Hunger Games Prequel Storyline

Many people find it impossible to conceive that our society could ever devolve into that of Panem as depicted in the Hunger Games. Yet part of its compelling alarm is the eerie realization that it just isn’t very hard to trace the steps from Panem backwards to the socialist police state that our society is fast becoming. While people chastise author Suzanne Collins for the gruesome violence - perpetrated by and against children, no less - consider that virtually every socialist society known to the human race perpetrated far more gruesome violence upon men, women and children by the millions and always operated as a dictatorship. In several cases, children were enlisted into their armies and taught the value of murdering people of all ages. For a few examples:

 

Stalin

Pol Pot in Cambodia 

Hitler (National Socialist party) 

Castro

North Korea 

People’s Republic of China 

And the use of hunger as a weapon certainly is not new. This film shows how the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians to death while stealing and exporting the grain these farmers grew. Chairman Mao and his communist cohorts also starved upwards of 30 million Chinese while exporting their grain to show the world how well its centrally planned economic system was working. So based on the 20th century alone, it actually is completely in character that the society of the Capital would punish the remains of the rebels with such horrors as the Hunger Games. 

Given the money generated and anticipated by the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins is likely being pressured to begin work on the prequel trilogy. If she can write these as well as the first three books then I hope she's already at work. Here's one potential storyline, sans Jar Jar Binks:

The world is in turmoil. Two countries based loosely on the United States and China have developed weapons that can cause localized drought conditions leading to crop failures and famine. The two countries have also developed weaponry that pounds radio waves at the ionosphere to trigger earthquakes anywhere in the world at any time. When used over areas of known volcanic activity, Krakatoa-caliber eruptions ensue. Ash clouds, tsunami waves, floods and wildfires become daily occurrences. During this chaos, the fifth-term president declares a national emergency, permitting the implementation of worldwide martial law. The millions of troops pre-positioned at more than 900 bases around the globe are activated. Civilian movements are halted. Food, small arms and valuables are confiscated for use in defense of the free world from the Asian empire. Journalists, religious leaders and anyone speaking out against this necessary step are removed to prison camps, conveniently built just a few years earlier on the outskirts of each city.

Several years of retaliatory disasters and famine follow. The battle for control of space is marked by the daily launch of satellites and their destruction by ground-fired missiles. Finally, the two super powers exchange nuclear missile barrages against their rivals and their allies. When the fallout settles, only 1/3 of the world's population remains, many suffering slow, horrible deaths from radiation and/or starvation. Only the eugenicists who feared overpopulation could rejoice at the world's condition. Luckily for the world, the president, his team and their families have survived happily unscathed. Thanks to their Continuity of Government plan, they rise out of their bunkers to enforce control over what's left of their domain. 

Except, the long-suffering people have other ideas. Now that they have seen and experienced the deadly results of the endless wars imposed upon them for generations by their elected leaders, the people take up arms and demand their freedom. The president sends in the troops to quell the uprisings yet several divisions refuse to fire upon their own people. More troops are sent in and full scale civil war rages. Ultimately a war of attrition, the central government gradually overcomes the rebel forces. With their limited resources depleted, their people dying of starvation and resorting to cannabalism and the control of the government's weather weapon always looming above, no choice remains but surrender. 

Under the terms of surrender, the rebellious regions were allowed to grow food without fear of drought as long as half the harvest was given to the government. Regions unable to provide food were permitted to provide other resources necessary for rebuilding the country, such as raw materials and labor. From a control center in the capital, the air and water purification systems in the districts are switched on. Martial law remains in place. Unmanned aerial drones monitor the planet. A single roof is painted with an American flag - no, not the flag established in 2013, the one with 50 stars that had been outlawed after the New World Order took over. Pacing inside is one Mr. Kenneth Everdeen.

For Ms. Collins, plausibility becomes a greater challenge the nearer the story gets to our present day. Lucky for her, both American and Chinese scientists have been experimenting with weather control since the 1950's. The technical term is geoengineering and from a look outside, I'd suggest their tests have been successful. Some people suspect the sky striping chemtrails are involved.

Also lucky for Ms. Collins, American scientists working under the Air Force in Alaska have been conducting experiments bouncing radio waves off the ionosphere. The program is called The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This is the official U.S. government Web site. This is another Web site hypothesizing that HAARP was involved in the Japan earthquake and tsunami and that it may be involved in the recent increase in earthquake activity in places that rarely experience earthquakes, such as Bloomsbury, New Jersey, for example.

Furthermore, SWAT teams from the U.S. FDA have been raiding family farms and ranches, seizing their property and forcing them out of business under the guise of protecting us from raw milk and pork from feral pigs. Planting vegetable gardens is cause for jail time and isn't even allowed in some places. A bill in New Zealand would make it illegal to grow vegetables or sell seeds without permission from the government. It isn't much of a stretch to see agents from Panem's FDA controlling food production, collection and redistribution. After all, someone has to send each district its fair share.

Ms. Collins would also know that detention centers were being constructed all over America. Other Web sites counter that it's utterly ridiculous. Imagine! Our own federal government planning to take over the state and local governments and detain the dissenters?  And on a worldwide scale?

It sure seems crazy. Yet it has just enough plausibility to work as the basis for a prequel to the Hunger Games.



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The Day The Earth Stood Still

I always liked the original so when I heard a remake was in progress I couldn't wait to see it with my son. Then I saw the trailer and became almost nauseous. See, in the original, an alien comes to Earth with an ultimatum that if we earthlings don't stop our wars and don't halt nuclear proliferation then his planet will destroy our planet because we'd become a threat to their existence.

Given the dire reality of the threat of nuclear war and the potential for the weaponization of space at the time, it was a compelling message. Plus Gort the robot was great as the precursor to the Cylons of the original Battlestar Galactica.

Today, the threat of nuclear annihilation is probably greater than in the 1950's and 1960's due to the sheer number of nuclear arms, the increasing number of countries that deploy them, the ready availability of nuclear material and the instability of the nuclear powers. But nukes don't get the press coverage anymore. No, the media thinks that the slow encroachment of global warming is a far more dangerous and alarming threat than the immediate destruction via global thermonuclear war.

In the remake, the alien Klaatu descends from the sky bearing a message that humanity must be eradicated for failing to properly care for the planet. This is just disgusting and a slap in the face to the writer Harry Bates. It's also ridiculous to equate the theoretical threat of global warming with the actual and ready threat of nuclear destruction. And just how would our wayward environmental ways be such a threat to another planet as to attract the attention of an alien race? Just ridiculous.

I downloaded the original from Netflix and watched it with my son so he could see how the story is supposed to be. Now if he ends up seeing the remake with his friends he'll understand why it's such a silly and uninspiring film.
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Journey to the Center of the Earth Movie

I read the book in 7th grade and couldn’t wait to read it with my son then take him to see the new version of the movie – until I saw the trailer. Isn’t there some kind of “Movie Lorax” who speaks for the dead authors when Hollywood insists on dumbing down, denuding and otherwise butchering a great book during the conversion to a movie?

According to the trailer, it’s a wild and crazy ride when a family vacation goes wrong. Sounds like A Night at the Museum set in a cave. Sounds like crap. I may take him anyway because he’ll like it and we like 3-D but I’ll be trying hard not to be bothered and bitter about the film itself.

UPDATE June, 2013: I watched it on TV a few months ago at the pleading of both kids, who had enjoyed seeing it in the movies. It could've been worse. I'll leave it at that.
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