Metal Bagon: If you're a fan of the books, you'll almost certainly enjoy the film. It's a solid adaptation. Try not to get too hung up on the little things that got cut (like we are currently doing itt because we're all opinionated and/or passionate and/or have read the books too many times); overall it's quite faithful and most of the characters were portrayed pretty accurately.
von: A lot of character-defining moments, particularly Katniss's, were missed though, and as people who love the book, it is diminished for us to see those moments were gone lol. Ditto is reminding me of all the things I forgot but noticed weren't in the film that established a lot of her character, especially for the future books. Obviously I know things have to be cut, and I'm pretty calm about that in general since they kept many important things, but there were a couple I really feel were vital to her; I alluded to those in the OP but idt I've actually listed to them, but the one where she goes to shoot Peeta after the rule change is revoked automatically is pretty telling.
I even stated in the OP you can follow it fine and it works well as standalone, but I still think all the flaws the people itt are pointing out come down to either the omission of significant moments we wished were in the film or the fact that you can't hear Katniss's thoughts. I don't think anyone means to say that you can't work these things out for yourself without exposition, but several of those factors are more ambiguous, although like you said that may be due to the medium it's in. I've said several times I'm more of a book person; I rarely watch films and I have trouble doing so, though I do think you might have a point about that, as did Jebus McAzn.
As for Ouro's list, Prim/Katniss was done just as well in the film as it was done in the book (in fact, it showed more Prim than the book does), Gale was just kind of nerfed in general (although the snapshots of him were good in that 'show and tell' sense von mentions), Rue/Katniss was fine really because you could draw the comparison to Prim yourself (even if it wasn't as emphasised as it was in the book), Katniss's dependence on her father was barely mentioned iirc, her relationship with her mother was pretty obvious, Peeta's love was emphasised pretty well. But I still believe that if he felt any of these were missing, it was due to the perspective switch.
I even stated in the OP you can follow it fine and it works well as standalone, but I still think all the flaws the people itt are pointing out come down to either the omission of significant moments we wished were in the film or the fact that you can't hear Katniss's thoughts. I don't think anyone means to say that you can't work these things out for yourself without exposition, but several of those factors are more ambiguous, although like you said that may be due to the medium it's in. I've said several times I'm more of a book person; I rarely watch films and I have trouble doing so, though I do think you might have a point about that, as did Jebus McAzn.
As for Ouro's list, Prim/Katniss was done just as well in the film as it was done in the book (in fact, it showed more Prim than the book does), Gale was just kind of nerfed in general (although the snapshots of him were good in that 'show and tell' sense von mentions), Rue/Katniss was fine really because you could draw the comparison to Prim yourself (even if it wasn't as emphasised as it was in the book), Katniss's dependence on her father was barely mentioned iirc, her relationship with her mother was pretty obvious, Peeta's love was emphasised pretty well. But I still believe that if he felt any of these were missing, it was due to the perspective switch.