The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the book today, I thought about his parts in the trilogy book and movies.

And his laughter at what happens to Coin. I thought, “Snow lands on top.”

He always wiggles his way out of stuff. Not to say he wasn’t imprisoned or probably executed later. But, I thought of the Coin scene.

He died right there. They found his body when the crowd broke up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the book today, I thought about his parts in the trilogy book and movies.

And his laughter at what happens to Coin. I thought, “Snow lands on top.”

He always wiggles his way out of stuff. Not to say he wasn’t imprisoned or probably executed later. But, I thought of the Coin scene.

He died right there. They found his body when the crowd broke up.

I’ll have to go back to the book. I must be remembering the movie. Which either doesn’t portray his death, or maybe I don’t remember it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the book today, I thought about his parts in the trilogy book and movies.

And his laughter at what happens to Coin. I thought, “Snow lands on top.”

He always wiggles his way out of stuff. Not to say he wasn’t imprisoned or probably executed later. But, I thought of the Coin scene.

He died right there. They found his body when the crowd broke up.

I’ll have to go back to the book. I must be remembering the movie. Which either doesn’t portray his death, or maybe I don’t remember it.

In the movie after Coin was killed the crowd went after Snow. I assumed they killed him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So here's my question for people who have watched it: does it somehow excuse or justify President Snow's psychopathy?

Haven't read any of the books. Watched the film trilogy and loved it more on re-watches. I have dealt with President Snow-types at work and in my family, and at this point I can't deal with a villain origin story if the villain's choices are not made clear/if the villain isn't held accountable for their choices.

I also would love to hear how this movie's romance is portrayed, since I don't think a psychopath is capable of falling in love.

I may sound like a stickler, but after you actually literally deal with these people in RL, you become very wary of the subconscious messaging in movies.

I don’t think that it justifies his bad behavior/ psychopathy but it reveals that his descent into being a ruthless psychopath happened gradually as he was corrupted slowly by not just his own ambition but also by fascist state apparatus such as the evil head game master played by Viola Davis.

Also it reveals that Snow is not capable of true love either platonic or romantic however, he did cry over betraying his good friend and when turning against Lucy Gray. So it depicted him as having a heart but one that gradually closed down and hardened.

I agree OP - the movie was considerably better than I expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Won’t be seeing it because Rachel Zegler.

Why do people hate her? What did I miss?

She’s insufferable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here's my question for people who have watched it: does it somehow excuse or justify President Snow's psychopathy?

Haven't read any of the books. Watched the film trilogy and loved it more on re-watches. I have dealt with President Snow-types at work and in my family, and at this point I can't deal with a villain origin story if the villain's choices are not made clear/if the villain isn't held accountable for their choices.

I also would love to hear how this movie's romance is portrayed, since I don't think a psychopath is capable of falling in love.

I may sound like a stickler, but after you actually literally deal with these people in RL, you become very wary of the subconscious messaging in movies.

I don’t think that it justifies his bad behavior/ psychopathy but it reveals that his descent into being a ruthless psychopath happened gradually as he was corrupted slowly by not just his own ambition but also by fascist state apparatus such as the evil head game master played by Viola Davis.

Also it reveals that Snow is not capable of true love either platonic or romantic however, he did cry over betraying his good friend and when turning against Lucy Gray. So it depicted him as having a heart but one that gradually closed down and hardened.

I agree OP - the movie was considerably better than I expected.

Haven't seen the movie but read the book and was thinking about it trying to decide whether to pay to stream the movie.

I think it's not even ambition that motivated Snow at the start, but pride in keeping up the Snow name and just basic survival. He sees getting the scholarship to the university as his only path forward that will allow his family to keep their penthouse and just have enough money to feed themselves. It was good to see his love and affection for Tigris, that he actually had human emotions.

I thought the book was ambiguous about whether he killed Lucy Gray. Did others see it that way?

It also was unclear to me whether she really did intend for Snow to get bitten by a snake and die or whether she was just taking a long time to find and collect the katniss, enough time for Snow to spiral into paranoid delusions and see things that may not have been real. Like did she just lose the scarf or was she actually trying to trick him?

There were a lot of clues through Lucy's songs and dialogue about how she does what it takes to get by. It's hard to tell if she actually had feeling for Snow or if she realized her chances of survival would be much higher if he fell for her. Maybe it was an act at first and then became real? Or real enough?

[Anonymous]

Also, Snow's "cheating" in the game never seems that bad to me. The food was something everyone did. The handkerchief was a lucky break. The compact was a gift that should be fine, since it didn't contain poison at the start, right? She got the poison in the arena?

[Anonymous]

Saw the movie this weekend as my young teen is very into the series right now.

This is a great thread on it. I agree that the film didn't capture the nuance of Snow's mindset/disposition.

I enjoyed the Hunger Games and really liked all the movies. This just didn't land for me. I might be one of the people that finds Rachel Zegler insufferable because I found her cheesy and flat, with her final scene being the only one that hit for me. That was a good scene and if the story had been clear leading up to it, it would have been great. Thought the symbolism of Katniss as a weed that takes its time to grow until you need it was great.

Anyway, what I think I need is a pre-prequel during the war to understand how things got to where they are. Because in the original books I didn't find it that hard to suspend disbelief and accept the existence of the Hunger Games as a plot device. In this one I did.

PS - I think I would have liked to see Joe Alwyn as Snow!