The adaptation of “The Hunger Games” was remarkably faithful to the book–and it helps that the book’s simplicity and cinematic scope translated so easily to the strictures of screenwriting.
One thing that wasn’t in the movie, however, was the presence of Muttations that exhibited the faces/physicalities of the dead tributes.
Some might have been disappointed, but here’s Gary Ross (director) explaining:
“We made the decision that they not be specific tributes, because if we did it, we would have been a massive digression at a moment in the movie where I didn’t think it could have afforded that. You’re hurdling toward the end and that would have taken a tremendous amount of room at a time when we didn’t have it. However, I will say that all the mutts, if you really look at them, they’re really half-human and half-dog. If you put a mutt’s face next to a dog’s face, and next to a human face, you really will see that they’re a hybrid of the two. And so we were specific about that.
Hmmmm… I’m not so sure they’re hybrids–they ended up looking like bulldogs, so yes, more pushed-in than a proud lupine jaw, but definitely not telegraphing “human”. But I’ll tell you the real reason: it’s because CGI wolves with human faces would have looked silly. Even in the book, I found it hard to picture exactly what these things would look like–how can a wolf look like Thresh without having some goofy human characteristics?
Here’s some fan art that tries, and despite their best efforts… I decree: silly (not the artists’ faults–they’ve been dealt a losing conceptual hand, amiright?)
Not as scary as giant rabid wolves (see also: Liam Neeson flick "The Grey")
Definitely not as scary as giant rabid wolves
But, muttations–genetic crossbreeding–can be pretty damn cool in the world of music. So the Jukebox leaves you with two Musical Muttations that redeem Susan Collins for one of her few visions that didn’t quite translate in the book-to-cinema arena.
chroniclesofamisfit 