THE HUNGER GAMES Franchise (M) COMPARED

19/09/2021

I recently wrote a review of the original The Hunger Games movie. I said that I was watching the later three movies and promised to compare them to the original. I have now finished watching all four movies in the franchise so how do these later movies compare to the original?

Credit: Lionsgate

Many large studios that create successful movies will almost always want to make a sequel. However, many of these incredible movies should have never had a sequel made; the original movie is so unique or amazing that any attempt to recreate a similar movie in the same world will almost always fall short of its predecessor. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule including John Wick, Toy Story, and Back to the Future. Unfortunately, The Hunger Games sequels follow the rule of not being as good as the original. But not for the same reason as most other sequels.

A lot of movies that have bad sequels had a very original and unique idea. The sequels often fail to bring a new idea to the table and are mostly recreating the original movie in a different location or with some other small change. Of course, the movie is never as successful as the first solely because the original movie cannot be recreated to the same effect. The Hunger Games sequels on the other hand do not simply recreate the events of the first movie in a different location or with different characters. The sequels offer something new and inventive and are always developing the world very similar to what Star Wars does in its many sequels, tv shows and books. Additionally, it didn't feel like most sequels where little details from the first movie were forgotten.

Credit: Lionsgate

Something that I enjoyed comparing between the four movies was how they all ended; some of the movies had a better ending than others. The original movie feels like it can be an individual movie and can be watched on its own. The other movies, however, do not feel the same. The second - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - for instance, ends on a massive cliff-hanger. I was expecting the third to do the same as it was the first of two parts. It didn't however and I surprisingly found that the third ended the best out of the three. It didn't end on a large cliff-hanger but left the audience still wanting to come back for the next. Nevertheless, all the movies always left you wanting to come back for more, even the fourth which ended the series.

The later movies didn't hesitate to reflect themes seen in the first movie and exhibited the same emotions. The movies always showed Katniss's confusion and the audience always shared this with her. The music, still using the same themes, was adapted to reflect what was happening in the later movies. Nonetheless, the sequels failed to display the humbleness of the first. This undoubtedly was due to the larger budget. Of course, this larger budget allowed for an abundance of outstanding special effects but as I said, resulted in the film losing its humbleness. I guess that it was just a sacrifice that had to be made.

Credit: Lionsgate

Pretty much everything that I didn't enjoy about the sequels was more extreme as we got closer to the end of the story. In general, I found that I didn't enjoy the movies as much the further away we got from the first. If I had to order all four movies from best to worst, I would just be ordering the movies by release date: the original being best and the fourth being worst.

This is exemplified by how much darker the movies got. The original movie definitely wasn't light-hearted but wasn't anywhere as dark or scary as the latest movie. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was probably even with the first with how dark it was: it wasn't overly frightening or dark but can be the kind of movie that keeps you up at night. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 was slightly scarier and darker with one pretty big jump scare that left my heart pumping for a couple of minutes. And the fourth... I don't watch a lot of scary movies but I thought that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 was the definition of scary. There was one massive jump scare (even bigger than the one in Part 1) followed by an intense sequence. And then even things that shouldn't be scary seemed scary.

Credit: Lionsgate

Despite all this, I could go on forever about things that I adored about the sequels: they always carried on well from the previous film, they had deliberately hateable antagonists, they never took death lightly, they were complicated, they carried on from each other as a tv show would. But I could also go on for a while about things I didn't like about the sequels: I didn't enjoy the ending of the fourth all that much and the second ended quite quickly, the world wasn't as real which is something I enjoyed about the first, I felt more time needed to be spent in the actual arena, we never got to see enough of Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) and Ceaser Flickerman (Stanley Tucci) who have got to be my two favourite characters of the whole franchise.

But I'm not going to go on forever because The Hunger Games sequels did a much better job than many other sequels. They succeeded where many other sequels failed. A lot of this credit has to be given to the incredible author, Suzanne Collins, who wrote the original novels and helped adapt the novels into movies. She wrote a book series that not only has three successful and four incredible movies but also has room for many more books and movies to be set in the same world. In fact, a prequel novel was released just last year.

Credit: Lionsgate

The Hunger Games sequels, whilst having their flaws, honour the original movie incredibly well and are much more successful than many other sequels of original and unique movies. See below for my rating of each movie.

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (M)

Director: Francis Lawrence

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland

Year released: 2013

My rating: 8.5/10

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1 (M)

Director: Francis Lawrence

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland

Year released: 2014

My rating: 7/10

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 2 (M)

Director: Francis Lawrence