Hunger Games 5: have you spotted these nods to the films with Jennifer Lawrence?

WARNING – This article contains spoilers for “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird.”

In 2020, 6 years after the release of the last opus The Hunger Games: Rebellion Part 2, a prequel focused on the youth of President Coriolanus Snow, main antagonist of the tetralogy, is announced.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins published in 2020, the feature film is directed by Francis Lawrence, already working on 3 of the 4 films in the previous saga. The story takes place 64 years before the events of the first films.

The young Coriolanus, played by the British Tom Blyth, is the last hope of his lineage. The once rich and proud Snow family has now fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. As the 10th HUNGER GAMES approaches, he is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12, the poorest and most despised of Panem. The voice of Lucy Gray having captivated the public, Snow sees the opportunity to change her destiny, and will join forces with her to tip fate in their favor.

Although the feature film takes place before the adventures of Katniss, Peeta and Gale, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird is full of nods to the previous films. In the feature films carried by Jennifer Lawrence, we witness the fall of the Capitol while in this part we witness the creation of the games as they are in the previous opuses.

It is also on the occasion of the 10th Hunger Games that the mentors, who will become a central figure in the future, appear. But many other references to the early films appear in The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird.

For whom was the anthem of revolt “The Hanging Tree” written?

The first, and most obvious, is of course the famous song “The Hanging Tree. In the previous saga, Katniss performs it in homage to her father, a miner who died in an accident. In La Révolte, part 1, this song becomes the symbol of rebellion.

The prequel allows us to discover that it was Lucy Gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler, who wrote and composed this title. The latter wrote the song after witnessing the hanging of a rebel from the branch of a tree located in the center of District 12 and which has since been nicknamed “The Hangman’s Tree”.

Before being pushed into the void, the latter shouted the name of his fiancée, telling her to flee. A final sentence taken up and repeated over and over by the mockingjays created by the Capitol to spy on the districts. This scene inspired the young woman to write the first two lines of the song: “Do you want, do you want To find me at the big tree? Where the dead man screamed for his beauty to run away. Strange things were seen there. I would have liked. At midnight, to see you, at the hangman’s tree.”

We therefore discover that the song was written by Lucy for Coriolanus Snow. The revolt song from the previous films was actually a declaration to the future tyrannical President Snow.

“The Hanging Tree” is not the only title that we hear in the prequel and the tetralogy, since during a scene Lucy hums “Deep in the Meadow”. A lullaby that Katniss sings to her sister Primrose and to Rue in the arena .

Mockingjays

Important symbols of previous films and nickname given to Katniss Everdeen, mockingjays are very present in this prequel. We learn that they were created by the cruel Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), and sent to the different districts to monitor and report messages from potential rebels. The young Coriolanus will also use these birds…

Upon her appointment as tribute, Lucy curtsies to the assembled. A posture that Katniss Everdeen will take up again, 64 years later in the first Hunger Games. When presenting her talents to the judges, the heroine of the tetralogy bows after showing what she is capable of… A big fan of the books and films, Rachel Zegler also specifies about X (formerly Twitter), having completely improvised this scene.

“May destiny favor you !”

The 10th Hunger Games are presented by Lucky Flickerman (played by Jason Schwartzman), ancestor of Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), the official presenter of the Capitol.

In The Ballad of the Serpent and the SongbirdLucky also utters the phrase that would later become Effie Trinket’s (Elizabeth Banks) signature phrase: “May the odds be ever in your favor “https://www.allocine.fr/”May destiny favor you !”

The center of the arena of the 10th games, made up of rubble, following the rebel attack, is reminiscent of the cornucopia which will be at the center of the arena of future games. Director Francis Lawrencealso admitted to Today having tried to hide numerous nods to his previous films in the franchise. He also admits: “I placed a pointed bow with a quiver of arrows in the arena. When Snow walks through it and he sees it, it’s like a little wink to Katniss in the future“.

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Snow and the roses

In the previous saga, President Snow, played by Donald Sutherland, is obsessed with roses, which he cultivates. He uses it as a calling card to his enemies. We will also discover throughout the films that he also uses a genetically modified rose perfume in order to hide the smell of blood from his mouth. To maintain his power and position as President, Snow poisoned his opponents, but often drank the poison himself to avoid blame. He took an antidote, but it left sores, and the roses covered the smell of blood.

We learn here that this love for these specific flowers comes from his family. Her late mother wore rose perfume, and her grandmother (played in the prequel by Fionnula Flanagan) is obsessed with roses. Despite the Snow family’s precarious financial situation at the time, they grew white roses on the roof of their apartment building and took great care to preserve them during the war.

During his first meeting with Lucy Gray Baird, Coriolanus offers her a rose as a welcome. It is only in the saga with Jennifer Lawrence that these flowers become a negative symbol.

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Katniss 60 years before Jennifer Lawrence

Katniss does appear in the film, but not in the form of Jennifer Lawrence. During a scene where they are in the meadow, a friend of Lucy brings her an aquatic plant called “katniss”. Lucy then explains to Coriolanus that the roots of this plant with long green leaves shaped like arrowheads and small white flowers that grow around District 12, are edible.

At the end of the film, when Lucy understands that Coriolanus is going to betray her, she leaves the house under the pretext of going to pick katniss and disappears. We don’t know what happens to the character… Is she dead? Is this Katniss’ ancestor?

Hunger Games: The Ballad of the Serpent and the Songbird is to be seen in the cinema.