Overall, the new movie “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is better than the original films. It gives audiences so much more insight and information about what is really happening during the movie and why the Hunger Games themselves really started. 

The new movie focuses on President Snow when he was younger and his fading lineage, following his journey on how this is overcome. Now with the 10th annual hunger games, the children from the Capitol have to mentor someone from one of the districts. Audiences gain more insight into what life is like at the Capitol versus life in the Districts. Although in the original Hunger Games movies we see more of the Districts and what life was like, now we can have more information from the other side. This movie also explains and shows how Snow came to be and why he is the way that he is in the original movies. It gives us so much more information to help better understand the original movies. 

Even though this movie is supposed to be and look like an older movie, with all the special effects available today, the movie is displayed very well. The film does a great job showing the differences since this movie is newer than the older ones. For example, it shows how primitive the old arena was compared to the original movies, which take place several years later. We also see how the mentors have to watch the entire games go on so that they can send their mentee’s necessities when needed, and sometimes it doesn’t work and doesn’t really get sent to them in the right way, which helps display how much older the setting of the movie is supposed to be. 

What really makes this movie better is that moviegoers really understand what is going on and what is happening from this movie more than in the original movies. So many of the concepts in this movie are related to the originals. For example, we understand the lyrics in the music that Katniss sings in the original movie, “The Hanging Tree,” which is about Snow and Lucy Gray’s love story. We also find out Katniss is named after a plant that Lucy tells Snow about that she found. 

Overall, in the new film we get more insight into Capital life. While some prefer seeing life in the Districts, I think this new insight really helps the other movies make more sense, making this movie a lot better. 

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Ava Reddick at [email protected].