Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth on the World of ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’

On behalf of The Nerds of Color, I attended the press conference for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes with stars Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Hunter Schafer, and Josh Andrés Rivera! The film takes place 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the President of Panem.

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Why I Hate All Things Mockingjay

Originally posted at Black Nerd Problems

While the book Mockingjay was released in 2010, this is your spoiler alert for both the book in its completion and the movie, Mockingjay: Part 1.

Several years ago I was introduced to The Hunger Games, a new book gaining popularity as a young adult dystopian novel featuring a female lead. I borrowed a copy from the library and was introduced to Katniss Everdeen from District 12, and she was everything I wanted her to be. Clever, bold, and independent, The Hunger Games’ leading lady was instantly a crowd favorite, and the world of Panem made for a breezy thrill ride as I sped through it in 3 days of subway rides and bedtime reading. When the second book came out, Catching Fire expanded the world from the Battle Royale of the games, to the larger theme of dystopia and revolution. “Tread carefully,” I remember thinking. But most of my thoughts were still preoccupied with wishing Katniss would finally leave Peeta to die and ride out with Team Gale, so I was still a fan, to say the least. Before the first movie was even announced I tried to pre-order tickets by holding my Fandango app in my hands and concentrating really hard.

All of that ignores the existence of Mockingjay.

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NOCs of the Roundtable: Fangirling over Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Now that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 has finally been released in multiplexes the world over, it’s time to finally talk about it! There is so much in the film to digest that we decided to convene the Roundtable once again. And who better to talk about the continuing adventures of Katniss than the two newest Nerds: Connie and Christelle!

So proceed with caution because after the jump, there will be many spoilers and SO MUCH CAPSLOCK!

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Mockingjay’s Big Box Office: Why Audiences Love The Hunger Games

This weekend, Mockingjay Part 1, the third installment of The Hunger Games film franchise, was the victor of the box office with a $123 million haul. On its opening Friday alone, the film made $55 million, making it the best opening day debut of 2014, in addition to having the year’s largest domestic weekend debut (beating Transformers: Age of Extinction’s $100 million opening weekend from June ). Despite being “the weaker tribute” compared to the first two films domestically (The Hunger Games: $152.5 million; Catching Fire: $158 million), Mockingjay Part 1 grossed $275 million worldwide. Those are some kickass numbers, Katniss.

So how do The Hunger Games movies manage to hit the target — you’re welcome, reader, for this archery joke — year after year? Is it the draw of a dystopian society that is so popular in young adult novels? Is it the idea of kids killing each other for TV ratings? Is it Jennifer Lawrence?

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NOC Origin: If I Had a Horcrux, it’d Probably be My Terminator Boxset

So my version of a nerd is a person who passionately and purposefully seeks out the way- more-than-necessary knowledge about a strangely specific subject1. There are barely-there nerd memories of inventing my own Pokémon with their successive evolved forms, obviously, Toonami afternoons of Dragonball and Dragonball Z, explaining The Adventures of Lois and Clark to my grandmother, and losing my elementary-aged shit when Hercules and Xena had their first crossover.

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