By Rachel Brock

Gut-wrenching, powerful, and mesmerizing.

These three words describe how sophomore neuroscience major Aneesh Singh felt about the new movie “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

The plot of this movie takes place well before the other movies in the franchise. It centers around young Coriolanus Snow and the 10th annual Hunger Games. 

“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has sparked many social media posts, specifically on TikTok. Many users have posted edits featuring the highpoints of the movie as well as praises for their favorite characters.

Tom Blyth, who plays the infamous President Snow, has had many fan edits made about his character that center around his good looks. Seeing this new, young and attractive version of President Snow has given some viewers entirely new feelings about the tyrannical leader.

Sophomore art history major Tucker Mossing admits that quite a few of these edits have popped up on her TikTok page.

“A lot of people fangirling over the cast has come up with my page and just a lot of people having positive reactions to it,” Mossing said. She also mentioned that people were comparing it to the original books.

A worry that surfaced while this movie was being created was that it would not be similar enough to the book it is based on. But fans of the book can rest assured that the movie offers a spot-on depiction.

Sophomore hearing and speech science major Morgan Stolker is showing her adoration for “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” by listening to the movie’s soundtrack. 

Stolker played “Nothing You Can Take From Me” by Rachel Zegler 105 times in one day.

She really enjoyed how the new movie brought a musical aspect through Lucy Gray Baird’s character. Stolker’s only critique was that the movie was a bit too long.

“It was hard to sit through all of it and I feel like the time wasn’t necessarily well spent, like, there were a couple storylines I didn’t understand,” Stolker said.

The movie’s run time is two hours and 38 minutes, making it the longest movie in the franchise.

On the other hand, Singh was glad the producers didn’t “pull a Mockingjay” and split the movie into two parts. Singh also commented on the controversial ending that left some fans wanting more.

“I kind of like the type of endings where you interpret the fate of what happened to the characters, because I feel like it just allows the conversation to go on longer,” Singh said.

And “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” has done just that. Recently, many theories have been floating around about the fate of Lucy Gray Baird and it has kept up the relevance of the now month-old movie.

Students have grown up with the movie series and were all pleased to see another Hunger Games for the first time in many years. Viewers at UMD and across the nation can all agree that this franchise is always worth a re-watch.  

Featured Image: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate. Image copyright (©) Lionsgate or related entities. Used for publicity and promotional purposes.