Definitely not the best movie ever and it did feel rushed. BUT I think the cinematography of it wanted us to see the characters how snow sees the characters and how he feels about them. I think everything that is happening around him is so superficial because he doesn’t see anything with depth. Just like we never really know Lucy’s intentions during the whole film. We aren’t supposed to feel sympathy for the other characters because snow doesn’t. I think the film wasn’t just doing a book to film adaptation page to page, it’s about how it makes you feel about snow.

The original director should have done this film.

Idk like I’m always going to be happy with more hunger games books/films. The book was much better but the film was really underwhelming and so meh

Valid opinion! I guess your major problem is with the film directing. I have to disagree about the story being pointless. The themes revolve around propaganda, submission power systems and how you’re shaped by the environment you live in. It’s so interesting to see how the games became so popular and normalized, it’s actually a response to a Gale question in the first film “what if people just don’t watch them?” There’s a lot of stories nowadays that were erased from history books and I wouldn’t treat them as pointless. The repercussions of this book on the others may seem little, but they show how in this 64 years the Capitol tries to erase any form of cultural significance from the districts. There’s no music anymore in Disctrict 12, which is a strong form of political expression and a way of uniting people (how Lucy and even Katniss did). There’s no lake of trips to the forest. No accent? Don’t know about that, not cannon in the books. The only way of entertainment is the Games. The games are also not a major point in this, cause the author won’t write books just to show the games, so that’s why you won’t connect with them like the others. I do agree with you about the characters (sejanus annoying as fuck lol), but the inner monologue coming from Snow is so good in the books. Unfortunately you lost some of that in the movie. I guess you’ll experience better if you read the book😊

As someone in the opposite boat (I haven’t seen the movie and I hardly remember the first ones, but I’ve read all the books multiple times) tbosbs is my favorite so far, and I’m surprised to see people saying that they really didn’t like Sejanus! His black and white view of the world might seem annoying at first, but imagine you’re only 17 and you’re told that you have to mentor someone you went to elementary school with through a death match while you sit comfortably at home knowing your father funded the war that helped to subjugate an entire continent by providing them with weapons and ammunition manufacturing. I think anybody would go crazy. And then he finally thinks he has a friend like him, who has the same extremely strong moral compass and opposes all of this and wants out just as badly, only to be stabbed in the back and hanged because of it. As someone with a right/wrong black and white kind of moral compass myself, I think I’d also probably have extreme emotional reactions and I’d probably behave just as impulsively out of desperation. Like breaking into the arena, to give somone their proper last rights/send off, since they had to die so far from home and their parents won’t be able to do it for them. He’s just a kid who wants to do right and doesn’t know how. I mean who really has that great of forethought and impulse control at 17? As for the tributes, I think this book really does a great job at showing how they really are just kids and would rather help each other than fight. Like Reaper, who apologizes for having to kill the other tributes to win before ever getting into the arena, and how he lines up their bodies and covers them out of respect. The way he wears the flag he tears down like a cape and runs with his arms out really just hones in that he is still a kid, regardless of how strong or dangerous in the arena he was. Or how Lamina(district 7 girl tribute) killed Marcus(district 2 tribute, same district Sejanus is from) out of mercy when they displayed his body hanging from shackles in the sun in the arena. The tributes are shown much more sympathetically here because we aren’t in the arena with them, and we can see that they really are just scared children who don’t want to die and definitely don’t really want to kill each other. They aren’t conditioned to hate each other yet, and it shows just how much the districts mentalities about the games have changed too. Also with the accent thing, district 12 is like Pennsylvania/West Virginia/Kentucky. It’s all Appalachia and as someone from there with family in all three states and has spent time on all three states, yeah they should all still have the accent and all of district 12 would sound like that, not just the covey. The movies messed that up lol. It’s a small detail, but still. It never would have been mentioned in the first hunger games because to Katnis they would sound like she does, but it is accurate that they all have an Appalachian accent. The only reason it’s brought up in songbirds and snakes is because Snow would have thought it was odd and new to him.

Underrated channel. I totally agree and was really disappointed in this particular movie. I dont see the hype.

I feel like it was good to have snow's background and why he has such plans

Thanks for the review! I've never considered the Hunger Games cycle as especially interesting, but watched them all and was willing to give this one a try if it appears on streaming. I think it looks like another (failed?) attempt to revive a franchise and sometimes maybe that is... not worth it. At least in this form. I agree that this could work as a mini series - fans of the HG would be more interested, it could build strong fundament for future ideas and in the era of streaming there is always some demand for such content. The creators wanted something more and it might be the biggest problem with the movie. Take care!

I feel like snow's entire arc in that movie could've fit somehow in one of the earlier movies as his character was introduced, like I don't think it's pointless as is but I believe we already had a background on snow's character and his motives from the previous movies for this movie to be completely pointless but regardless i still enjoyed the movie and it did touch on other important plot points like how someone's environment can shape their biases and thus their actions through snow's villain arc