If I could shout "a new car" and one would appear for you due to me saying so, I would.

It is until you get to the last book and then it becomes a pretty fully blown dystopia of its own accord. The fact that she gets to safety only to find it an unbearable hell really makes the series.

Counterpoint: Battle Royale sucked.

That's what old people would usually say about cool things.

I watched Battle Royale for the first time the day before seeing Hunger Games in the theaters. I was so desensitized I thought I was watching Matlock.

Battle Royale might have been interesting if they had bothered to follow through with even a single plot point. I mean, how much time did they waste explaining danger zones and then you never even saw what that meant, much less any effect it had.

Battle Royale is a really bad film, even if you're a nipponophile. It has some pretty memorable and funny bits, but overall it falls into that same formulaic Japanese bullshit.

"Peter Rosenthal", not "Phil Rosenthal", sorry.

The "Butler" review is exactly how I felt when I watched that movie, and it only got worse after I looked it up later & found out it's pretty much all made up. Not that it's a bad movie, but still.

It was from a position of traditional gender roles, which is precisely the opposite of a "men's rights advocate" position. You might as well call it a "feminist" review because it centered around protecting women.

I hear there was a magical time before the 80s when sequels and character franchises were fairly rare.

Yep.

The first movie definitely transcended the genre, and one big reason was the lack of pretty boys and girls.