The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - 10 Mistakes The Filmmakers Shouldn't Repeat

5. Pacing, Pacing, Pacing...

In the book, there was little wrong with the pacing: after all, it's important to build up the tension and make sure that everyone actually cares about the characters before they are cruelly slaughtered on the battlefield. But the movie version doesn't achieve such heights. There is way too much time spent on the build-up to the Games and not enough on the tournament itself. The results in a long period of the film in which you are led around locations like the Seam in District Twelve. While at first this is interesting and important for backstory purposes, it grows a little tiring.

This is a movie where the wider population of Panem are important, though the focus should largely centre around the lives and experiences of our young tributes. In the book, we are given a first-person limited narrative which works well. We see the world through Katniss' eyes and slowly we grow to understand its craziness. In the film, there are frequent juts in and out of her view, such as to the room where the gamemakers are deciding what happens, for instance. At times this works well, but it's only really shifting the focus away from the tributes.