Butterflies and Hunger Games

My mom had 4 hours in town, so I took her to the Museum of Natural History.  The tickets (for admission + one special feature) were a lucky draw from a Christmas gift exchange.  We chose the live seasonal animal exhibit: butterflies.  Amazing.  We spent a vast amount of time in there, gazing, photographing with a low-quality phone camera, and (most thrillingly) having them land on us.  One of the large, lovely black-and-white ones actually landed on my right eyelid and stayed there for a while.  There were also large butterflies whose wings, when closed, showed a sort of soap bubble or peacock design in muted browns and taupes... but offered brilliant flashes of bright iridescent blue when they flew about.  And solid orange  ones with elongated wings.... And more.  Afterward, we passed through my favorite Pacific Northwest exhibit (with all the cool multi-part masks) and dined at a museum cafe.  Probably should have gone to the food court; the cafe is not the grown-up-oriented stronghold they suggest (we had two kids circling our table and yelling as they chased each other).

I dropped my mom off for her return journey and then met up with G-san for The Hunger Games.  I thought it was really good, and found some of the scenes incredibly moving.  (I was wiping away tears even for scenes I'd seen before in the trailer.)

The changes from the book bothered G-san, but they mostly didn't bother me.  I love seeing how books are translated onto the screen, especially when they don't add gratuitous love interests (Jurassic Park) or introduce clichéd "inner conflicts" which change the essential nature of beloved characters without improving the drama (LOTR) or try to spice things up by throwing in pointless, dead-end adventures (Prince Caspian).   I don't mind addition of love interests, inner conflicts, or entirely new incidents when it's done in a way that feels true to the spirit of the original, and ultimately deepens and enriches the cinematic experience ... but so often it looks more like someone said "This needs element X.  Where can we glom it on?"

A few semi-random observations on the Hunger Games movie:

• President Snow reminded me of an evil Professor Dumbledore.  He conveyed just that mixture of grandfatherliness and deep insight.... all in the service of Pure. Evil.  (Now that I think of it, perhaps Dumbledore and Snow are equally ruthless, when it comes down to it; it's just that their motives and goals are very different.) 
• I liked that Seneca Crane was sent to ingest nightlock berries. Very fitting.  And very powerfully done - to leave us knowing what will happen without showing us the result.  I'd say that maximized the impact.  (It was a cool and mildly surprising twist for me.  I initially suspected the bowl contained berries when I first saw it, but then I got fooled because the bowl looked too clear to contain anything and the room seemed so hermetically sealed that I thought maybe he was going to be gassed.)
• My one question is what they will do for the quarter-quell preparations, since it's not so obvious how they will flaunt Crane's fate to the current game-makers (dabbing the dummy's mouth in purply red and writing "Crane" on its torso just won't have the same impact as hanging the dummy).
• I felt that the Capitol caved too quickly to the nightlock berry threat.  It didn't seem like much of a threat in the movie.
• I was disappointed that the Muttations became generic panther-like creatures.  They weren't that scary or even seemingly that deadly -- and they completely lacked the element of horror, the psychological terror found in the book.  (The Capitol again deploys similar psychological techniques in the quarter-quell, with the rain of blood section and -- even worse -- the jabberjay section where Katniss and Finnick hear the tortured screams of the people they love most in the world.)
• I didn't mind the elimination of Madge and an alternative source for the mockingjay pin.  Even finding the pin at the Hob, giving it to Prim to "protect her" and having Prim re-gift it to Katniss is at least potentially OK.  What I had a problem with was Prim's explanation for why Katniss should take back the pin: for "protection".  Yeah, right.  The pin didn't protect Prim in the slightest -- she got selected, against all odds, as the female tribute -- so for Prim to offer it as protection raises the very troubling possibility that Prim is maybe hoping Katniss won't come back!!!  I half-expected her to yell "Sucker!" and call dibs on Katniss' clothes or something.