When a movie franchise hits a natural conclusion, there can be a great deal of satisfaction when you finally see the end, but if it was a story that you love, there can also still be a desire to have more. The Hunger Games franchise reached its end, but there is a new story coming with the prequel movie The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes, and the first trailer showed us one specific nod to the original film, that Rachel Zegler says wasn’t in the original script.
If you've read the book then you know everything about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, including that it is set decades prior to the Hunger Games trilogy, and thus few of the characters that we know from the main series have even been born, but Rachel Zegler found a way to connect the two protagonists in her performance. The new trailer has a shot of Zegler bowing to the assembled masses when she is reaped, and the bow is reminiscent of a move Jenifer Lawrence made in the first film that's one of the trilogy's most memorable moments. Zegler admitted on Twitter that the bow was her decision.
this was an ad-lib :’) https://t.co/GWLYVFacwcApril 27, 2023
Fans in the replies absolutely loved the nod to the original film. They’re clearly excited to get a new chapter in the Hunger Games franchise. Zegler herself has shown she's a fan, she’s just as excited as anybody to be part of Songbirds and Snakes, even though Zegler originally turned down the role. So it’s not hard to believe that when handed a shot where she needed to bow to the crowd, she pulled out the same move as Jennifer Lawrence, it was probably a natural move on her part.
For many, it will be a simple easter egg, the sort of thing that most people won’t even notice, and those that do will just understand the callback and move on. Of course, if you want, you can also read more into it. Since The Hunger Games follows Songbirds and Snakes chronologically, maybe Katniss is actually making a reference of her own to Lucy Gray Baird. Maybe it’s a famous bow following the events in this story. Or maybe it’s a traditional District 12 bow.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will, of course, have a lot in common, as well as more than a few differences with The Hunger Games. Cornelius Snow, the President of Panem in the trilogy, played by Donald Sutherland in the original films, and whose voice is heard at the end of the trailer, is one of the main characters of the new movie, and the trailer shows us many of the elements from the trilogy that we certainly recognize, though they look quite different as well, because this is so early in the existence of the Hunger Games that nothing has evolved to the way we see it in the trilogy quite yet.
Fans are certainly excited for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. We’ll get to see all the ways the movie connects to The Hunger Games, both big and small, in November.
