We volunteer as tribute to bring you the latest news from Panem—or at least, from its’ streaming ambassadors in Aotearoa.
NEON and Netflix have the entirety of The Hunger Games franchise available to stream in New Zealand. Before the brand new prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes arrives on our screens, maybe you have an appetite to taste Katniss Everdeen’s fierce battle for freedom once more.
Jennifer Lawrence really broke out by playing the lead character in this box-office busting adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ dark teen novels. Her arrow-slinging character Katniss was thrust into the inhumane Hunger Games, a totalitarian society’s system of keeping the have-nots in check: by dumping their kids into a murderdome and having them fight to the death.
Released in 2012, The Hunger Games simply had to have a dull YA love triangle subplot, but The Hunger Games: Catching Fire made things a bit more interesting. Compared to Katniss’ duelling love interests Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), new characters Finnick (Sam Claflin) and Johanna (Jena Malone) had far more personality.
Catching Fire ended on a gut-wrenching cliffhanger, thrusting us into an overblown two-part ending. This would be a good spot to pause your binge if you’re watching the whole series on NEON or Netflix: alternately each title can be individually bought or rented on demand via Google Play, Apple TV, Arovision Rentals, or NEON Rentals.
From there, Mockingjay Part 1 and 2 lost a bit of momentum, not taking place around the pivotal Games but rather Katniss’s part in an underground rebel uprising. While Panem’s leader President Snow (Donald Sutherland) was definitely a bad egg, perhaps Julianne Moore’s resistance fighter Alma Coin doesn’t promise such a hopeful future for Panem either.
The stakes remained life-and-death throughout the entirety of this bleak and action-packed franchise, with sweet and innocent characters getting brutally slain and our main characters still suffering from lingering PTSD as the credits roll. Producers seemingly think there’s more trauma to impart, though: prequel film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes hits cinemas at the end of next year, giving us a look at the corrupt President Snow’s adolescent romance. See, even in a merciless fascist regime there’s still time for teen pining!
