Catching Fire: SPOILER ALERT

The film began with scenery reminiscent of the Twilight movies, so you can imagine that it brought me to laughter at its start.  However, the outdoor setting relating back to the ridiculous Twilight movies quickly turned legitimately intense as Katniss attempted to shoot a turkey.  Her reaction to shooting the turkey and having a vision of killing a tribute shows her Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not exactly her emotional state.  I've heard it argued that Katniss was more emotional in this movie and that the actress better portrayed Katniss' emotions.  I disagree.  In the books, Katniss is not a very emotional person, she's very thoughtful (as in, she thinks a lot).  Throughout Catching Fire, the book, Katniss has many more outbursts, as a result of her being traumatized, leading her to have many more in this movie, contrasted to the previous one.  Katniss in The Hunger Games serves as a participant; now, in Catching Fire, Katniss must deal with her past and start dealing with the trauma it has caused.  The adrenaline has worn off (now that she doesn't need to literally survive), now she's stuck processing everything she went through and everything she did while also struggling with the more physical consequences of her actions.  Overall, I believe she, and the other actors, did a great job portraying their characters; or, I was just too distracted by the awesomeness of the movie to notice bad acting.

I understand that the writers of the film must have chosen to also have Gale in this opening scene in order to speed up the process of showing his and Katniss' potential love interest, but I honestly think the book's opening scene would have been more powerful.  A sixteen-year-old girl drinking away her traumatized past would have hit the audience more dramatically and driven home the point of her suffering more thoroughly, I think.  By the way, I hate how the world is creating a "Team Gale, Team Peeta" around this story.  It was okay to do that with Twilight; because, other than an obsession with being young and beautiful, Twilight made few statements about society worth looking more deeply into.  The fact that we're taking this story and turning it into a fetish about who is the "better guy" for the heroine means that we are doing exactly what is so disgusting about the Capitol inhabitants.  We are failing to recognize the grotesquery (I may have just made up a word) given to us in the story.  THE STORY IS ABOUT CHILDREN KILLING OTHER CHILDREN BECAUSE THEIR GOVERNMENT FORCES THEM TO AND THEIR PARENTS HAVEN'T STOPPED IT.  Yet, we, as a society, allow ourselves to get caught up in the very, very slight, insignificant romance in the story.  The romance was only important to the extent that it provided some relief to the dreary aspects, even though the romances often also exacerbated the problems.

Another thing that makes me sick is the advertisements by Covergirl.  I get that the brand may have done the make-up for the movie, but they shouldn't be advertising the styles as something we should mirror or repeat.  The whole point of the Capitol people looking that way was to cover-up the nastiness beneath and to juxtapose them and those from the Districts.

Suzanne Collins may be brilliant.  She has let us mirror what she has shown us is so wrong in her books.  However, if she were really feeling this way, I would hope she'd voice this opinion.  But, perhaps she's either not that brilliant after all or she's also fallen prey to hypocrisy.

Other than the scenery given in the opening scene, the only other scenery I had a major problem with was the Victor's Village.  I pictured it to indeed be "sanitary" but more colorful, or at least grand, from the outside.  The movie made the village look like a cemetery.  The arched entrance looked like one that would be at a cemetery entrance and each home looked like a tombstone.  This was not what I pictured at all.

I really appreciate the looks we get at the gamemaker's studio and the president's house through the film interpretations.  However, I was surprised they didn't put in the part about Plutarch Heavensbee showing Katniss his watch at the president's party though.  That would have been wonderful foreshadowing!  I was very impressed with the arena and the attack of Cinna before Katniss entered the arena.  The only problem I had with the arena was that I was very confused with where Katniss and other tributes were when she dove in the water and ran on the platform.  I also couldn't figure out why Finnick, being such a natural swimmer, wasn't able to reach Peeta and help him when he was fighting the other tribute in the water.

I would have also liked more character development of the other tributes.  And, Finnick was NOT cast right.  Sam Claflin is not very attractive in the way Finnick should have been and really doesn't seem to fit the mold for smooth, charming, cold, passionate, and deceptive all at the same time.  But, I'm not very surprised he was given that role.  After his appearance in Pillars of the Earth, then in some PBS movies, and finally in Pirates of the Caribbean, I knew he'd get a role in one of the big "blockbusters" loved by teen girls.

I really, really, really liked Katniss' hairstyles!  Although, she is supposed to have drastically longer hair.  Her hair for the president's party was SO intense!  I loved it.  I also liked the general braid they chose for her this time.  I don't really understand why they changed her costumes from what she was supposed to wear in the book though.  I definitely pictured different suits for the arena as well.

Well, for now at least, I've run out of things to say and I'm very tired.

Lucid Dreaming

When I was in my sophomore or junior year of high school, I discovered lucid dreaming.  I'm not sure whether or not I was able to control my dreams before this experience, but I do remember the realization that I can completely control my dreams; at least I can when I become aware that I'm dreaming, which has occurred anytime that I've woken up remembering that I have dreamed.  Somehow, in a discussion, dreams were brought up and I told my good friend about my discovery.  She warned me that controlling dreams can leave you in an unrested state as well as cause you to be stuck in the paralysis caused by the dream world and other issues (her knowledge came from her AP Psych class, which provided more knowledge than what I had previously gained about dreams).  Whether or not these side effects are true, I do not know; but at the time, I took her word for it and stopped controlling my dreams.  I still would dream lucidly, I don't believe that you can remove your lucidity once it's there in a dream, but I took a step back and let my dreams play out.

In my dreams since then, as I've said, any that I remember, I have been lucid in them to some extent.  I've never practiced lucidity intentionally.  After my first realization of dreaming lucidly, I constantly controlled my dreams quite naturally and it was quite fun.  I believe the reason I first gained control was because I was so embarrassed and in absolute shock at myself in my dream that I had to take control.  Following that dream up until my friend warned me of potential dangers, I controlled and was lucid during anywhere from 1-3 dreams per night.

I'm not so afraid of controlling my dreams anymore.  I try not to control them too much though, because I find it more therapeutic to allow my dreams to progress on their natural courses.  Sometimes, however, I find myself gaining lucidity because I am controlling my dreams.  It's very strange.  Upon gaining this lucidity, I often lose control (or rather my dream comes to a stand still as I evaluate what I'm doing in my dream and what I should be doing) and begin to pull myself out of the dream.

I've found that both controlling my dreams and gaining lucidity usually lead to displeasure in my dreams and I do not suggest seeking it.  However, lucid dreaming does provide interesting concepts about life.  Controlling our dreams usually allows us to do whatever we want.  But I do say to use caution, you probably wouldn't want to find yourself making immoral decisions you wouldn't make in the waking world in your lucid dreams because you will likely still feel the same shame, but it's deeper because you will likely not admit your dreams.

Some interesting articles that got me thinking about this:
Dreaming Article
Lucid Dreams
More on Dreams