Gamesmakers Rejoice Over Sunrise on the Reaping: Capitol will Love Games!

April 15, 2025 by 4 Comments

Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate’s Gamesmaker-in-Chief for their movie adaptation of Sunrise on the Reaping, is thrilled to death about the second prequel. Why? Listen in to his over the top excitement about the project:

In a nutshell, he’s totally excited about the second prequel because it is so unlike the first prequel, Songbirds and Snakes.

The problems with that book were (1) that it featured a character, Coriolanus Snow, who was despicable and audiences quite rightly struggled to “get behind” him and (2) the technology of the Hunger Games death match was relatively primitive. There wasn’t a lot of pod-induced mayhem or Muttation-generated terror in the Arena killing field.

Which is to say that Lawrence is delighted that the new book brings us back to Catching Fire level technology and Gamesmaker horrors for the Tributes who are fighting for their lives as entertainment for the Capitol audience.

This is beyond satire, no? Collins is writing novels that depict the evils of the Gamesmakers and the psychopathic illness of those who enjoy watching their death festivals — and the movie makers who adapt those novels into films have exactly the same priorities as the villains (and the movie-goers as the mindless citizens?) in the novels.

This isn’t new to the series; it’s been a constant since the first Lionsgate production. See Gamesmakers Hijack Story: Capitol Wins Hunger Games Again from 2012 for proof of that. What’s groundbreaking here, I think, is the ‘saying the silent thing out loud’ quality of Lawrence’s enthusiastic comments.

It’s Holy Week here at HogwartsProfessor, which means that we’re taking some time off for travel, worship, and reflection about the future of HogwartsProfessor.com. Saturday’s post, a Haymitch clip from the original movie that has new resonance in light of Sunrise (see below for the best part of that), was the 250th of daily pieces since last August. We’re due a break and the weblog deserves a re-imagining.

More on that next week. In anticipation of the Feast, Kalo Pascha!

Filed Under: Hunger Games

Hunger Games: Meeting Haymitch

April 11, 2025 by 1 Comment

Really, every Haymitch Abernathy scene in the first three Hunger Games novels has to be revisited in light of the revelations of his back story in Sunrise on the Reaping.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Sunrise on the Reaping: Structure Notes

April 10, 2025 by 5 Comments

I have explored the structure of the first three Hunger Games novels, the Katniss Everdeen trilogy, and it’s worth a quick review of the approaches I found most helpful before we make the deep dive into Sunrise on the Reaping, the second prequel novel.

First the only thing Collins has said about structure in her few interviews was this:

This is standard three act drama language:

Inserting Mockingjay’s plot points into this structure, we find a neat fit: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hunger Games, Ring Composition Tagged With: , , ,

Sunrise on the Reaping: Travel Thoughts

April 9, 2025 by 2 Comments

My wife and I are just back from five days outside Albany, New York, and I’m excited about writing up my first thoughts on the structures of Suzanne Collins’ Sunrise on the Reaping and the several possible interpretations of Louella/Lou Lou, Haymitch’s “sweetheart.”

Tonight, though, due to unpacking and laundry responsibilities, I want to share the picture above — I was in Orlando’s airport bookstore and noticed they didn’t have any copies of Sunrise; my wife guided me to the front of the store where the above display was clearly for the book-of-the-month — and a story.

We stayed at a hotel near the Albany airport on our way home because the flight was scheduled for very early in the morning. When I checked in, the very pleasant woman at the front desk said, “Oh, you have stayed with us before; welcome back.” I explained that this wasn’t possible because I had not been in Albany except for a brief stop at my wife’s friend’s home outside the city on our honeymoon in 1987. She insisted that she recognized my face and my name.

She was clearly no older than her mid-forties, so I took out the card holder my second daughter gave me when she graduated from college (we went to the same college).

I asked the woman at the desk if she loved to read books, especially better fiction. She allowed that she was an avid reader. I gave her my ‘Dean of Harry Potter Scholars’ card and said, “Among a very small group of very serious readers, I am a niche celebrity.” She looked at the card, smiled, nodded, and asked me if she could keep the card or if I wanted her to take a picture of it and give it back. I said she could keep it, took the magnetic key-cards for the room, and thanked her for her help. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Hunger Games Tagged With: ,

Ten Things You Didn’t Know about ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ (2012)

April 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment

A good friend last week wrote to me saying that he had been invited to give a talk about Harry Potter at a local bookstore and he was flummoxed about how to introduce the ring composition idea without using PowerPoint slides projected on a screen. The bookstore didn’t have a projector or a screen or even a blank wall.

I was in exactly the same position in 2012 when I gave a series of “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About [Each of the Harry Potter titles]” at Oklahoma City’s wonderful independent bookstore, Full Circle. Incredibly, that talk was recorded and I still have a copy to embed here to illustrate my solution to the problem: hook your laptop up to a large flat screen television set and put it on the table next to where you’re speaking. For a crowd of thirty or less, if you’ve made the slides with a large typeface, it works like a dream.

I post this tonight to say to my friend, “If I could do this in 2012 without any technical assistance while maintaining full Luddire status, you can do this in 2025 while standing on your head and juggling” (he is very accomplished at all things technological and computers).

And, no, I have not watched this video through, and, yes, I disavow everything I said that is contrary to what I have learned and said in the almost decade and a half since I put that talk together!

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes