The Hunger Games (film)

The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian science fiction action-drama film set in a future North America, in a nation known as Panem. Each year, a boy and girl are selected from each of the twelve districts of Panem to fight to the death on live television. One day, a girl volunteers to take her younger sister's place for the latest match.
 * Directed by Gary Ross. Written by Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray, based on Collins' novel of the same name.

May the Odds be Ever in your Favor ( taglines )



Katniss Everdeen

 * I volunteer! No! I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!
 * [to Seneca Crane, bowing mockingly] Thank you for your consideration.

Peeta Mellark

 * You know what my mother said? 'It looks like District 12 may finally have a winner.' But she wasn't talking about me. She was talking about you.

President Snow

 * [voiceover] War, terrible war. Widows, orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. Thirteen districts rebelled against the country that fed them, loved them, protected them. Brother turned on brother until nothing remained. And then came the peace, hard fought, sorely won. A people rose up from the ashes and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost. When the traitors were defeated, we swore as a nation we would never know this treason again. And so it was decreed, that each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up in tribute, one young man and woman, to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder of our generosity and our forgiveness. This is how we remember our past. This is how we safeguard our future.
 * Welcome, welcome! Tributes, we welcome you! We salute your courage and your sacrifice. And we wish you Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favour.

Cato

 * [Holding Peeta hostage] Go on! Shoot, then we both go down and you win. Go on! I'm dead anyway! I always was, right? I didn't know that until now. [Readies to break Peeta's neck] How's that, is that what they want? Huh? I can still do this!... I can still do this. One more kill. It's the only thing I know how to do. Bringing pride to my district! Not that it matters.

Dialogue

 * Caesar Flickerman: [after seeing Katniss’s flaming dress] That was really something. Katniss, that was something. That was something. Thank you for that. I have one more question for you. It's about your sister. We were all very moved, I think, when you volunteered at the Reaping. Did she come and say goodbye to you?
 * Katniss Everdeen: Yes. She did.
 * Flickerman: And what did you say to her, in the end?
 * Katniss Everdeen: I told her I would try to win. That I would try to win, for her.
 * Flickerman: Of course you did. And try you will. Ladies and gentlemen, from District 12, Katniss Everdeen, The Girl On Fire!


 * Caesar Flickerman: So Peeta, tell me. Is there a special girl back home?
 * Peeta Mellark: No. No, not really.
 * Flickerman: No? I don't believe it for a second, look at that face! Handsome man like you! Peeta. Tell me.
 * Peeta: Well, there, uh... There is this one girl that I've had a crush on forever. But I don’t think she actually recognised me until the Reaping.
 * Flickerman: Well, I'll tell you what, Peeta. You go out there, and you win this thing, and when you get home- she'll have to go out with you! Right folks?
 * [laughter, applause]
 * Peeta: Thanks, but I, uh- I don't think winning's gonna help me at all.
 * Flickerman: And why not?
 * Peeta: Because she came here with me.
 * Flickerman: [dismayed] Well, that's bad luck.
 * Peeta: Yeah, it is.
 * Flickerman: And I wish you all the best of luck.
 * Peeta: Thank you.
 * Flickerman: Peeta Mellark! District 12!


 * Clove: [pinning Katniss to the ground] Where's lover boy? Oh I see. You were gonna help him right? Well that's sweet. It's too bad that you couldn't help your little friend. That little girl, what was her name again? [Katniss struggles] Rue? Yeah, well we killed her. [pulls knife out of her jacket] And now we're going to kill you. [Thresh arrives, grabs Clove and pins her against the Cornucopia]
 * Thresh: You kill her?
 * Clove: No!
 * Thresh: I heard you!
 * Clove: Cato! CATO!
 * Thresh: You said her name! You said her name! [Thresh slams Clove's head against the Cornucopia multiple times, killing her. Thresh turns to Katniss, but stops.] Just this time, 12. For Rue.
 * [Both Thresh and Katniss flee the cornucopia, heading in separate directions.]


 * Peeta Mellark: I just don't want them to change me.
 * Katniss Everdeen: How will they change you?
 * Peeta Mellark: I don't know. Turn me into something I'm not. I just don't want to be another piece in their game, you know?
 * Katniss Everdeen: You mean you won't kill anyone?
 * Peeta Mellark: No... I mean, I'm sure I would just like anyone else when the time came but I just keep wishing I could think of a way to show them, that they don't own me. If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me.
 * Katniss Everdeen: Yeah... I just can't afford to think like that.
 * Peeta Mellark: Yeah, I know.


 * President Snow: Seneca, why do you think we have a winner?
 * Seneca Crane: What do you mean?
 * President Snow: I mean, why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster. [Crane does not respond] Hope.
 * Seneca Crane: Hope?
 * President Snow: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained.
 * Seneca Crane: [confused] So...
 * President Snow: So, contain it.


 * Haymitch Abernathy: They aren't very happy with you.
 * Katniss Everdeen: Why, because I didn't die?
 * Abernathy: Because you showed them up.
 * Everdeen: [sarcastic] Well. I'm sorry it didn't go the way they'd planned; you know, I'm not very happy with them either-
 * Abernathy: Katniss. This is serious. And not just for you. They don't take these things lightly.

Taglines

 * May the Odds be Ever in your Favor
 * The Games Will Change Everyone
 * The World Will Be Watching

About

 * The Hunger Games novel was gory and disturbing for a reason, says Hendrix. Just like Battle Royale, it's supposed to communicate war's horrors to young teenagers. Hendrix worries that the Hunger Games movie will tone down the violence, and thereby make it exciting. "The line between making violence graphic and upsetting and making violence graphic and cool is a very narrow one," he says.
 * Grady Hendrix in "'Battle,' 'Games': Cold Brutality A Common Theme" by Nedia Ulaby, All Things Considered, NPR, March 21, 2012


 * I’m trying to capture what was visceral in the books, which is your first-person present tense narrative, and that’s gonna require a certain amount of subjectivity. In order to be in Katniss’ point of view and in her shoes — what being in a character’s point of view is, is restricting the information that the audience has to what that character has, and not being writer omniscient. I’m not cutting from place-to-place, I’m moving in this serpentine, destabilized path as Katniss wanders through this world. That’s not only true in the shooting style, it’s also true in the editing style. … This was a very conscious decision to create a very subjective style because the books are so subjective, they’re first-person and they’re urgent and you see the world as she sees the world, so that was the reason for it.
 * Gary Ross on his style of filming [he Hunger Games, as quoted in "Director Gary Ross Talks The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Deleted Scenes, and a Lot More" by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub at Collider (22 March 2012).

Cast

 * Jennifer Lawrence - Katniss Everdeen
 * Josh Hutcherson - Peeta Mellark
 * Liam Hemsworth - Gale Hawthorne
 * Woody Harrelson - Haymitch Abernathy
 * Elizabeth Banks - Effie Trinket
 * Lenny Kravitz - Cinna
 * Stanley Tucci - Caesar Flickerman
 * Donald Sutherland - President Coriolanus Snow
 * Wes Bentley - Seneca Crane
 * Toby Jones - Claudius Templesmith
 * Alexander Ludwig - Cato
 * Isabelle Fuhrman - Clove
 * Amandla Stenberg - Rue
 * Jack Quaid - Marvel
 * Leven Rambin - Glimmer
 * Dayo Okeniyi - Thresh
 * Jacqueline Emerson - Foxface
 * Paula Malcomson - Mrs. Everdeen
 * Willow Shields - Primrose Everdeen