I am fully caught up on everything “Hunger Games.”

In my tradition of posting something about each book I read, I hereby state that I read the final two books, “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay.”  I know a lot of people are reading the series so I don’t want to say much about the text.

I do want to mention from my own writing perspective how happy I was with the direction the second and third books took — keeping with the history of the characters and the world the author created without being static and repetitive.  If you told me to write my own sequel now, I would certainly struggle to figure out which direction to go.

I saw the “Hunger Games” movie on Friday night and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was cool seeing it with people who were just as into the books as I was, and funny at times to hear the comments from those in the audience who clearly had not read them.

[Note: I discuss the movie using a few references to the second book.  Nothing major or too revealing plot-wise, but if you want to go into the book clean, come back to this post afterward.]

I’m very interested to see how the second movie is going to go.  There are several elements in the first one that either leave out something from the book or gloss over it in ways that leave seemingly important questions/relationships unexplored.

For instance, Gale.  He’s kind of an important part of the trilogy.  Even in “Hunger Games,” his role in Katniss’ life and the interaction with her family are pretty key.  So seeing him in roughly two minutes of the movie was a surprise.  Maybe the extended edition director’s cut Blu-ray will have another half-hour of Gale scenes.  Or, more likely, he is given a more prominent role early in the second movie.

Perhaps related will be the overall depiction of life in the districts.  There was a brief look early in the movie showing the general sense that these are places different than the Capitol.  But the emotional weight you feel knowing the controlling nature of the government in the book is not well-conveyed in the movie.  It’s not that we didn’t care about Katniss and the other kids getting sent into this killing game, but the audacity and brutality of the whole thing wasn’t as clear.  Again, given the way the second book goes, something that could easily be addressed going forward.

AV pointed out that the nature of the other tributes wasn’t portrayed as clearly as it could have been.  Most seemed to be the coldblooded killers that are supposed to be embodied by only the few districts that train their kids for the games from an early age.  But most are like Katniss — kids from poor districts who are less interested in killing and would certainly rather be anyplace but in the arena.

And there’s the mockingjay.  First, another AV point, we never learn what mockingjays are in the movie.  They’re just birds.  But they’re not.  If you don’t know they are a symbol of the Capitol’s failure to control everything, then having Katniss wear a mockingjay pin is completely weightless.  Never mind that the pin comes from her little sister and not the mayor’s daughter — a household that plays a small, but pretty important part in the next portion of the story.

Of course I’m fully willing to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt.  They crammed a lot into 2.5 hours and there’s no book you can fully translate into a normal-length movie.  There’s just only so much you can do, and they certainly made a film that I and many others enjoyed.  It’s harder when you have to explain an entirely new world like Panem compared to a movie like “Happy Gilmore” where you can just focus on the plot.

I’m definitely looking forward to the second one — due out late next year — after reading that the screenplay for “Catching Fire” is being adapted by the same guy who did “Slumdog Millionaire” and “127 Hours.”  Both are amazing movies and a good omen for the future portrayal of Katniss and the gang.