As soon as I heard the movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes” was coming out, I was counting down the days until the release date. As a devoted fan of the dystopian series, “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, I felt like I was going back in time and returning to my fandom when I saw this movie. 

  Because the movie reaches a whopping two hours and 38 minutes, I expected to be falling asleep by the end of the movie, but the pacing of the story was meticulous and there wasn’t a moment where I wanted to look away from the screen. I absolutely loved the way the film creators split the movie up into three parts, — “The Mentor”, “The Prize”, and “The Peacekeeper” — just as Collins did in her books, and I believe it was extremely crucial to not only keep the audience intrigued and want more, but also help many people follow the story better.

  The movie opens with a dark scene of the war that started The Hunger Games — a fictional several-day competition where selected “tributes” from each of the twelve districts of the city of Panem fight to the death in an arena in order to win income from The Capitol (the government of Panem), which features Coriolanus Snow and his cousin, Tigris. The main character Coriolanus Snow, a loyal member of the Capitol, soon finds out that he has to mentor a couple of young tributes from District 12 through the 10th annual Hunger Games, which is where he meets the fierce Lucy Gray Baird. 

  In part two, the story moves along to showcase the growing relationship between Baird and Snow, emphasizing the idea that Coriolanus will do anything for Baird to win the games. Throughout the games, he aids her from outside of the arena by attacking other opponents, finding ways to lead her to victory.

  After the games, Baird is forced to go back to her district, leaving Snow unsure of Baird’s safety. Snow eventually gets banished to keep peace in District 12 after the games because of the “cheating’ he did during the games to help Baird win, but that leads to the reunion of the two. The star-crossed lovers decide to run away together to avoid getting caught and hanged after Snow kills the mayor’s daughter in an argument. Once Baird finds out how many people Snow killed, she decides to run away, abandoning him. Baird’s fleeing was the beginning of Snow’s villain origin story, which made the whole movie so interesting to watch because it gives reasoning as to why Snow continued the games. He was betrayed and realized his loyalty to the Capitol was more important than anything. 

  Many say that you need to read the original books (the first “Hunger Games” out of the three being released in 2008) in order to understand “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes”, but I think that’s a fallacious idea. Although I was a huge fan of The Hunger Games trilogy years ago, I think the new movie gives enough background to the point where one who has not read the original books or seen the original movies can grasp the idea of the story. The new movie has even prompted some individuals to begin the original trilogy, which, in a way, can increase the appreciation of the series as a whole throughout the world. 

  The cinematography, the casting and the plot were all incredibly executed. Not to mention, the allusions to the original movies were exceptionally thought out and well-placed throughout the film. On top of that, the musical aspect of the film was fascinating and the creators of the movie not only fed the audience with amazing music from popular artists such as Olivia Rodrigo but also with music by the characters in the movie. Some of my favorites from the movie include “The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird” and “Pure as the Driven Snow”, both performed by Lucy Gray. 

  If I could change one thing about the movie, I would include Snow’s inner monologue that is sprinkled throughout the book into the movie. Many fans of the movie are romanticizing Snow’s personality and the love story between the two, but Lucy Gray’s and Snow’s relationship in the book is much different. In the book, Snow has a much more possessive tone over Lucy Gray rather than a loving tone. A sliver of that temperament is shown towards the end of the movie when Snow gets upset about Lucy Gray running away, but I think many people would find Snow’s character much less charming after reading the derogatory way he talks about Lucy Gray and people from the other districts. 

  Overall, this movie ended up being much better than I expected. The film certainly impressed me, and I would love to see another backstory of any character from the original Hunger Games series.