The Hunger Games Movie Vs Book

In the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book, The Hunger Games, the viewer in placed into a dystopian world with main characters, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Their story is set in the country of Panem, leading up the the 74th annual Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is an event in which one male and one female “tribute” are chosen from each of the twelve districts and put into an arena where they will fight to the death until the last fighter can be crowned victor. Katniss and Peeta both come from district twelve, which is the poorest of the districts as their population is made up of coal miners. The capital is where the most wealthy live as well as the tyrannical President Snow. Technology is used by the government to control the
twelve districts in order to keep the tyranny alive. In the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ book The Hunger Games, technology is used by the peacekeepers and the game makers to suppress the citizens of Panem, acting as the mouthpiece of the tyrannical President Snow, affecting the twelve districts into fearing the government, making it prevalent to the reader that access to technology is key for an individual or group have power.
President Snow makes sure that the government is the only one who has control of the technology that keeps the citizens afraid of them.
Panem is filled with advanced technology that the Capitol uses to make their lives easier, unlike those in the outer districts. While the Capitol has access to force fields, hovercraft, artificial arenas, and weapons, they don’t use that access to technology to help the outer districts. Since the Capitol is run by one man, President Snow, the entire country of Panem is run to the liking of President Snow. He is a tyrant who shuts down all forms of resistance and has basically trained the population to not fight back against him even though the different districts are treated so vastly different. The other districts can’t fight back because they have primitive weapons, like Katniss’ bow and arrow. They are restricted access to tools that help them survive and it should make them rebel but it doesn’t. That is how the government is so powerful, they have crushed any chance of the citizens rebelling and they give them the Hunger Games for hope. Hope is what keeps the citizens from not rebelling. The gross abuse of power that the government has through the control of technology keeps the citizens fearing the
government.
The Peacekeepers are feared by the citizens of Panem because they Peacekeepers have weapons and technology that they don’t. The Peacekeepers are the mouthpiece of President Snow, doing his bidding and “keeping the peace”. The “keep the peace” by silencing any and all resistance from the citizens. The first example that we get of this is when Katniss runs after her sister when her name is pulled to be in the games. As soon as Katniss breaks formation, they grab her and try to put her back where she was. This is a great example of how scared President Snow is of rebellion. As soon as anyone does something out of line, he needs to silence them at all costs in order to keep his power structure intact. That is why the Peacekeepers are so brutal when they deal with rebels. Another great example for this is when District 11 riots after the death of Rue. When she dies, the people get angry and start destroying property and punching guards. The only way that the Peacekeepers are able to regain control is by beating the rioters with their guns and detaining them. In later installments of the series, a garrison commander even executes an old man who made a silent protest just to prove the pecking order. If all of the citizens had guns, the power structure would look a lot different and President Snow would not have nearly as much control over the population of Panem.
The game makers use technology in the most creative and manipulative ways to put the tributes at a disadvantage to make the games more entertaining for the citizens of the Capitol.
The technology that the game makers have access to when they create the hunger games is some of the most advanced technology in all of panem. Seneca Crane, the game maker for the 74th Hunger Games, made a fake biome that includes rivers, forests, animals, plants, and even artificial natural disasters. They can manipulate any variable at the touch of a touch screen button. Katniss got to witness this several times as she was targeted by forest fires, fireballs being launched at her, and other animals being created from thin air to kill her. At the end of the movie, the game makers accelerate the rate in which the tributes die by releasing genetically modified death hounds that can kill anyone in a second. The only way that Katniss and Peeta could outsmart them was to climb to the top of the cornucopia. Without all of this artificial prodding by the game makers, the games would have taken much longer and would have been more fair, but less fun to watch for the people in the
Capitol. In summation, the people of Panem are suppressed by President Snow and his Peacekeepers because of their access to technology. Even after Katniss and Peeta win the 74th Hunger Games, they don’t get any better access to technology so they don’t move anywhere on the totem pole of power that President Snow controls. If the citizens had access to the same technology that the Peacekeepers and the people in the Capitol had, then the power structure would be very different.