At last night’s video music awards, Jennifer Lawrence (via video, as she’s still here in NC filming), introduced the first teaser trailer for the new Hunger Games film due out in March. The clip is the very epitome of brief, just a few shots of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss walking through the woods, some footage which is obviously the fire scene from chapter 13, spliced in with a neat shot of Lawrence shooting the silver bow (taken from later in the film, as she does not acquire the bow until chapter 14 (the center chapter in the novel, incidentally) and the arrow landing in the mockingjay symbol, which then catches on fire. There is a little bit of voice over from Liam Hemsworth as Gale with some of the post-Reaping pep talk, and the music is the same as that used by Scholastic in their book trailers.
All in all, it’s less than a minute, and hardly worth watching the MTV spectacle; anything thay do usually makes me want to bathe in lysol and gargle with bleach after viewing. I didn’t actually wade through the program in order to watch the teaser, as I found the irony of debuting the trailer in such a setting just too much to bear. In fact, when I did tune in for brief moments, hoping I might catch it, I once saw Beyonce, dressed far more decently than anyone else there but, it turns out, just because she’s pregnant. The Catching Fire connection just made my head spin, and my frustration with the whole industry that is already treating musicians like Tributes sent me to youtube instead.
Why, I wonder, was the video premiered in this venue? There is a musical element to the film of, course, and with Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, there is some connection there, but it still seems such a stretch. Is this just the soonest they could get a tiny piece of a trailer put together for a movie that is still a long way from complete? Did Collins request it, hoping the irony would not be lost after the appearance of pink-haired Katy Perry in her Effie Trinket shoes (which made me turn the channel the first time)? Or, like the prep team they so much resemble, do the folks over at MTV just not get it? Guess where I’m placing my bet.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
Two very quick thoughts about this really shortish glimpse: One, didn’t MTV air some LOTR stuff too early on? I seem to remember some Andy Serkis/Gollum clip. So my guess would be that since a lot of teens are likely to watch this show, who are these film’s target audience, MTV is the place to start promotion of the venture.
As to the prep-team/MTV-connection: I doubt they get it. I have to admit though that as a European reader (I’m German btw) of the Hunger Games-series, I originally didn’t pick up on any of the social criticism referring to contemporary US-culture either… what struck me more was the Roman decadence, the historical parallels on the surface, and the – to me! – apparent incongruity with the strange setting, half wilderness, half postapocalyptic non-civilization. That fence, for instance – why have a fence if outside the settlement there’s nothing for kilometres and kilometres, really? Still doesn’t make sense to me – but then, in Europe, we don’t have this vicinity of habitation and wilderness – even the natural areas are pretty much tamed, with pathways etc.
What I mean to say is that only reading about the references to the US-states etc. on this site has made me begin to understand the reason for this strangeness. Hunger Games is very much an American book, I guess, just like Harry Potter was British. The lens through which we read is different. And that my be true for different generations as well: many (young) people may well read Twilight and/or The Hunger Games on a level that does not clash with its presentation by MTV.
I think very, very few people make the connections you are, Elizabeth.
My understanding is that THG was/is/will be mirroring the roll-out for the original Twilight film.
Hi-
This gossip columnist is also a Hunger Games fan and covered a lot of the casting and Hollywood bits. Here is her review or perspective of the books. Interesting:
http://www.laineygossip.com/Articles/Details/17731/On-The-Hunger-Games-series