Madison Meeks – Opinion Editor

mvm7037@psu.edu

Oh where to start with this fantastic dystopian film. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the second film in the Hunger Games film franchise. The film is based on the 2009 novel ‘Catching Fire’. The film’s main cast relatively stays the same from the first film with new additions added and some characters for the first film no longer in the series. 

The film follows the characters Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark as they go through the victor tour from the 74th annual hunger games and through the 75th annual hunger games which also happens to be a Quarter Quell. 

First , let’s discuss the Victory tour. The emotion that was in the speech that Katniss and Peeta gave in District 11 was incredible. As an audience member you could feel the grief that was radiating off of the character. But the design of District 11 was beyond anything a true fan could imagine. When a book is turned into a movie, the fans are always like how are the filmmakers going to make it so fans are going to enjoy the films and the filmmakers did just that with the set designs of the districts, the capitol, and the arena for the Quarter Quell. The Victory tour is one of the best moments of the film because of the scene where they are at the party in the capitol and President Snow looks at Katniss and shakes his head because he already knows that she was the one who started the rebellion. Katniss realizes that there is a rebellion because of the feed that she sees on the train on the way back to District 12. 

But what really made this movie the best one of the series was the Quarter Quell. For people who don’t know, the Quarter Quell games in this movie is that past victors are going to the arena to compete and since Katniss is the only female tribute in her district that means that she has to go back into the arena to fight. So she has to fight her life again. 

One thing I love about this movie is the arena and location that they used. The part of the movie that is the games was filmed in Hawaii. The location really intensifies how intense the arena in the film is. The arena in this film is quite interesting because it symbolizes a clock. Each sector of the arena has a different thing that is supposed to kill the victors at different hours of the day. For instance, there is poision fog in one sector during an hour and than the next hour in a different sector is jabberjay, which are birds that repeat every sound that they hear. The gamemakers in the movie really went out of their way for that arena. The CGI for the monkeys, poision fog, and the jabberjays was also really good that it is hard to tell that it is all fake.

The connection between the characters in the film is incredible. The actors did an incredible job of making the connection between the characters real. Katniss and Peeta’s connection in this movie just makes the film even better because the audience get to continue their love story. Their love story being explored in this film along with both going back into the games for the Quarter Quell makes the film incredible. 

Overall, I believe that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the best film of the series. The overall storyline and how that storyline was adapted to film is better than both Mockingjay films and even sorry to say this the first film. Catching fire is also my favorite book in the series so I genuinely enjoyed the way that they adapted it to film.