"Is 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' more than just a fancy title?
we dive headfirst – or maybe just toe-dip – into the Hunger Games prequel. Will it soar like a songbird or hiss away like a snake? Let's find out!
We're going to investigate young Snow. Does he chill us to the bone, or is he more of a snowflake? We'll dig into Rachel Ziegler's performance too. Spoiler alert: There's singing involved – because what’s a Ballad without a few tunes?
Get ready for a rollercoaster of ‘why did they do that?’ as we compare this prequel to the beloved original trilogy. It's like déjà vu, but with less... well, everything. From casting choices that had us scratch our heads to plot twists that left us spinning in circles – we're covering it all!
Join us for laughs, rants, and maybe even a few revelations as we navigate the maze that is 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.'
"Is 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' more than just a fancy title?
we dive headfirst – or maybe just toe-dip – into the Hunger Games prequel. Will it soar like a songbird or hiss away like a snake? Let's find out!
We're going to investigate young Snow. Does he chill us to the bone, or is he more of a snowflake? We'll dig into Rachel Ziegler's performance too. Spoiler alert: There's singing involved – because what’s a Ballad without a few tunes?
Get ready for a rollercoaster of ‘why did they do that?’ as we compare this prequel to the beloved original trilogy. It's like déjà vu, but with less... well, everything. From casting choices that had us scratch our heads to plot twists that left us spinning in circles – we're covering it all!
Join us for laughs, rants, and maybe even a few revelations as we navigate the maze that is 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.'
Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Movies Worth Seeing. Welcome, fellow movie lovers, to our latest episode. Today we're diving into the newest addition to the Hunger Games. It's a sequel that no one asked for, but they made it anyway, yes. So let's explore this with a fresh perspective and dive into the Hunger Games. The ballad of songbirds and snakes. It just rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 2:Beautifully lovely.
Speaker 1:So I am joined by Addy Asher yet again. And the interesting thing with this episode is that sorry, I'm just checking to see if my paranoia was steeping in I'm like, is it in recording? Yes, it is. Interestingly, I have never seen a Hunger Games movie. Addy has seen all the Hunger Games movies, so we have completely different viewpoints on this. I probably thought Hunger Games prequel was going to be different. I probably thought it was OK, it wasn't too bad, whereas Addy probably has the perspective that it was a massive disappointment when compared to the original trilogy. Is that a fair point?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, understand it, but yes, what did you think it was? Horrible. It was Wow Play, just horrible. I tried to be optimistic. I thought it's the Hunger Games. It's based on a novel that's written by the same novelist. It can't be that bad. We watched it and I was like, ok, let's focus on the good bits. I watched Catching Fire the second one of the trilogy yesterday and I have to take that back. It was horrible.
Speaker 1:Wow. So what is it that when compared to the original trilogy? What are the main things that just don't work in this?
Speaker 2:Like about one third of the movie you asked me. Am I supposed to know what's going on? If you ask that question, then it's a horrible movie.
Speaker 1:Good, ok, yeah, because I thought that I was going in and I should have known all this stuff. But then I'm like it's a prequel, so it should be fine. It should be set up as if I haven't seen the other movies, because this could be the start of it, of the Hunger Games, but they didn't go that route?
Speaker 2:No, they didn't. It was confusing. It was confusing Again watching Catching Fire and the original Hunger Games the first one, so many moments. It was just critically. You know exactly what's going on. There was no fat, there was no bullshit around it, it was straight to the point. You know exactly what is going on. There was nothing skimmed over and there was nothing that was excess. It was so clean. This movie was just dragged on and on and on. This was all fat. It was all fat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember I said to you when we came out of the cinemas I'm like there should be laws against movies being three hours long. Unless you, James Cameron, should never happen, If you don't have a tattoo.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that great.
Speaker 1:But I felt like I could understand why I was going for so long. Like you had action sequences, it was interesting. I didn't constantly say to myself that could have been cut.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get what you mean, when you compare three hour movies, I would have to by far more superior than Hunger Games.
Speaker 1:Songbird and Sinks put a name for a movie yet again. Well, it's the novel you can Suzanne Collins, I think her name is they should have like gave it acronyms or something BOS yeah, they should have been like the Hunger Games, bos. Both S, yeah, super bass. Well, let's talk about so young snow. So essentially, what they do is they take the villain Of the Hunger Games original trilogy and show his rise into becoming that villain. So they took the Anakin Skywalker route with this prequel. Yeah, did it pay off.
Speaker 2:No, it's not at a fault of Tom Blythe, the actor who played. I actually thought he was really good, he was brilliant, he was really good he. He did the best he could to salvage what was written for him, but it was just bad story arc for him.
Speaker 1:At least they didn't do the whole thing like you know. In those movies they kind of did it. You know, when a character becomes a bad guy, their haircut has to drastically change. Like, like they gave him the buzz cut, but it made sense in the story. It wasn't just like I'm reading myself of my hero ways. I'm not good anymore. Look at this visual metaphor of my hairstyle. It wasn't like Spider-Man 3 where he just like moves it to the side a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I get what you mean. It was circumstance justified, which is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I felt his portrayal. Unfortunately I don't know anything about the character in the original trilogy, but I thought he did a pretty good job of showing that gradual shift from a somewhat sympathetic character to this notorious kind of villain that you know is going to run the whole game. But you don't think it stacked up against the original trilogy's snipe?
Speaker 2:So no, no, I don't think it does. But apart from that, because he's way. I don't know. It's a different kind of villain, it's a different kind of psychopath. Of course he's way older. He's like 80, 85, and I don't know how old he is. In the, in the new, in the originals. You need to have something substantial first, then break it down and then create a villain. The relationship he had with Lucy Gray was just not real. There was just nothing there. It was just fake?
Speaker 1:Why does he always say Lucy Gray? Why doesn't?
Speaker 2:he just say Lucy. Why does every character say Lucy Gray and why not just Lucy?
Speaker 1:I love it, it's like oh my God, there she is, Lucy Gray.
Speaker 2:Lucy Gray.
Speaker 1:Lucy Gray no one says that you know when someone's like dying in your arms or whatever. You don't go like Lucy, but I'll follow you, gray, Whatever her middle name was Lucy.
Speaker 2:Gray bad, I think it was.
Speaker 1:By the way, that's not spoiling anything. No, I'm just using it as a hypothetical. That does bring up a good point. Their relationship just felt so hollow and I just couldn't see what they're seeing in each other. It was like I missed a scene, or something.
Speaker 2:Again, I have to draw the comparison between the originals, katniss Evadine and Peter Malak, the two main characters in the original Hunger Games. Okay, so how long was that stare between Lucy Gray and Coriolanus? How long was that stare when the zoo scene? How long was that stare trying to show the love and the affection that there's gonna be a romance there? That stare was just so long and so hollow, whereas in the originals, in the same time frame, they told so much between the characters it was just a look, boom, look at each other. She does something, he sees it. They can just see the spark in her eye and that's it. It was two seconds and then the rest of the minute. They did so many other things to show more promise for their relationship.
Speaker 1:So you felt like, similar to me, this was forcing something that just wasn't there, so forced, like the movie's dragon out scenes, between trying to force this relationship upon us when it's just not working. And I think Rachel Zegler doesn't help things either. She's not, I mean, let's just call her spade a spade. She's not exactly the most likable celebrity right now, nope and man. She has a terrible track record. She has a terrible track record Like Shazam. Two bombed fricking. What was the other thing she was in? Snow White's gonna bomb for sure.
Speaker 2:Pushed it back a year to hopefully the storm would love her West Side.
Speaker 1:Story bombed and Spielberg directed that West Side Story bombed. Yeah, that's what I heard that bombed. I haven't seen it yet. I heard it's really good, but it's still bombed financially.
Speaker 2:Don't hire Rachel Zegler.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems to be the, and everyone's kind of predicted that this would bomb as a result? And yeah, time will tell, time will tell. I mean, I don't think it's doing well, as we're recording this right now.
Speaker 2:I haven't even looked at it. I assume it's not. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews.
Speaker 1:And like the relationship is at the forefront of the whole freaking movie as well, yeah, that's the reason why he goes bad. Yeah Well, there's a pivotal moment in the story where he's got to decide between like the relationship or what he wants. His ultra goal, ultimate goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, he has to make that choice with Leedsome Downer path, to become the villain that he is in an original trilogy. Right so, but the choice was not hard enough. He acted as if it was hard, but the stakes were, but we didn't understand why. We didn't understand it because the relationship between him and Zegler was just we didn't have the investment in their relationship.
Speaker 1:There was no investment, so by the time where these crucial decisions come up, we don't care Zero. And also you can see it coming from a mile away. Oh, yeah big time.
Speaker 1:You know what's going to happen with them. Oh yeah, One thing I will say, though. I feel like one of the issues with movies these days especially villain, like origin stories they can never have the balls to have the villain be the villain at the end of the movie, Whereas I felt like at the end of this snow is snow like the snow that you expect him to become. I felt like he was pretty close to full bad guy by the end.
Speaker 2:I see what you mean yes and no, yes and no For example, did you ever watch Cruella?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so you know how Cruella Emma Stone yeah, it's like the movie can't decide on whether she's a bad guy by the end of it. They want to make out like she's still a hero and they make all these weird creative decisions.
Speaker 2:How about the Joker? Joker was perfect.
Speaker 1:The Joker was perfect Joker is like the gold standard, I would think, for a villain origin story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a well done story.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a long movie too, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:I think two hours and a half. I don't think it's as long as this movie. It definitely doesn't feel as long as this movie.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when I think about the relationship between these two characters and the love, the romance. Having Rachel Ziggler sing millions of times did not help me like her anymore. She can sing, I would admit she is a good singer, but all it brought up to both of us, all it highlighted, was, I think, she's more singer than actress.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look my point of view on this. I told you that the night after we watched the movie. I wish the best for Rachel Ziggler in her singing career, but please stop acting Like honestly when you see her on stage in District 12, not in the Capitol. In the Capitol again, it was just whiny. It was just attention seeking. It was just horrible to look at.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just her personality.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, rachel's personality, not Lucy Gray's personality, yeah Right, it was just Rachel's personality just shines through it. It was just horrible to look at because it's just not her, it's just not her. But when she was in District 12 and she was on a stage there and singing, that was beautiful to look at. Oh, give her that. She had a beautiful moment and a reaction there. It was a beautiful acting moment there, but that's the only good moment she had, in my opinion, and it's when she was singing on stage, bringing life to other people. And you know, I believe for Rachel Ziggler, that is what her calling is Go sing on a stage, bring happiness to people through music, through singing, through bringing the festivities to it. Don't act, stop acting, it's not your thing.
Speaker 1:And she needs a new PR team as well. Oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 2:Look, her PR team is given a challenge. Yes, she's making it hard for them. I think she's.
Speaker 1:She needs like someone to just be like look, maybe you don't talk during interviews, maybe we just don't do that. All right, you do the movie, you act in the movie, that's all good. We'll have a team that takes over the interviews, though. That would be good. No, it's funny that you so. Yeah, like West Side Story. She was probably good in that because it was accentuating the positives of her as a performer, as a singer. The funny thing is my favorite scene of hers in this movie. She wasn't talking. Is that ironic? It was a really well done performance. Which scene are you talking about? Without spoiling? There's kind of a scene where her character's witnessing something she can't really do anything about it and you see her dealing with a range of different emotions.
Speaker 2:At the end.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it was like at the midpoint, it was like during the actual Hunger Games. Oh yes, remember, I told you. I was like, wow, that was really well done. And now I know why, as I think about it, I'm like, oh, because she's not talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even that moment I didn't like.
Speaker 1:So obviously, this being my first kind of dive into the Hunger Games, I love the whole idea. I love, you know, the way the Hunger Games brings up themes of corruption and moral ambiguity, especially in Snow's character. But you really get a sense of this insidious nature between characters and how it doesn't take much before people start to crack in these circumstances. Yeah, it's a compelling look at humanity's kind of primal instincts in extreme circumstances and it makes me want to see the other Hunger Games movies to better understand that. I love movies where they really shine a light on, like the true underbelly of human nature, like the ugly side of human nature, like, you know, zombie movies and apocalypse movies where you know gangs start to form because the whole society's collapsed. Yep, yeah, those type of movies. I dig that, yeah, I like it too.
Speaker 2:Again, for everybody who has seen the original trilogy will know what I'm talking about. And you who hasn't seen the original trilogy, you might say like yeah, I like how they did that in this movie. Fans who have seen the originals they will know you can't compare it to.
Speaker 1:So pretty much everything I like about this movie, you're saying is done 10 times better in the trilogy my million times better.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's good to know.
Speaker 2:Even the side characters in the original movies were better than Rachel Zegler. I don't remember any Now. The second is in the original trilogy. In Catching Fire you have a beautiful little moment of remembrance of a character that died in the first film, one of the tributes Just a family just standing there and you just see the sorrow in her eyes, don't say anything, they just stand there and they just wave. It's better than a whole Rachel's egg. There's, or 95% on the cast and I'm not blaming the cast for this, this is more the directing side of it. It's just way better and I don't understand, because it's the same director.
Speaker 1:Really it's the same director.
Speaker 2:So the original movie, the first one, the hunger games, it's called Gary Ross, I think it was Gary. His name was. Gary was the director for the first movie, brilliantly done. Then Francis Lawrence became director of the second, the third, the fourth and the prequel. I don't know what the fuck they did with the prequel.
Speaker 1:So you're saying the person who directed two, three, four and five is the one that directed this one?
Speaker 2:Not just the director. Most of the crew is the same. Okay different screenwriters, different script writers? Yeah, but I'm pretty sure there's a different script writer from almost every movie. Okay at least the first, the second, I think the third one, mocking J, part one, part two, might have the same writers, but I'm not sure they all have different script writers. But director Francis Lawrence, director number two, catching fire, mocking J, part one, part two and the prequel, bellow songbirds and okay it's next. Same director, a same cinematographer as well.
Speaker 2:Hmm and yet they same producers. So what do you think happened? I have no idea. Like I said to you before, I'm a firm believer that the tense 2010 to 2016 17 were brilliant movies. After that it just went downhill.
Speaker 1:But waiting for the next way. So when wokeness kind of started to take over, they want to say that because I don't want to get canceled, but you wanted to just imply it to the audience, though, and be like Something happened around the end of the 2010s, where movies started to become shit.
Speaker 2:No, 2017, 2016, 2017, maybe a bit later 2020. It just went downhill from there.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't wait. When are you gonna watch the movies? We're gonna have a good chat afterwards, but I'm gonna.
Speaker 1:I'm very pumped to watch it because, like there were so many things I did like concepts that I liked in this movie, but I can tell they weren't done well. I could tell that you, for example, it's so hard to do this without spoiling the actual hunger games itself. I was like there were some weird choices made when I was like I don't feel like this is done Well. I can definitely see it happening much better in the original trilogy. But what about this whole concept of them having mentors? Is that done in the original trilogy or was that purely? No, that's your original.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was yeah it's done differently, I reckon, way better. It's the fake. The victors from previous years, from your district, is gonna become your mentor for this year. So district 12 is a bit of spoiling. What of the original trilogy? No, this one, I'll say to you, cut so because Lucy Gray, she cheated, she's not considered a Victor.
Speaker 1:Okay, in the original trilogy.
Speaker 2:Right, so there's only one, victor, which is Woody Harrelson's character, who is their mentor? All right, we're back. So, yeah, no. So the Victor from previous years is the mentor for the new recruits, for the newly reaped.
Speaker 1:Mmm, right, okay, so this movie was presenting it as like the first year that they did this.
Speaker 2:No, no, this is the tenth year, I think it is.
Speaker 1:No, they said it was the tenth hunger games, but it was the first year that they were having mentors. Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:I think again, it's so unclear you can ask me whatever you want about the original trilogy I remembered, even though the Mokinja part one on part two haven't seen for ten years. I will tell you exactly what's going on, but this one you.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:And you can't remember. And I have to tell you a secret I watched it twice.
Speaker 1:We may have the cinemas. Yeah, you went to watch this movie again. Yep cinemas.
Speaker 2:Yep, still acting like I watched it before I watched it with you. Oh, I watched it a second time with you. I had to watch it again because I want to make the notes and I wanted to make sure everything I saw, if it became better or worse the second time I saw it and if I was still as confused. Was it worse? It was slightly better but still bad, horrible.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's commitment man to watch it twice six hours of my life.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna get back Fucked bro.
Speaker 1:If I watched this Three-hour movie and I didn't like it, like I gotta say there's no way I'd watch this movie again Like it was okay. But three hours to watch a movie that's okay is a big investment, massive investment.
Speaker 2:You have to have seen more in the originals, by the way. Yeah, I like see more, right I?
Speaker 1:love Philip Seymour, and you said really Woody Harrelson, woody Harrelson is a support lead.
Speaker 2:That's pretty good. Yeah, who plays Peter Milak?
Speaker 1:Josh Hudson, it's a hard name to say Josh Hudson.
Speaker 2:Liam Hemsworth, jennifer Lawrence, elizabeth Bank, woody Harrelson, stanley Tucci, donald Sutherland, as you know, lenny Kravitz, philip Jay Seymour does he sing Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Speaker 1:Does he just pull out a guitar and start wailing?
Speaker 2:No, he's an actor, he acts and he's brilliant. That's what I'm talking about. You have a singer who's a brilliant singer Lenny Kravitz. I love his song, I love his music. I'll always listen to it. It's his cover of Ain't no Sunshine brilliant. He doesn't come in to sing, he comes into tell a story. Why can't Rachel Zegler do that? Come in to tell stories, stop singing. Look, I get it. I get it in the novel. Sure, I haven't read the novel, but I assume she's a singer. I assume that's how she brings hope to the people. That's why she's loved by the people. I don't know, it just became a musical, especially at the reaping.
Speaker 1:It became a musical why that's what we were thinking the first time she's saying, because I was like, why is this character, who's meant to be like, enslaved and forced to go into the Hunger Games? She stands up on this podium and it's in the trailer, so it's not spoiling anything, but she does this massive song and dance and I was like, wouldn't security Just hit her with a baton, shut her up?
Speaker 2:And then she does that bow, right. Yeah, that's a ripoff from the original movies. That's Katniss Everdeen's move. That's Jennifer Lawrence move. She does that and she does it brilliantly. Now Rachel doesn't like no, it's like just stand up like nobody cares, nobody cares. And while we're at the topic of her singing right, I'm gonna go on a rant right now on a topic of her singing. It's supposed to be an emotional thing when you move the audience. I watched interstellar the other like a couple weeks ago, right.
Speaker 1:Bro, how do you have time to watch all these long movies?
Speaker 2:You have seen interstellar?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't, you haven't no, it's the only Nolan movie I have seen three times.
Speaker 2:It wasn't the IMAX, that's. I had to go and see it. I'm a god on the big screen, the new IMAX in Sydney. Dude, I had me in tears like three.
Speaker 1:I've heard it's good, I do want to watch it. Brilliant Anyway. You're saying you saw interstellar.
Speaker 2:Sure, a few actors here and there, a few characters, they cry, whatever, but you know I cried. I was in tears people behind me weren't tears. People beside me, people in front of me everybody was in tears. In this movie, all the characters on the screen aren't tears. I look around. You're like what is going on on the other side? It's like who is going on behind me? I see everybody's like nobody isn't here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw someone just like next to me just munching on popcorn, like I was like that's an aggressive popcorn either. Yeah, it was quite aggressive, but it was entertaining to watch.
Speaker 2:More entertaining than the movie itself.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's weird when the characters are really emotional and you don't feel something. It's very awkward you distance yourself in the movie it's like the movie, telling you, you know, in sitcoms when they have that giant like light that says applause, yeah after it's like that. But you're saying to yourself I don't want to the entertainment, the movie doesn't deserve it, it did not deserve it at all. You can scream at me and say you're supposed to like this, which is what most directors these days seem to say whenever they're movie bombs on Twitter.
Speaker 2:You should have liked it and I know either shit movie, the shit project. Own it next time you can do better. Yeah, learn from it. Don't try to force it to work anyway.
Speaker 1:Square, it's not gonna fit in the circle a stand-up comedian doesn't say I keep bombing on stage. Nowadays they do. They shouldn't Exactly, they shouldn't, but like me doing stand-up, if I keep bombing with the same material, I'd be saying to myself Okay, that's not the audience, it's me.
Speaker 2:I need to change the material and now I'll give it to Francis director. It wasn't him, it was a blur. Yeah, you can put the blame somewhere else, but still, the rest of the movie was just didn't work. It's didn't work actually.
Speaker 1:I just thought of the best Note to bring up right. So this is my first time watching a Hunger Games movie, so I don't know what to expect. When the sirens are going off and everyone's competing how that usually flows right. But in this Rachel Ziggler turns into John Wick and it does not look right at all. And I mean she's dodging everything. Insight, she is playing blood-borne on the highest difficulty and she is Perfect, dodging every attack, like.
Speaker 1:I just did not understand it. The movie did no Development or build up to make me believe that this character is able to dodge 10 million attacks at once. And yeah, it's Rachel Ziggler. Like she doesn't have that physical presence of Like I don't know, for example, linda Hamilton, who plays Sarah Connor. When you see her in Terminator 2 you're like and she starts beating the shit out of people. It looks believable, she looks like a bad ass. But when I see this small scrawny like singer all of a sudden dodging rapidly every little attack, I'm like this doesn't make sense. It doesn't look believable, amen 100% agree they could have easily fixed that.
Speaker 1:but, like, put a training montage or something I don't know, just showed me something to show that this character is capable of Fighting off everyone.
Speaker 2:Look, I feel like a character is not supposed to, so just don't have them, just.
Speaker 1:Well then, cover in a situation where she's exactly constantly dodging shit.
Speaker 2:It's funny cuz like those fight sequences exactly. That is very similar to the original, where someone's trying to hit it from behind and that gets hit. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So I'm guessing that Jennifer Lawrence is a lot more believable way in that role.
Speaker 2:She's in shape, she has a skill, she can fight. But even then she gets overpowered every time. Because she has a skill she can't combat, fight very well. So she gets overpowered in a combat situation every time and then with luck and with a bit of dodging as she gets out of it and it's just believable, it was close. Hey, don't feel that once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was no suspension of disbelief that Lucy Gray would die at any point.
Speaker 2:Nah, there was no real suspense. She was invincible. Yeah, you know, like you always have first, like now she's gonna be okay. The scene starts and the question is not set up Will she survive this the scene now?
Speaker 1:not at all and the way that plays out. It just always feels like day's ex Mark now, like there's always something that manages to pull her out at just the last minute and it gets tiresome because it's not like she's Developing skills or tactics or something, it's just the movie wants her to live and you can feel that with the writing moving in a different direction. Jason's Swartzman was very good at as the kind of cynical host I felt he has a very like douchey.
Speaker 2:I love Jason's forceman. I love the guy. That shit on this movie again.
Speaker 1:Sure, I mean, it's the only thing I loved about the movie.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious what you're gonna say who is the original character that played the host? Oh, it's Danny Touchy.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so you're gonna say that he's way better as the host.
Speaker 2:He was way better. I love Jason Swartzman. I like I don't want to take any away from acting again.
Speaker 1:It's just poor character development so it's not so much the performance, but the film didn't do a good job of Giving him no, because I've seen Jason Swartzman and a lot of this stuff and his stuff is just he's a great actor.
Speaker 2:He can bring life to characters, he can play a bit of comedy and they can play the drama and he can play the tension. He can do it. He does amazing character work. He does some amazing storytelling. This character was just not not written for him. It's just wasn't well written full stop.
Speaker 1:So what's the big comparison between the original trilogy's host?
Speaker 2:What do you like about it?
Speaker 1:What did I like about?
Speaker 2:Jason Schwartzman. The host, not Jesus, was like just a host, the character I liked that.
Speaker 1:He was just very what's the word? Disconnected from the fact that these people were dying like they're killing each other, and he doesn't give a shit. He just is so stuck in. Oh, this is just a media job, like any other media job.
Speaker 2:You just wait until you see Stanley Tucci. He does that a million times better again. He is completely disengaged from the actors, but he always performs with the biggest miles and fakes the empathy and it's just so clear that it's all fake. To the camera off and then he just walks off and I don't give a fuck, but it's just so you believe that he cares about these characters when the camera is rolling and then stops and then he's off. He's just so clean. Where's with Jason Schwartzman's version of flickerman? There's no twist, there's no turn, there's no complexity to the character.
Speaker 2:It's just a media guy. It's just an end command who does everything on TV. Yeah, it is a very simple, simplistic character.
Speaker 1:So you felt like, by not seeing him Change from how he is when the cameras are on two versus off, you felt like it was just the same character.
Speaker 2:On off is the same regardless.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Interesting, very similar. At least, again, there's nothing on Jason Schwartzman, because he's an amazing actor. It is the direction of it. Yeah, and I suppose the reason what I underdeveloped all of those kind of things, it's because it's only the 10th Hunger Games or or 7th or whatever it is. It's the 10th, right turn, the 10th Hunger Games. So maybe everything is underdeveloped. The arena is way smaller. Wait until you see the arena in the original trilogy. It's reality, it's in a woods, it's massive, it's super high-tech, it's at the future, it's high-tech. You know, they can summon creatures and all the kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, so this sounds like we got the boring shaft by going back in time, thank you. Like this actually was a disadvantage because the Hunger Games itself was so limited. But like I mean there was some interesting things, like they had the drones, but they were shitty drones, yeah, because of the technological limitations. So that was funny, yeah, but I did think to myself there's got to be more to this than just them being in this very small area. Oh, I'm sad because they would all die in like two seconds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally like the hunger games original in the second one as well, like there's the life outside of it, how they get to the ring, how to get into the hunger games, but Then two-thirds of the movie is in the ring. It's in the battle and then surviving it.
Speaker 1:This did not feel like that. It felt like less than a, like a quarter of the movie.
Speaker 2:I mean you go see the Hunger Games, you don't go to see snow, and it became worse again. It's the origin story of how could they go real in a snow became the villain. He is in the original trilogy, right, so you got to see the movie about him, but just everything was just underwhelming.
Speaker 1:But did you feel when you watch the Hunger Games, there's dying need to know how he rose to power and became nope so it's like another. Like dragging of a franchise. We got to go back in time to show you how this becomes this.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, the novel is written for it. That's the last novel that been written. I'm pretty sure there's only those four novels.
Speaker 1:There's no sequel to this prequel, but they're considering making it another book, another, what another book they consider in making another book?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. I'm not sure if Susan, so you're gonna fly around your face.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure. I'll just dodge it, dodge it, just dodge come on, john week.
Speaker 2:Lucy Gray, I should call you now. I'm pretty sure this is the end of the book series. I think there's no book written for after this prequel, but I've read somewhere that they're trying to come up an idea to make something.
Speaker 1:Well, we got to work out how Lucy Gray got that dress that she's wearing. Oh my god.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh hunger games.
Speaker 1:The ballad of finding the mysterious dress in the city of coal miners.
Speaker 2:There's this one, lucy, who can walk with the dress and oh, Maybe they should make the hunger games.
Speaker 1:How did Rachel Zegler get this?
Speaker 2:role. It's be just a mockumentary, just a satire.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think is anything else we missed, where we have?
Speaker 2:Viola Davis was brilliant. She was by far the best actor in here. She was unrecognizable, she was just brilliant. Again, I think the character was horrible. I think just the complexity of the character was just I Non-existent. But Viola Davis gave life to it. She did brilliant. She did everything in her power to make this character pop and she did. But the character itself was just underdeveloped from the writing perspective.
Speaker 1:She made it fun. She made me like want to know more.
Speaker 2:Exactly about her character and the only problem was there was nothing more. Yeah, I feel like there just was nothing more and it's not on Viola Davis is on Francis Lawrence and the writers of the script. Again, I'm sure Suzanne Collins wrote a very complex story behind it when she wrote the novels. I mean she's if she wrote the original three, she's probably really a very well writer, a very great novelist. So I'm sure she wrote in great detail in the book.
Speaker 1:Just, script writers, they just picked the wrong points to focus on. They were like need to have 40 minutes of Rachel Zegler singing in this damn movie. Did I spit all over you? No, oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, just wiping your teeth. The folks are complete wrong thing. You mentioned the drones before, like how did they have facial recognition on the drones, but they can't have a normal TV? Oh yeah it doesn't just make no sense. I'm not sure if it's in a book written like that or it's just a terrible. I don't know where it's coming from.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a weird kind of dynamic that the movies got where it's like it's the future. But it's a weird future where it's like what if their technology is like 1950s version of the future? Yeah, so everything still looks like CRT TVs and got that weird kind of overlay and filters used and everything pops with that 1950s kind of style of Presenting and, yeah, tv production. But at the same time it's meant to be the future where there's like drones with facial recognition.
Speaker 2:Yes, but yeah. So it just doesn't make sense to have technology of the future but looks from the past. It just looks weird. It just looks weird. The TV is such as, like this, old TVs would like the buttons, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:I liked that though.
Speaker 2:Don't get me wrong, I like it. It just doesn't make sense that you have a drone that can fly that's what drones do they fly with facial recognition to the person you buying to, can't control it, whatever but then you also have TVs with only knobs and no stable connection between two people communicating. It just doesn't make any sense. This makes no, it was just off-putting, it's just. Look, I don't mind if you can justify it properly, it just wasn't. And I'd say one more thing. I don't know if you want to go to conclusion, but that's it. One more thing you mentioned a brutality, yes, which I was expecting.
Speaker 1:It caught me off guard. For some reason I had this weird idea that like the hunger games, is like PG, like more family friendly and doesn't go that brutal. It's more like a superhero movie. Oh yeah level of violence.
Speaker 2:No, I quickly realized that is not the case In this no, it's definitely not and again I would say it's just completely underwhelming compared to the original trilogy.
Speaker 1:So the brutality and the violence does not times a hundred. Hold out, okay times a hundred.
Speaker 2:and it's not that there's more violence, it's just a lot more gruesome, it's a lot more real. Okay, there's one, without saying who, what went and where. There's one character who gets a bottleneck In the neck. I didn't see a single splatter of blood.
Speaker 1:Hmm, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2:There was no blood. There's no blood. I think there's a couple moments where you see blood. You see the cut on the shoulder. It's a bit of blood there. For the rest, there's no blood, there's no goal, it's just so. I don't know, it's just a dumb fight and nullified.
Speaker 1:So I was like playing Mortal Kombat with the blood turned off. Yes, nice, okay, yes, pretty much, you've pumped me up to watch the first hunger games.
Speaker 2:That would be too excited, because you're always, you're always, I'm pumped.
Speaker 1:You're always disappointed when you pumped if it's anywhere near as good as what you're making it out to be.
Speaker 2:Well, look, I'm just saying if you love this prequel.
Speaker 1:I did not love it. You liked it? No, I didn't you liked it. You said I said, there were some moments I enjoyed. I could see the appeal of the concept. Well, the concept worked out a lot better in the original, but I said earlier I would never watch this movie again, so would you recommend this to fans of the original?
Speaker 2:hunger games. I'm gonna give it a 1 out of 5. You can't go lower, can I?
Speaker 1:Half, half a star 0.5.
Speaker 2:I'll give it a 1.5 because 0.5 is the lowest. I'm gonna give half a point to Viola Davis Cranking up the movie a little bit, and a half a point to Tom Blythe as Cori Lennon Snow. They did good for the movie. I would definitely recommend everybody to watch it. Come up with your own opinion of it. T. We already had more chemistry here than they had on the screen.
Speaker 1:Maybe we should just stare into each other's eyes for 10 minutes and then I'll just randomly pop out singing. As I look into your eyes, I start to feel feelings of love.
Speaker 2:See.
Speaker 1:I'm starting to cry already and the tears forming in your eyes. That's essentially what she does. She just sings like what she's going through emotionally.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So I'm gonna give it a 1.5 out of 5 just because of our David's and Tom Blythe. Otherwise, the rest of the movie, I thought it was just a bit more.
Speaker 1:I will give it a 2 out of 5. I know it's shocking, but I actually have a more positive. I just feel like for a 3-hour movie, I'm like there's at least enough for a 2. But having said that, if I go back to the original trilogy and it's like 10 million times better, I'm probably gonna rate this worse.
Speaker 2:What did you give to the killer? I can't even remember.
Speaker 1:I think you gave it a 3. Bro, I can't even remember like our podcast you gave it a 3 to the killer which he was absolutely shitting on.
Speaker 2:I know you're giving it a 2 for this one where you were praising him in there a little bit. You're shitting on a lot too.
Speaker 1:No, a 3 seems too generous for the killer. Are you sure I gave it a 3? Maybe a 2.5? I would have been more in the two range for the killer.
Speaker 2:Let's say 2.5. It wasn't a 2. How did you rate the killer higher than this? That? Doesn't get me wrong, I would I rate it 4.
Speaker 1:Bro, you shit on it. Okay, I don't know what I did because I don't remember. All I know is I liked this movie better than the killer, I think. Personally, if I was to like sum it up, I liked the whole gradual transition from sympathetic hero to villain. It's not the best in this movie. The Joker is still like my gold standard for that. So watching snow transition, that was a true highlight, and there are some really nice scenes. I caught me off guard where I was like whoa, and maybe that's because I haven't seen other Hunger Games, whereas for you those scenes might have been like.
Speaker 1:Yeah copy, copy and paste. I love the concept of the Hunger Games and the good thing about this movie is it makes me want to explore the other movies. It's hooked me into wanting to watch the rest of the franchise and Understand, because I feel like I missed the boat on the Hunger Games when it first came out. Maybe I stupidly was Associating it with other movies that were based on books at the time, like Twilight, and was thinking ours, this, just like that, oh, that's based on a book when it's just dragging on. And it took me ages to get into Harry Potter, like I only just watched Harry Potter, the entire franchise late last year. I loved it. There were some movies where I was like.
Speaker 2:The great thing about Harry Potter, I found, is that they grew with their audience. Yes you know, like first two, like kids movies, and then you went to little bit young teens and then you went to adult Versions. In the last one, though, like adolescence to like young adults, I loved how they grew with your audience. They didn't stick to one genre, which is awesome. If you grew up with it. If you watched it originally, you would have grown up with it, which would have been brilliant.
Speaker 1:I did watch the first three movies and then I don't know what happened, but anyway, like whereas the Hunger Games, I didn't connect for whatever reason. Comparing to Harry Potter, though, you feel like every movie has a very clear Direction, very clear set up and payoffs, what they're doing with all the characters, everyone's kind of building towards something. You don't get that here. You feel like only one character is really being built up and properly Used and focused on, and everyone else is just chilling. None of the side characters, except for like vile and Davis, really stood out to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, peter Dinklage under performed. In my opinion, he's always good, but he under performed in this character. Again, it's the writing and directing.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna give the movie like two out of five stars. It's intrigued me on the premise the whole concept of the Hunger Games but I don't think there's really enough there to keep someone's attention for three hours. Emotional moments just miss the mark. The relationship between Snow and Lucy Gray just isn't that interesting, and when that's the whole movie, pretty much it's disappointing. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see where Rachel Ziggler's career goes after this. Okay, guys, it was really great seeing yous. If you enjoyed this review, please like, share and subscribe. If you're watching us on YouTube, if you're listening to us on Spotify, please leave us a review. And yeah, that's us guys. We'll see you next time. Awesome.
Speaker 2:You.