Current sensation The Hunger Games brought in $155 million during its opening weekend, making it the third highest-grossing debut in U.S. box office history. Unfortunately, the book-to-film adaptation brought with it a level of online idiocy that no one expected.

For anyone out of the loop, The Hunger Games is the first in a young adult book series about a futuristic, dystopian version of the United States in which teenagers are forced to fight to the death in a Battle Royale-esque televised competition. Now, without revealing too much, (you're welcome) in the movie, the characters of Rue, Thresh and Cinna are all played by black actors (Amandla Stenberg, Dayo Okeniyi and Lenny Kravitz, respectively). In the books, while Cinna's skin color is never mentioned, which opens the part to any actor, Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins pointedly describes Rue and Thresh as dark-skinned. Despite this, fans on Twitter not only didn't understand the casting choice, but they were angered by it. A blog called Hunger Games Tweets sprung up the night of the premiere, collecting the less-than-friendly Twitter reactions of some movie-goers. User "maggie_mcd11" tweeted "why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie." Ten points for grammar there. "Joe_langely" wrote, "EWW rue is black?? I'm not watching." "JohnnyknoxIV" posted, "I was pumped about the Hunger Games. Until I learned a black girl was playing Rue." Other tweeters were not so subtle, using explicitly racist terms to express their dissatisfaction.

Perhaps one of the most revealing tweets was one by a user who has since deleted the comment. She wrote, "Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the little blonde innocent girl you picture." According to "Adam," the creator of the Hunger Games Tweets blog, which was formed to draw attention to the race-driven attention the movie has gotten, "That tweet was very telling, in terms of a mentality that is probably very widespread." He was referring to the tweeter's idea that a black girl can not impart the same innocence as, say, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed character of Prim, the protagonist's little sister.

These tweets reveal a concerning truth about today's young adult audience: in a movie about teenagers literally fighting to the death in a televised arena, movie-goers are more upset about the implications of the characters' skin colors. For those of you who haven't gone to see The Hunger Games, it's worth a watch. But whether you're there for the bloody dystopia or the surprisingly poignant love story, take a moment to think about the race messages you receive from the cast-and why they might be more important than you think.