Rewatch Review – A Look Back at The Hunger Games Series

The Hunger Games, My current favorite franchise. Again…

Last night I wasn’t in the mood for TV. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch a movie, read a book, play the PS4…On a whim, I started the Vudu app on the fire stick and browsed my digital copy collection. When I saw the cover for the first movie, I knew I wanted to rewatch the Mockingjay saga almost instantly.

The Hunger Games is the first book series I read before seeing the movies. The film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone led me to read the books, which is where I developed my love of books. But Harry Potter doesn’t get to hold the spot that Katniss Everdeen does. Suzanne Collins’ books led me to the movie, in this case.

I remember reading the scene of the reaping. Imagining the crowd, the peacekeepers, the bowls filled with names.

I remember seeing this scene, almost exactly as I’d pictured it in my mind, on screen for the first time. I remember getting choked up when Prim’s name was called, and when Katniss screams she’ll volunteer.

That scene still hits me today. Even more so now, than then.

The sets of the districts, the Capitol, the arenas. Amazingly done, and the CGI holds up today. The screenwriters, directors, cast, and crew all did great jobs translating page to screen. I can even forgive most of the changes.

The casting of Jennifer Lawrence was perfect. She brought Katniss to life, in a way that is perfectly believable. She’s a normal person that wants to live and let live. To keep her head down and survive. When her life is torn away, she only wants to survive and return to some sense of normalcy.

Or course, she doesn’t get that wish. She truly didn’t want to cause the rebellion, the war. She just wanted the game makers to honor the rule change they made, and let Peeta be a victor by her side. To let them both live in peace.

Who among us could do what President Snow demanded in the second film? To calm the districts and end the uprisings? To convince him that she loved the boy she kept alive, when she wasn’t sure herself?

Maybe those of us that are a bit older, a bit wiser, a bit more connected to the real world. But who of us at the age of 17?

Not me. That’s for sure.

Then she became the face of the war. The voice, the moral compass, the hero. Still, not because she wants to be. But because she is continually being forced to do something she never wanted. But she clenched her bow and made a deal. Rescue Peeta and the others, and she’ll rally the troops.

In the end, when the lines get blurred, when enemy and friend aren’t clear, she makes another choice. Another choice that lands her in hot water again. Also a choice that keeps her, and those left that she loves, alive.

Katniss Everdeen, and Jennifer Lawrence’s portrayal of her, is a hero done right.