Andy and Liz dive into the intriguing world of "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" in this chill summer Drive-In episode. Right off the bat, they explore how this prequel adds layers to the iconic series, shedding light on the origins of President Snow and the twisted society of Panem. With a mix of witty banter and insightful commentary, they dissect the film's themes of ambition, societal pressure, and the moral complexities of its characters. Liz admits she usually isn't a fan of prequels but finds herself captivated by this one, while Andy reflects on the clever storytelling and foreshadowing that keeps viewers engaged. Together, they unravel the film's nuances, comparing it to current societal issues, all while keeping the vibe relaxed and relatable.

Andy and Liz dive into the captivating world of 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,' exploring its rich themes and character arcs like a couple of popcorn-munching philosophers on a summer road trip. They kick things off with a casual banter about their initial reactions to the film, with Liz admitting her usual disdain for prequels, yet finding herself intrigued by the chaotic backdrop of Panem's society. Andy chimes in, noting how the film artfully unfolds the origins of President Snow, linking his rise to power with the twisted incentives and societal pressures that shaped him. They dissect the plot, revealing not just a story about survival, but a commentary on the human condition, ambition, and morality.

As they navigate through the narrative, Liz expresses her appreciation for how the movie refrains from fully humanizing its villain, instead presenting him as a product of a corrupt society. The duo debates the philosophical implications of Snow's choices, likening them to real-world scenarios where individuals compromise their morals for power, making the film resonate on a deeper level. With witty exchanges and clever insights, they manage to keep the conversation engaging while probing into the film’s commentary on class, ambition, and the dangers of a spectacle-driven culture.

Wrapping up, they reflect on their favorite scenes, with Liz highlighting the metaphorical 'zoo' moment that underscores the dehumanization of the tributes. Andy brings attention to the entertaining portrayal of Jason Schwartzman’s character, Lucky Flickerman, who injects a dose of levity into the otherwise grim narrative. Their discussion culminates in a spirited rating of the film, with Liz leaning towards a high score due to her desire to rewatch it, and Andy opting for a more tempered assessment. This episode serves not just as a review but as a thought-provoking exploration of cinema's ability to reflect and critique society, all while keeping things light-hearted and enjoyable.

Takeaways:

• Andy and Liz dive into the complexities of 'The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes', exploring its rich backstory and character motivations.
• The podcast emphasizes how the prequel humanizes President Snow without redeeming his character, making him more relatable yet still villainous.
• Listeners learn about the societal commentary embedded in the film, drawing parallels between the fictional Hunger Games and real-life social hierarchies and dilemmas.
• Andy shares his surprise at the film's foreshadowing and detailed plot mechanics that culminate in a compelling narrative experience.
• Liz and Andy discuss the transformation of the Hunger Games into a spectacle, highlighting the evolution of entertainment in the story's universe.
• The episode wraps up with insights on how current media reflects similar themes of competition and morality, resonating with contemporary audiences.

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https://systematic-geekology-shop.fourthwall.com/

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Check out all of our 2026 Prequels Summer Drive-In:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/c59b93c5-6aed-48ee-8e63-200ce912ffaa

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Listen to all of Andy's episodes:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/c86f7a67-357b-4324-bf95-e42cedb9932a

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We're live. Smile. It's why we have teeth. Welcome ecologists to systematic ecology to a Drive in Episode. A summer Drive in Episode. I'm Andy Walsh.

I am here with Liz and we are going to be talking about the Hunger Games prequel, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This is part of one of our several annual drive in series where we take a look at seasonally appropriate films.

This one's getting us into the summer kind of blockbuster, chill sort of movie. And for this series, we are looking at prequels as part of our Faces Behind Us series.

You can find a playlist of all of the movies and podcasts in this series. If you check out the show notes, the link there will be, send it to the playlist. You can hear all the other summer Drive in prequel discussions.

I know there's a Rise of the Planet of the Apes in there somewhere. There's almost certainly some kind of Star wars prequel. So, yeah, check out, see what all the different movies are going on there.

We'll just kind of jump right in here. We have, we've just gotten out of the film. What were your kind of first reactions to seeing this particular Hunger Games installment?

Yeah, I remember we very rarely will I go to the movies to see something, but with this, you just had to go, right. And I didn't want any spoilers, so I came, went and saw it as soon as it first came out. And usually I don't like prequels.

Once I know what has happened, I don't care what happened beforehand. Right. But with the way the Hunger Games was written, you just have. It's just such a hot mess, this society.

We have to know what happened before to create this hot mess. Right. And even then, it didn't even answer all of my questions. But it was such a good movie, it makes me like just want to watch it even more.

Or like no more storyline about the Hunger Games.

All right. You know, for me, I watched it just a few weeks ago in preparation for this episode.

I had seen the previous Hunger Game films more or less since they came out whenever that was. A number of years ago, my wife had read the books and so she was interested in them, but I had not checked out this prequel until now.

And yeah, you know, I thought it was, it was fine. And I thought, you know, mostly what kind of stood out to me was the very elaborate series of Chekovs snakes and different things that were set up.

There were whole lots of foreshadowing or a whole lot of plot mechanics that were kind of put in Place as the movie went along, that all sort of clicked in at the end. Some may be a little bit more successfully than others.

Wait, so you just saw this for the first time two weeks ago?

Yeah, two or three weeks ago. Something like that. Yeah.

That's crazy. Well, thanks for letting me choose the one prequel I enjoy.

Well, yeah. What kind of monster would it be if I said, no, we have to watch a prequel that you hate?

You made me watch the Hobbit or something. I did watch it. I just did not enjoy it. Yeah, don't hate me. I like Lord of the Rings, guys. Don't hate me.

Yeah, you know, I think there is room in the geek world for people who enjoyed the Lord of the Rings films and were less keen on the Hobbit films. I don't think that's a particularly outrageous take.

Just didn't want to get canceled.

Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you.

I. I would also say that even though they came out afterwards, they're not really prequels in the sense that, you know, the Hobbit was written for, like the story was written in. In a more chronological fashion. It's just that they made the movies in a different fashion, but.

Oh, I didn't know that.

At least I'm pretty sure. Maybe. Maybe I'm canceled.

Maybe. Sorry, all those Tolkien fans out there since your wife read the books. Was this book written after the first three Hunger Games?

Yes, the Hunger Games. This is a Hunger Games. True Hunger Games prequel in the sense that the book came out. And after the first few Hunger Games.

Movies, I chose a true prequel. I didn't even realize. Look at me go.

Yeah. Good job.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I don't know. I think there might have been some amount of. Well, those movies made a lot of money. Any chance you could write another book for us?

Could make it into another movie? I'm not sure, but it kind of had that vibe of.

Well, and it felt, I think, because she just did such a great job building this world that it feels very Purge esque. You know what I mean? Like, this could never happen.

But also, we're not too far from a reality where maybe, you know, like we can envision it happening.

So not to the extent of the Purgs, but I mean, we have the Olympics with other countries where we compete and try and see who's the best and all that kind of whatnot. So just like the competition and I mean, the social.

I'm trying to think of the socialism in there and just how the different classes like, it Just covers a lot of topics that are relevant in today's society.

Sure. So maybe I'll summarize for folks a little bit of the plot and then we can unpack those themes a little bit more.

So the Hungarian films were about a fictional dystopian society called Panem, where there's a capital region and then 12 districts of various sort of working class to middle class. They all kind of have one job. It's kind of a little bit of Star Wars.

Like each planet has one thing, each district is sort of one thing, and all in the service of the wealthy people in the capital. And there had been in the past, there had been some kind of revolution, and the districts lost and the capital won.

And to remind them of that, every year, two people from every district are sent to participate in the Hunger Games, where they all just kind of fight it out to the death until there's one person left standing. So the original books were, you know, like the 74th Hunger Games or something like that, and then the 75th Hunger Games, I think, something.

Something in that range. So here, now we're going back to the. Not the very first Hunger Games, but the. Was it the 5th or the 10th or something like that in this film.

And they're much more. Not exactly analog, but lo fi. Right. The first films, the Hunger Games had like digital holograms and robots and all kinds of fancy things.

It was sort of like a deathmatch in the holodeck. But this is much more just, here's an arena, here's some sticks with pointy edges.

And so we get the story of Cornelius Snow, who's the president in the later films, sort of his origin of how he went from a young student in the Capitol to being perhaps sympathetic to the cause of the districts, or maybe just doing it for opportunistic reasons, and then eventually becoming the terrible person that we see in the later films, played by Donald Sutherland. So, yeah, you know, in a nutshell, I guess that's. There's a love story there, you know, whether he.

Whether he really loves the young woman or not, or again, it's just kind of an opportunistic thing. She's in the Hunger Games, he's supposed to help her. So he invents a bunch of the things that we came to see later in the Hunger Games.

The idea of a person sort of sponsoring one of the tributes in the Hunger Games, the idea of sending Gifts to the. To the people in the arena as they're competing. The idea of sort of showing them off beforehand so that people would develop sympathy for them.

He kind of takes the Hyper games from being this, like, purely gladiatorial thing to a bit more of the spectacle that it was in the Jennifer Lawrence films. Is that fair?

And I would say it's fair. And what makes me enjoy this prequel. I've said it before, but usually I hate when you humanize villains. I just want to hate someone and be.

You know, not every villain needs a backstory. But they didn't really try and humanize President. They didn't try to, like, redeem President Snow, really, in the prequel.

They just kind of showed his story and, like, how he became who he was, but they didn't, like, really make excuses for it, which I kind of appreciated. But it is just crazy to think of someone so evil. He's just a part of the system. Like, he wasn't. Like, no one's.

This could be, like, really philosophical. Like, I don't believe no one's is born good or evil. You know what I mean? It's like a progression of growth, and it's what society makes them.

So just kind of seeing in his adolescence, in this prequel, how society shaped him, because he actually grew up really, really poor and, like, hungry, and he had to, like, pretend to be something he wasn't his whole life. And so this was his chance for, like, the taste of fame. Like, the taste of, like, kind of like the high society.

Because, yes, he was in a district that was, you know, prevalent in more of the other districts, like, because different districts had its rankings with social class, but he was the bottom of the top, if that makes sense.

And so I don't really know what that would feel like, but you can kind of just imagine how much of an outsider he felt, and then falling in love and getting betrayed and. Yeah, it's just. I still can't wrap my head around the whole movie. We should have had your wife on here, man.

I'm sorry.

You could have educated us so much.

I'd go get her, but she's in another state right now, so that's not gonna work.

Oh, yeah, no. Sad day.

Yeah.

I think you're right that there's a clear sense along the way that he is responding to various incentives in front of him, whether reluctantly, whether he's doing so with gusto. I think there's some room for interpretation. Right. How human of a did he start out as?

And did the system kind of warp him by presenting him with these twisted incentives. Was he always a little bit warped? Or maybe not always, but was he already warped by the time he becomes the main character of the story?

And that's why he responded to the incentives in that way. But yeah, there's definitely. It's not just this man always tries to find the most evil thing that he can do at any given moment.

No, he's responding to a system that is already somewhat in place and just trying to navigate what's the most advantageous for him in any given moment.

It makes me think of I watched some kind of politician show not too long ago and someone you go in bright eye, bushy tailed, wanting to make a difference. But in order to make a difference you have to so you're not eaten alive and spit out. You have to kind of play the system to get into the system.

But then a lot of the times, like with politicians, I mean we see it with doctors, lawyers, any of these high profile occupations, they end up becoming a part of the problem and not fixing it because the problem is so big. One person cannot fix health care. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like they want to do be a good doctor, but then the hospital and the CEO wants them to over bill and run up, run up their charge so they can make a profit. And so like what, what can you do? It's kind of like a similar situation which.

So that's why I think I like these movies so much because you can just relate them in today.

Like, I feel like obviously we won't be hopefully killing each other, but if they created some kind of like hierarchy system game or whatnot, I feel like society would just go completely for it and it would get out of control like it did in the Hunger Games.

Yeah, I mean there's definitely something to be said for allegorizing or adding a layer of metaphor to current issues so that it makes it easier for people to engage with them.

You can put aside a little bit of the oh wait, they're picking on me and engage at a level of ideas and abstractions rather than oh, it's me and my group that are being criticized or targeted and so forth.

But yeah, it is interesting to see how much he does he want, does he want to reform the system from the beginning or is that just a convenient stance to take as a young person among his peers? There seems to be some enthusiasm for that. So is he adopting that stance because that's what's politically favorable in the beginning? I don't know.

But yeah, you do kind of get the feeling of that. Of exactly that arc you described, of.

He might have some ambition of creating a better system for Panem when he starts out, but by the end of the film, he's very much committed to the status quo and whatever power it can provide for him.

Did you have a favorite scene or anything? I kind of.

I wouldn't call this my favorite scene, but when you were talking about how the first Hunger Game movies we saw, it was super futuristic and they were almost like death celebrities, if you will. That's just how much they got glorified down the road.

But with this one, as you said, it was more archaic, and I just thought it was very symbolizing. They would put their tributes in this one, in the early Hunger Games, in a cage.

And so they took away the humanity with these tributes in a way to make it feel like animals.

Yeah. I mean, they're literally in a zoo, or at least an enclosure that reads like a zoo at the start. And that's one of Snow's innovations.

It says, hey, maybe if we. If we humanize these people a bit more for the. For the audience of the Hunger Games, people engage more. Because one. You know, the.

The problem he's trying to solve is it, you know, we're five or 10 years into this experiment, and already people are. The ratings are dropping. People aren't. Aren't interested anymore.

They've lost their bloodlust a little bit or whatever it was that was getting them to tune in for the first few years. So how do we get people back in? And he approached that by building sympathy for the individual tributes.

And then he discovered that Lucy could sing, and so then that almost made it also more showy instead of just gory. So, I mean, really, he transformed the whole. The whole Games. And this one is the Songbirds. Remind me, is this before the other book?

Like, there's another book. My roommate tried to get me to read it, the one with Hamish story. Is this before Hamish story or after Hamish story? That movie's coming out.

Yeah.

My understanding is that this is before because that Hamish's story is about the concept of the Quarter Quell that they come up with, which in the first books and movies is very obviously, well, we did the Hunger Games, but you can only ever be a tribute once. So how do we have the climax of the second story also be a Hunger Games? And so you bring back past tributes to compete in an all Star tournament.

So, yes, I believe that book and the film that is coming out later this year. Next year, I think it's. Next. Later this year is. Yeah, that. That first sort of All Star Hunger Games.

I guess that makes sense because if I kind of think about how old Hamish is and how old Snow is, there's no way it was before.

Right.

So, yeah, this. So this is. Yeah. So this movie is so far the earliest you can see of.

Correct.

The society.

Correct. Okay, so you asked about a favorite scene. I mean, that zoo like, sequence where he discovers that she can sing is a very good one.

I think really my favorite thing about the movie, maybe less a scene and more just Jason Schwartzman's. He's playing Lucky. Lucky Flickerman, the TV host, the TV presenter of the broadcast of the Hunger Games in a precursor to Elizabeth Banks character.

He's clearly just having. Jason Schwartzman's clearly just having a grand old time hamming it up. And I was enjoying that along with me.

And, you know, even though he is also part of this very flawed and evil system, he's perhaps the most entertaining character. He's not actively murdering people or, you know, conspiring to murder people. And so he's just a little bit easier, a little bit easier to hate less.

And, you know, I guess that's part of his role in the story as well, right? Is to provide a sheen of entertainment and respectability to this, you know, murder show.

I wonder how we would be as a society because, I mean, if you think about it, people love the MMA fight scenes. And MMA is real, right? Boxing is. No, wrestling is fake, but MMA is real, right?

Well, I mean, there are forms of wrestling that are real, like in the Olympics and whatnot, but professional wrestling, you know, WWE and so forth. Yes, that is. That is scripted entertainment.

So why do people watch it?

Why do people watch any kind of scripted entertainment? Right? You know, it is. They. They are very good job.

They do a very good job of creating an entertaining product and creating characters that you want to root for and characters that you love to hate and all that. And yeah, just, you know, instead of it being, you know, a drama that the. A straight drama where the plot takes place in a.

In a school or a workplace, or what have you. The drama takes place in a ring and. Yeah. And they pretend to punch each other.

All right. Fun stuff. But, yeah, just kind of thinking back of like, what how would we be as a society?

I think of the gladiator, the games, and I think of people loving the MMA fighters and stuff. I. It's kind of scary how close you could change.

Yeah. Or, you know, I mean, again, maybe I'll. I'll get canceled for this, because I'm sure these shows have their fans, but, like the. The Mr.

Beast Game Show. The Squid Game. Not the. Not the scripted Squid game show. But then. But Netflix created some kind of.

I forget exactly what it was called, but it was like, you know, the real Squid Game sort of thing. And, you know, they're not intentionally setting out to kill people. And as far as I know, they.

You know, no one has actually been that seriously harmed in these things. But, you know, even Survivor to a certain extent has it, like, part of what makes it compelling, whether it's real or not.

And it's probably more like professional wrestling than, like, MMA fighting, if we're honest about the level of peril on some of these things. Nevertheless, what they're selling it on is that you could watch somebody come to serious harm.

You could watch somebody have some of the worst moments of their life on this desert island or in this maze pit, whatever. I haven't watched any of the MrBeast show other than the advertisements that come up on the. My Fire Stick when I log in.

But there was clearly a lot of criticism for that, about the lack of concern that it had for its contestants, the outrageous nature of the games that they're coming up with.

So it's not hard to imagine that even without creating an entire dystopia, that we could keep pushing that kind of entertainment to the point where actually now something has gone tragically wrong.

Yeah. And I think about all the. The views because I've seen a few of them, like, whenever, like, with YouTube or TikTok was like, don't watch.

This is graphic. But it still has like 1 billion views. And it's like murder and all that. People. I mean, people love the true crime documentaries. It's just.

Yeah.

Which is not wrong. Like, you know, I love watching Law and Order, but I know it's fake at the end of the day. Well, it's not fake. It's based on true events.

But it's just. It's crazy to think about how this came from someone's mind. And it was a really good prequel with like, it didn't feel like fabricated for.

To fit the other three movies. It felt like it just flowed really well, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, I think. I think it's integrated well. There's maybe a little bit much of the. And here's the origin for this. And here's the origin.

I think where it lost me was the origin of Katniss Everdeen's name, the Jennifer Lawrence character. Her name. Like, they call this plant swamp potatoes or whatever, but I like to call it Katniss. Like, oh, okay.

We don't have to have the origin story for every last element of.

Yeah, they did that with a lot of the musical tones too.

Right. The music and the jabber Jays. Like, everything that, you know, was distinctive about those first films has some origin here.

But thinking of origins and faces behind. We want to wrap up soon here, but I wanted to think a little bit more about the influences on Snow's character.

So we have Viola Davis character, who is sort of the current political leader. Got Peter Dinklage's character. He's sort of the guy who's behind the Hunger Games or engineering the Hunger Games.

And then we have Snow's absent father, who's passed away, all kind of loom large and its influences in his life. Did you have any kind of thoughts about who was most significant or whether those influences were beneficial or not?

I mean, I feel like none of the influencers own. Snow's life has been influential. Maybe his little sister kind of motivated him to work harder.

But because of that, because, I mean, at the beginning of the movie, he's pretty much giving her his food and he's going hungry. So it shows that he's kind. And it also just influences, like once he gets all this power to take care of his family, he doesn't want to lose it.

And then, yeah, the. The three you named, I can't think of any.

Like, because it's been a while since I watched the movies because when I try to find it, I couldn't find it for free to watch. It was very sad. It's fine. If you want to share pirating sites, I do not condone pirating, but you can tell me where to watch it guys in the comments.

But I just feel like the society as a whole just influenced him. I remember whenever he's talking to his friends, keeping up with the Joneses, it's no one thing that created his personality or one person.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that kindness that you mentioned maybe comes from his grandmother who seems to be the one that's raising him and his sister.

But I think it's interesting because there's sort of a negative space element to it. Right. There's clearly the. Viola Davis is mentoring him in a certain fashion.

I think Peter Dinklage is sort of trying to mentor him, but kind of in a negative way, like pushing him away from certain things rather than steering him towards something. And maybe that's why he ultimately fails, because he doesn't have a good alternative to offer. He's just sort of saying, no, don't do that.

But I think there's also a real negative space in terms of he maybe needed more of his father's influence in his life, but his father isn't there. All right, well, we just want, you know, we like these Drive in episodes to be kind of quick hits, quick dives into these stories.

So I think unless you have any final parting words on Battle of Songbirds and Stakes, maybe we can wrap it up there.

No, I think we're good. I mean, I'm ready to rate and review it.

All right. Well, yeah, on a. On a scale of 1 to 10, what kind of rating would you give this?

Because I always do it based on my desire to watch it again. Because I can watch a good movie, but if I only watch it once, you can't be that high.

Right.

So I'm gonna do like a 9 because I really want to watch it. And I did watch the first three Hunger Games not too long ago in preparation for this episode, but then I couldn't find this one for free.

I was very sad. I should just rent it. It's not that much money.

Fair enough. I'd probably more in the like 7 range, I think. You know, it was fairly well done. The.

The snake biology maybe got a little bit goofy for me, but that's a topic for another time. But yeah. So. Well, you know, that's our rating for the movie.

You can also rate and review our podcast wherever you are downloading this, and we always appreciate that. And if the folks want to have a cool, refreshing beverage as they're watching their summer Drive in movie.

Do you have a flavored tea or lemonade that you would recommend?

Well, yes. I can't remember if this one's shown on YouTube or not, but if you guys have been watching, I've been downing a Sprite zero.

That is my beverage of choice at the moment. So not tea or lemonade. Sprite Zero.

It's kind of a lemonade.

Yeah. It has lemon lime.

Yeah.

Artificial flavor Exactly.

Well, I. You know, as.

Your wife would be proud.

I'd like to think so. Thank you. All right. Well, again, thanks for. Thanks for listening. Check out the other episodes in our summer Drive in series for more prequel fun.

And remember that if you're going to geek, do it systematically.