beep bloop beep **whistles**

[orangerful]

oh this week. it has worn me down! Sorry to disappear, especially after adding a bunch of new people LOL! With the Thanksgiving prep and other stuff, I just haven't had a chance to sit at my computer and read blogs.

I did go see Mockingjay Part 2 on Sunday with Sylvia. About a third of the way through, I was like "I've read the books, I know how this goes...why did I want to see this again?". The movie was well done and it did stay very true to the story, which means it was hella depressing. Tim said it was the lowest box office of any Hunger Games. Someone online attributed this to Jennifer Lawrence's fame (that she is bigger than Katniss so people can't believe she is Katniss, which I call bullshit on), but I think that with all the recent turmoil in Paris and Syria being seen every day, the idea of watching a movie like Mockingjay really isn't appealing.

Despite my best efforts at remaining distant, Star Wars fever is kicking in:

I saw an article going around on Facebook about Lucas disowning the new franchise and I actually felt a bit relieved but if anyone doesn't get Star Wars, it's Lucas. I didn't even click through, just sorta laughed and kept scrolling.

I'm doing my best to avoid spoilers, but as we get closer they are EVERYWHERE! I'm just not going to go on tumblr now until next year, I swear.

This should be an easy year for friends and family when it comes to buying me presents because Star Wars is EVERYWHERE! I pretty much want Star Wars and Torrid LOL.

The turkey was not as thawed as I had anticipated but I went ahead and dumped salt all over it to get a dry brine going. I'm hoping by Thursday it's ready to go because...well it's gotta go!

Anyway, need to get to bed. Library is open 9-5 tomorrow for the holiday so I can't sleep in like I usually do on Wednesdays (normally I'm 1-9).

Toodle pip!

Comments

[place-to-hide.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I'm expecting Mockingjay part 2 to be real depressing.lol.

It was why I didn't want to see part 1 but I ended up seeing it anyway. :P

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's depressing and really about the politics and manipulation and...just too close to home right now. I left feelings sad.

[place-to-hide.livejournal.com]

:( yeah. That sucks that it left you feeling sad.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I think the attacks definitely had something to do with it, but despite that I read it still did well regardless. It just wasn't what some were anticipating in terms of what it was predicted with the numbers.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it still made a ton, just the lowest of the Hunger Games movies. I think they need to stop this 4-movie thing, people are just not interested in dragging it out longer than it needs to be.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and while I enjoyed Mockingjay, Part 1 with the political and propaganda aspects, it really needed to be one movie instead of two. If they needed, they could just release an extended edition DVD, but overall I feel like it could have done it in one go.

I hate that it's become the staple for most franchises now to have the final movie to be split into two. Sometimes it can work depending on the material they're working with, but most times it's unnecessary.

[latenightradi0.livejournal.com]

I'm always bored when I see the movie for a book(s) I've read. I read Hunger Games and watched the first movie but I don't really feel like watching the next ones.

Believe it or not I've never seen any of the Star Wars movies.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL I've met people who haven't seen Star Wars before. We made a friend watch them but she isn't really into anything sci-fi fantasy anyway. Depends on your tastes, it's pretty much just a fairy tale in space (don't watch the prequels, just the originals)

I like to see well done adaptations of books LOL. I tend to read reviews of movies before seeing them, or at least checking the score on rotten tomatoes. I appreciated the tweaks that they were able to make in the HG movies since the books are all Katniss' point of view and the movies let them expand on that. Though they didn't do much of that in Part 2...which I think may have been a mark against it.

[latenightradi0.livejournal.com]

I actually love scifi movies so it's weird I haven't seen them...I'll probably watch them eventually. :)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Even though they take place in space, I really consider them more fantasy than scifi. I mean, it's pretty much a prince, princess, rogue vs the evil wizards. :) But you should watch them, if only for all the cultural stuff you miss!

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I imagine Mockingjay Part 2 to be depressing....

[the_rck]

In my experience, partly frozen turkeys (frozen enough that I've had to run water on them to get the giblets packet and neck out) still cook properly, so I wouldn't worry too much as long as you've got a good meat thermometer.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I have a decent meat thermometer LOL. I think it will all be okay, our oven seems to be pretty good. Here's hoping!

[eowyn.livejournal.com]

Lucas can gdiaf as far as I care.

All we ever wanted was the original films, untouched, unedited, released on DVD or Blu Ray.

Have you seen 'The People vs George Lucas?' It's wonderful.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I am hoping that Disney, with all of its money and power, can make THAT happen in my lifetime LOL.

I have not but I think it's in my Netflix queue. :) I'm in a Star Wars club so we've had discussions MANY times.

[1-rhiannon-1.livejournal.com]

I'm probably going to save Mockingjay part 2 for DVD. I enjoyed the first movie and I enjoyed reading the books, sort of, but yeah, depressing as hell.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah you will be safe renting it.

[verdande-mi.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Mockingjay (yet), but I am spoiled about a lot. I want to see the film, and will at some point, but I am not feeling it now. And that is because of everything that is happening in the world, it feels all too real to me.

The Star Wars fever started in the small last year with me and I am so happy the waiting time is almost over :D

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Just a few weeks!!!! I cannot wait!!!!

[c-hrista.livejournal.com]

It's SO WEIRD seeing pictures and being like ARUNDEL MILLS MALL. The last time I was there was for a midnight premiere of Harry Potter (for the life of me can't even remember which one) and we were all in costume and these girls dressed like the Weasley twins ran in and out of the different theaters pretending to play Quidditch and it was beautiful.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL yeah, The Mills is super close to me, like 20 minutes away. I remember watching them build it when I was in high school, my bus drove right past it.

OMG I wish you knew which movie, I saw one of the midnight HP's there!! We may have been in the same theater LOL. ;)

[interchanges.livejournal.com]

I am definitely not feeling the excitement for Mockingjay Part 2 like I felt with the previous movies, because I know what happens. My cousin wants to go see it after dinner tomorrow so that'll be an uplifting family movie, lol.

[saturnsdaughter.livejournal.com]

I just saw Mockingjay Part 2 tonight and ultimately I just wish they'd done one movie. It ran longer than it needed to and didn't manage to hit me as hard emotionally as the book did. All the turmoil in the world right now might have been a factor, but breaking up the story still didn't do them any favors.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

agreed.

[night-owl-9.livejournal.com]

The movie was well done and it did stay very true to the story, which means it was hella depressing. - So SO true.

[luckweaver.livejournal.com]

I've not read the Mockingjay books, but what does seem very fascinating about the movies is that they seem to have fallen into the same trap that the books warned about? Which is interesting, depressing, and enough to make me want to sit down and watch the movies, one of these days. Would you recommend the books?

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I really liked the books, but I read them when they first came out. DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM! I cannot stand the narrator, I thought she was really whiny (though Tim says he thinks Katniss is whiny, but that wasn't how I heard her voice at all...)

Anyway, I do recommend them. I think the movies did a good job taking the books and expanding on them. The books are all told just from Katniss' point of view, but the movies give you extra scenes she didn't know about, which was kinda cool.

I always point out that Suzanne Collins has a fascination with war and how it affects the soldiers and the children. Her father went to Vietnam and I think he came back with some serious PTSD that messed with her family. And you can see that a lot in 'Hunger Games' and even her other series 'Gregor the Overlander' (which I also highly recommend)

[luckweaver.livejournal.com]

'Gregor the Overlander' sounds interesting. What's it about?

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

It's a fantasy story but it starts out in our world - Gregor is watching his little sister and they fall through a vent in the basement and end up discovering an entire society of humans who came underground years ago. There are also giant bats (that they ride and have almost a symbiotic relationship with), giant cockroaches (who worship his little sister because of her stinky diaper) and giant rats (who hate the humans).

It's a 5 book series and it is sorta like Harry Potter in the sense that it starts out and feels very innocent but as you get further into it, the story gets darker and things that seemed black and white go very gray and the last book is just epic.

I highly recommend them, I often debate which series I like more and sometimes I think Gregor is superior.

[penderies.livejournal.com]

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT STAR WARS.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

ME TOO!!! I REALLY HOPE IT IS FUN! I just can't wait to see it in a full theater with a bunch of other fans who know when to laugh and cheer and clap. Seeing Star Wars that way makes it so much more than a movie, it's an experience.

[bittertwee.livejournal.com]

I agreed to see Mockingjay II w/my brother on Tues since I'd liked part one so much. I thought part two had a lot of the same elements I liked about part one- tried and true human-level suspense and not a CGI fest where you have no clue what's going on- and I think the biggest problem is that it stayed true to the book and the book was flawed. Also, maybe I'm in the minority, but I LIKE seeing current events dealt with in a fictional universe. When that train with refugees from.. wherever they were from, pulled up, and it was stressed that the people getting off were also victims of the capitol and shouldn't be treated like enemies, I got all choked up. And to think this scene was probably filmed before the current refugee crisis, definitely before the events of the past month.

I'd say if it didn't do as well, it's almost certainly because the plot was a bit complicated, with shifting allegiances and motivations, new characters and places, and lots of politics, and you can't expect people to retain that over the course of a year. I read the book and saw part one, and even I was confused by parts of this movie. Also, I thought everyone was well-cast, but movie Katniss and Peeta just don't have much chemistry (nor do they even have much of a chance to have chemistry in this one, as Peeta isn't himself for much of it). So that as a draw was out. But I mostly think it was the decision to split the final movie. The series is definitely running out of steam by the third book, so as a movie they needed to tighten the story up, not drag it out. Most individual scenes in both movies were good, so it wasn't dragged out that way, it was more the year wait that was the problem. It gave people time to lose interest.

Also-- I just remembered, the whole thing where they're sent out to film promotional videos and not actually fight was so lame in the book that I think they played that down in the movie, but maybe so much so that, well, my brother at least didn't get it. He was like, why did they send Peeta to join them, that made no sense, and I had to explain that he wasn't sent to fight, he was sent to be part of the propaganda videos, and it felt lame even saying it.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

The train scene was intense and unsettling in how close it hit to home. It wasn't that I didn't like the movie or don't appreciate when art and reality collide, but I didn't leave the theater feeling uplifted. I left the same way I felt when I finished the book - it was a good ending to the story, it made it's point...and damn it is depressing.

I'm hoping hollywood is over this "extra movie" phase. I agree that 4 was too many for this franchise and this story, especially with how complicated the story for Mockingjay is, stretching it out over two films just made it overly confusing.

[hermionesparkle.livejournal.com]

I am glad to hear that Mockingjay Part 2 is decent. I am not seeing it in the theater due to the fact that I have read the books and don't want cry at the movies. Haha! I think you are correct with the recent attacks and people aren't so interested. Plus, I don't think it needed 2 parts and people aren't as excited to see the last part? I don't know.