The Reel Rejects - THE HUNGER GAMES: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes MOVIE REVIEW!!

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

FINALLY WATCHING The New Hunger Games Movie! Visit http://www.liquidiv.com & use Promo Code: REJECTS  Hunger Games Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Full Movie Reaction Watch Along: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Join Greg Alba and John Humphrey for an in-depth Reaction and Analysis of 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes', also known as 'The Hunger Games Part 4' and the fifth movie in the Hunger Games series. Get ready for a Spoiler-filled Review, complete with Ending Explained, Theories, Easter Eggs, and Commentary! In this prequel, witness our new Snow White Rachel Zegler (from 'West Side Story') captivating Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) with their stunning performances. The star-studded cast includes Viola Davis as Dr. Voulmnia Gaul, Hunter Schafer (Euphoria) as Tigris, Jason Schwartzman replacing Stanley Tucci as Lucky Flickerman, and Peter Dinklage, renowned for his role as Tyrion Lannister in 'Game of Thrones'. Experience the best movie clips / scenes with us, like Lucy Gray's songs including 'Where Are You', 'A Brand New Role', and 'The Hanging Tree'. We'll explore every action-packed scene and Tigris's pivotal advice to Lucy Gray Baird. With Francis Lawrence, director of 'The Hunger Games: Catching Fire' & 'Mockingjay', at the helm, we bid farewell to Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen and Josh Hutcherson's Peeta Mellark, and welcome a new dynamic duo in the Hunger Games universe. Don't miss our breakdown of all the best scenes and movie clips #HungerGames #TheHungerGames #songbirdsandsnakes #firsttimewatching #moviereaction #thehungergamestheballadofsongbirdsandsnakes #thehungergames #rachelzegler #tomblyth #violadavis #jasonschwartzman   Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Aparrel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG On INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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if you're listening to us on Apple or Spotify, we just literally moments ago finished watching Hunger Games, Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. All righty, well, before going into it, my expectations were there were tamper well like there was a good trailer and then there were not great reviews mixed reviews i would say but then a really good audience score and then the box office ended up picking up on it so i was like all right well this sets my expectations i feel like that's all i really knew i didn't watch any reviews so i didn't know what people thought about anything in particular uh and then i just was able to take this one down now just a little reminder like i've only i think i might have seen the first one twice i think i saw the first one twice yeah yeah i definitely saw the first one twice and then i saw the other ones just one time and uh i really loved the first two a lot i

remember uh really loving them yeah this isn't going to be really a comparison uh to them uh there's no real point in doing that uh but there were there's a lot about this movie that i really really liked quite quite a bit and there are some things that i'm like i feel like maybe they were maybe two and a half hours is actually not enough to tell this epic spanning tale that they want to tell and then it seems like it even ends in a point where they were sick as though it was equal yeah to the the the rise of snow i think they were smart enough to go we'll just try this one movie that we jam packed out and then if people like that then we'll do our coriolanus snow trilogy.

Yeah, yeah, instead of announcing it ahead of time. I mean, but what did you, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you, John? Oh, goodness. I mean, I guess Rachel Zegler is the first thing that comes to mind. Yeah, I quite enjoyed this too. In an interesting way, because, yeah, like the Hunger Games franchise for me, you know, I like, I probably had the same experience now that I think about it. Like, I might have seen Catching Fire or the first one again at home, you know, on home video at

some point but I feel like the first one was a pretty vivid experience when it was out the second one like I'll never forget the IMAX experience of that yeah and then the the the returns you know kind of diminished across the mocking jays but yeah so I came in kind of in a middle space you know sort of being like yeah I'm happy to go back to this world I'm not expecting the moon and I've heard enough mixed opinions some people really positive some people kind of me that I was like yeah this this is a fun prospect to me because it could go any number number of directions and it sounds like they're at least trying something and uh and yeah like it's interesting because those two performances at the center of the movie are so much of you know

what makes it compelling i mean like the the the world and the way that's talking about snow and lucy gray yeah lucy gray bared uh you know those two come i i agree when you say that this could have been longer just because i feel like we really see from the perspective of snow we really get to no snow and i wish we could have maybe done that for lucy gray as well because rachel zegler does have this fascinating presence in the movie as it is presented because she is kind of like a bird flying through everything uh because she's removed from everything like she comes from these people who exist outside of and sort of in between the different districts and then you have the district set up that we know about but we're largely seeing from the

perspective of somebody who is from that upper crust and who you know has even if he's got you know shambled origins is certainly arisen to you know the kind of the heights of privilege and whatever else in this society and so like when they first meet and she enters the plot like she is such a presence and such a force but i feel like they're it's like the problem is we need our own like catness everdeen style movie to show her life outside of this too because like the way she enters the movie she does have this kind of like magic presence because you know she's going to teach him but she's also got to survive the hunger games but she also just has this just sort of effervescent wiseness in in all situations that sort of places her i don't know yeah just are in this

interesting plane above it all while still very much entrenched in it all so yeah i feel like some of the character things could have benefited from the kind of breathing room the third chapter gets which i'm glad they put it there because it's what you're going to leave people off you know It's the last taste you're going to leave in their mouth, and it's certainly sort of a very tangible sequence, that part of the story. And you do get more of that sense of, like, the life that this girl comes from and the way he looks at that and all those interesting things. But the performances, I thought were really terrific.

The performances were, I thought everyone was great in this movie. Yeah. Even to, even Violet Davis, you usually can't do anything wrong to me. It's just the only one I was questionable about. did she for sure know the tone of like yes there are heightened characters in hunger games for sure but there's kind of like a time

and a place for where they are placed she's not doing like hoity toady heightened she's doing like something else yeah she did like a whole other she reminded me Charlie's there and Snow White in the Huntsman where she's just like way elevated and chewing scenery in a way most other characters are not

yeah but I found it very amusing she was very entertaining and she had her scenes where she was effective yeah and i i like i think for me you know while we're on this subject of all them yeah i i think the individual performances of both of them are really good who plays snow yeah what is that guy's name i'm never i don't know if i've seen this guy before probably have he's one of those guys probably when i'm like oh yeah i have i didn't i didn't remember has he done a game of throne or something i don't know this guy's name yeah tom blight tongue blithe that name sounds familiar does he maybe get like thrown out there for lots of things no i haven't seen anything

these guys done actually looking at looking at his list of stuff i haven't seen any of this yeah damn first time this is first time for us yeah first time for us uh yeah i mean i thought he did a really good job and i thought she did a really good job and i think like the missing piece for me between the two of them uh really was just and a lot of it comes down to the writing the breathing within your first um there's three parts to here so three long acts is what they're doing and I think like in the first act especially they really could have utilized building that relationship up with them it's more about like

the qualitative treatment that you give them with the spares time they are allowed to see each other you know and then they're talking about like oh mentor mentee dynamic and they don't really I don't feel like we really did enough with that that was the part where I felt like they were really missing something where when it seemed like that would have been your most compelling

story to element to build the relationship between the two of them because they want to do two things right they want to tell the story of the origin of the origin of how the hunger games came to be I think the one thing I was misled by and I kind of blame the trailer

I think the trailer makes it feel this way that this was going to be the first hunger games yeah I thought this would be the first that was the impression I was left with sure was oh we're going to watch the story of the very first hunger game yeah and what did that look yeah I didn't realize we'd be 10 years in we still get the origin of how it came to be

and how it even correlates more with snow in a way that was pretty surprising and like that reveal at the end of... He is a special. Yeah. Your daddy created these games, your father was Obi-One-Konobie. Yes.

You are monarch, son. Yeah, there was a nice little treatment there. But I do think that what they did miss out on was really capturing that to hide in, everything tension stakes the that prequel fear syndrome where you're like i know he's going to be bad but i don't want her to be you have to like tug at that you know and that's where i thought some of the quality worse where some of the emotional heft was missing some of its zest yeah personally that's just my personal take and it's kind of odd to say that when the individual

performances themselves like isolator i thought were really good rachel's Zegler especially I thought was a scene stiller and and I know he keeps I I understand your perspective there of wanting to see a little bit more from Rachel Zegler's POV but I had this choice to keep it this whole thing feels like it's entirely in Snow's perspective even when you cut to Rachel Zegler in the arena or hiding out and like well there's cameras on there that he could be watching you know so it's still his perspective so like even choices like that make sense to me I don't I can't recall a scene in here where you actually cut away from a scene that he is not either privy to or like he has to be in the room in some way yeah yeah and honestly i don't

begrudge the movie i understand that the structure they've chosen necessitates that and i don't think that's the only way to do it i feel like yeah if the first act and by extension the second but like one thing the later games the earlier movies do which i get is not fully formed yet that's part of the point of these but you know you spend a distinct amount of time with the mentors you know so like and they become distinct characters and so I like the idea of them being thrown together and then essentially like meeting as she's getting off the train then being thrown into this truck and then being thrown into the zoo and I feel like if we could have stole in a few more moments to it's weird it's like there are a lot of things about it that necessitate that quickness of pace

and we're rushing into this and there's not really much time anyway but But it would have been nice, I think, to have a couple of scenes that just made it so that we maybe didn't have to spend so much time wondering if she is, you know, being straight with how she's expressing herself. Because there are certain times. And I think there's a certain amount of time you're supposed to be wondering, oh, are they both playing the game? And, you know, seeing from his, it's weird. Yeah, it's, it's good. Like, I think they've given us a good amount of, like, kind of rich stuff there. but yeah like some more intimate beats early on that breathe a little that allow them to establish the chemistry and allow us to care just about them being together beyond all of this well the issue i think with the movie is another case even though it's a long movie yeah i mean nowadays it feels like the standard for films are like two and a half or three hours and i think this should have been three hours because unlike the other hunger games movies specifically referencing the first two those first two that feet like mocking jade is not

have a hunger game in it. Those first two movies have a hunger game in it. And the structure with that is introduced characters, lead into the hunger games, the fun ceremony stuff and whatever. And then you're in the hunger games and there's like a five to ten minute wrap up at the end. Yeah.

Those are both those movies. Yeah. You know, and then here you're doing all that. Then another hour. A whole other movie on the other. This is the rare time because people used to roll their eyes about the whole like, oh, split the last one into two. but I'm like, you could split this in two

and really stack up all the because all those happen to favor one side or the other. There's always one half. It's a little more action packed. There's always one half. It's a little more emotional, a little more story and stakes.

And so, like, I feel like here you could have had your thrilling first installment of like, oh man, we're getting to see the both of them. We're getting to see him learning how this world works and his place in it and the moral implications of all that, plus them just bonding over getting through this hunger game. And then the next side, okay, they're free,

they're back in the district, they're about to gear this, up again, you know, will he, you know, we know where he's headed, but then you can spend that movie going, oh, will they remain, you know, together? Yeah, because I didn't even feel, I don't really care for, um, I'm not one of those people who really thinks that a movie needs new commentary. I do think that when you are, I'd rather just get a character-driven narrative, honestly, more than anything else, and then let some commentary speak via through that, which is how I

think commentary generally should be executed. It's called subtext. Yeah, exactly. Because there's a lot of textual talk in here. Whereas here I'm like, the concert doesn't really do anything that new for the Hunger Games world. Not really. Like everything that they touch on with oppression, classism, and war, all that.

People as animals. Yeah, like prisoners. The way they've explored all these, everything, yeah, we've seen all that. And honestly, that's the thing with Francis Lawrence, who I feel like is on the, unlike David Yates, because David, okay, for those of don't know, David Yates made Order of Phoenix. I think that was his first one.

Yeah. And then he just made every Harry Potter and every fantastic beastman. And he didn't take a break to do anything else. Yeah. Whereas Francis Lawrence said all these done stuff since the last Hunger Games movie. Sure.

And then this one, right? But at the same time, it is like, I feel like we kind of needed a fresh director to. I do feel like. Because the first two, acts while not bad and i don't think they're bad i don't feel like they're anywhere near as interesting as the last act because there is a certain element of kind of going by the numbers yeah while they do some different things even like the new stuff that they're introducing kind of feels like

yeah this is about the beats you expect them to hit with the origin of snow and this early Hunger Games story it does feel a little bit like in terms of outlining and that's where the richness would come in with just stronger scene work or really being like even not being like I don't even really care

about that stuff being like the outline being a little bit of what I expected but the scenes themselves really shine and and so that's where predictability versus you know actual storytelling and to me I'm like yeah it was kind of weaving in and out

for me of being really connected. Whereas like the third part three of this post The Hunger Games is when I felt like Francis Lawrence finally lit up. Yeah. I was like okay, I get to bring some of that stuff. I've probably been raking in from more

recent experiences and apply it to this. Yeah, I get to do something different because to the movie's credit, one of the best things about and I keep forgetting it is actually based on this one's based on a buck. Keep forgetting that. But to the story of it is there's been a lot of origin tales of people that just seem unnecessary or i don't i don't like that word necessary

they know when people say that there is this movie necessary i don't really like that word necessary um that did the origins feel so predictable the origins feel like well we know we're going to go here we're no it isn't going to happen we know and and the only thing we really that was a obvious is that he's got to end up a bad guy by the end and be and He, probably isn't to do the heartbreak here that he experienced through the schoolman. But the way that unfolds, while some stuff you can sort of telegraph like several minutes before it happens, for the most part, I really was like, I don't know how he's going to end up to being the snow or at least end up on the path of being the snow that we know him to be by the time he becomes Donald Sutherland. And I thought that was a strength that kept me watching Because I could not see it really

I'm like I don't really know And by the time we got there It actually really clicked for me I thought it was great on how they did it Because they took avenues Primarily in the Part 3 Act They took avenues and directions That kind of let plot points unfold in ways

That don't actually feel cliche And I don't think they are cliche they took different directions I thought were actually really unexpected of why he does what he does or how he lands where he lands where he does come to the lesson of the world is not

the hunger games are merely a mirror you know and I thought that was kind of powerful I thought that was great it's a distillation of everything that's going on all over this place because we isolate the hunger games but they are a reflection of us

in a way right and so I actually really like the third act really bump this up a lot for me whereas the first two acts were I'm picking and choosing what I really like

well the first two acts of that blockbuster thing that happens where you have like a bunch of talent and not enough you know time to really let that spread out yeah and I mean like even the hunger game himself was like just yeah it's a little it's honestly it's

weird word to say a part of it feels like it's kind of cute to me oh yeah it's like an older version oh yeah look at that it's the older version that's a lot of it was sort of reading yeah instead of really having the suspense and stakes and the menace people finally the most violent shit that happens is someone people fall you know like and I thought oh

we're in a more like barbaric setting where usually we're in this like giant landscape Yeah. And I thought it actually completely didn't have the, I don't want to say completely. It was void of the grit that the other ones had, especially the first movie's grit. Like the first movie, I remember not knowing what I was going to go watch. And sure, there might have been like the shock value of it of someone who had no idea what the hungry kids was about. I'd be like, we're just kids are murries.

But see, but it was still captured in a way that I remember being like, this is really violent. These are like kids, like the way it was being shaped, even there's PG-13. You feel the humanity of it all. Yeah, yeah, you're like really personally, yeah. It borders on R. And this, I thought, really should have towed the line. And it, the Hunger Games themselves were like, yeah, that's fine. That's the thing about so much of the first two chapters of this.

And why I do honestly think that if any of these should have been split in, too, this would be a good candidate because that's the thing is I, yeah, it's like, I think it's a neat idea of doing like, okay, so it's like the 10th one. We've done a couple of these enough to know that it's not going to be like completely makeshift. But yeah, it's not what you are used to in the future. That's a cool prospect because you can play up the humor like with the drones. But I feel like the half that they are missing is the way in which that's totally more barbaric or it would lead to a games that is a lot more. And, like, that, there are glimpses of that, like, the weapons do, like, harken back to, like, old gladiator stuff. And, you know, it's not super high-tech. But I feel like-surface, though. It is. Yeah. And so you have these cartoon, you know, all the other competitors fall into their cartoon, you know, archetypes. And you have, like, a literal puppy killing with the one girl with the tuberculosis. And the one guy over here who's just like, you know, the chosen hero and everyone in between. There's the problem with the runtime is that you're now short in, like, the other two movies. That's most of the runtime is the game.

And here you're like, we've got to concuss that runtime. Because, yeah. See, again, not to, I guess I'm just going to embrace that these are the ideas the movie is giving me. Not to like totally rewrite, but I feel like it's good to keep it in Snow's perspective. I like what they tried to do with the Hunger Games. I feel like you could have done a lot with the tension. Like, you could show her perspective in the. the games to a greater emotional degree and ride off the simultaneous nature of the fact that he's

in one place around the establishment watching her and can only do so much to help and she's literally stranded in Lord of the Flies right now. So like there's so much mutual tension and cutting back and forth and stuff that you could do in the moment to really make that gripping. And again, like one thing those old Hunger Games movies did do was at least take some time to like, okay, we're meeting all the other contestants in they get their. are intros in front of the city, but then we do like the behind the scenes, like, oh, this is what they're really like and this is, you know, who I'm up against and who might be

an ally, and you get to wonder about all these things a little, whereas this is moving so quickly that it just does this give you time for mystery or wondering much of anything that isn't clearly going to be end of the movie reveals. And that's where I think, to your point, of where some of the stuff of,

because we're focused on snow, snow's perspective, not Lucy's perspective, yeah where lucie gray whereas the movies are focused on catness's perspective who is in the hunger games yeah so you you're more connected to it you're more you're more connected to the entire thing and so i think the idea was to kind of flip perspective but it was trying to have its cake and eat it too a little bit you know and i think that's where some of it and because of the fact that it's this number installment movie you can go on people who are going to watch i don't know most people who are going to watch this

This is going to be the fourth Hunger Games movie they're watching. No, the fifth. This is going to be the fifth Hunger Games movie because there's the Homogany J's two parts, right? Yeah. Yeah. So this is the fifth Hunger Game movie you're watching and not their first one. It moves that way. Yeah, no, it does.

And that's the thing is it's an worse too. So. Because, yeah, I think, too, it's like it rushes pretty quickly past them, their initial distrust and the spirit they suggest upon their first meeting just doesn't seem like someone who would warm up to him that fast. Yeah. So I feel like they. needed to earn moments like that and yeah you can do a lot of things still within his perspective

but that develop that that's what made him uh that's what made me like question her yeah but back to her i mean i think that her rachel zegler again i feel like that it's become like this hot buttoning keyword to talk about her um i don't really care i mean i thought she was the absolute standout in this movie i came in here to watch the origin of the hunger games and the origin of our favorite dictator and Rachel Zegler I forgot she was in it until a moment before they showed her

I was like oh yeah Rachel Ziegler was in this movie I was not expecting her character to be such a standout her the songs that they I don't know if they wrote those songs I don't know if they're at covers I don't know what

regardless I thought they helped serve the narrative and help develop her character and her voice and the mood and how it creates an atmosphere around her and it's something that I think could have really failed at how they executed it to be in here is just something that feels completely cheesy and silly. Yet you can see how that is also the start and origin of something theatricals who endure you to the audience in terms of like in the Hunger Games world of how they do that,

the theatrics to make them a little bit more performers who are tributes. The tributes make them more performers. and and but her performance overall like I was most concerned about her like I did she was the only one where I was like oh I don't want her to die and the stakes are really real for you because you're in district 12 at the moment and you're also you know part of a traveling group of people who seems to be on the fringes of society anyway and and I like that they use the music like the music does I think a good amount to bridge some of the gaps because music does just speak and that words don't always and a lot of the lyrics kind of are directly about situations that happen but I feel like you know the emotional rousing that music can provide is put to good effect here and I like that it also plays into the tradition of like yeah in rebellions music plays a big part both for morale and for this sending of messages and other things like that and so like that's a nice astute detail to put in there that's perfectly in line to do what often happens in earlier Hunger Games installments where it's like okay, this is technically a rebellion, but you can warp it into being part of the show, too. You know, the one is part of the Matrix, you know? Yeah. And so, yeah, like that was like a cool threat that they didn't have to commit to the degree that they did.

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It's not a real IV. But it sure feels like it. So stay hydrated, stay healthy, and let's keep crushing those health and fitness goals together in the year 2024. It was a really nice artistic surprise. And I like the descent of snow where he normally in these movies where someone becomes a monster, he just watched them become less human and more cold by the end. And I thought the choice to actually do kind of an inverse where he actually seems more detached, honestly, in the beginning, in the very, very beginning of the movie.

He seems a little bit more attached. And I get it. His family was once of prominence. And he's putting on sort of this like posturing act of elegance that even Peter Dinklage calls him out on. And then so then you're slowly getting to see like, oh, he's actually. But some of his earlier on scenes, I didn't really, I feel like he was cast for what he did in the later half. Sure. And not so much what he did in the first half.

Yeah. And in that first half, yeah, because I think his real strengths were in that last half. And in that first half of the movie, you are watching at some. he's becoming more human, right from falling in love to the fear and paranoia. Even when he starts doing villainous deeds or corrupted deeds that are out of just selfish gain, where he's playing his own real world hunger games. Like as someone who was a mentor and he's playing real world hunger games, he actually feels like he's becoming more and more human as he becomes, quote, unquote,

a monster, I guess, you know. And I thought that was actually a nice way of doing an origin for, We're like, oh, look at him, he's a good guy, and we're going to watch him become bad. And they did it in a way that was different. It didn't feel like he completely became. Sometimes in origin movies, they really telegraphed very early on that this is who they, like, oh, you're going to see them become bad. That streak was always in there. Yeah, yeah, they do that.

Or they, I don't know, there's all other kinds of versions of cliches. And I haven't quite seen it done this way. Like when he's in the woods trying to shoot her, he still feels like a very multi-layered human in that moment who is experiencing paranoia, heartbreak, fear of loss, like I thought he embodied the multiple layers. And he felt that's what I'm trying to say. I felt like he actually became multi-layered and multifaceted

as the movie went, especially by the end. And that's why I feel like he's more human by the end, even though he's more cold. Whereas in the beginning I didn't really feel the multiple layers of this character It took me a while To get actually interested in who snow

In this version of snow It really took me some time Like Rachel Zegler was kind of right off the bat Whereas Her Him took me some time And then the other performance too Of course like Peter Dinklage was

You know Peter Dinklage was kind of dude We're familiar with Peter Denglage doing But it's still like He's still committed It's still Peter Dinklage He's still great Yeah, he's still great.

He's still doing a performance. And Jason Schwartzman, and I just call him Young Stanley Tucci. Always forgot that character's name. Lucky Flickerman or whatever. I liked how, you know, the comparison difference is Stanley Tucci is very much, he's a superstar, you know. He's a Regis Philbin. And then this is young Regis Philbin, you know. He's working his way up.

Yeah, he's holding the show together, but he's also singing for his dinner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought James Schwartman was excellent. and yeah, performances, costumes all look great and the aesthetic of bringing it like retro sci-fi where it feels like how the 50s and 60s imagine what the future would look like. So I thought that was really cool.

And yeah, the third act to me was, that's when I felt this movie really sang a lot and had the most amount of actual tension to hold on to and concern and worry. And I like that you don't find out what really happened with her. Yeah. keep it a mystery with Lucy Graven as the scene is happening.

Yeah. Is this just a thing that the birds are recalling above him? Is this just an echo in his mind? Did she really, you know? Yeah. Did she even really exist? Yeah.

Is it all he can? Yeah. But like that, like, like I guess that's the last thought that I kind of have is, is, yeah, I think the, the most important thing this movie had to do for itself

given what it's set out to do is sell the character journey of Coriolanus Snow. And I thought the most graceful thing about it was the way they did sort of weave in and out of moral gray areas. And you can see him in almost in, you know, the same scene at times, you know, like swaying more toward a benevolent side, swaying more toward the machinations of the Capitol, you know. Right, right. You know, for as kind of straightforward or as surface level as certain things were, it felt like that part of the story, they really always managed

like I love that thing with Peter Dinklage because yeah you think he's just being a Snape about it because like I knew your dad back in the day potter like you know I'm gonna stick it to you whereas you know you come back around and it's like oh this guy and that's at a point in the story where Corio is sort of seemingly flirting

with more of a humanist perspective or is being drawn more toward a humanist perspective so that gives you more cause to suspect that the what high bottom or whatever his name is like is a back guy and then later on you oh you find out he's helping out the rebels and he did this because he thinks you're just like your dad even though you've like tried not to be throughout this movie but now you're still being set down that path you know and i think we needed some

depiction of the dad that would have been nice yeah because there was all this emphasis on him yeah and i didn't really if they still could it's so vague just something we don't like for me you don't even need to see his face necessarily but like show a window into the moments where he did have time with his dad to form any association because we first meet him as like a kid out in the snow like getting taken in from you know squalor so like where was how old was he when he knew his dad like all there's questions there

I think what I never really latched onto with the movie is why snow cares to get this far yeah because he's the special his dad created the hunger games but you know like at the very beginning I'm like of course I'm not going to relate with this there's got to be something there to relate with the motivation. I'm like, I think they're trying to tell me that

all this stuff with his cousin and his grandma, he really loves them. So he wants to take care of them is what the movies I think, trying to tell me. And it will never be evicted again. But that wasn't, I don't know, like this specific thing. Why are you going to lead this place?

This specific thing, yeah, he was aspiring to at the very jump of this movie. And why are you so inspired with ways to make the games that much better? Because this whole thing is predicated on like, oh, he's got this crazy ass plan for how to make the games great. And I feel like we glossed over that because i think there was something there in the text about um and maybe i missed it but i feel like i paid attention of everything the the the uh because it seems

like the family was once respected yeah and once of regality in some regard and then now they're not yeah and he wants to reclaim that good name i think maybe but he also seems very very very but he also seems detached to cold but it also seems like everyone who finds out who his dad is other than Peter Dinklage is like your dad was an all right guy

yeah man he gave us this so I don't know I mean but he didn't know that right not until later I thought it seemed like he didn't know his dad gave him until the very end yeah seems like he took somehow for some reason that it's been lost

yeah not even or maybe just he was never in a position to have it revealed to him or something like that but even such yeah it's like that's right it's because the hunger games hadn't even happen yet because the movie started off three years before he gets taken in yeah three years before when they're like little kids and then and then so sometime i guess what is it he's taken in

by the guy who would eventually create the hunger game like that part got confused because we don't really ever see him and we see grandma or whoever that is uh but yeah and then we cut to 10 years later or whatever yeah because the movie starts off three years before the first hunger game Yeah. Right. It said the first Hunger Games. Yeah. And then I guess they had that conversation through a few years before the first Hunger Games.

Like that's the thing is, yeah, like it would have been, even if this is not about the first Hunger Games, it would have been nice to check in with the first Hunger Games. Like, I feel like that would kind of almost be important for how close part of the point is like, we've only been doing this for a little while and, you know, they're flailing out here. We've got to figure out a way to really beef this up and get everyone on board. and I think that would have been I think that would be a really challenging it's like the first the movie of the purge franchise and there are correlations I think you can draw

parallels in terms of the story and what they're talking about and what they're doing between what the Hunger Game stories are about and what the purge movies are about yeah even though they're very different movies there's a lot of similarities in the same time in terms of some contextual things

and and I think that would have made for in terms of like a thematic piece the more interesting thematic piece because you would see how people were reacting to

when this was first announced and when they were going to do it and then how the response went over when it does go down and then the unknown of how this is supposed to work and figure it out see that's the thing is you could have a hunger games again

and again do you know the part of any you know continuing franchise where we do the thing from the first time again. But you can give it a whole new, you know, veneer and a whole new kind of, you know, set of circumstances that could make it fresh and interesting in a more rudimentary and rough kind of way. For sure.

Tap into, you know, the signature aspect of, like, what drew people to this franchise in many ways. Like, yeah, some pretty straightforward, but, you know, very invested commentary on society in various ways. And even this, like, it flirts at the end with, They either reject society, leave and go someplace else, or they try to climb to the top and fix it and all that. And so, like, yeah, things were so bad and these wars happened and we split up all these districts and stuff. And it was so bad we had to create this game to make an example, but also just like sate people's anger and keep people complacent and whatever else.

And like, yeah, like it is odd to me not to at least touch on that. Like I feel like maybe they're just keeping that ace up their sleeve. so if they, you know, want to in another five or six years or if this trilogy doesn't work, they can go, first Hunger Games, let's get cycle three going. But it, I don't know. I feel like, again, for drawing it so close to that and doing some of that,

I feel like you could have just made that stuff even more rich by at least touching on the first games. Well, overall, I'd probably give this movie, like, a... There's a lot of things I really liked about it, though, man. Whenever Rachel Zegler was on screen, And I really did find a lot of suspense in the last hour of this film. Yeah. And I'm glad they put it there.

Like, you know, again, in the math, I would rather be left off on an interesting note. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, rush through Act 3. It feels grounded and gritty. And it feels like the real world allegories are even more present. And you put snow in a position where there are stakes where you, like, you start to semi-forget. Like, oh, yeah, you're supposed to somehow get back to the Capitol and be. Because he's stripped down.

I think that's another thing that helps to the character. He's stripped down. he's vulnerable he's taken away from everything and he's traversed all levels of this society and he's been in favor he's been out of favor and and in that last half you're able to kind of live i think one thing doing this perspective allows you to do is live in the banality of the day to day of this shit which the third act really does do because he's he's a stormtrooper the other thing i really liked that i completely forgot to touch on was that you actually get a sense of community from district 12 where in this like movie that feels dystopian future you you normally don't get something that feels

joyous celebratory in any way and you get that there when they are then that was one of the elements of the musical side were that connection when they are seen and dancing and uh and lucy grace performing like oh yeah there's a real there is a community here

yeah and you are connected and endeared to that at least I was and I don't that's something that I don't the other hung games. Yeah. You just felt like everyone's broken, throwing bread in the mud, you know? Yeah, it's dreary and dirty all the time. Which is part of that life, but also, yeah, they show the contrast.

Yeah. Yeah, and I thought that, like, finding, having that kind of community with the, with the southern flare to it was actually pretty cool. And also, you know, and to get Rachel Zegler, who I don't think she's Caucasian, something. She's like, Latina or so I don't know what she is. But she's obviously not, she's not Caucasian. And to see someone who embodies such a Southern Bell kind of vibe who is not Caucasian, I thought it was actually kind of was like different and refreshing. And it balances things out because she is singing a lot of like very bluesy spirituals,

which I think would be kind of extra tacky if it was just like a white girl. Yeah. And I think some people might be like, what the hell, you know. But I'm like, all that has to happen is someone just grows up around that. You felt the voice at the gate. It's matters in the culture. Well, yeah. It's like when you see, like, I don't know, a Japanese guy who grows up in Australia.

He has an Australian accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So this is clearly a place in which people have all just jumbled around by war in class. And now, you know, wherever you wind up, especially her is like a nomad, you know, like wherever you wind up is sort of whatever culture you're going to pick up. Like, I know we see that in life all the time. But in movies and shows, you really don't. You know.

There's a uniform. that often happens, whereas here I thought that, yeah, they managed to make the district feel alive and feel like, yeah, despite, you know, the thing that all, like many places in squalers, there still can be senses of community and ways to find joy and respite, whilst also never kind of being unaware of the fact that you're always under the boot. A thousand percent. And yeah, you can feel, yeah, it's like I liked, like, I liked getting those bits where you do at least just have sort of like life's happening and people were breaking out in song and they're dancing and you really. kind of feel like what a day in the life is like over here, you know, and what we're fighting for. Yeah. I can't help with think, like, even though I like the third act a lot, I can't help at times be like, I really feel like a half hour would have added this in. And maybe it's there in the book.

But even, even with his friend, that's where the part, how do I forget his name. Surrogate. Oh, so jure. Yeah. Soju. Something like that. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. could have been a heartbreaking thing if at all he did feel compelled to help him out if he did think like the

if there was a debate with with them truly of potentially helping out the rebels and stuff yeah and that way there creates a real confidence you see him actually making a choice that and even would drive home that descent that character art that he has more when he does go like he's shutting the shit down he's not going to help you know yeah and giving that care again it's that breathing room thing of like man just a couple more scenes showing these guys in a joyous moment and in a moment where you can see how his buddy is rubbing off on him because he established that. He's his only friend. You're the only

guy who sticks up for this dude who clearly has a sympathetic side for the plebs out there. And he speaks to his humanity. And I think you said something early on about certain scenes feeling kind of soap opera-esque because the emotion has to be high because it's the important scenes that we're

cutting to. But I feel like especially with a character like that, like they managed to get a good amount of the tragedy but I feel like some of it, some of the real contrast and the real weight of it is a bit garbled like they kind of streamline it in a way where you're like yeah he's going to betray him

whereas like you want to feel like will this be less of a direct betrayal and more of like a choice made under one pretense only to be like oh god no what did I do you know there could have been more debate there and there could have been again just a

greater detailing of that kind of swaying of Coriolanus's soul between two states and two ideologies, you know? Yeah, and I think in a book when you're reading a bunch of additional texts, yeah, but in a movie, you've got to do a little bit more creative

work. I'll do some scene work here, a little more creative work to drive it home. Yeah. Because he, especially Sojourn, whatever's name is, is very much a themes character. I'm here to bring the themes in the text of the news and to present those to you for Elena Snow. And I'm like, cool, good, like that's, you need that and I like that, you know, they have a whole argument

kind of their whole ideology is like do we do direct action or do we play the long game and and you know what are our motivations really and yeah it's like that stuff could have felt a lot more lived in and you could have felt a little less you know the a little less of that puppy killing feeling when it really does come down you know on on his head thousand percent yeah and the weight of that broken promise i'll protect you overall 7.5 for me john yeah yeah 7.2 all right Give us seven point. All right. Either way, I think we were both, like, pleasantly surprised and, like, the good stuff was better than expected.

And the stuff that doesn't work could have worked. Stuff I did not show up for all were the things that I thought were the best parts. It was a great surprise. All this stuff I did not care about. Yes. Beforehand, I was like, oh, damn. This is actually the most interesting. Yeah.

Well, of all the people, like, just bound to a franchise. Well done, Francis Lawrence and company. Yeah, but I think you should move on. I think all these dudes need to move on. I think you should. All right, you guys, leave your thoughts down below. We thought 100 names, ballad of songbirds and snakes. And, hey, before we go, let's end up with a paper.

Anisa Oliva. Anisa, it is 24. And I was thinking about it in the year of COVID. Oh. Which, you know, it's still very much real. But in still out there But the year when, you know, the pandemic was at its heights out here in the states I remember we would do live streams and you were contributing boatloads of cash.

You were like ready to go broke. Yeah. And I just feel like you don't really do that anymore. Yeah, it's been a long time. And part of me is wondering why we should still be shouting you out. I mean, yeah, you pledged for this. What is that? I mean, that's just to get in the door. You know, that's just the cover charge.

But now we have it, we have an expectation bar of what to receive from your end. And the bar only ever rise. It really limits the passion behind the shoutouts now for you. It does. When we're not financially incentivized for the bonus that it could lead to. A more stimulating shoutout comes from a more stimulating stimulus package. And I'm not dropping a hint here. I'm not saying what you shouts.

should do there are a could and wood scenario here that could be happening and ought to mandatory hey hey i'm no gas ladder hey i didn't hear nothing g i'm no i'm no manipulator around her so i can't tell you what to do with your funds no no never but i'm just saying it's a new year it's just friendly advice and um the pandemic height was a while ago and we went through all the 2023 while you risked your life out there and now we're in 24 i'm just hoping that whoa in 20203 where you like saving up some stock here to dish out monthly because she knew it was going to come back and then she would start showering us again to protect us from the all the antigens outside i'm not i'm not not suggesting just you know just implying just uh

throwing a thought. Just, just spitball in here, right? Just spitball in here. Go with me on this. So you do what you want to do. Yeah. You know, you're an independent woman. Do what you want.

Yeah. And the great thing is so often your interest that needs align perfectly with ours. So that makes us independent women too. Just saying, give us a lot more. Give us a lot more. Pledge more. Find the stream labs link. Go there.

Also, offline super chat saying to, let me be clear that if you do end up sending us a lot more money due to this shoutout, we are going to be filled with obnoxious amounts of guilt. So please don't do. Do not actually. The disclaimer, this is not a serious shout out. Normally, I would really just stick to the bit here. We can put a long zoom on it so it's clear that this is a joke. We know you pretty well. And I'm like, I feel like this joke could really go badly.

Yeah. And you would feel like, oh, shit, I better send them. Please don't. Just that you have been here for as long as you have and have been as lovely for as long as the greatest gift. Please don't do it. So, yeah. We don't need it for anything. You've been amazing.

And you have to get through a tough period on the channel. So thank you. And I'll never forget that. And we've, of course, gotten to know you as an actual human being in person. and you've been wonderful, Jim. So I hope in 2024 that you are able to use money to invest so that we could just have pure financial freedom. And also, I hope you get married this year.

I hope you find a guy and marry him. Hey, better, worse things you could do with your money. Worse things you could do with your money.