Monday, March 26, 2012

Post Apocalyptic, Fight to the Death for Entertainment Sub-Genre Rant

Before I give my formal review on The Hunger Games, I want to make something clear. Movies or any other form of storytelling is always going to be based off a story already told. There is actually a word for this, is called an archetype. With that being said, guess what, The Hunger Games, and Battle Royal are built upon the same archetypes, therefore both movies will have similar themes, motifs and symbolic undertones. It happens to be that both movies are built on the roman ideal of entertainment known as “gladiators” For those of you who don’t know a gladiator was usually a slave or prisoner who was given the opportunity to fight to the death for their freedom. These gladiators would fight in coliseum as a specter sport. Take the “fight to the death” style of sport and mix it with reality television and what do you get, the plot of numerous movies today, let’s name a few. Besides, The Hunger Games, and Battle Royal, there is at least three films I can name right off the top of my head: The Condeemned (2007), Death Race (2008), and Gamer (2009). I know some of these maybe a stretch like Gamer because of mind control factor, but the fight to the death for entertainment theme is still there. I guess my main point here is that I kind of tired of hearing “This movie is exactly like that movie” Can anyone tell me what the difference between this list of movies are: Avatar, Dance with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Dune, Lawrence of Arabia, Fernguly, and Pocahontas.

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