The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes revealed what the Hunger Games were like before Katniss’ day, and this opens the door to even better prequel spinoffs. Since the original series focused on the 74th and 75th Hunger Games, and Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes featured the 10th, there are still 72 unexplored Games that the franchise could potentially follow. Any of these could mean an interesting prequel, but the best feature of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reveals which direction the next movie should go.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes followed a young President Coriolanus Snow, as he mentored during the 10th Hunger Games, and his experience here ultimately turned him into the despicable dictator of Katniss’ story. The prequel provided an excellent foundation for The Hunger Games, retroactively furthering the series’ exploration of the lengths humanity will go to for control, security, and survival. There’s little else to explore in the way of Snow and Katniss, but with so many years of Panem’s horrible Hunger Games, there are still many ways to explore the dystopian future created by Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Ending Explained
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes ends ambiguously for one major character. We break down the prequel’s ending & what’s next.
The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Depicts What Early Hunger Games Were Like
Perhaps the most striking difference between The Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is how the Games are executed. Though the entirety of the Hunger Games franchise is set far in the future, the events of Snow’s story take place only 10 years after Panem’s great war. Resources are low in the Capitol, and the Hunger Games are still in their early years. Therefore, the technology seen in the 10th Hunger Games is nowhere near what was seen in Katniss’ day. This means that everything real-world audiences had come to expect from observing the 74th and 75th Hunger Games was thrown out the window.
Rather than advanced arenas that were just as lethal as the tributes themselves, Lucy Gray and her competitors fought in a colosseum-style environment that provided little in the way of places to hide (especially before the bombing in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes). Additionally, it was Snow who suggested during the 10th Hunger Games that the Capitol citizens provide gifts to and bet on the tributes. Before this, the tributes had only weapons and a limited amount of time to kill each other. It was a very different, even more brutal event—something that may be worth exploring in future Hunger Games prequel projects.
A Prequel Movie About The First Hunger Games Would Be Even Better
The differences between The Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes have prompted curiosity regarding what the very first Hunger Games would have been like. Though only 10 years before Coriolanus got involved with the event, the hatred between the Districts and the Capitol would have been at an all-time high when the first Games were established, which certainly would have translated to the arena. Ultimately, a prequel exploring what this would have looked like has the potential to be even more devastating, heartbreaking, and, therefore, impactful than The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Moreover, a prequel centering on the 1st Annual Hunger Games would provide an opportunity for the Hunger Games franchise to introduce the leaders of the age. After Katniss’ war, when President Coin had all the surviving victors sit around a table and vote on the continuation of the Games, Katniss wondered if that was what it had been like when the first Hunger Games were established—a bunch of war-torn survivors voting to continue the violence. As well as exploring what the first year following the District Rebellion would have been like, a Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes prequel could finally answer Katniss’ question.
