'Sick as a dog' is how I would describe my girlfriend last weekend. A bad case of the flu had her knocked out on the couch, and in my house, that means she gets TV privileges. It was probably the fever that led her to choose the 2023 Hunger Games movie, The Ballad of the Ladybird.
The prequel sucked ass, but it infected her mind just as badly as the disease did, so over the weekend, she forced the Hunger Games franchise upon me.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention a few things beforehand. Firstly, the smoothness of my brain. Maybe it was way too smooth in 2012, because when I watched The Hunger Games, I didn't get it. Thirteen years later, my brain has developed some ridges (wrinkles, if I'm being honest) and I feel confident tackling the franchise.
Secondly, I did absolutely no research for this article. Characters, titles and plot points will land on the page as they appear in my mind.
Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, I feel contempt for these movies. Back in the day, I looked down on them, on the girls learning archery because of Katniss, on the fandom as a whole. That hatred has simmered down, so now I mostly feel apathy, so while watching the films I spaced out, which only made them more confusing.
How would I perceive them as an adult with a slightly more wrinkled brain? At the very least, watching them was an act of service to my diseased girlfriend. So I sat on the opposite end of the couch to avoid her cooties, and pressed play.
The Hunger Games: The Prequel: The Ballad of the Ladybird, or The One from 2023
The one that started it all [for me (this weekend)].
During the 10th Hunger Games, we follow a young C. Snow (I can't spell/remember his first name) as he rises through the ranks at Hogwarts, becomes a soldier in District 12, falls in love with Ladybird.
Every movie in this franchise is extremely plot-heavy; there's always something moving the story to the next battle, location, enemy, or kiss, so trying to care about it condense it is way too hard. Instead, I'll focus on the main takeaway from each film.
From the streets of the Capitol, to the slums, to the forest, Snow transforms from an ambitious dude who looks like Draco Malfoy into an evil dude who looks like Eminem. He likes poison. White roses remind him of his mother.
For the first 40 minutes, we thought this guy was the one with the weird beard from the first movie, but the math was throwing me off. I was extremely confused trying to match this film to the one I watched 15 years earlier. At one point, my girlfriend made some tea and, during that break, Googled who this dude was. Turns out, the bearded guy is something something Seneca and he's a minor bad guy, and Snow is the president old man. Watching these movies was gonna be harder than I thought.
The whole Ballad of the Hunger Games is about Snow mentoring a poor girl from District 12, Ladybird Gray or something. She's quirky and feisty and charismatic, he's suave and smart and ambitious. She's a small town girl, he's a big city guy. How could their love ever be?
Then we have the Games themselves. Seeing the first movie, I knew they were spectacular in scope and technology. I expected that here, but the prequel is a bit more rustic, with a bunch of farmers in sweater vests killing each other with sickles. They also kill a girl with Down Syndrome by dumping a ton of snakes on her. That felt wrong, but maybe it's a prejudice I have to explore?
The main takeaway from this one is Snow always lands on top.
The Hunger Games 2: Portrait of a Girl On Fire
My girlfriend wanted more (that never happens). Maybe the movies stirred some childhood sense of strength in her, something to ward off the consumption eating her lungs.
Since we had both seen the first one, we skipped it and went for the second one in the original trilogy. That's when we found out it was actually a tetralogy and that kinda fucked me up. Two more hours of watching this was not an easy ask.
After winning the last Games, Katniss and Peter Peeta are now super famous. But their fame makes them dangerous, and Snow doesn't like it. So, the new Game Maker or whatever, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, comes up with a plan: have the Victors from past years compete again.
I find it weird that the couples are the same age and have the same personality, when, as I recall, there was no chance for a team victory before Katniss and Peeta. Maybe that's explained in the books, but I don't see myself going there.
Outside of Hunger Gaming, Katniss has three main hobbies. She hunts a lot. She kisses Peeta and/or Gale. She likes waking up in hospital beds. Throughout the movies, she always comes back to these simple pleasures.
Peeta is kind, but also a bitch who complains a lot about how Katniss treats him. There's something about him because he can't seem to meet other girls. I know a lot of people won't like this, but Gale is Jacob from Twilight. Neither of them seems to like Katniss as a person, but they love the idea of dying for her.
The main thing here is that there is a rebellion going on, and they have decided that Katniss will be their spokesperson, but they don't ever tell her this. Some of the other Tributes are in on it, sacrificing themselves for her so she can escape.
She eventually escapes with the help of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was very obviously going to betray Snow. Snow is supposed to be pretty smart, but he fucks up every chance he gets.
The Hunger Games 3: The Mockingjay
Let's talk about the mockingjay. I Googled this beforehand, so it doesn't count. I thought it was a real bird, but it turns out, it's some kind of fictional mutant thing from the book. It took me more than ten years to find out this wasn't a real animal. This doesn't really mean much, just an example of how these movies went pfffft right over my head.
So, this one is all about propos. Shooting a propo here, another one there. What? You don't know what that means? Propaganga clip, you absolute imbecile. The whole movie is about them, so you better keep up.
The big reveal in this one is that, apparently, there was a District 13 but it was destroyed during the war (sadly, I don't know which war). At the start of this movie, we find out District 13 is planning a rebellion against the Capitol, and that they've thrived underground for decades.
I don't know if a District is more like a city or a state in terms of population, but that's just a sliding scale of fucking dumb, because there's no way you could fit all of them in a bunker.
Anyways, they are led by President Coin. I didn't know anything about her, but just by her eyes I could tell she was a backstabbing B word. The eyes, Chico, they never lie.
Two takeaways. Everyone fucking loves Katniss. We saw that in the last movie, but here it's weird. Now that there's a war, she's Joan of Arc. Actually, she's more like Jesus. There's a scene where she visits a bombed out hospital and her presence heals the injured.
Peeta is kidnapped by the Capitol and they brainwash him. Katniss spends a lot of time with Gale. Still, they never fuck, not even close. What's up with that? These films go way too deep into the child-killing, but sex is not a thing. You need to have sex in order to produce the children who will be killed. Cowardly and weird.
The Hunger Games 3/4: The Mockingjay Strikes Back
Peeta is back! But he's evil now! He attacks Katniss because he is brainwashed and, at one point, he will kill a dude on his side, but it will be brushed under the rug. For some reason, they still keep him around, even after he asks his team to kill him because he can't control himself. His mind is fucked, man, he's not helping the mission.
The whole thing here is that Katniss takes her squad of hot people to kill Snow, but she doesn't tell them at first. In the second movie, she's pissed because they don't tell her about the rebellion. This time around, she has no problem lying to her squad. After a lot of people die and she actually confesses, everyone's cool and they knew all along, they just didn't say anything. Even when she fucks up, it turns out no one cares.
I got really confused at one point, when the squad was in the sewer and they were attacked by some zombie-like creatures. Before they showed up on screen, characters kept using the word "Mutt" to refer to them, so I imagined dogs like in the first movie. Nope. I don't know what these guys were, if they were human or not, but they're expendable bad guys that never show up again, even though they look like they'd fuck up everyone in the Capitol if they got out.
I was getting the movie, at least 70% of it, until the squad made it to Tiger Girl. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you what the fuck she was, and I was almost certain I hadn't seen another character like that in the film.
We were both floored by her appearance. It's hard enough keeping up with all the names and remembering when and how they're killed, but this catwoman thing really screwed me up. I kept asking my girlfriend who this person was, to the point where she got annoyed. I still haven't Googled this one, so I might die without ever knowing.
The heaviest part of the whole franchise happens near the end. The rebels are storming the Capitol, and a bunch of kids are near the gate waiting to be let in. A Capitol ship flies overhead and drops what appear to be supplies, but it turns out they're BOMBS?
The kids are blown to smithereens, but this unites the people of Panem. Peacekeepers and Rebels stop fighting and rush to help the injured, and during this commotion, Katniss' sister, Primrose, is there helping. Right when you think the sisters are gonna embrace, another bomb goes off. We both gasped at that moment. I expected her to die, but not like that. Also, this is fictional, so I can say it: I'm glad they killed her. I didn't like her at all.
Katniss wakes up in the hospital for the fifteenth time. The war is over, but we still need answers to the two main questions driving this saga:
What will happen to Snow? You want him to suffer, but Katniss is always like, "I don't like violence," even if she's a famous killer/child soldier. I don't want to spoil the ending, but you could see it coming a mile away.
Peeta or Gale? I can't stand either of them. Their devotion to her is pathological. Gale wants to win her over by glaring a lot, which would work for a guy like him on any other girl. On the other hand, Peeta goes from being kind to trying to murder her, which is statistically more correct. The three of them are incredibly messed up psychologically, and they should find peace somewhere else. I will spoil this one:
Katniss picks Peeta, maybe because Gale accidentally invented the method that killed Prim. I liked that little twist, actually. They move back to their destroyed town and have two babies, probably named Rue Primrose and Haymitch Finnick or something dumb.
Finally, it felt like we had exorcised some Milennial guilt. For some reason, we had escaped one of the biggest franchises around while we were growing up, and the FOMO had always been there. I still don’t understand these movies, but I do understand that the Hunger Games were never meant for me. They were meant for teens, and my brain, despite its new wrinkles, couldn't grasp it.
In the days after, I kept asking my girlfriend random Hunger Games questions at random moments, mainly about the tiger lady. She always answered, patiently, even when she was confused too. It was nice of me to agree to watch these movies with her. And it was nice of her to sit through my confusion and to tolerate every question.
We may never know who the tiger lady was, but like Peeta and Katniss, we faced the confusion together, which is all anyone can hope for in this life.
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