battle Royale would go on to become one of the top ten highest grossing Japanese films of all time and is considered one of the best ever made by critics with generally positive reviews across the board. The film also spawned an original sequel that was also pretty good for what it was. The Hunger Games movie was sooooo much better than the book mainly because we didn't have to be stuck in the mind of Katniss the whole time, but the film did showcase some of my biggest pet peeves. For one thing, this film does the very "in thing" of intentionally having an overly shaking camera (thank you Cloverfield) and likes to overly showcase simple moments like Katniss spending five minutes walking through the woods. Five minutes of walking. At least in The Lord of the Rings they were walking AND talking. Oh, but when she runs into Gail the spend five minutes sitting and talking. FUN! My biggest problem? They filmmakers really bitched out to get that PG-13 rating. It's a movie about children killing children. That's an R rating people. Since it's a PG-13 movie, any chance you have to hammer in the shear horror of what's going on is ruined because they can't show anything! This is particularly annoying at the beginning of the games when a veritable slaughter takes place and we see nothing except Peeta and Katniss running. We don't even hear it! Instead they play cheesy music that belongs in an elevator. We see no aftermath either. Everything is implied. However, despite all my complaints the film looks great and is still pretty good and worth seeing. Heck, I may still buy the thing and will probably still see the sequels, but Battle Royale is far superior.
1. Overall Concept: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (3)
While the basic idea of The Hunger Games isn't bad at all, Battle Royale's originality is superior. For one thing, Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline in the present. This makes the horror of the situation really hit home. The date is undisclosed, but this is to make it seem as though the story is present day, especially to the Japanese audience it was intended for. Hunger Games, on the other hand, takes place in a dystopian future that is highly unlikely to take place. When you add the element of the government being able to genetically engineer new species that behave more like automatons rather than animals, this reader was left feeling that the author was insulting the intelligence of her audience. Understanding the plausibility of the Battle Royale society requires a little bit of understanding of Japanese sociology, WWII propaganda and history that the average American doesn't have, but I encourage anyone reading this to experience both books and decide for themselves.
2. Characters: Battle Royale (5), The Hunger Games (1)
This is probably the biggest difference between the two books. By my count, The Hunger Games really only has two main characters and about 8-10 important supporting characters. Battle Royale follows an entire junior high school class, but has about 9 main characters that the reader follows more closely. The amazing part of Battle Royale is that even the minor characters (who only live about one chapter) have their time to shine. The reader gets to know these individuals on an intimate level and even the bad guys (with the exception of Kazuo) are able to be pitied in their death. Many characters intersect as well, making their ultimate deaths even more horrifying. Takami achieves this largely by writing in third person, so that the reader can be omniscient. Collins chose to write the entire story through Katniss Everdeen's point of view and I honestly think that telling such a grand story from in first person was her biggest mistake as an author. How different would Harry Potter have been if it had been written from Harry's point of view? Apart from the number of characters, Takami's are much more loveable. The ever-present optimist Shuya is a character everyone can root for, whereas Katniss comes across as annoying, moody and quite frankly a bitch with an attitude. Katniss refuses help and advice continually throughout the book and one must wonder why no one simply says, "Fine! Go out and die then!"
3. Story: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (2)
This part is tricky because many will disagree with me, but please read the entire section before you skin me alive. The Hunger Games has a story that had the potential to be incredibly profound and carry some weight. That being said, it still packs a punch, I simply find it regrettable that Ms. Collins chose to focus more on the musings of a 16-year-old girl rather than the socioeconomic and revolutionary world that she created. True, the center of Battle Royale has to do with friendship and love, but survival and distrust of the government are a large part as well. Shogo's character serves to open the mind of the reader to the idea that maybe even our government (or rather the modern Japanese government) isn't so much better than the one portrayed in the book. At no point in The Hunger Games does anyone really take a step back and legitimately make the audience feel that the tribute system is wrong. In fact, the book seems to glorify the forces slaughter of children. Perhaps the author intended to show the horror of the situation in this way, but the way the story is written it honestly looks like the author got lazy. The ending is especially a cop-out with The Hunger Games. The horrible part of Battle Royale is that under no circumstances is there more than one survivor, ever. The Hunger Games conveniently change the rules to supposedly make the audience happy. I can't stress enough how disappointed I was when that happened. That development completely cheats the audience out of a real winning experience (Also this is the part where Katniss very suddenly begins to care for Peeta, it is so abrupt it shows real laziness on the part of the writer). So Katniss and Peeta win the day when the government reverses the decision, so they threaten to commit suicide together. Their logic is that martyrdom of the children would create dissent among the people of Panem (a lame-ass name if I ever heard one). Here's the problem: If you're a totalitarian regime, would you bitch out like that? Or would a more effective way of keeping order be to show that even love has no hope of winning? The one GOOD moment where dissent takes place and works is actually in the movie when Rue is killed. There is a beautiful series of shots that cut between Katniss treating Rue's body and the people of District 7 rising up and being beaten back by government police forces, but this shows the beginning of revolutionary feelings that will likely rear their heads in Catching Fire.
Adaptations: Battle Royale (4), The Hunger Games (4)
I rate adaptations the same for a few reasons. Allow me to explain. Battle Royale began as a novel, and I feel the novel is superior to the film and manga adaptations. However, the adaptations aren't bad at all. The only complaint I have about the manga is that at times the violence and gore seem a bit excessive and playing to the audience's desire to see it rather than working for plot. Plus there is a lot more "skin" in the manga. While there is sex in Battle Royale, the manga adds quite a bit more. Granted, it works but it still feels like pandering when reading these scenes and I wouldn't say it digresses to filth or pornography (especially by manga standards where nudity can be fairly commonplace). The film was done very well, but I have to confess to what seems to be a lack of quality likely due to a $4.5 million budget. To give you an idea, The Hunger Games had a budget of $78 million. However, Battle Royale would go on to become one of the top ten highest grossing Japanese films of all time and is considered one of the best ever made by critics with generally positive reviews across the board. The film also spawned an original sequel that was also pretty good for what it was. The Hunger Games movie was sooooo much better than the book mainly because we didn't have to be stuck in the mind of Katniss the whole time, but the film did showcase some of my biggest pet peeves. For one thing, this film does the very "in thing" of intentionally having an overly shaking camera (thank you Cloverfield) and likes to overly showcase simple moments like Katniss spending five minutes walking through the woods. Five minutes of walking. At least in The Lord of the Rings they were walking AND talking. Oh, but when she runs into Gail the spend five minutes sitting and talking. FUN! My biggest problem? They filmmakers really bitched out to get that PG-13 rating. It's a movie about children killing children. That's an R rating people. Since it's a PG-13 movie, any chance you have to hammer in the shear horror of what's going on is ruined because they can't show anything! This is particularly annoying at the beginning of the games when a veritable slaughter takes place and we see nothing except Peeta and Katniss running. We don't even hear it! Instead they play cheesy music that belongs in an elevator. We see no aftermath either. Everything is implied. However, despite all my complaints the film looks great and is still pretty good and worth seeing. Heck, I may still buy the thing and will probably still see the sequels, but Battle Royale is far superior.
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