MOCKINGJAY won't fill you up, but it's a good meal while it lasts.

If you thought the ending of last year's CATCHING FIRE was abrupt, be forewarned that its follow-up, MOCKINGJAY PART 1 comes to an end just as suddenly. This third HUNGER GAMES film is a bit like half of a meal that's is suddenly cleared from the table by the busboys mid-course.

But it's a good half of a meal.

We pick up right after we left off at the end of the prior film. Katniss's rebellion in the games has sparked an uprising. Katniss's home district, District 12, has been destroyed and the rebellion has set up shop underground in District 13. The district President, Coin (played by Julianne Moore) wants to use Katniss as a propaganda tool to keep hope alive in other districts long enough for them to move on the Capital and President Snow.

Snow has his own propaganda tool, Katniss's partner in the Games and her showmance lover, Peeta. His fame is quickly put to use at both discrediting the rebels and breaking their spirit. In a televised interview, he denounces the revolt and urges everyone to surrender. Most of District 13 immediately brands him a traitor, but Katniss is convinced he's being forced to say these things. She submits to her usual role as a PR tool after extracting a promise that the rebels will rescue Peeta as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

And that's really all that PART 1 deals with. It's a half-measure towards resolution as we see the immediate consequences of that set-up play out, but the big chess moves feel like they're being saved for next year's finale. This often makes for a movie that feels like just another episode in the middle of one TV season's long arc.

The more claustrophobic production design adds somewhat to that feeling. A great deal of the film takes place in the underground bunker that houses the last 10,000 or so survivors of District 12. It makes for a striking contrast with the aggressive opulence of the Capital or the wild beauty of the Games habitats in the first one, but it still calls to mind the sorts of "bottle shows" that a series will do when it needs to save money.

The TV series feeling also comes from the fact that this is a film that depends very much on our memories and emotional ties with the earlier films in the series. Details like Katniss's bond with Peeta, her simmering feelings for Gale and her complicated alliances with Plutarch and Haymitch all pretty much are taken for granted by the filmmakers.

Earlier this year I remarked how surprised I was that my previously-uninitiated wife was able to watch X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST and not be hindered by the backlog of continuity because of how well everyone was (re) introduced. I doubt that's a feat that could be repeated as effectively by MOCKINGJAY. This won't be a problem for most viewers, but it contributes to the feeling that this is less of its own movie.

The film's biggest asset is no shock, though. Jennifer Lawrence gives as much to her role as Katniss Everdeen as she has for any role that she's been nominated for. One advantage of the film's limited scope and slower pace is that it's able to really hone in on Katniss's emotional arc here. As I discussed in my CATCHING FIRE review, the great thing about Katniss is that she wasn't "born special," it's her actions that ended up defining her as the flashpoint for revolution. As she herself says, she didn't want any of this. This all started to keep her sister alive, and then later to keep Peeta alive.

The big reason that the HUNGER GAMES saga has remained so compelling is that it all hinged on Katniss's agency. She makes a choice and choices have consequences. That one moment in the first film where she volunteers as tribute is what brought all of this about. Katniss isn't a leader, or at least, she didn't set out to be one, but she inspired so many. She's never fully embraced her icon so much as she's allowed others to exploit it. The Katniss everyone wants to follow is a pure media creation, or at least a distortion of her.

With different writing, or possibly even a different actress, Katniss's continued rejection of her role in this might be read as whining. Lawrence plays it so raw and real throughout that you can't help but be moved by her fear and horror at all that has come from her few acts of defiance. We don't often get to see a hero spend as much of the film as clearly traumatized and shell-shocked as Katniss is here and it's an approach that makes the audience identify more emotionally with the story as well. Katniss's vulnerability is the film's greatest strength and it makes the moments where her resolve does emerge feel that much more emotional.

I've not read the books (no spoilers please) but this chapter made me feel certain that even if Snow is deposed, drawn and quartered, there is no happy ending in the offing. Katniss has lost so much that any victory is bound to feel Pyrrhic to her. I don't see the final chapter ending with an elated celebration like the Rebels and Ewoks partying after blowing up the Death Star.

Not that we wouldn't be tempted to cheer should Donald Sutherland's President Snow meet a particularly gruesome end. I don't want to give away some of the few real surprises in the film, but Snow stands reveals as pure malevolent evil by the end of this film. I'm not the biggest Donald Sutherland fan, and I think there's a good stretch of his 90s filmography where he was basically sleepwalking through sinisterly-twinged roles (Outbreak being a good example.) I saw some of that in the first two films but in this one... this one Snow is a guy who you want to see dead. You want every one of the main characters to line up and get a shot at bringing the hurt to this guy.

One of Snow's evil plans leads to the film's biggest shock (which I won't describe here.) It's a twist made more potent by the decision to only make brief shifts to show the Capital's perspective. We're confined to seeing mostly what Katniss sees, and the film uses our uncertainty about what Snow knows and doesn't know to great effect. Elements like that give the final act enough of a sting that this movie doesn't feel like a total exercise in table-setting for the final chapter next winter.

There's no denying that the film ends abruptly, too abruptly to allow the movie to get any sense of closure within this particular chapter. It's a bit like if Return of the Jedi was two films and the first of those ended with Luke leaving to surrender to Vader.

I really hope that we aren't going to start seeing more of this sort of approach in franchise storytelling. The further I get from Guardians of the Galaxy, the less I like the fact that Thanos was paraded in for a fan-service cameo that exists mostly to establish him as a force in later films. I think he might have carried more mystique as an off-screen presence ala the Emperor and Jabba the Hutt in the first Star Wars. If you saw GOTG, your biggest impression of supposedly the most fearsome bad guy in the universe was that he sits on a hovering stone throne all-day. We don't even check back in with him after his minions fail. Though at least Guardians was a pretty decent film. Amazing Spider-Man 2 showed this sort of sequel-seeding at its worst.

MOCKINGJAY shows another peril of franchise-storytelling - that feeding your audience half a meal may leave them hunger, and not always in the best way. There's a lot here that keeps the film alive, but repeat viewings might exacerbate that "mid-season episode" feeling and that could have an impact on the enthusiasm for the conclusion. If nothing else, I hope that other franchises take note of why this gambit is successful in some ways and realizes just how easily this could have been a major misstep

CATCHING FIRE and why Katniss Everdeen is a too-rare heroine

Hunger Games heroine Katniss Everdeen is the sort of female hero I wish we saw more of in popular culture.  She's the female protagonist who drives the plot specifically through her actions and her decisions.  Her "specialness" is not her birthright, it's because she has made choices that have fostered far-reaching consequences. 

This stands in stark contrast to many heroines in Young Adult literature who are often born "special" or "different."  They don't have to do anything to earn their position as "Girl Who Would Change the World."  Before Catching Fire, I saw a trailer for the upcoming Divergent, which appears based on a similar sort of idea. The heroine of that series is subjected to a test that is meant to declare her proper role in society.  Apparently in this dystopian future, the free will to choose one's own path has been stamped out in favor of letting "the test" determine that. Much to her shock, our heroine learns that the test "didn't work on you," setting up a story that surely will place her in opposition to society, probably as part of a revolution.

A brewing revolution is also at the heart of Catching Fire, but in this case it's not because Katniss was born with a defect, or because she's a special snowflake.  Here it's specifically the fallout of her defiance at the end of the first Hunger Games.  By being willing to die rather than play the Game the way her leaders demand, Katniss has become a symbol of defiance against the oppressive government.  This puts President Snow in a difficult position. He cannot tolerate the seeds of revolution, but Katniss is too popular among the people for him to move against her directly.

The opening act of the film does a good job of laying out the early rumblings of rebellion. Snow's new Gamemaster, the absurdly-named-even-for-this-series Plutarch Heavensbee (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), suggests that Snow first attack Katniss as a symbol. "Show them she's not one of them anymore." When it appears that long-game is taking too long, Plutarch pushes Snow to another action, cut all the champions of the Games down to size by making 24 of them participate in what amounts to an all-star match-up.  If everything goes to plan, it will eliminate the Champions as potential instigators of insurrection and force Katniss to either get her hands dirty or die.

That's a strategy that works only if the Champions are willing to toe the party line, and it's evident from the early media tours it's clear that most of them have no interest in being the Capital's dancing monkeys.  There's a thrilling sense of inevitability here.  What Katniss has brought about is too large to be put down by any government edicts or propaganda.  Before the onlookers may have bought into the lie that this bloodsport had some honor to it, this time the political strategery reeks of bullshit a mile away.  Every move Snow makes seems likely to only incite further defiance.

And all because of one girl who volunteered herself as tribute in order to save her sister.  Everything in The Hunger Games saga goes back to that one moment.  It's not an act she was fated to take. It's not an action she was born to make, and it's not something she took on because she was special in some way.  It's a moment of pure free will, and it plants the seeds of further resistance in the name of free will.

One girl can change the world, and not because she's destined to from birth - but because she is capable of having an impact beyond her station.

Twilight merely asserts that Bella is somehow special because the vampires can't read her mind.  Later entries in the saga further this concept of her "specialness" by having her become pregnant with a vampire's child.  Bella doesn't have to really earn her place as the girl who changes her world. She merely has to show up and play out a predetermined script, in a way.  It's the polar opposite of how Katniss becomes the axis her world turns on.

Not that the "destined hero" doesn't have its place, or is inherently bad.  Buffy certainly would fall into that catagory and she's an excellent female protagonist.  What helps there is that even though her powers are her birthright, the series was often shaped by the consequences of how Buffy made use of that power.

I get why many young adult leads might share this "born special" idea.  At that age, everyone feels like an outsider.  It can be a great metaphor of how teenagers feel like they are special even as they're forced to fit in with the crowd.  It's a power fantasy, even if the subtext of "the people who change the world were fated to it, so nothing the non-chosen ones do matters" is a bit disturbing.

But if there were more heroines who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I enjoyed much of Catching Fire, though I have to confess I've never read any of the novels.  This seemed to work in my favor during the first film, as I came away with a more positive reaction than many of my friends who were devotees of the source material.  This is definitely the Empire Strikes Back of this series, right down to the darker tone, larger scope and bleak cliffhanger.  When the film faded to black, I couldn't believe I'd have to wait a year to see the next chapter.

Having said that, I'm fully aware that my reaction would be very different if the following chapter wasn't a certainty.  These days, you can't take it for granted that a film will perform well enough for a follow-up, not even if the original movie is based on a successful series of books.  Just ask anyone involved with The Golden Compass.

The first Hunger Games could have worked as a standalone film. If it somehow had bombed, you could still walk away from that movie feeling you got a complete story, much the same as how the the original Star Wars could easily stand on its own.  Catching Fire - like Empire Strikes Back - is very much an Act Two.  There's enough meat that it doesn't feel like it's only there to set up the third part, but I'd be lying if I said it provides much closure or resolution.

In fact, there are so many sudden reveals in the film's final ten minutes that I'd probably tear into the film under any other circumstances.  A lot of very important stuff is unexplained, though I'd wager that much of it will be laid out in the third chapter, as it ends up being explained to Katniss.

BIG SPOILERS BELOW

In case you're curious what those issues are:

- Plutarch Heavensbee has been on the side of the good guys all along?  How did he get Haymitch to trust him? How was Finnick brought into the scheme?  Should we really trust either of these guys?

- How did the aforementioned steal the aircraft that picked up Katniss and Beetee? Does the Capital know about this and if not, why did they apparently send a second craft that nabbed Peeta and Johanna?

- Much confusion about Beetee's motivations in splitting up Peeta and Katniss during the climax.  The way things went down, Katniss improvised on the fly and brought the house down, but what was the "real" plan? Why make Katniss deliberately suspicious by seeming to send her and Peeta into separate traps?  Since she knew to cut out Katniss's "tag," Johanna was definitely in on the plan, which makes me even more curious about how all of this came together.  This is one area that I think could have written and revealed more smoothly.

(By the way, if these are explained in the novel or subsequent novels, don't tell me. I'll see how Mockingjay handles these points next year first.)

There's a lot in the climax that has the appearance of coming together too neatly.  Knowing that at least some of it was part of a plan helps, but there are a few wildcards within that plan that are inviting me to nitpick.  The series has earned my trust that much of this will be explained, so I'm not letting it get to me too much.

But know that if you are writing a script that has some of these issues, you will NOT get the benefit of the doubt.  As I've said before, never write a spec script that ends with "To Be Continued."  Don't end a script with so many character's motivations in confusion as they are here.  The filmmakers wouldn't have taken that big of a risk in the first movie.  They had to earn that chance.  If you're submitting a spec, you haven't gotten the same cred, and thus, judgement will be harsher.

Overall, I think I enjoyed Catching Fire even more than the first film.  This time around it was less irritating that circumstances kept Katniss from having to get too cold-blooded in the Games.  The last time around it was drilled in pretty hard that anyone who wasn't on Team Katniss was an outright asshole who probably deserved to die even outside the battle royale situation.  Katniss seems to end up with even less blood on her hands this time around, but the overall morality feels less manipulative than before.

The filmmakers have definitely raised their game here and hopefully they'll push it even further in the two-part finale, the first of which is set to open next winter.

The Purge: reject the premise, reject the movie

"I don't buy it."

Those are four words no writer likes to hear, and yet they are a fairly common reaction after reading a spec.  I've read plenty of scripts where one of the most significant reasons I decline to pass it on is that I simply cannot accept the conceit of the story.  This is significant because I believe most readers do enter a story with a willingness to accept much of it on its own terms.  An audience is usually willing to accept the reality with which they are presented.

What usually threatens to pop that suspension of disbelief is when the characters or the premise act counter to human nature.  This is particularly dangerous when the setting is recognizable and familiar to the audience.  They know human nature and they have a pretty good idea what a normal person would do in a situation that feels like their daily life.

But if you have a seemingly normal person in a setting that's almost normal except for one MAJOR difference - then that puts you in an "uncanny valley." The audience might perceive phoniness in the conceit and that often leads to an outright rejection of it.

And that is why I'm not likely to see the upcoming release The Purge.  Watch the trailer.


I admit it's a trifle unfair to judge a film by its marketing components.  But then again, this is the material that's designed to get me to plunk down my $14.  As I watch that trailer, all I can think is "I don't buy it."  And this is coming from someone who's a sucker for contained thrillers.

The hurdle for me is that I can't wrap my brain around a society that would say, "Hey, for one night a year, anything goes! Murder, rape, robbery... and then come sun-up, we're all cool with it."  I reject the idea that a functional society would even attempt such a thing.

And then, to put forth the notion that somehow this one night of blood lust apparently gets all of this out of everyone's systems so much that the rest of the year is a utopia?  It's hard to imagine human nature working that way.  So I don't buy that people would be on board for this, and even if I did, I don't buy that it would work.  (Interestingly, I had the exact same issue with a pilot this season that failed to get a series order - perhaps for that very reason.)

But let me point out a counter-example that I did accept.  The Hunger Games is based on the premise that once a year - 12 districts each offer up two children to compete in a battle royale to the death.  This competition is treated with all the pomp and circumstance of a Super Bowl.

On its face that seems just as absurd as the things I attacked The Purge for. So what's the difference?  The world presented in The Hunger Games does not look like our own.  The Purge seems to be set in modern suburbia (despite the note that it's about a decade in the future.)  All of society is completely upended in Hunger Games, to the point where the United States doesn't exist anymore.  The cultural and visual distinctions are enough to give the viewer the emotional distance so they're not constantly thinking "this would never happen."

If any of you DO end up seeing The Purge, let me know if the movie makes the idea more palpable than the trailer does.

Is The Hunger Games manipulative in its morality?

Like many of you, I saw The Hunger Games this weekend.  As someone who had never read the books, I rather enjoyed the movie.  I want to issue a fair warning that this post is going to be full of spoilers.

My usual policy is to not read reviews for movies I know I'm going to see, then to binge on the reviews, post-viewing.  Delving into the write-ups, I was unsurprised to see that they trended largely positive, save for the usual whining from book devotees regarding details that were changed or abridged for the sake of adaptation.

Ah, but there was one extremely negative review from Scott Mendelson.  It's an interesting read and I encourage everyone to take a look at it.  He raises a point that I admit, had occurred to me mid-film.  It seemed rather convenient over the course of a fight-to-the-death tournament, the deaths that Katniss causes are all either indirect or in self-defense.

Mendelson makes the same observation:

Almost from the start, the film divides up its contestants into two groups: the 'nice kids' who are almost never shown killing anyone and the 'bad kids' who not only kill onscreen but relish the opportunity.
 
 Led by Cato (Alexander Ludwig), a tall, muscular young man who is immediately tagged as 'the main villain', half of the surviving contestants formed what can only be described as a 'posse of evil', as they hunt down and trap the other 'sympathetic' contestants. Not only are these kids efficient killers, they seem to be outright psychopaths, taunting our heroes and doing all they can to create audience animosity... At no point do any sympathetic contestants get their hands uncomfortably bloody. 

[...] The film does not ask us to stare point-blank at the horror implicit in its premise, but rather pick sides, cheer for your heroes, boo for the villains, and thrill when the contestants you don't like get bumped off ("Take *that*, bitch!" the audience all-but shouted). Moreover, the sympathetic contestants never have to behave in morally messy ways, with Katniss only directly causing a single (self-defense) death, and indirectly causing another death via bee-sting. Co-survivor Peeta escapes without a single explicit kill to his name (Katniss and Peeta are both involved in Cato's climactic death without either of them being directly responsible for it). After establishing Thresh as a sympathetic character (he spares Katniss's life 'just this once' because she tried to protect Rue), he is eaten off-screen by CGI beasts who show up right at the end purely to allow the two remaining contestants to be killed with without dirtying Peeta or Katniss's hands. 

Remember, these people are not 'good guys' and 'bad guys', they are all impoverished children who have been kidnapped from their homes and forced to fight each other to the death for entertainment of the '1%'. The idea that we should have any favorites or that we should take any joy in the proceedings makes us as culpable as the would-be oppressors. And the fact that the film so readily divides up the contestants as such in order to promote an easily-digestible narrative shows how fraudulent it is no matter what relevant social issues it pertains to bring up.

Is the film manipulative on those points? Yes, that's a fair point.  But I can also easily justify the black-and-white morality to a certain extent.  It makes sense to me that the Tributes would fall largely into two catagories: fighters and flee-ers.  Of course, not every kid who envisions themselves a fighter is probably capable.  Thus, when the Games start, the more pacifistic among them head for the hills.  The rest of the tributes engage in the fight to the death, where it makes sense that the stronger and more brutal would survive.

Cato's pretty cleanly depicted as a sociopath, I won't dispute that.  The blonde girl on his team is equally demented, a blood-thirsty bully.  But I have a hunch that the rest of their pack might just be in it as an effort to survive.  You see this in school cliques a lot - one or two cruel bullies has a crowd of admirers who aren't evil, but just find it safer to join the pack than be an individual and risk becoming the next target. 

It might have been interesting to have Katniss end up facing one of those members, and then we'd really see how far they want to push kill-or-be-killed. But on the other hand, perhaps the "good" Tributes are good because they don't have the stomach to fight directly.  What's wrong with showing that these kids are horrified by The Games?  Wouldn't the kids who dive in head-first necessarily be less morally admirable than the kids just trying to survive?

This is putting aside the fact that early on it's mentioned that the kids are at least as likely to die of exposure than in battle.  I'd say that's a pretty good indication that the Tributes often try to run and hide.  The others, when pushed, revert to a more animal behavior.

If the film was over three hours long, maybe it would have been possible to explore some of the kids in depth before the Games begin, thus giving us an appreciation for how this barbaric situation corrupts some of those players.  At the end of the day, though, this is Katniss's story and all that really matters is how this affects her.

Is the depiction of the other players manipulative? Sure. But is manipulative always bad? Maybe not.  If Katniss reveled in her kills, she wouldn't be Katniss.  Her character is consistent and in the end, she's ready to basically commit suicide rather than kill in cold blood a combatant she care about.  That right there should tell us that the only situation where she'd kill is where she has literally no other choice.

I admit - it IS convenient that this is also the course that preserves her likability.  But hey, it's justified in the story.

Just my thoughts - what do you think?  (And let's try to confine discussion to the events as depicted in the film rather than the book.)