I am currently reading the first book and I am about 1/3 of the way in. Haymitch is much, much better in the book, but Woody played it the best it could have been done.

Meh, I disagree. It was written to be a movie and makes a far better movie than a book.

I don't understand how one can say a book was written to be a movie. That would be a screenplay, not a book.

Does it make for a good movie? Sure. But that can be said for many books that never became movies.

I haven't seen the movie, but I read the books. From what I've gathered so far, people that haven't read the books are going to enjoy the movie way more than those that have. I'll still go see it.

To be honest, I loved the movie having read the books; and I think watching the movie with the knowledge from the books was a fantastic experience.

For example, someone who hasn't read the books and sees the scene where the District 12 children kiss their three fingers and raise them in the air, won't have any idea how powerful that gesture is. It isn't explained what the gesture means in the movie.

@Luotian There's a stark difference between a book being written to be a movie, and a book that translates well into a movie. Hunger Games is the latter.

She DID write the screen play from her own novel, right? I guess that's where the sentiment comes from?

So it's not like... Hollywood took her creation and mashed it up. She did it herself.

I'm still going to disagree with you all. It was a poorly written book-- purely from a writing stand point, not story. Separate that completely.

There is a great deal that was told that should have been shown. There were moment Katniss spoke directly to the reader that simply did not belong and stood out oddly. Almost nothing was explained that should have been, and description was extremely general.

What she wanted was to tell her plot. She thought it made a good story, and it does. It is an interesting story and should have been a screenplay. Screenplays, however, are difficult to write and even harder to break in to. She was already an established writer, so she went with what she knew.

But it belonged more as a screen play and should have been from the beginning.

Luotian -- I can jive with a lot of that. It usually gets brushed off and excused because its YA fiction, which, to be fair, gets to get some wiggle room, especially if it gets kids reading in my mind. But yes, they definitely aren't prose worthy of literary praise, but the engagement is what people are really after in this specific case, I believe.

I think there is a lot to say for that type of story and engagement, at least.

@Mat: Thanks for at least acknowledging my point :). I'm not saying its a bad story, at all. It is a good idea, and even if I could have done without the romance take completely-- I know that is my personal taste.

I just feel that it is easier, in this case, to engage in that story in a movie format and it should have been a movie all along.

Mind you, I'm an English Major and a writer myself. How it is written is ten times more important to me than what is written. It is why I don't read much anymore. I'm hyper critical of any writing mistakes at the expense of what is probably a good story. I only read Hunger Games because everyone I work with was reading it and I wanted to participate in the discussion.

As it turns out, no one wants to hear your opinion if it is anything less than glowing praise. Oh well.

My backlog is a bit too long to want to add The Hunger Games onto it, but I remember thoroughly enjoying Battle Royale when I read it uhmmmm however long ago. It also has a movie adaptation (I didn't enjoy) and a manga (never read it).

The Battle Royale manga takes the character development to much greater heights. It is also hyper-sexualized and violent. It's pretty good though if you enjoy the universe of Battle Royale.