Three years after the book was released, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” made its worldwide cinematic debut Nov. 17th. The 3 hour movie was long-awaited by fans of the franchise and lived up to their high expectations. 

The movie, starring Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, is divided into three parts. The first part, “The Mentor” introduces the characters as well as provides backstory on the hunger games. Coriolanus’ goals are also introduced, though they change throughout the movie. “The Prize” focuses more on the actual Hunger Games, where Lucy Gray and Coriolanus fight for her to make it through the games unscathed, as well as try to assure her place as the victor of the 10th annual Hunger Games. The final part of the movie, “The Peacekeeper” follows Coriolanus through his exile to District 12 and fans see as he slowly becomes more like the villainous tyrant from “The Hunger Games.”

While some were upset that the movie wasn’t split into two movies, most left satisfied. The director of the movie, Francis Lawrence, decided against dividing the movie after critics disapproved of “Mockingjay” being two movies instead of one. However, this decision left fans wanting more from the prequel. 

The diverse and accurate casting was one of the more positive aspects of the movie, since both accuracy and diversity is often a difficult task for directors.. Since some books don’t have much diversity written into them, casting directors usually have to choose between diversity and accuracy. However, Debra Zane and Dylan Jury were able to do both, with stars like Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Viola Davis, and Josh Andrés Rivera in the movie as key figures in Coriolanus’ life. 

Movie watchers also enjoyed the many allusions to the original series. These references include Lucy Gray mentioning the Arrowhead, or “Katniss”, plant her family enjoys, singing “The Hanging Tree,” which Katniss sings in “Mockingjay,” to Coriolanus.

Overall, fans of the original book and movies series were appreciative of the good cinematography, accurate cast, and the effort to keep the movie authentic. While the movie could have been split into two in order to avoid losing some details, that would have also put it at risk of putting too many details in one movie and not enough in the second. 

The unresolved end of the movie, though at first frustrating, left people feeling a sense of closure. While we may never know what truly happened to Lucy Gray, Coriolanus’ actions in the first quartet are explained.  “Mysteries have a way of driving people mad” seems to be wrong for this movie, since fans of the series are perfectly content with not knowing the ending.