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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

2023 film directed by Francis Lawrence

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a 2023 American dystopian science fiction adventure film and a prequel to The Hunger Games.

We all do things we're not proud of to survive. Hey. We are gonna win this, Lucy Gray. We're gonna win this together.
Directed by Francis Lawrence. Written by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel book to The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.
You seem like a good man, Coriolanus Snow. It would have been nice to meet you under different circumstances.
Some of those kids were two years old when the war ended. The oldest of them were only eight. The Capitol is supposed to be everyone’s government now. It is supposed to protect all of us. I don’t see how making children fight each other to the death is protecting anyone.
You asked about the colors, Miss Dovecote? I want my enemies to see a rainbow of destruction engulfing the world. I'm not above using spectacle to create a little terror.
I used to think The Hunger Games were a punishment for The Districts. Then I thought they served as a warning to us here in The Capitol about the threat The Districts posed. Now I know the whole world is an arena. And we need The Hunger Games. Every year. To remind us all who we truly are.

Coriolanus "Coryo" Snow

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  • The Hunger Games, they're to punish the Districts. Those tributes don't have a choice.
  • My name is Coriolanus Snow, and welcome to your academy orientation.
  • Those words you speak. The people with whom you associate. And the style with which you present yourself.
  • Snow lands on top.
  • It's the things that we love most, that destroy us.

Lucy Gray Baird

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  • You seem like a good man, Coriolanus Snow. It would have been nice to meet you under different circumstances.
  • There's a natural goodness built into us all. No, really. We can either cross that line into evil, or not. And it's our last work to stay in the right side of that line.

Dr. Volumnia Gaul

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  • You're good at games. Maybe you'll be a Gamemaker like me.

Dialogue

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Casca: Enlighten me, Mr. Snow. What are your plans after these Games?
Coriolanus: I hope to go on to the University, sir.
Casca: Naturally. And if you fail to win the Plinth Prize, what then?
Coriolanus: We'd pay the tuition, of course.
Casca: Look at you. Your makeshift shirt and your too-tight shoes. Trying desperately to fit in when I know the Snows don't have a pot to piss in. Good luck with that poor little songbird.
Coriolanus: He's sabotaging us. That girl's not gonna win these Games. You saw her. She's underfed, unstable.
Tigris: The Dean said it's not just about winning.
Coriolanus: Everything is about winning. If not the Games now, then the crowd. Lucy Gray won't survive a minute inside that arena. So that means we have to make every second before then count. I'll get her to sing again.
Tigris: I wouldn't sing a note for you if I was her. I wouldn't do anything at all. Unless I could trust you.
Coriolanus: She's district, Tigris. She knows we hate her, and she wants us dead. How am I supposed to get her to trust me?
Tigris: Imagine it was your name that they pulled and you had been ripped from your home. I'd just wanna know that somebody still cared about me out here. Don't discount her just because she's district, Coryo. You might have more in common with her than you think.
Dr. Gaul: "Snow fell down in the cage, it fell down in the cage." You're good at games. Maybe you'll be a Gamemaker like me.
Dean Highbottom: That's if the Games continue at all.
Dr. Gaul: Oh, they'll continue. With performances like young Mr. Snow's in that zoo. I came to ask your star mentor a question. What are the Hunger Games for?
Coryo: They’re to punish the districts for their uprising, to commemorate the end of the war-
Dr. Gaul: "They're to commemorate"- blah, blah, blah, dull, dull, dull. Punishment can take myriad forms. Why not drop bombs, cancel food shipments, stage executions? Why games?
Sejanus: Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves whether or not they’re right in the first place?
Dr. Gaul: You have a problem with my Games?
Sejanus: Some of those kids were two years old when the war ended. The oldest of them were only eight. The Capitol is supposed to be everyone’s government now. It is supposed to protect all of us. I don’t see how making children fight each other to the death is protecting anyone.
Dr. Gaul: That sort of sympathy might interfere with your mentoring assignment.
Dean Highbottom: Perhaps the Capitol students are ill-suited to be mentoring tributes. Perhaps the Game’s time has passed.
Coryo: Dean Highbottom is wrong. My classmates, too. Maybe Sejanus is onto something here. Maybe we should be viewing those Tributes as human beings. I mean, you saw those kids in the zoo, they just... they just wanted to get to know Lucy Gray. If we need people to watch, we should be letting them get closer to the tributes before the Games. To make the stakes personal.
Dr. Gaul: Who will watch the Games if they care what happens to the Tributes?
Coryo: Everyone. If they thought the Tribute they cared about had a chance of winning. People need someone to root for and someone to root against. We need them to invest. And if we bend a few Capitol laws, we could even have them place bets. Look, I know Lucy Gray may not win in the arena but if you give her a chance, I would bet the Plinth Prize that she can win people's attention.
Dr. Gaul: I'd like you to write up a proposal of these thoughts tonight, Mr. Snow.
Clemmie: Wait. You mean you might actually use his ideas?
Dr. Gaul: If it'll help the ratings, why not.
Coryo: You trying to fatten that poor girl up so you can finally start taking bets? You think they'll give those kids a scrap if we don't give them a reason to do it? How do you think your tribute will have a chance if he can't eat?
Sejanus: He was my classmate. Back in Two.
Coryo: It's not your fault it's him.
Sejanus: See, I know. I'm so blameless, I'm choking on it. My father bought him for me, you know, at the Reaping, Just so he could show me that I could never go back to Two. But being Capitol is gonna kill me.
Coryo: So do something about it.
Grandma'am: It's starting again. This is how it begins. The war.
Coryo: It was my fault. I suggested we get closer to the tributes.
Grandma'am: You're just lucky that your songbird didn't peck out your eyes too.
Tigris: She's not a rebel, Grandma'am. She's just a girl.
Grandma'am: Trust me, that one hasn't been a girl in a long time. Outside this Capitol, they're savages, one and all. However, they may smile, she will use you. You must use her or you'll end up dead in the trees like your father.
[Coryo and Clemmie are walking up steps escorted by peacekeepers]
Dr. Gaul: Mr. Snow. Ms. Dovecote. Come and see my new babies.
Clemmie: Is there a point to the color?
Dr. Gaul: There's a point to everything, Ms. Dovecote, or to nothing at all. Which brings me neatly to your proposal. Which one of you actually wrote it?
Coryo: Well, there was-
Clemmie: I was inspired by Coriolanus yesterday, of course. His little betting idea. But the sponsorships and the gifts in the arena, those were all mine.
Coryo: Clemmie?
Dr. Gaul: So it's your sweaty handwriting on that page. Very impressive, Ms. Dovecote. Unfortunately, my assistant mistook it for trash this morning and lined the shelf of this very terrarium with it. So, please, Ms. Dovecote, retrieve it for us, won't you? So we might all consider your inspired ideas. Don't worry, my little predators are perfectly docile with those they can trust. So if they're used to your scent, if you've handled their food, for example, or if they've inhaled the sweat of your palm on a page, they'll leave you alone. [coldly] A new scent, however ... You'd be on your own, little girl. [stares Clemensia down] Retrieve it.
[Clemensia reluctantly reaches down into the tank; a snake bites her.]
Coryo: Clemmie! [Clemmie falls off the stand] Clemmie, no! No!
Dr. Gaul: You asked about the colors, Ms. Dovecote? I want my enemies to see a rainbow of destruction engulfing the world. I'm not above using spectacle to create a little terror. A strategy your classmate here articulated very well in his proposal. [grins at Coryo] They're good, your suggestions! I'm going to recommend my team implement as many as possible tomorrow.
Coryo: What? Will she die?
Dr. Gaul: The pleasure in breaking ground in one's research is one gets to find out. You better keep Ms. Dovecote's fate between us. I don't think her mother would be happy to learn how she caught this sudden flu. Now run along. You have an arena to promote and it's time for my milk and crackers.
Coryo: [Enters the zoo at night and calls Lucy who appears] Lucy Gray. Lucy Gray. Hey. You're alive. Those bombs, they have changed everything. They blew the walls out. So that means you can escape up into the stands. There's a hole down in the floor. Leads down to some tunnels. I've tried it and you can disappear down there. So the moment you hear that bell ring, you ignore the weapon in the middle and you run as fast as you can for that hole. And you find a place to hide down below. Alone.
Lucy: Alone? No.
Coryo: Yeah.
Lucy: Jessup's my friend.
Coryo: No. The moment that bell rings, you can't trust anyone. Not even Jessup. Just lay low down there until it's safe to come out.
Lucy: Thank you for taking care of me.
Coryo: I can't let you die. You saved me. You saved me, Lucy Gray.
Lucy: I'm sorry.
Coryo: Hey.
Lucy: I'm more hopeful during the daytime, but when it gets dark, I just...
Coryo: It's okay. It's okay. I am gonna get you out of here. I promise. Back to the Covey, okay? Is this real? Just tell me. If I'm gonna risk everything. That song...
Lucy: That song was payback, that's all. My old boyfriend, Billy Taupe, he was cheating on me with the mayor's daughter.
Coryo: The girl from the Reaping.
Lucy: Yeah, she got crazy jealous. She had her pa read my name up on that stage and now everyone will know what they did to me.
Coryo: Here. You take this.
Lucy: No, no, it's too fine.
Coryo: No, it is not a gift. It's a loan. What's in here, don't touch it. Don't even breathe it in because small amounts can be deadly. Look, I have seen what war does to people, okay? I've seen it. And there will come a time when you need this. When you need to act. We all do things we're not proud of to survive. Hey. We are gonna win this, Lucy Gray. We're gonna win this together.
[Coriolanus Snow visits a defeated Dean Casca Highbottom at The Academy]
Dean Highbottom: You grew a heart in the districts.
Coryo: No, not in the districts. In the Hunger Games. I should be thanking you.
Dean Highbottom: The credit for the Hunger Games goes to your father. Half of it, at least. I only dreamt them up as an assignment. A joke. I was drunk. Devise a punishment for our enemies so extreme they will never forget how badly they've wronged us. When I sobered up, I wanted to destroy it. But your father, my best friend, he'd stolen it from me. Put both our names on it, taken it to Gaul to rise up himself. I tried morphling the night that first child fell. I hoped the Games might die out. I tried to stop them however I could. But then you came along. Now, the blood of so many more generations will be on my hands. Because you've shown us the price people are willing to pay for a good show.
Dr. Gaul: [Coryo walks up to Gaul feeding eels in the Zoological habitarium] Congratulations, Mr. Snow. You've passed all my tests. I've asked President Ravinstill to grant you a full pardon, effective immediately. I also told him that you are too promising to waste in the military. So you'll be studying under me now at the Capitol University.
Coryo: I can't afford University.
Dr. Gaul: A certain Mr. Strabo Plinth has offered to pay for everything you need while you're there. All for being a good friend to his Sejanus. He doesn't know quite how good a friend you were, of course. I never made mention of your little recording. Quite impressive, how you sent your only friend to the noose just to get my attention.
Coryo: That's not what I did.
Dr. Gaul: Are you sure? Because I think that won you the Plinth Prize, after all. The President has agreed to another year of The Games. People watched. And I have to thank you for that. But before I take you under my wing, after everything you've seen out there in the real world, let me ask you one final time. What are The Hunger Games for?
Coryo: I used to think The Hunger Games were a punishment for The Districts. Then I thought they served as a warning to us here in The Capitol about the threat The Districts posed. Now I know the whole world is an arena. And we need The Hunger Games. Every year. To remind us all who we truly are.
Dr. Gaul: And who are you, do you determine?
Coryo: The victor.
Dr. Gaul: Welcome home, Mr. Snow.

Taglines

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  • Everyone hungers for something.
  • You're invited to return to the games.

Cast

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Wikipedia
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