On March 23^rd, “The Hunger Games” took the world by storm with its highly anticipated release. Based on the book series by Suzanne Collins, the movie adaptation became a huge disappointment, as it did not live up to the book.

   When it comes to movie adaptations, parts of the books have usually got to be taken out in order for the movie to not be too long, but with “The Hunger Games” they decided to take out entire characters. Characters that end up being important for the rest of the series. Madge Undersee was a character that wasn’t given a chance to make her name in the movie. For those of you who have only seen the movie and haven’t read the books, Madge is the daughter of District 12’s mayor. Madge was Katniss’ only friend and she visited her before Katniss was put onto the train to head for the Capitol. During Madge’s visitation, she begs Katniss to take the Mockingjay pin. In the movie, Katniss finds the pin at The Hob and Greasy Sae gives it to her free of charge. The difference between Madge giving her the pin, and Katniss finding it herself is that it doesn’t hold as much of an impact in the movies. This Mockingjay pin becomes an icon for the following books and simply finding it at The Hob doesn’t give the pin the impact it has in the books.

   Moving onto the Capitol, Katniss meets her stylist, Cinna. It’s understandable that in order to make the movie of an acceptable length, they have to cut down a few scenes but again, like Madge, Cinna is a very important character. Yes, they at least had the intelligence to still keep him in the movie, but he was in it for what seemed like five minutes. In the two books that follow “The Hunger Games,” Cinna acts as a guide for Katniss during the hard times that follow for the country of Panem. “The Hunger Games” was supposed to give an introduction, of sorts, to Cinna and his relationship with Katniss.

   Just before the tributes are sent into the arena to fight for their lives, Cinna hid Katniss’ mockingjay pin in her coat and brought his finger up to his lips as if it was a secret thing that Katniss was not allowed to have. The Capitol grants tributes of the Hunger Games each a token from their homes that they are allowed to bring into the games. Katniss accepted Madge’s wish of her taking the pin and had it pinned to her jacket throughout the duration she is in the arena. In the books, the pin is visible for all of Panem to see. With this, the mockingjay pin becomes a symbol for the rebellion to come. A symbol for Katniss who becomes “the mockingjay” herself.

   When Rue dies, the camera takes us to her home district of District 11 where you see a man in outrage as he watches the 12-year old die. The man seems to be Rue’s father and he is horrified by his daughter’s death and begins to rebel against the Peacekeepers assigned to District 11. At this scene, the start of a rebellion is seen but this is not at all what is supposed to take fold. District 8 is supposed to be the first district to rebel against the Capitol of Panem and not nearly as quickly as the movie portrayed District 11 of rebelling.

   The entire movie seemed as though it was made for all those who hadn’t read the books to make it less confusing for them to watch, which isn’t fair for all the fans of the books. A lot of people, if not most, who saw the movie were fans of the books. If someone was confused while watching a movie adaptation of a book, they should have tried picking up the book in the first place.

   The acting, however, was impressive and probably the only thing that made the movie somewhat tolerable. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen), Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark), Wes Bentley (Seneca Crane) and Woody Harrelson (Haymitch Abernathy) were phenomenal. Unfortunately, their acting was not enough to make up for all the changes “The Hunger Games” brought on. The film adaptation of the amazing book was near horrid and for the fans’ sakes, the adaptations for “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” better be a whole lot better.