Twice the number of tributes, twice the glory. Welcome to the 50th annual Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor.
The Sunrise on the Reaping trailer just dropped, and social media is ablaze. As a books editor, I love book-to-movie adaptations and I have a lot of thoughts about the trailer—and so do fans who can’t wait to see it on the big screen.
I’ve been a Hunger Games fan since roughly 2011, so I’ve followed every book and movie release over the last decade and a half. With a stacked cast, eye-catching visuals, and a ton of book buzz, I can confidently tell you this release is going to be big.
The trailer dropped on April 13, and it’s the first full-length look at the movie, which releases November 20. Sunrise on the Reaping is a prequel that follows Katniss’s alcoholic mentor, Haymitch, as a teenager as he fights to survive his own Hunger Games. Because it’s the 50th annual games, also known as the second Quarter Quell, twice the number of tributes will battle to the death in an especially beautiful but brutal arena.
As a longtime fan, what are my thoughts on the trailer? Honestly, I’m excited for November. My prediction as a books editor just from watching the trailer is that Sunrise on the Reaping is going to outperform the previous prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and I’ll tell you why.
One major reason is the cast. I’m calling it now: Ralph Fiennes’s glorious malice is going to be the best President Snow casting we’ve had yet. (I loved him as the noble but burdened Cardinal Lawrence in Conclave, but he’s best known for playing Voldemort, and for good reason.)
When he threatens Haymitch that “If you disobey me, we shall open the bloodbath with the longest, most drawn-out death your people have ever seen”? Instant chills. YouTube comments agree, praising “That last line where he pauses and pauses and trails off… brilliant!” and “Ralph Fiennes killed it. Chills, absolutely.”
But I also think a major hook of Sunrise on the Reaping is going to be the visuals. Haymitch’s arena is unique because everything is made to be both hauntingly beautiful and uniquely designed to kill you. The trailer shows overflowing fields of flowers leading to the cornucopia, where the weapons are stored and the bloodbath begins. Fans agree: “The color is so disturbing. The brightness of this. Well done,” one user commented.
I get annoyed with action movies that are too poorly lit because I can’t actually see what’s happening. (Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey trailer, I’m looking at you.) Sunrise on the Reaping is going to avoid this issue, but its colorful visuals are both going to lean into the franchise’s visual strengths and expose its thematic weaknesses.
The Hunger Games books condemn the flashy excess of the Capitol. But the tricky irony of the franchise is that it’s the over-the-top flashiness and the brutality of the games that make the movies so exciting to watch. The costumes! The romance! The tragedy!
It keeps us on the edge of our seats, and is part of why so many people are excited for the film to release in November, myself included. But the movies also put us in the role of the Capitol, watching the Hunger Games for entertainment and wanting them to be bigger and more dramatic than ever.
The previous movie prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, didn’t have the cultural force of the original series, and I think it’s in part because of the visuals. While it was an interesting look at the background of the franchise following a young President Snow, the movie showed a somber post-war Capitol, less pomp and circumstance, and a stripped-down arena—and it made the movie less engaging to watch.
Sunrise on the Reaping is back in roaring color, firmly part of the merciless media machine we know from the original series. The trailer teased some emotional gut punches (the chariot scene…if you know, you know), the over-the-top Capitol fashion, huge explosions, and teenagers double wielding axes. In short, it’s everything you want from a Hunger Games installment, with a promise of tense action and high emotional stakes.
As one fan sums it up: “10 years later and I’m STILL crying over The Hunger Games.”
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