As of the 28th of April, the newly revived Hunger Games fan base has been granted its first proper look of the long awaited movie adaptation of 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes', a prequel to the original Hunger Games trilogy (all written by Suzanne Collins). Considering the massive 10 year long gap between the two most recent books set within the Hunger Games universe, it is understandable why millions of fans wordwide were thrilled to read this prequel when it originally came out in 2020, and that excitement matches the current excitement felt at the upcoming movie.
'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' is a prequel set 60 years before Katniss' time which follows the story of the villain of the original trilogy, Coriolanus Snow. Upon it's release, the novel received generally positive feedback and the story was noted as being "an overall brilliant read", so it was naturally guaranteed a movie adaptation from the get go.
At the time of writing, the newly released trailer for this movie has amassed 10 million viewers (in only two days!) and fans have deduced that the movie thankfully plans to stick close to the story; the trailer even featured lines taken directly from the novel!
Whilst there has been some controversy over the casting of a trans actress - Hunter Schafer - this cast is largely regarded to be impressively accurate to their characters' descriptions in the novel, and all possess great amounts of talent. Just as widely praised has been the costume design, especially when it comes to Lucy Gray Baird's iconic rainbow dress, an important staple of her character.
However, there is a fair amount of divide when it comes to certain aspects of the trailer - namely, one specific callback to the original movies. Rachel Ziegler as Lucy Gray Baird is shown performing a bow which is very similar to the ones Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen enacted in the first and second Hunger Games movies. The question dividing the fan base is whether this intentional link is clever and iconic or cheap and cringe? One Hunger Games fan, Bethan Turner, remarked that "it's a nice way for them to remind the audience about the original Hunger Games movies", but what do you think?
The full trailer is available on Youtube and the movie is expected to be released in November of this year, so be ready to dive in to the Dystopian world of Panem once more.
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