BEFORE: Day 4 of Jennifer Lawrence week, and I've reached the end of the Hunger Games, unless they become a real thing in the U.S. over the next few years. Screw the Winter Olympics, let's have the Reaping and start training the tributes from Districts 1-12.
THE PLOT: As the war of Panem escalates, Katniss Everdeen, the reluctant leader of the rebellion, must bring together an army against President Snow, while all she holds dear hangs in the balance.
AFTER: Let's face it, war is just not as interesting as a gladiatorial contest, let's be clear about that. I'm a little disappointed that this trilogy/quadrilogy started out as one thing, and took a left turn halfway through to become another thing entirely. Like I was sold a bill of goods and then didn't get what I bargained for. Instead I'm presented with a story in the final film where the past contestants have to band together, arm themselves and advance on the capital city, which is filled with booby traps and people and things designed to kill them, almost like the central district is some kind of arena itself and...Ah, I see what you guys did there. Very clever, the Hunger Games arenas in the first two films become symbolic metaphors for the larger battle to come.
And if we take "The Hunger Games" as not just a glimpse at a dystopian future, but somehow also an uncanny predictor of our current political climate, what can we learn from the final film, where the people rise up and overthrow the whole damn system, because they're tired of how the President is making a mess of things? Well, for starters, as we're all learning, that process could turn out to be a lot more difficult than you might think at first. And then, assuming you accomplish that, who are you going to replace him with? Remember, Trump managed to pick a Vice President even more conservative (and possibly weirder) than himself, which I maintain was the smartest decision he's made in the last two years. Any anti-Trump liberal would probably want Pence as President even less, which is really saying something.
There's absolutely no process, I'm assuming, to allow the winner of the popular vote in the 2016 election to take over, even if you could get Trump impeached, so that's nothing more than a pipe dream. And even then, if you could essentially call a "do-over" and get Hillary Clinton elected after the fact, which is impossible, you'd risk alienating the OTHER half of the country, so where would that even get us? Remember, nearly half the voters rejected her in the first place, and maybe that's not likely to change, even though hindsight is 20/20 - right-wing people would regard this as replacing one bad apple with another, at the end of the day. So maybe it's better to just hunker down for the next three years and ride this out. However harsh this may sound, it's the only way we're going to collectively learn to make better decisions in the future, if there are consequences for our actions.
But let's get back to the film. It's astounding that they kept the central love triangle going for so long. Every time Katniss competed in the Games, it seemed like she was getting closer to Peeta, and then every time she got back to District 12, she drew closer to Gale. Maybe some people go through situations like this in real-life (if you're not with the one you love, love the one you're with...) but on a practical level, I don't know how anyone could maintain that, in reality or in fiction, for any length of time. I think in the end I was more Team Gale than Team Peeta, and I'm comfortable enough in my masculinity to say that casting Liam Hemsworth made that an obvious choice to me. So I'm sorry these crazy kids couldn't work things out in the end, but what the heck do I know?
I guess it's the same situation with the love-triangle romance as it is with an election - whichever way the conflict is resolved, there are bound to be almost half of the people not satisfied with the result.
Also starring Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Stanley Tucci, Sam Claflin, Natalie Dormer, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Mahershala Ali, Willow Shields, Paula Malcomson, Wes Chatham, Elden Henson, Patina Miller, Evan Ross, Stef Dawson, Sarita Choudhury, Robert Knepper (all carrying over from "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1"), Meta Golding (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Toby Jones (ditto), Michelle Forbes (last seen in "Kalifornia"), Gwendoline Christie (last seen in "The Zero Theorem"), Omid Abtahi (last seen in "Argo"), Eugenie Bondurant, Misty Ormiston, Kim Ormiston, Joe Chrest (last seen in "Free State of Jones"), April Grace (last seen in "Whiplash").
RATING: 6 out of 10 propaganda videos
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