The Starvation Video games are again! After 2008’s blockbuster e-book trilogy and 2012’s blockbuster movie franchise, the dystopian younger grownup sequence has returned for a brand new decade with The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, hitting theaters this week.
Right here’s all the pieces you may count on — or could be questioning about — from the brand new Starvation Video games film.
What’s The Starvation Video games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes about?
Songbirds & Snakes is a prequel centered on Coriolanus Snow, who seems within the authentic Starvation Video games trilogy because the mysterious and terrifying President Snow, dictator of Panem and chief among the many sequence’ antagonists. He’s performed by Donald Sutherland within the film variations of the primary three books.
The film follows an 18-year-old Snow as he tries to rise above his station in Capitol society by excelling at his remaining faculty challenge: mentoring one in all 24 kids within the Starvation Video games. When he’s burdened with a tribute from the underfed District 12, his possibilities appear slim, till his mentee, the enigmatic Lucy Grey Baird, seems to have a expertise for fascinating a crowd.
When is Songbirds & Snakes set?
Songbirds & Snakes is ready 64 years earlier than The Starvation Video games, in the course of the time of the 10th annual Starvation Video games, 10 years after the Districts’ rise up towards the Capitol. So aside from Snow and his cousin Tigris, don’t count on to see many characters you acknowledge from the unique trilogy right here: No Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch, or Effie Trinket. Even the match’s announcer, Lucretius “Fortunate” Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), is an older relative of the originals’ Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci).
Who’s in Songbirds & Snakes?
The film’s forged consists of Tom Blyth (Billy the Child) as Coriolanus, Rachel Zegler (Steven Spielberg’s West Facet Story) as Lucy Grey, and Josh Andrés Rivera (additionally from West Facet Story) as Sejanus Plinth, Coriolanus’ closest classmate. Sport of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage performs Casca Highbottom, the college dean credited with creating the Starvation Video games.
“Blyth does an admirable job of strolling the road between sympathetic antihero and cold-hearted villain,” in accordance with our overview, “whereas Zegler performs the position of charismatic songstress nicely. […] The supporting forged additionally brings their A-game, notably Viola Davis because the merciless Head Gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul. Davis totally commits to the twisted mastermind who believes that humanity, at its core, is darkish and wicked.”
Does Songbirds & Snakes have a credit scene?
Nope! If it’s good to stand up and out of the theater earlier than the ultimate credit roll, you received’t miss something besides the names of the individuals who made the film for you.
Is Songbirds & Snakes primarily based on a Starvation Video games e-book?
Sure! Suzanne Collins returned to the sequence to pen The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, printed in Might 2020. In an interview for Scholastic, she stated the e-book gave her a chance to inform the untold story of Lucy Grey.
“Within the first chapter of The Starvation Video games, I make reference to a fourth District 12 victor. Katniss doesn’t appear to know something in regards to the individual value mentioning. Whereas her story isn’t well-known, Lucy Grey lives on in a big approach by way of her music, serving to to convey down Snow within the trilogy. […] Past that, Lucy Grey’s legacy is that she launched leisure to the Starvation Video games.”
You’ll be able to seize a replica of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes beneath, or from the bookseller or library of your selection.
Is the Songbirds & Snakes film trustworthy to the e-book?
It’s a reasonably shut adaptation by way of the characters, dialogue, and general arc of the e-book, nevertheless it does minimize fairly a bit, notably in regards to the Tributes on the 10th Starvation Video games in addition to Lucy Grey, about her fellow Covey (a bunch of touring minstrels who all have colours of their names, and have comparable accents and colourful clothes), and about Coriolanus’ classmates aside from Sejanus. Specifically, characters like Clemensia Dovecote (Ashley Liao) are lowered down to reveal necessities.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes additionally modifications numerous items of the motion, probably so e-book readers received’t already know all the pieces that occurs on the 10th Starvation Video games as they’re watching. Specifically, among the Tributes within the area have totally different fates. A couple of small particulars have additionally been crammed in right here and there, like precisely how Coriolanus’ father died.
What music does Lucy Grey’s identify come from?
You won’t suppose this is a vital element moving into, nevertheless it’s truly fairly helpful to know to be able to perceive some important motion within the third act! William Wordsworth’s 1799 poem “Lucy Grey” is the supply of the character’s identify, and it will get a bit of extra play within the e-book than within the film.
Within the movie model, Lucy Grey sings a really brief snippet of it to Coriolanus close to the top of the film, however doesn’t determine it, and he asks a query about it that doesn’t make a lot sense except the poem. Realizing particularly that it’s a few woman who disappeared into skinny air, leaving an interrupted observe of footprints behind her, is vital to Songbirds & Snakes’ story — and it’s quite a bit clearer within the e-book, so studying the poem earlier than watching the film is certainly useful for following the motion.
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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Costs taken at time of publishing.
Ambition will gas him. Competitors will drive him. However energy has its value.
It’s the morning of the reaping that may kick off the tenth annual Starvation Video games. Within the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is getting ready for his one shot at glory as a mentor within the Video games. The once-mighty home of Snow has fallen on onerous instances, its destiny hanging on the slender probability that Coriolanus will be capable of outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow college students to mentor the successful tribute.
