Katniss from Hunger Games

Today is Hunger Games’ turn.

I haven’t seen the movies, because I’m not particularly interested to see just another film adaptation of a ‘teen fantasy phenomenon’ book series by some female author, who went from nothingness to instant fame and riches, since kids love to hype this kind of things too much. Anyway…

Mistakes:

1. Our strong, independent, young and of course attractive (to some viewers) main hero Katniss is supposed to be extremely skilled with a bow, but still in this photo she has grabbed the bow in a hurry like her life depends on every millisecond, or then she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. The first mistake which causes other errors, is that she has nocked the arrow (put the bow string into the nock of the arrow) too high on the string. The arrow should be as close to the center point of the bow string as possible. It cannot be in the exact center, since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center. But that’s not much. In this picture the arrow is way too high, which makes the whole bow tilt backwards, as you can clearly see. The red arrow number 1 shows where would be the correct nocking point on the string for arrows.

2. The red arrow number 2 shows where the shaft of the arrow should lie while the bow is being drawn. Something has just happened here, and it’s bad. The arrow has fallen from atop the bow hand and now the archer has no control over where the arrow will fly. She has even tried to guide the arrow with her index finger, which is a beginners technique, but it failed apparently. Maybe it’s because the bow is so backwards tilted that she has difficulties trying to keep it straight with her bow hand.

3. The arrows are again made for men with longer arms, and not particularly measured for the actress in question. The red arrow number 3 shows where the arrow could end for her. The longer arrow allows bigger draw, but that requires more length to the arms of the archer.

4. What is this fletching? It’s quite damaged. Maybe these arrows have been used many times for shooting in thick bushes or something similar which would damage the feathers.

5. Back quiver is especially bad for hunting in thick woods, since if you try to be quiet and unobtrusive, drawing the arrows from a back quiver has a high probability to bump with tree branches and other forestly matter, thus creating sound which would alert animals, and humans too, if you’re hunting with your own species like in this example perhaps. A hip quiver would be more practical, as always.


In the second picture I’ve drawn the proper alignment of the longbow and it’s arrow nocked in the correct point on the string.


Good:

These movies (with a few recent others) has made archery popular again among youngsters, which can’t be a bad thing, can it? Maybe it can, if people who only want to be like their hero, fill the archery ranges, but don’t really care about learning the proper techniques. But perhaps I worry over nothing.


Update

Five years later I have updated this review, read it here.