The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the prequel to the original Hunger Games trilogy of films focusing on the early days of Corilioanus Snow, who I will just refer to as Snow for the rest of this review because it simply is easier to type. Young Mr. Snow witnesses the waning years of the failed rebellion between the thirteen districts of Panem and the Capital, which we know from the original films ended with the subjugation of the districts, almost slave labor of it’s inhabitants and the nuking of one district.
The people of the districts live under the constant threat of violence from an occupying army of “Peacekeepers,” who kill with impunity anyone even guilty by association with someone that questions and or threatens, real or only suspected, the post war control the Capital now has over it’s subjects. I can’t bring myself to call them citizens because Panem is not a democratic republic, but rather dictatorship that deals in bread and circuses even for it’s subjects in the Capital because let’s face it, you step out of line anywhere in Panem and you put yourself in danger. The only things that serve to curry favor are wealth, power and influence.
Anyway, Snow has to earn support to provide for his cousin and grandmother because his father died in the war. I am not sure whether or not education is guaranteed in the Capital because if he is attending a private school, I don’t know how he could afford it since outside of brainstorming new ideas to curry favor and scheme at first by necessity, Snow is never seen working at anything that can be called a job that is until he is made a mentor to Lucy Gray Baired (Rachel Zegler), a cautious but somewhat free spirited member of a group of performers, who got trapped in District 12 after the war ended. Now she is forced to participate in the tenth annual Hunger Games, which at this time are not the cultural phenomenon it is destined to become and so to win a scholarship that could guarantee his future in the Capital, Snow and his fellow students are tasked with coming up with an idea to make The Hunger Games a spectacle that will enthrall all viewers regardless if they have tributes from their districts fighting in the games or not.
So Snow comes up with a few ideas that impress the head game maker, who is in charge of coming up with various challenges for the tributes to pass, including the creation of genetically modified animals to serve as predators, and weed out the weak faster in the games. Snow cheats to save Lucy Gray and gets caught and is sent to serve as a Peacekeeper for the next twenty years, but his actions do save Lucy, who is more street smart than she appears. Also placed into the military is a friend of Snow, who has a father that became a munitions magnate filling in the vacancy left by the demise of Snow’s father in the war. All these seemingly unrelated elements actually play a large role in the corruption that continually grows within Snow, as he gradually becomes a person who is set upon a dark path, both by choice and necessity in order to pursue power after sustaining a broken heart.
I actually liked this film more than the original trilogy and found it to be more interesting. Despite some of the questions I have such as if characters can just escape District 12 by traveling north why doesn’t everybody just travel north and what is beyond district 12 that makes it a place where one can survive, and why would a dictatorship make it so easy for its people to just leave?
None of these aspects are explained in the movie, so you just have to go with it. Another thing I noticed is that quite honestly District 12 is a pretty nice place to live if you like trees and open valleys and stuff. I mean sure you’re forced to work and your life is under the gun but even the people of the Capital who live in delusionary world where they feel privileged, but the reality is they are just as much victims of a system as anyone else. There are no heroes in The Hunger Games if only because the people are varying degrees of terrible, including, Lucy Gray.
The film does a great job of presenting. What looks like it could be a Panem 64 years before the original films take place. In some ways there’s sort of a steam punk look to some of the technology and you don’t see any high-tech stuff like the super-fast trains that exist in the original trilogy, or the hovercrafts and stuff like that. People still even drive in cars apparently and the cars don’t look too different from cars seen sometime between the 1940s and the later half of the 20th century. So there is a definite retro look to the film that works to its benefit. Tom Blyth, who portrays young Snow, does a great job at communicating a lot of different types of internal thought with just a glance. The film also features excellent supporting character roles by Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis. Rachel Zegler is a talented singer and while I can’t say much about her acting talent, I can state that she seems very talented and I don’t think anyone should take at any of the bad reactions she garnered with regard to comments she made regarding the Disney, Snow White live action adaptation that kind of backfired on her. I believe she is about 22 years old at the time of my writing this review and I think that she’s just a kid and kids sometimes say things they shouldn’t just like older adults and even though I’m sure she’s a very mature woman, the reality is as you get older and you look at somebody much younger, you begin to understand why sometimes in movies a person that’s clearly an adult is referred to as a boy or a girl by a person who is at least twice their age. It is because there were some things that can only be attained through life experience, so sometimes, though, not guaranteed, with age comes wisdom. So give her a break people.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc containing The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes did not work on my dedicated LG 4K Blu-ray Disc player. Luckily for me, I have a Microsoft Xbox series X that played it just fine, but I’m not sure why it did not work in the LG since the LG could playback the High Definition Blu-ray that’s also included just fine.
I was surprised to see that the 4K Blu-ray actually has more extra value features than the Blu-ray disc does because very often the manufacturers that distribute these films universally and not just one distributor in particular will just release the movie with maybe a commentary or something like that on the 4K Blu-ray and then just package a Blu-ray disc with the extra value features, especially if the title is a legacy library title that’s just being released on 4K Blu-ray for the first time.
So going a bit backwards as opposed to how I usually cover these types of things all of the extra value features that are included on the 4K Blu-ray are presented in high definition and they still look better than they do on the HD disk, which says something in itself. These high definition extras on the 4K Blu-ray look better than they do natively on the included Full HD Blu-ray Disc and if the customers are happy with their product, then that’s all that matters.
I personally found that all the extra value features which are exclusive to the physical media version of this movie, are very informative and concise to the point where I’m amazed there is so much because you really get a lot if you’re a big fan or want to learn more about how these movies are made.
First off, you get a feature length audio commentary with Producer and Director, Francis Lawrence and Producer, Nina Jacobson. This commentary is screen specific and very informative. It is also supported by a feature length documentary, entitled Predator or Prey: The Making of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is an eight part documentary that can be viewed either as one real (2:30:43) or individually and this covers the casting the music, the location scouting, the costuming, the stunts and weapons, the post production process and reflections on the making of the film. In addition, the song, The Hanging Tree sung by Rachel Zegler is presented though it’s not a music video, you hear the song and you see a pattern on screen that evokes the film.
There are also digital extra features that are exclusive to certain platforms depending on the users preference. These include several featurettes that are basically truncated versions of things that you see on the Blu-ray Discs that cover Finding a Different Sound (13:05) for the film as well as a “Welcome Back” into the world of The Hunger Games, the costuming (3:43) and casting (3:59) as well as a letter to the fans, which is also available to be read on the discs and is kind of reminiscent of what one used to see on LaserDiscs where it’s basically standard still frames that one can just skip through with the remote control after one has read it on screen.
Amazon has exclusives too, like Imagining a Retro Future and The Ark of a Tyrant. Lionsgate does not use a type of outlet like Movies Anywhere where if you have one film digitally redeemable via a limited redemption time only code included in the set, you could possibly be able to view it on multiple providers at the same time.
With the digital copy included with the Lionsgate release you have to choose the platform you want to watch it on so I’m pretty much in the Apple ecosystem so that is where I viewed the digital copy extra features, however it would have been nice to be able to check out the Amazon exclusive extra features since I am also a Prime Video subscriber too.
As far as the discs are concerned, the picture quality on the 4K Blu-ray disc is outstanding, and it is supported beautifully with English Dolby Atmos, Surround Soundtrack as well as English descriptive audio for those who are impaired visually. Spanish and French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtracks are also included as well as subtitles in the respective languages too. The English Dolby Atmos Soundtrack appears to be also available on the HD Blu-ray disc.
Overall, I think this is an outstanding 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc plus standard Full High Definition, Blu-ray disc and Digital Copy collection released and if your fan of the previous films and want to be able to watch this new prequel in the best possible way at home then I highly recommend you pick up Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes on 4K ultra HD Blu-ray disc plus Blu-ray disc plus Digital Copy since you can’t go wrong with the amount of exclusive extra value content and formats of choice included. I think it’s definitely worth checking out now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Lionsgate.
(C) Copyright 2024 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
