Is America's Reconstruction Different from Panem's?

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2018)

The Hunger Games by Gary Ross is a dystopian young adult novel about 16-year-old female protagonist Katniss Everdeen who represents her district in a battle for her life. The Capital of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games, a cruel punishment for a past rebellion. The Hunger Games is a nationally televised event in which "Tributes" must fight with one another until one survivor remains and wins food for a year for their district. The Hunger Games, although fictional, has strong connections with the real world. Although the movie presents a post-rebellion dystopian world, in which viewers can see connections to the American Reconstruction, the movie does not develop the character's backstory as much as it could have.
The Hunger Games movie is similar to America's Reconstruction period, which was after the Civil War. After the union won the war, America went into a period of turmoil. This is similar to The Hunger Games because, after the rebellion, Panem went into a tumultuous period due to their continuous uprisings. The president decided to have the Hunger Games to remind the districts of what they did in their past. Also, while America was going through Reconstruction, Grant and Hayes created an unintentional class system, and similarly, that was what Panem was doing with The Hunger Games and their idea of Districts.
Most countries are willing to join together to fight a common foe. In the sense of The Hunger Games district, 3 through 12 all fought together against the Capital, District 1, and 2 in the rebellion. Proving that people rich or poor come together to achieve a common goal. In American History, in WWII U.S.A. France, U.K., and Russia, the Allied powers, all came together to fight against Germany, Italy, and Japan, the Axis powers, due to the common goal they wanted to defeat their enemy. All of the countries worked as a single unit against others focused on their advantages.
While Ross does transform the book into a movie, he does not develop some part of the movie. Taking .4 off of the rating is because of how Ross had the characters killed. The characters had an immense amount of screen time before entering the arena and little in the arena. When watching the movie, Rue is showed to be shy, and in the arena is killed. Although Katniss does give Rue a 'proper burial,'Rue could have used more time connecting with Katniss before they entered the arena.
The Capital was willing to tear down their country for their benefits, which is inhumane. It is unfathomable to see what types of terrorizing laws governments could create. The power of working as a unit is much stronger than individuals trying to achieve righteousness for themselves.
Rating: 4.6/5.0