"Stupid people are dangerous."

You might recall my earlier posting about Suzanne Collins' trilogy, The Hunger Games, which you can check out here.  I had to read the book for my grad class last semester, and I tore through it, and then tore through the other two.  I loved the books.  Seriously, I LOVE THE BOOKS.  I have a soft spot for Young Adult lit, and I even have a soft spot for crappy YA lit, but these books made me feel like I was discovering Harry Potter all over again.  I love Harry Potter more, but I now had a new world of characters to discover and get to know.

Yes, I am one of those weirdos who feels like book characters and authors are my besties.  I cried a little bit when Maurice Sendak died (that post will come at a later point) because, growing up, I felt like we were buddies.  I don't feel that way about Suzanne Collins -- sorry, ma'am -- but the characters she created?  Man, I wish I could hang out with some of them.

Well, let me rephrase that.  I'd like to hang out with them in my world.  I don't want to live in Panem.  That place totally sucks.

So it's been 2 months since the film came out, and I still have not seen the movie.  This wasn't an HP movie, so I didn't feel the need to do a midnight showing, but I still really wanted to see the film.  My parents saw it last week, so I convinced Anthony that we're going today.  And in 4 hours, I'll FINALLY be seeing the movie I've been excited about since they announced the plans to make the film.

I'm not sure what it is about books into movies, but I seem to put off seeing the films (Again, Harry Potter is a weird exception, and it has its own set of rules, so don't question me) because I have this underlying fear that they'll ruin the book.  Most of the time, they do.

I also have an issue with people who see movie series based on books -- or even single films -- and claim that makes reading the book a non-issue.  Are you kidding me?  Stupid people are dangerous.  Thank you, Collins, for agreeing with me on that point.  I was always appalled when students told me they'd "watched the movie instead."  How can you possibly expect to get the same out of a film?  Granted, I've used films in classes; when reading The Secret Life of Bees, for example, we watched segments of the film instead of reading them in class, but that was partly a timing issue and partly a 'none-of-these-damn-kids-read' issue.  I do think some film versions of books are amazing -- I love showing To Kill A Mockingbird -- but for the most part, films are watered-down versions of amazing stories.

Think about how many people saw The Help, but wouldn't ever pick up the book.  Or, for my fellow readers, have you ever run into someone who told you they saw a movie, and when you say 'oh, did you read the book?' they respond with 'that was a book?'

Stupid people are dangerous.

I understand reading is difficult for some people.  Trust me, I teach middle and high schoolers.  I get it.  But to tell me a book is more boring than the movie?  That's just laziness.  My boyfriend is one of those people.  It's a point of contention with us, but I suppose I'm used to it by now.  I like to buy books for him, just to see what he'll do with them, but for the most part the one just sits on the back of his toilet.  Books are never more boring than movies, it's just hard for people to get pictures from the words.  A movie cuts out all the work, but is that the best way to go about it?

There's something to be said about reading the books first.  I'll let you know how I feel about the movie.