Like most middle schoolers growing up in 2012-2015, I was very much obsessed with The Hunger Games. I read all of the books multiple times, saw the movies on their opening nights and even dressed up as Katniss Everdeen for a few Halloweens. So when the new prequel to the series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, came out in 2020 I was very excited to learn more about the universe. I was able to finish the book very quickly because of how much I enjoyed it, and I eagerly awaited for the movie to come out. Luckily it came out a few weeks ago and I have been able to watch it twice in theaters. After watching it twice though I have noticed quite a few differences between the book and movie, and I want to discuss these differences. Spoilers ahead!
- The Mentors
In the novel, the mentors play a much bigger role in the first two parts. Coriolanus gives us some of the mentors’ backstories and it is clearer who he is friends with. In the movie it seems like he is not actually friends with any of them and that he secretly despises them. For example, Festus Creed is shown to be pretty good friends with Coriolanus in the novel. He is present during the scene where Arachne Crane gets her throat slit at the zoo and is there with Coriolanus when she passes away, and he also visits him in the hospital after the bombing. In the movie he is just shown as somebody who Coriolanus does not seem to actually like very much. Additionally, a lot of the mentors characters got cut down a lot, and some were not even shown at all. Persephone Price and the Ring twins played a small role in the novel, but they were all completely cut out of the movie.
2. ClemensiaÂ
Going along with how they majorly cut down the mentors’ stories, the movies completely dropped the rest of Clemensia’s storyline. In the movie she is shown to be one of Coriolanus’s friends but she lied to Dr. Gaul about writing the proposal which ultimately led to her downfall. She is bitten by a snake and then taken somewhere, never to be seen again. It is unclear if she lived or died, but in the book she lives. She actually comes back for the games since her tribute, Reaper, is in the final two. Due to the bite, Clemensia is shown to be going through some sort of transformation. Her eye color and skin color both changed and her attitude also changed. This was completely left out of the movie, which I think is interesting because it would have been really interesting to see on screen.Â
3.The Top Four Tributes and Deaths
In the movie, the top four tributes end up being Lucy Gray, Coral, Reaper and Mizzen. Additionally, the three of them besides Lucy Gray all get killed by the snake mutts. This is very different from the books since the top four were actually Lucy Gray, Reaper, Treech and Teslee. Coral is portrayed as the big bad in the movie, and while she is still intimidating in the book I would say that Reaper and Treech are more in this role. Both of these characters are also killed by Lucy Gray in the book, with her getting Reaper to drink poisoned water and her sticking one of the snakes on Treech.
4. The Covey
Lucy Gray’s family and band, the Covey, play a much larger role in the book. While I would consider them main characters in any way, they were definitely more involved. In the movie we do not learn their names besides Maude Ivory, and they all somewhat fleshed out backstories in the books. For example, Clerk Carmine is actually Billy Taupe’s brother who stays apart of the Covey instead of leaving with his brother. Tam Amber’s origin is also explained in the book, as he was found by the Covey as a baby and they raised him.
5. The Confrontation in the Cabin
At the end of both the novel and movie, Coriolanus finds the guns and does not trust Lucy Gray to not rat him out. In the movie she states that she is the only loose end, but in the book she does not say anything. The book definitely displays him getting in his head and going crazy over it more. However, the ending is still the same with it being left in the air if Lucy Gray survived or not.