Sunrise on the Reaping Part 3 - Suzanne Collins - Young Adult - Dystopian Book

Why did The Hunger Games take off in the West when Battle Royale never did?

We close out SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins with a full look at the world of Panem — and whether this one makes a good movie.

Evan and Jules are back for the finale. We start with the four-year gap between the book and the first movie, and what we were all doing in 2008 instead of reading it. Jules argues that Kishotenketsu is why Eastern storytelling didn't cross over. Jonathan argues the dystopian boom traces back to 9/11. From there: the plagiarism question, Harlan Ellison versus James Cameron, and why every writer is afraid of copying something by accident. Then the prequel itself — what it actually adds, what Plutarch sacrificed, and whether Francis Lawrence can make the movie better than the book.

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The Side Quest Book Club Podcast is a weekly deep-dive book review for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fans who love getting lost in worlds. Hosts Jonathan and Slava break down Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere (including the Stormlight Archive), the works of Stephen King, and the best and most overlooked fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction.

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If you’re a reader looking for something deeper or an indie author working on your book, The Side Quest Book Club is for you. We skip the usual book reviews and ratings. Each episode turns fun side quests into real lessons, so you’ll leave not just entertained, but with a better understanding of why storytelling matters.

So this leads me into, why did the Hunger Games hit so hard? For me, timing was definitely technology. Also, type of storytelling that we would get East versus West. The group that we're marketing towards for that time period.

I feel like there's a trend for dystopian work coming back. A movie about delinquent kids being thrown in to fight to the death might not generate the same sympathy as Katniss struggling to survive, volunteering for her little sister to fight for the death. But oftentimes a guy, girl is writing something and it will look like another piece of work.

Well, because what we've been writing for like 10,000 years, somebody is going to come up with the same stuff. So why? Why did this hit, but you know, maybe Battle Royale didn't transfer over from Japan or other stories that are Coliseum? Welcome back SideQuesters to part three, final episode for Sunrise on the Reaping. And then as always, we will go check out the movie and drop some shorts with our full response afterward with quick reactions.

Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins, pick up your holographic edition if you're going to get one, maybe. Not sponsored, but you know, we like to support authors here, even though I don't know if I'd call her an indie author anymore. I feel like she's made it.

Today, we're talking about the world of Hunger Games and movie discussion. So be sure to stick around for that. Last two episodes, you heard us talk about characters, plot, and some themes.

We rolled some dice, we picked out a theme, and we discussed it in detail. We made sure to cover our favorite side characters and their character arcs and the character arcs, Haymitch, that we're going to go back and listen. Welcome back to our guests, Evan, Jules, Slava, you guys already know, so we don't have to greet him.

I'm just here for, to be the eye candy. That's what you told me I was doing. Apparently not.

Can we have two eye candies? One eye, two eyes? Of course. Is there a bowl of candy anywhere? Of course. Nope.

Just one. You just dropped one inside the bowl. Just one.

Actually, I've been going to our Asian market in town and picking up Pocky the last two months, because I just love it so much. It's like you forget how much you love something and then you go back and you're like, actually, I'm going to come here weekly and pick up my... That's how I feel about Pop Rocks. Pop Rocks? Oh my god, I love Pop Rocks.

Dude, put that shit on ice cream. It's so good, I'm sorry. Really? It's delicious.

Yeah, I know, it's so weird. There was a couple of years ago, I went to the store and I was like, you know what I want? Some sort of candy from when I was a kid. It wasn't Laffy Taffy.

Super Rope. Super Rope. I went to multiple stores because I was like, there has to be Super Rope somewhere.

Evan, you probably have never seen a Super Rope. A Super Rope is a three foot long piece of licorice. Interesting.

It's a full yard of licorice. And I could not... You'd eat it? Probably not sanitary, but you would do that anyway. I went to go find it.

Couldn't find it. I was in Target yesterday. They... Super Rope's back, folks.

Oh. Super Rope is back. We are back, baby.

However, it looks really sad. Like, it had multiple breaks in the rope, which totally ruins the eating. So I didn't buy one because it looks like it... It looks like it might be from the 90s.

I was going to say, probably found in a factory, and they're like, uh... Someone will buy this. I'm sure it's so good. Best buy is two decades ago, but that's all right.

Some kid will eat it, and they'll take a bite, and it'll be fine. So speaking of Asian and sweets, I love... I think it's Japanese. I love the lychee gummies that I find in my local fancier grocery store.

And so I really love that candy, and I really love Japanese jasmine iced tea. And what I found in my office, there's a stand for a boba company. They just come in and put stands in our office, and they rotate out.

And these guys had a jasmine tea boba, but you can substitute the boba for lychee bits. Oh, you must have been in heaven. I was in heaven, because good jasmine tea just has a tiny, tiny bit of bitterness.

Yes. And then you're drinking jasmine tea, it's a little bitter, and then you get three or four pops of lychee right afterwards. Absolutely blew my mind.

That's awesome. Literally. Best six dollars I spent in my life.

Yours are only six bucks? Yeah. Ours are like eight here for boba. I can't justify it.

I haven't been to boba in a bit, so I can't recall, but I think ours was a couple years ago around six or seven dollars. What would be a Hunger Games inspired boba? Blood and Snow. It'd be strawberry and lychee.

Strawberry and lychee. All right. Oh my gosh.

And the tears of the families of the ones they lost, right? Yeah, and then their eyeballs would be the boba. There we go. I don't know.

Put some squirrels in there for me, yeah. Or blue, what is it, blue electric butterflies? Oh yeah. Yeah.

The careers, it just has creatine and boba together. What other flavors do we got here? Or other food products? It doesn't have to be boba. All like a cookbook? Are we going full blown? Yes, a Hunger Games cookbook.

This is actually a problem. So are we going to go with the Districts, the Games, or the Capital? All of it. You have like a series, yeah, a whole thing where you like cook like the Capital, and all of your desserts and stuff have to be very fancy.

Like they have to be like one tiny thing on a plate, and then this ridiculous hat or something on top. So it's like the French Kitchen by Keller, that's the Capital, and then Betty Crocker's the Districts. Betty Crocker, more like Little Nebby.

Oh yeah. Pre-packaged, or government rations. We'll just have the military.

Yeah, MREs for sure. There we go, thank you. MREs, that's what it's called.

Yeah, District 12 MREs, like can you imagine? I can imagine that. Somebody who's eaten MREs. I've tried them, they're not good.

I was like, I understand survival situations, but this is survival only situation. Literally just eating for calories because you want to. Yeah, straight up.

Not because you want to. I think I had a, was it Beef Stroganoff MRE? That sounds terrible. Yeah, the ravioli isn't better either.

It's like, but we do what we must. So if we're going to stay on this theme for another half second, what would the in-Games cookbook be? A piece of fruit? Are you talking about the title? Not poisoned water? You'd have to do like a poison or not question mark. So it's a cookbook and survival kit in one.

It's got a thing of matches and. Yeah, how to collect your rainwater for boiling your potato. Like it would be just ridiculous, yeah.

That's funny. I actually have a friend who made a cookbook. He runs, shout out to Jake from Roll Your Sandwich.

He has a big TikTok where he has, he lets fate choose his lunch. So he will roll dice and he has actually, I'm going to show it to you guys, but he got a book deal because of his TikTok that he started during COVID. Wow.

Hey, for those watching, if you want to give people book deals, I have plenty of ideas, just saying, yeah. Hell yeah. Just saying.

Do you know what this kind of binding is that they have on this? No, I don't. I really like this binding style because it lays the book flat and I really like that. Sorry.

How about you guys? How about audience members? Do you know what kind of binding? I don't know if you can see it because it's different. Yeah, it's got the, it's loose. Yeah, there's like a space between the book back, I guess you would call it, and the actual binding.

Yeah, the spine. The spine. Thank you.

Yeah, I love that bind. If I ever did hardcover in the future for any books I publish. When you do.

When you do. When I publish, yes. When I publish.

There we go. This is the type of binding I want. I don't know what this is.

I need to find out what this is. Evan, look it up real quick for us while I'm talking about my friend's book. So this is Roll for Sandwich, a cookbook.

It's literally just a book of sandwiches. The special edition came with dice, so you can literally roll your own sandwich. And like, they got a hold of him.

He's got like, he's made it very D&D themed. So he's got spells that affect the sandwich for better and worse. It's pretty fun.

So if you guys haven't heard of him, he's got ratings on each of his sandwiches too, and which episode it comes from. People mail him condiments to put on the sandwiches, to put on the table. Oh, from like around the world and stuff? Yeah, yeah.

So this is, when you guys say a cookbook for The Hunger Games, I'm literally thinking about like, it's doable. It won't be good. But it is possible.

Oh man. All right. Well, now that you guys have all satiated your hunger and appetite for The Hunger Games.

Oh brother, this guy stinks! That should have been funnier. Thanks Jules for humoring me. No, I like dad jokes.

Sorry. It's my thing. I love puns and stuff.

Dad jokes, uncle jokes. It's all the same over at my house. Yep.

The world of Hunger Games. Let's rewind, right? Let's rewind to when The Hunger Games came out. Do you guys remember back in early 2010s? That's when the movies came out.

Actually, I'm starting to think like, there's two dates that I need. I need, the movies came out in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015. But I want the book.

That's what I want. The book came out in 2008. So it took five years to get the movie.

So it took a little while for it to catch fire. No more uncle jokes. All right.

No, I like it, Keenan. So Hunger Games was 2008. Catching Fire is 2009.

Mockingjay was 2010, right? So she had this progression and moved through it in her trilogy pretty quickly. 2008, I was in college. And I don't think I heard about Hunger Games, honestly, until the movie came out in 2012.

I'm in the same boat for that, yeah. I just wasn't as enveloped in the book world at the time. I was living in New York.

And the only books I was reading was Philosophy that my roommate had on the shelf on top of film books because I was in film school at the time. Yeah, I was in business school at the time. So I had zero interest in reading fiction because my life was literally just consumed by finance and economics.

And we did psychology and sociology and all that stuff when I was in school for it. So during that time, I was, I had already been in school for two years by that point anyway. Nice.

Yeah, my life was consumed with working three jobs and then going to college. And that was it. There was no fiction reading.

Yeah, I would just go wander around Barnes & Noble in Union Square because it's a three-floor Barnes. And just enjoy looking at the books, watching the people. Because my school was also in Union Square at the time.

So for lunch breaks, I'd pop around the corner to Chipotle and then go into the Barnes & Noble after I ate and just hang out with all the books. But wasn't necessarily reading them because I also didn't have time. I was busy trying to make it as a filmmaker.

Plot twist, that didn't work. Now you're a mediocre podcaster. Well, mediocre is generous.

Appreciate that because you're my co-host. Well, that was a subduck pregnant joke as well. Oh man.

Evan, what were you doing in 2008? First grade? I was four. So probably eating grams or something. So the Very Hungry Caterpillar when that came out on the big screen? Exactly.

Yeah, I was also in college. That was my first year. No, yeah, first year going to the second year of college with my bachelor's.

Oh, I wish that I went through school quicker. It took me 10 years to get through college? Eight years. Eight years to get through college and I did summer school every year.

It was awful. I hate it. If you're thinking about going to college and you're listening to this, I would ask you to reconsider unless your country pays for your college for free.

This has been a PSA. Or if you get scholarships like I did. All right, smarty pants.

I'm not smart enough to get scholarships. Cool. Thanks, guys.

Appreciate that. So anyway, Hunger Games came out, right? A lot of us didn't see it or didn't know about it until the movies came out. Did you guys see it in theaters? No.

No. Did you? I think that I did and no one can fact check me on it. So I'm going to go with yes.

I did used to go to a lot of movies back in the day. That would be a thing that I went to see. I vaguely recall that I was like, oh, this is kind of new.

Now, I knew about Running Man, which is a similar concept where people go into a set territory and fight to the death. I want to say Schwarzenegger was in that, right? And one of them, yeah. In the early one, yes.

The early one, yeah. So the idea of having a Coliseum style book was not lost to me. But it did seem fresh.

But did you guys, when you experienced it for the first time, whether it was watching at home, whatever, did it inspire you to then go read the book? Or did you still took you years before you participated in the reading of the Hunger Games? Well, I haven't seen any of the movies. I've only read two of the books, the one we're discussing and the original Hunger Games. Shun the non-believer.

And it has not inspired me to watch the movies. Well, no, it has. But I haven't made the time to do it.

Fair enough. So I should say that. And I'm not too keen on carving out a time tomorrow or today to watch it.

If I'm sitting around and I want to put on a movie and I'm bored, the next one will be Hunger Games. But right now, I'm like, yeah. I know enough about it, just like a Star Wars.

I haven't seen any of the Star Wars. But I know so much about the world because I read Star Wars books and it's all over the zeitgeist. So is Hunger Games.

There's so many memes and clips and background information on YouTube, like people who do in deep dives. So I feel like I know a lot about the movies without ever having to watch them. Yeah, I would say whether Hunger Games was the first to do it or not, it kind of is like the kind of top of the castle or whatever you want to call it for.

I think I just totally made that term up. Top of the castle. Very good.

All the Coliseum style fights or like stories. And so it kind of like permeated into pop culture, I feel like, because I didn't see the movie when it came out. I was probably like you say it was 2012.

Yeah, I was probably like eight then. So I didn't see the movie when it came out, but I like knew about Hunger Games like when I was growing up. So I didn't end up watching the movie until like probably high school.

Not parentally approved probably with the topics and the mild violence. Mild. Makes sense.

And we started talking about this. I want to say it was the last episode or maybe the first episode that there were some accusations that Suzanne Collins had blatant plagiarism against that movie Battle Royale that came out in Japan. I never vetted whether or not that was true.

I would probably assume that based on I never heard a lawsuit come out that there wasn't enough substantiating evidence to prove that. But what do we do when a story that gets popular feels like it was based on something else? How do we respond to that? I mean, that's kind of very much chicken or egg philosophical because it's like where can you trace back the originating idea? If you want to talk gladiatorial style, well, we go back to ancient Rome. So, you know, and they're not the only ones.

The Vikings also had similar style, not to the scale, of course, but where it was fight to the death, you know, to do X, Y, Z or in situations for them where it was like, hey, you committed a crime and I'm going, you know, the gods will decide your fate kind of if you're innocent, you'll survive. If not, then, you know, there you go. So it's kind of one of those situations.

It's like I feel like that can be said for basically any concept in existence because like I some people have told me there's really not an original idea anymore. And to some degree, that is true. There are original revisions of ideas where we know more things now than we used to write.

Like the concept of space has always existed, but we never understood it until we had the technology to really dive into that. Right. So that whole process for me is like, well, I wouldn't say it's theft unless it's direct copy and paste.

Right. When we talk about specific ideas. But oftentimes authors, at least that I have read or even spoken to, they're like, I was very inspired by X, Y, Z. And so they go and create.

I mean, fan fiction is a direct example of people being inspired by stories and creating their own works. No, your characters are technically not yours that you're writing about in fan fiction, but you are still putting a world together around them, a story around them. So, you know, do people consider fan fiction theft? I mean, some probably do.

But, you know, it's kind of one of those situations where it's like, OK, well, if it wasn't this person, it would have been somebody else that thought of the idea. So really. Yeah, the concept, I think it's fairly new, you know, like modern meaning maybe the last 50 years, 100 years is all art is derivative.

Right. Like and a personal example is the novella that I'm writing, like the character's name is a direct nod to It because It is one of my favorite books. If I had to pick top five books, Stephen King's It would be one of them.

So the reason I named my character the way I did, it's Eddie. And it's a total nod to Stephen King's Eddie. And there is overlap in the character's experience, but I am not stealing from it because it is biographical.

And the reason that I loved It is Beverly and Eddie and Ben. So those three have individual experiences in the home and outside the home that are very close to my experiences as a kid, those ages. And so Eddie's mother is a facsimile of mine to some degree.

So the story that I'm writing is autobiographical and I can't help that. That's not me stealing from King. But when I read my first draft of the first two chapters, I noticed how it sounds like an excerpt from King's It.

So I scrapped that. I made a conscious effort to revise it and make it more my own that it didn't look like I did even a pastiche. The pastiche is just the kid, the kid's name.

I wanted to be I moved away from the town being weird and supernatural. I moved completely away with that. Now the villain is completely just the mom and I scrunched the story, if you will.

So it doesn't seem as epic as it. I wanted to be more tight. So there sometimes authors consciously go, oh, maybe I should, you know, fix this because this does sound like I'm copying somebody.

But oftentimes it's not necessarily the same thing that happened to me. But oftentimes a guy girl is writing something and it will look like another piece of work. Well, because what we've been writing for like 10,000 years, somebody's gonna come up with the same stuff.

So I agree completely. Even like something as simple as like a book title, man. I was like, oh, this is a great idea for my book.

And I go and search because I know I'm sure I'm not the only one. And there's like dozens of results. I was like, well, that's not gonna work on to the next, you know, and you just keep doing that because it's like we all are speaking the same words, even if it's in different languages.

Right. And those things just there. It's universal.

Language is universal. So the idea that there is a way to just have like this original thing is just not it doesn't really make sense. The originality comes from the execution of the work.

It's not necessarily the concept or at least a twist in the concept can be original, right? Like, hey, you thought it was gonna be this type of trope, but actually it's this, you know, and so you give it a little bit of your own twist. So for me, I love playing with tropes and flipping them on their head or making it something a little bit unexpected, as long as it serves the story, not for the purpose of just being different, but like actually making it purposeful. And I have the exact same thing that happened to me.

I was writing a really intense scene. I finished it. I read it out loud.

I was like, oh my God, I just wrote the Matrix. What the hell? I was like, I can't use any of this because aside from the gender differences, there was pretty much like I could totally have pictured it inside of the Matrix and it needed to be a different thing. Yeah, from it was the scene with Anderson and Agent Smith.

And I was like, nope, can't do it. Can't do. I love the Matrix.

One of the medias that I consume very frequently, but it was so directly like for me correlating and I read it out loud to my husband. He's like, yeah, that's not, I was like, I know I'm just making sure I'm not, you know, paranoid. And he's like, no, it kind of sounds like, I was like, okay, delete gone.

It's in the archive. You're trying to get us sued Jules. Cause that's how you get us sued guys.

I came up with this really cool story. It was just this one section, right? There's one chapter, but it was so intense. And I was like, I'm going to have to change this a lot.

So I actually just got rid of it altogether. Yeah. Not that scene.

Not that scene. It's the beginning when he first, before he gets introduced to Morpheus, man, I could, if we ever decided to do a deep dive on thematic concepts of the Matrix, please, please bring me. Cause I am obsessed with.

You're busy that day. Rewriting the Matrix. Well, you wrote a scene where someone's offered a red pill and a blue pill.

Oh, no, no, no, no, not that, not that lean. It was the back and forth between Smith and Neo. Yeah.

When he's in the office. It was basically in like this featureless room and I was like, oh no. That one.

Yeah. Yeah. Man, that was so powerful back in the day.

It was so good. That part with his mouth just melted. Oh my God.

Yeah. For the time that was crazy effects. Yeah.

Yeah. So good. So good.

So this, this leads me into why did the Hunger Games hit so hard? Right. So we're talking about a movie that hit really hard and we talked about, Hey, none of us really hit, saw the book early on cause he's a young adult. We were living lives, whatever, whether too old or too young.

That's my nod to you, Evan. And then, and then the movie came out and we kind of all watched the movie in some sort of different timeframe. But like this thing literally caught fire, you know, pun intended, et cetera.

So why, why did this hit? But, you know, maybe battle Royal didn't transfer over from Japan or other stories that are Coliseum. I haven't, I have a thought on that because, okay. So Japanese storytelling, I know this because I actually follow a Western, I'm sorry, Eastern storytelling more than I follow Western for my own writing.

Japanese storytelling primarily focuses on the use of Kishotenketsu, which is a four act structure. And so it's, it's derived very differently. And unfortunately in Western media, especially during that time period, it was not that big unless you were into anime.

And so Western influence versus Eastern influence for storytelling was very different. And so I think that might've been part of it. Of course, I've never consumed that battle Royale myself.

So like, I don't know for sure, but I feel like very frequently we get media from Eastern, especially Japan where their storytelling doesn't land the same with Western audiences. Um, but also timing wise, if you think about it in 2008, by this point, the internet has become a global, like worldwide accepted thing. Right.

And so, and not that long ago, right. Like less than 10 years before that, did it even actually become like 98 is when Google became into existence. So like there wasn't really mass adoption of the internet to search for information until around that time when it became more accessible.

Granted, it was early nineties, but still, you know, going through a progression of technology. So what it was, it was 2008 was Hunger Games published. Then 2009, right.

It was catching fire. Yep. It was a, it was a three year stint.

So yeah, 2010 was the third book. And then the movie came out in 2012 for the first movie. Yeah.

So I can't imagine from a perspective of storytelling, why like the difference, because I haven't, I don't have a true, like direct experience with Battle Royale, but if it was anything, it would probably be the storytelling differences, like how the story was delivered. And then I think at that point, a lot of the movies that were based on books, especially ones that most people hadn't heard, cause it's YA, right. Like a lot of people that would have gone to see the movies wouldn't have been necessarily YA because I don't think it was really targeted towards them.

I don't know. I have to look at like the old marketing stuff, but I feel like they were trying to bring in a different generation of readership or in this case, viewership, which means it would have been targeted more towards the adults. And they most likely didn't go back.

Like I never went back to read Hunger Games, even after I saw, I actually didn't like the first movie when I first saw it at home, it wasn't until I think a couple of years later, I rewatched it. And I think because my mentality had changed and evolved from my own experiences that I fully understood and appreciated the concept and the premise within the Hunger Games. So for me, timing was definitely technology, also type of storytelling that we would get East versus West.

And then obviously just the group that we're marketing towards for that time period. Yeah, that's just my thought process, though. I think you're onto something there, but I'm going to add an extra layer to this.

So 2001, September 11, right? World Trade Towers fall. Yeah. That was a marker in time, right? Seven years later, we get the Hunger Games.

Well, in the midst of 2001 through even 2012, there's a lot of nonsense, a lot of stuff that happened. And so I feel like there was a trend for dystopian work coming back. It's not the dystopian work never happened before.

It's that it wasn't popularized. But because people are living through these constant global crises, we're like, oh, this is absurd. Let me go step into a fictional world, but also is dealing with really terrible things.

And so my theory is that the reason Hunger Games started to pick up is because of the constant things that were happening in the world that it's like, here's this, then this, then the market fell, then this. And so we've built on ourselves like, oh, hey, it's just so absurd. Every day you turn the news on.

It's like, well, here's a new terrible thing that happened. And it's not to dismiss that terrible things happen, because that's just life. But because it's constantly in front of us, we're like, oh, that's normal or that's familiar.

And so let me go read a book that has something like that, but is removed a little bit outside of my daily life. And so it feels relatable enough, but different enough that I'm like, oh, I can consume this for entertainment. That is my theory.

Yeah. And if we're going to discuss Battle Royale, it comes out nine months or so before September 11th. And there's not a one-to-one copy of it.

Yes, a government is forcing high school kids to fight to the death, but there's no wars. There's just a recession. There's a lot of delinquency and fallout from the recession.

And kids are the major contributors to that delinquency. And within the Japanese context, that means something. And so that government in Japan decides, okay, all the delinquent kids are going to fight to the death.

And maybe that will change their life or whatever, or we'll get rid of the delinquents, right? It'll scare them straight. But that is not what's happening in The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games starts with, well, the world's, we're not given a lot of information about it.

But the background information is there's wars. And the winners of those wars are the ones who institute this to punish the people. And it's not to reform them.

It's to literally make them give sacrifices to the winning side. So I don't see a one-to-one there at all. I don't even see a pastiche.

I don't see a scrape of Battle Royale in The Hunger Games world. Now, I know also very little about Battle Royale, except for YouTube videos that do deep dives, so-called, on Battle Royale. So I know the story of Battle Royale.

And now I read two books on The Hunger Games, the original and the prequel. I do not see anything of similarity, except, well, kids are fighting to the death. But okay, that's not a claim for plagiarism at all.

In my book. Yeah, I feel like what both of you are getting at, though, is, or at least what Jonathan was saying, and what could be kind of extrapolated from what you're saying, is, honestly, relatability or, like, sympathy. If Japan had this culture of delinquency, like, people probably didn't love that if they're making movies about it.

And so I would say a movie about kids, like, delinquent kids being thrown in to fight to the death might not generate the same sympathy as Katniss struggling to survive, volunteering for her little sister to fight for the death. And so, yeah, I feel like a relatability is a big thing of that, which kind of goes with what Jonathan was saying, too, with, like, everything. The world is falling apart right now.

I want to read a book that gives me this, like, catharsis where the same thing's happening. So during COVID, I reread the whole series and watched all the movies again, because it felt familiar. It's like, this is what it feels like right now.

And also, I was only playing Apex, where it's like, well, might as well go into an arena anyway and fight to the death. I literally just themed all of the content that I was, or the entertainment that I was partaking in around those things because I, you know, we were all just locked down in our houses and stuff. And I was like, well, if I've got to do this, I need some sort of escape.

So I might as well just, like, feel like I have control over it by engaging with the entertainment that aligns with it. That's how I reacted. But with Cyberpunk specifically, it was all in.

I was on 2077 constantly. Everything I was consuming was focused in and around that. Also, a lot of zombie movies, now that I think about it.

But this is not a first time within my lifetime that an author or a creator has been accused of plagiarizing a work. Terminator by Cameron. Harlan Ellison, author of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and other works, claimed that the Terminator was a ripoff of one of his books.

And I forget the name of that book. But there was also a machine in the future, somehow killing humans and sent back in time. And Cameron says, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I saw this in a dream. And the fallout of that, I won't bore the audience or you guys. Orion, I think, or whatever company created Terminator, eventually paid back, not paid back, settled with Ellison for an undisclosed amount of money.

So, I mean, we don't know what really happened. But let's just take Cameron at his word. He saw it in a dream.

He never heard of who Ellison was before that dream. He made this movie, made a lot of money. Ellison, look, hey, that's my thing.

And let's give him the benefit of the doubt that his rage was, at least in his mind, justified because he doesn't know anything except this is what I wrote, you know, whatever, 10, 15 years ago. And all of a sudden, Cameron's making a movie about it. I don't know.

Shit happens. Sometimes it happens. If we're both just going to give them the benefit of the doubt, who knows what happened with that story.

I mean, that's completely true. I agree. I don't know about that specific circumstance.

But there is so much content out there. How can you possibly even come close to knowing everything, especially nowadays? It's always been my biggest fear is I don't want to accidentally mimic or get close to something else out there. But it's really, it's impossible to truly know because there could be that one thing out there that somebody published 20 some years ago that you literally would have no idea unless you knew about it directly.

And there's no way for you to check because like how many times are you going to Google this concept? You know what I mean? Like, it's just like, it's so exhaustive. You can't really get to 100% certainty. I drew a little comic like years ago.

And Jesse, like, I think it was yesterday or two days ago. I was reading a book and it had like a bunch of, it was Red Rising actually. I started the first one and it like listed all the house names and they're all named after planets.

And I saw one of them was House Minerva. And I was like, is Minerva a planet? Because I had written in my comic, I'd named the planet Minerva and I thought it was like a cool name for a planet. So I look up like Minerva planet and it's like Minerva is a common planet name in sci-fi novels.

And I'm like, dude, like not even just one novel. It's a common name in multiple novels. And like, I don't know if it was, what's the word? Like subconscious or what? But I just like, you can copy stuff just on accident or without even knowing.

It's ridiculous. And like, that was a minor thing, but like still. A lot of times those are like based on Greek etymological words and things like that, that we have just, to use Slava's word, are in the zeitgeist, right? And you're like, oh, whenever they talk about planets, they use this like suffix or this prefix.

And you're like, oh, well, what if I take that and I make my own word up? Now it's just a word that you've heard one time, but your brain is like, ah, I'm making a word up. It's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. So I get that. It's very hard to do.

What about these worlds? That attract us. Like we've talked about Hunger Games, Battle Royale. I mentioned, you know, in a somewhat of parenthetical note, the world of Terminator.

Like what attracts us to dystopian novels? Like what's the release there? Like, cause I love cyberpunk. I love dystopian. I like speculative Philip K. Dick, the Harlan Ellison.

I read a bunch of stories by all these creators and writers, and I love dystopian things. And worlds, you know, that seemed maybe to an outsider is like, well, it's just the government doing bad shit. Like what's so new about it? But each story has its own world, but the theme itself is an oppressive government doing horrible things.

And there are these, you know, people, a motley crew that comes out of the dust to fight it. Like what about that attracts us? I mean, I, as somebody who writes dystopian, it is extreme catharsis. I mean, there is so much emotional release just in writing it, the concepts behind it.

Like I don't even care so much about the individual story. The concept that there are other people who feel the way that I do about these things is a huge relief because for me, I grew up being very much a loner. I was bullied in school.

Like there was really not a lot of similarities between me and the people around me where I grew up. And I always felt like the odd man out. So when I got my hands on video games and all these other things, I was like, okay, there are people out there just like me that think that way.

And they believe these things. And I'm not crazy, right? Like I'm not on my own. And I think that that's what's amazing about writing and reading and all the art forms around it, even movies is that there's at least one other person that thought of this and thought, yes, this is it.

And they translated my feelings and thoughts onto something that I can consume and feel like I'm not singular in the space for it. So that for me is like, number one, why for I, why I gravitate towards dystopian because I see things in such a way that's a little bit nihilistic. And for me, it's very cathartic to see that I'm not the only one.

I think also it's very human to feel like you're an outsider, even if you're, say, the popular kid or something like that. True. And so that's like an aspect of feeling human.

And then we get these stories of like this sub subterranean or sub, but that's not the right word. The subgroup, the subterranean group, you know, just a regular. I made that word up, Evan.

It's fine. Subterranean. Yeah, never existed before, but it's like below earth.

That's what it means. Right. I've made it up.

I'm just over here. Combining some, some etymology. I, something about loners and subterranean folks.

I had a point here. I don't even know. It's fine.

Subgroup, the subgroup that. Subgroups. Thank you, Jules.

The subgroups, we want to feel like we're a part of a group. And so being a part of a group of that is, hey, I'm not alone. I'm not alone in my thinking.

Makes it go like, hey, it's nice to not be alone because to be human is to want connection. Yeah. Need connection.

And so if we all, as part of being human, primarily feel at some point or majority of points in our lives, hey, it feels like I'm the only one who doesn't have it together. It's like, no, that's actually really common. We just don't talk about it because, well, you know, gotta go to my business meeting and make sure that we're, we have everything together.

Would you like to buy our services? Right? Like, no, we're all just. And so sometimes I'll actually go to my business meetings and go like, hey guys, can we just be human for a second? Here's what's going on. And they're like, oh man, that's a lot.

And so you like break that fourth wall almost. And so I relate that back to the stories that we enjoy and why there's a gravitas towards that. I made that word up too, Evan, to draw us in to, that's my new joke, Slava.

I hope you just get comfortable with it for this season. He doesn't seem impressed that we want to relate with these stories. All right, Slava, you can talk now.

Except I won't even be here. Jonathan will still be saying, I made that word up, Evan. That'll be a good bit.

If like in two years, Evan's moved on from this post and John's like, I made that up, Evan. Evan's just in the comments, shut up, I'm not there anymore. Please stop texting me.

Get a life, touch grass, man. So I'm a weird little boy. I'm a Christian who's an absurdist at heart with nihilistic tendencies.

So I feel what you're saying, Jewel, when you talk about your nihilistic tendencies. Because when you grew up in the household that I grew up in and experienced what I experienced, and my parents were refugees from the Soviet Union, and then I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of American political arcs. Very cool.

We'll get to that in two seconds. And so when you look at the stuff that's going on, and this is not blue versus red, I'm not making any political comments in any strict sense, but when you look around and you see the absurdity of today's political climate all over the world, I think when you are thrown into a dystopian novel, I'm not saying you should see it as a one for one, but there is a catharsis because you see how absurd the world can be at times in the philosophical sense, not in just all it's silly. And you have that cathartic moment where you follow that motley crew or that lone survivor.

Like Cyberpunk, I played all three personas, and I loved each one. The way they created each scenario to be the girl who is a runner, and you can play a boy or a girl for either of the personas, but the corporal guy escaping the corporate world, then the scavenger, and then the city kid, you're able to put yourself in their shoes, and this is true with every story, but you're able to put yourself in their shoes and have an escape. Make up a word for me, cathartic.

What's the... Carthadium. There we go. So you're able to do that, and there's a more of a release than just in other stories, I think.

And this is personal. I think you share this, Jules, too. So there's two of us here, where when you read a dystopian story or a speculative story, you're able to process all the mess in your head and come out of it going, all right, yeah, I read that story.

Yeah, my life is crap, or my life could be better, or maybe your life is fine. You're on the other end of any valley that you just went through. But it gives you a chance to just sit there and escape the current situation.

Maybe there's a sense of nostalgia, and you're just lost in a different world. And for me, dystopian does that more than any other type of genre. Yeah, dystopian's like if you take the underdog archetype and turn it into an entire genre.

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. So let's anchor back into Sunrise on the Reaping.

What do we feel like this dystopian book adds to the world that is The Hunger Games, or doesn't add? Hi, Roxy. This one. Is she volunteering a tribute? She is asking to go to the bathroom.

So you guys continue, and I will let her out. So anchoring back, what do we feel like Sunrise on the Reaping adds as a dystopian book to the world that is Hunger Games, or doesn't add, right? Because it doesn't just need to be positive. I have mixed feelings.

So I think what it does do, if you just take it at the thematic level, is it reinforces the cruelty that Snow has, which is important because he drives... I mean, if you trace it back to Songbirds at the very beginning of his origin and his continuation, he had all that time to put an end to it and didn't. He just made it worse. And more of this display and this humiliation even of these people that are being sacrificed to the capital every single reaping.

And on top of all of that, for me, it just reinforces Snow specifically. I don't think it adds anything else to the rest of the world other than maybe some sprinklings of the side characters. We get a little bit more about Beatty, which I think is important because having that context, you realize just how patient he is trying to take them down.

And that takes a lot of willpower. So it really creates a strong sense of loyalty to Beatty as a reader to a character. You're like, wow, I really believe in this character.

And we know where that ends up. And even though he sacrifices his literal mobility to be able to do this, he's lost his son, he's lost who knows what else. And so for me, it reinforces specific characters.

The story itself doesn't add anything else to me in the dystopian piece, but it just reinforces it. I think with the, I just think that the book, the story, sorry, I'm struggling to put this into words. I just think that the book, the fact that Haymitch pretty much loses, just makes Katniss's success more satisfying, where it's like, all these people have tried before me to take down the Capitol, everyone's failed.

The stakes are higher this way. And it's a lot more daunting of a task. And that means that when she finally does it, it's like, this sigh of relief, like she finally did what everyone's been trying to do.

And with Haymitch, we get to see people before her trying to do that. And also, because of that, we get to see, I mean, what Jules was saying, like how evil Snow is too. So it also makes that more satisfying.

Does the fact that a bunch of people tried before Katniss justify using Katniss to achieve the goal? I mean, if we're talking about Plutarch in this case. All of them. Plutarch, Coyne, Haymitch, you know, with his bit of role in it.

I would actually, I don't know. Coyne for me is a non-factor because she's so, she's literally just a copy. She's a replica of Snow before he became Snow, in my opinion, under the guise of freeing the districts and then turns around and is like, oh, we're going to do the Hunger Games against the Capitol's children.

And you're like, wait a minute, what? Okay. What? So, you know, there is for me, like, she's no different than Snow, which is why Katniss does what she does at the end. She's like, I have to put a stop to this.

Like, I'm done. I can't do with this anymore. And I cannot be this person's freaking, you know, little puppet.

So I love that part for the ending. But I don't think so. I don't know.

I have mixed feelings. Yeah. It's interesting what Evan said, and then I'm going to come back to what you asked, Jonathan, that this prequel, I think, gives us a deeper look into how many people have been sacrificed, have sacrificed themselves to fight, you know, Panem and Katniss.

You know, if you've never read this sequel, prequel and never existed, it's a completely different story. But I think Evan, you know, hit the nail on the head where, look how many people have lost, right? You know, it gives you a deeper look into that. And then to connect that comment to your question, Jonathan, is Haymidge did lose, right? And, you know, destroyed him.

And now he's part of, you know, the little revolution, if you want to call it, that keeps throwing these kids into the wood chipper. And Katniss happens to win and good for her. But even she has the same doubts as did Haymidge in the first book.

They go through the same emotional cycles. So I don't know, like, is it worth it? Like, they're human lives. They have intrinsic value.

But, you know, the guys who stormed the beaches of Normandy, some knew they were going to, you know, die, but they did it for a greater cause. So, and, you know, whether it's fighting the real Nazi government or fighting a fake Pan Am government, as long as they're not coerced, yeah, like, that's what you got to do. I think it comes, I think I would hinge the entire answer that anyone were to give based on their belief of what you do with evil.

Well, it goes back to Plutarch, and he is accepting of the fact that he's sacrificed his moral compass entirely to try to progress the revolution. So I'm in the same vein, though, like, I'm not going to be a sacrifice, obviously, like from from a perspective of like, if I had to go into a revolution tomorrow, right to help fight for people's freedoms. I don't know what I would do in that instance, I would like to believe that I'd be willing to sacrifice my morals to progress something that I know in the end could be making things better.

But again, there's still gambling, you don't know if you're going to win. And so that comes back down to the philosophical question is, is it worth it? Are all the sacrifices worth it? And so, you know, there's people that have a stance, like people I know, even that have a sense of like, if it doesn't directly concern me in that moment, I'm not getting involved, right? Like, they're not going to stand up for that person, they're not going to do whatever. And that's like a lot of mentality that there is, there was a really interesting study done, but horrible.

But in New York, there was a substantial increase in crime at one point back in I want to say the 80s. And there was a woman beaten to death in a very public area. And nobody stopped to help.

And the interesting thing for me from a psychological perspective is how come nobody, you know, helped. And later on, when the police investigated, a lot of the resounding answers was, well, we assume somebody else would. It was like, wait, so you see somebody truly suffering, and you just turn the other way, because you think somebody else will step up.

And of course, when you have that kind of mentality, nobody does, nobody steps in. And so it's just the way that human nature is. And it's also there's a microclimate there, you know, maybe those people were also exposed to violent crimes in general.

So they were less, you know, likely to partake in trying to interrupt it. So they didn't want to, maybe they've experienced their own, you know, issues from that, or they knew who was doing and didn't want the repercussions later, you know, there's a lot of things to consider there. But the psychology is, we assume that the next person is going to help, but that usually never happens, that help never comes.

And so it's for me, it's a similar kind of situation where Plutarch's like, I can't let anybody else, I can't assume anybody else is going to try to do it. I have momentum now, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. And hopefully, eventually, we'll get to the end goal.

I think on your point there, Plutarch also understands that he's in his position, and people are going to die anyway. So he might as well put it to good use. Right? Like, hey, I know that 15 out of the 16 of you have to die.

And if I can keep her alive, then I can make some progress in this goal. And you know, I don't think that he does it without conscience. I think that's why at the end of the third book, he's just like, I just want to disappear.

I know what I've done. I know what it's cost me. I know that I've spent part of my soul doing this.

I'm not looking for credit. And so he knows, like you talked about sacrificing morals. It's like, I'm not sure that he sacrificed his morals.

I think he sacrificed his soul. Maybe that means the same thing, right? Because he was like, that expense that he has to sell, because he's just, you know, the living dead at that point, if you will, because he knows the blood that's on his hands. He's like, this is worth it.

Even if I have to bear the cross, if it were, as it were. Yeah. Yeah.

There's this philosophical mind experiment. It's not a mind experiment, but I guess it's a concept. And I forget who came up with it, but it's the donkey who's looking at two stacks of hay.

And he can't decide between the two, and then he eventually dies. So I think Plutarch is looking at two, you know, stacks of hay. One is poisoned, and one is more poisoned.

So, right? Does he sit there and let it all happen? Or does he participate in what ultimately costs him some of his morals and his soul or both? And the ultimate goal is to get rid of the tyrannical government of Panem. And in his mind, in his view from his, you know, from where he's standing, you know, the survivor has to be somehow won over to our side. And then, you know, I'm not trying to whitewash it, but that kind of, I think, puts some perspective on it.

It's not just him, Hogwild doing horrible stuff in the hopes of creating something good out of all the shit that he's done. He is faced with a situation that's almost untenable. Like, you know, either let him die or try to use them for the good, you know, their evolution.

Yeah, they're going to die regardless. So you might as well make it worth it. Which this moves us, you know, to the third segment of this episode of, you know, is this going to make a good movie? Is Sunrise on the Reaping going to make a good movie? Right? Like, we've got the first four movies, three books, right? Plus the Ballad of Songbirds and... Evan, help me out here.

Songbirds and Sunrises. Make up a word. Make up a word.

Make up a word. Snakes. That's a good word to make up.

That's perfect. I hope it's a better movie than the book was for entertainment. Yeah.

That's all I can say. I think it will be, honestly, because it feels like a movie. It feels like a movie script.

I think I mentioned that in the second episode, where it's like, this feels like they took the script and went, we need to add some more prose so I can sell it as a book first. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

I think the little seeds of other plot points and arcs being in the movie, I think that'll be a fun experience for people. I'm simultaneously horrified to think how they're going to provide us with visuals of these deaths, but also interested to see them. So I think these are more graphic than what we saw in The Hunger Games.

Like, at least the movies, because I don't know if they dumbed them down, because I never read the trilogy myself, but the movies made the deaths not as bad graphically. So when I read even Ampert's death, I was like, they did what now? They wrote that? Okay. I'm not unfamiliar with horror.

I write horror. I GMed as a horror GM, so I'm not unfamiliar with graphic. They'll pare it down for sure, because it's a YA audience.

Yeah. I was just kind of surprised, honestly, for the context of the book and the series as a whole. Those deaths were pretty violent.

And then Welly at the end, I was like, you didn't have to do that. That's unnecessary, truly. Come on.

Like, why? Come on, Suzanne. It felt like it was shock factor instead of actually meaning something, because why did she, who was it? Silke, I think. What was her name? I think it was Silke.

Silke. Why would she do that? That's so weird. Like, there was no setup for it on, like, why she would be that savage about the death.

I don't know. But anyway, for the movie purposes, would be interesting. I'm kind of drawn to tragedy movies, I've noticed.

It's like, if we're following that pattern, I feel like I might like it. But I don't know, because I didn't care for the book. So maybe not.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm definitely going to watch this one, because we're covering it, and we're going to talk about it on the show. But I think it will be better than the book.

Because of what Jonathan said, it reads like a script. And I know I'm the odd man out that actually enjoyed it. But I also understand the critiques of the book, and why you guys don't like it.

But I think the movie... How do I say this? It'll redeem the story, for lack of a better term. Because you'll have acting, it'll be visual. Hopefully, they will keep Haymitch's arc the way it is, meaning he loses.

So it'll end in a somber note. It'll be maybe a bittersweet ending, a melancholy ending, a tragic ending, to use a more literary term. If that's the case, and a really good actor portrays him and takes the stuff that we see in the book that kind of felt flat a little bit to you guys, and he makes it more alive, like it brings the character out.

And then his struggles and all his internal dialogues that that seem trite to you, they will be more realistic. They'll have some gravitas to them. If that happens, and the ending is sad, I think it'll be a good movie.

Like the visuals, the deaths, everything else, I think it'll be fine. It's Hollywood, they have enough money to throw it at it. So I think that is why the movie is going to be way better than the book.

What you just said about there being actors. So those actors, you know they're going to go look at the first three books, they're going to watch the movies, they're going to see what their future self is supposed to lead towards, because they're good. They're good actors, they're in Hollywood, right? So they're grade A in terms of where they're at in their careers.

Good for them. Yes, you would hope they would do that. I expect that a lot of them will.

Who's the director? The director is... Martin Scorsese. Martin Scorsese, yeah, yeah. It's Christopher Nolan.

Oh my god. That'd be a good movie though. Let's see here.

I don't know who the... It's going to be... Here's the thing about directors, right? I wanted to be a director at one point. They don't actually just give that job out. You kind of have to know people or create something crazy like Saw.

Well, that's my point though, is the director is going to be more influential to how the movie turns out than the actors. I hope it's Zack Snyder. He'd have no problem doing that scene with Silka and the Wellie or whatever her name was.

They get so dramatic too. Francis Lawrence the second. Okay, and what has his work been attributed to? Do we know? He did the other Hunger Game movies.

Oh, he did? A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Slumberland, The Long Walk, Mockingjay Part Two, Part One, Mockingjay Part One Teaser, short, Catching Fire. And I mean, I suppose that makes sense, right? Like using the same... He did Kings, three episodes of Kings. He did the Lady Gaga Bad Romance music video for those.

Water for Elephants, Beyonce Run the World, girls music video. Did he do the original? I don't see the original Hunger Games on here, folks. He probably didn't do the original.

They probably switched somebody. Catching Fire though, in my opinion, was very good. Catching Fire, Mockingjay, Part One, Part Two.

Yeah, so he didn't do the original, but the other three he did do. I don't think I'm going to like it then. I did not care for the latter three Hunger Games movies, I'm not going to lie.

I liked the original movie, the Catching Fire and the Mockingjays. I just could not connect to them. Why? I just think, I think I was harsh on Catching Fire originally, my thoughts on it.

I think the ending was just upsetting to me because I like, the games are the part I was looking forward to. And then they ended so abruptly to me with like, they make this whole plan and then people start like, Katniss's allies start like acting strange. And then before you can even like take it in and like try to figure out what's going on, the movie just kind of ends.

They're like, oh yeah, we staged a rebellion. And then it ends and I did not like that. And then I thought Mockingjay Part One was just like, honestly a snoozefest.

I thought it could have been made into one movie. I agree they could have combined Mockingjay together for sure. I agree.

The last one was so good though, the last part. I think by the last, I'm gonna be honest, I think by the last one, I was kind of clocked out after the first, the two before it. I was like, all right, like I just want to get, because I was watching them before reading this book.

So I was trying to get through them all. And then by the time I got to that last movie, I was like, I don't care anymore. And then it turned, I like realized like, I was like, dang, this actually seems cool.

I wish I was paying attention more before this. And then I started to pay attention again. And then the movie ended really quickly after that.

And I was like, oh, maybe not. But yeah, moral of the story, I did not love those movies. I loved the only one that guy didn't direct, apparently.

Did you ever watch Constantine, Evan? No. He also directed Constantine. Did you ever watch, this is like a big music video guy.

I'm like sitting here flipping through his thing. Constantine, the one I have seen in the Lady Gaga music video. Yes, with Keanu Reeves.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that one was good. Yeah, Constantine was really good.

That was an older, yeah, they are. But that was also older. Things are very different in Hollywood nowadays.

What's this guy's name? Francis Lawrence. He also did I Am Legend with Will Smith. Wow, okay.

This guy's got a lot, like he's got a very full, yeah, Constantine too. He's in pre-production for right now. And Bioshock.

I never watched, wait, as in the movie? The video game. The video game, he did Bioshock. So I can't play that game.

I have a weird like subconscious trauma of the ocean suddenly. So I can't play it. But yeah.

Maybe you'll watch the movie, who knows? Might watch the movie, yeah. Yeah, so it's a movie based on a video game. But yeah, this guy's got a very full repertoire on.

That's interesting. Yeah, I would not have guessed based on the movies that I just listed off and the TV shows, because I watched like all of Kings and some of Gotham, that he's a music video artist. Because those are two, I'm probably the only person here who's actually shot music videos.

No. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Nice.

Yeah, a few. Nice. All right, so I'm not the only one.

Jules and I. Music videos are a very different animal, especially like before, uh, you know, music videos don't exist anymore, basically. Or they do, and they're just 30 seconds long on socials. You decide.

But it's just such a different storytelling framework. I don't know what it's to call it, Jules. Like it's a framing, right? Because you got a minute, three minutes and 30 seconds, you know, up to six minutes, maybe.

If they're really popular. The problem is that music videos are abstract interpretations of lyrics. There's really not intentional storytelling.

And when you try to put storytelling in there, in the traditional sense of narrative, it doesn't usually work. Sometimes, sometimes you get lucky. And it works really well.

But most of the time, you can't even do scripts, really, not for music. Like you have to hit like thematic points. And there has to be some kind of progression for it to be a good music video.

But most music videos, I'm sorry, are horrible. They're just, I cannot understand them at all. Very boring to watch, repetitive.

They use the same b-roll over and over again. And I'm like, I'm done with this shit. Like I cannot, like, I don't want to get started.

I don't want to get started. Fair enough. It just needs to be visually appetizing.

That's what you have to do with the music video. That's really the main point. But I got us off track here a little bit.

So as we wind down in terms of Sunrise on the Reaping, you guys will have to pop back for when we watch the trailer, which I think we'll get this out before the trailer. You might see us do a reaction to the trailer before this. It really depends on when they release it because it's not out yet.

But we will give our reactions to that as well as the movie itself. So final thoughts from anyone regarding Hunger Games as a world, the movies. Evan just hates Katniss, so that's fine.

I hope that this is the last of the Hunger Games stuff. I think we're done with it. I don't know if there's much more other than, like you said, trying to get more money grab after this.

And that's why it won't be! But look at the patterns, right? They're remaking Lord of the Rings. They've expanded on Star Wars. They don't believe... And this is the thing, it's all a business, right? They're not here to entertain us.

They're here to make money, right? So if you understand that context, it's like, well, why would they make a bet on a new IP, a new intellectual property, when they know they can make money on this? Because people will do what Evan did where it's like, well, I've already watched the other three. I might as well just watch the last one. Whether he buys it, rents it, goes to the movie theater, that's money for them.

Yeah. Sorry to say, folks. It's just what it is what it is.

And if it's entertaining money grab, you'll get my money. Because I bought... Well, I'm not going to call Harry Potter money grab, but I bought all of them, all the movies, right? And like I said in the last episode, do not care about the books one bit. I got into chapter two and I was just... Well, I didn't throw the phone because it was... He burned it.

He burned my phone. Yeah, and my Kindle. But I re-watched the movies because they're fun.

And I understand what I'm doing. But I find them fun. So if it's a fun, entertaining money grab, I will play the part I need to and give Hollywood my money.

But if it's crap, then, well, it's crap. Do we live in a dystopia where Star Wars sequels exist? Unfortunately, yes. And Lord of the Rings remakes.

Well, Evan, I'm glad you said what you said because we have a revolution going, Jules, Jonathan, and I. So join us. I'll be Plutarch. Evan, you can play Katniss.

You will survive, I promise. No bloodshed in this revolution. I'll be Ampere.

We know how that ends for him. I'll send your parents a flower or two or a bag of gummies. Like gumdrops, you mean? Yes, thank you.

To ease their pain. Yeah, Jon Snow over here. I just work for the entity.

If you guys like anime and you want to laugh at my absurdity, Lelouch, what is it called? Code Geass, Lelouch of the Rebellion, is over on a channel that I used to run with a friend of mine. He's been on the show here called Astral Fish. Put a link in the thing.

But we did anime watch throughs. And we talked about something similar to topics we were talking about here, which is, do you fight the monster from the outside or do you go into the belly of the beast to fight from the inside out? It's deontology versus... Utilitarianism? I don't... Is it? Is it? Maybe it's different based on the context, but that's usually the two that are pitted against each other. Consequentialism, consequentialism.

Are you guys making up words again? No, Evan, that's just me. Just me. Yeah, deontology versus consequentialism.

And we have... I don't know if it's a robust conversation. That's a made up word, Evan. But we tried to have a fruitful conversation, not a made up word, about deontology versus consequentialism.

So if you guys are interested in something like that, you can go visit old Jonathan from the past and laugh. I also, you know, my words joke here. Back then I was counting wheels on the episode.

So hope you can deal with that. On every episode, I'd count the number of wheels that happened. Wow.

So I might have a case of the tism. You can decide. Or I was a middle child.

Either way. But Evan, are you a middle child? I am. What is that? So you get it.

Yeah. I was like, wait, my people, did you call? It's like, it's the middle child mockingjay sound. Yeah.

I'm first born and I have a lot of, a plethora, a buffet, if you will, of mental issues. Oh, Jules, I'm not charging copay today. So that's not for, that's not for public consumption.

Or is it? Visit think.pub and sign up and you'll find out. And you'll find out. All the books I'll be releasing.

Slava's actually in this weird, like he's not actually a first, middle or last born. He's just exists. Yeah.

He's a vampire. He's a clown. He's always been here.

Yes. He's always been here and he always will be here. Different names, different centuries.

He's been in every Hunger Games, but he's like the kid that you forget to find in hide and seek. So he just always survives. The Hunger Game ends.

They were like, well, I'm pretty sure he died. So they just put his face in the sky. And he's just, it's like when you're playing hide and seek and the kid's just like, guys, guys.

Yeah. I was called to be part of the reaping and just forgot to pick me up. And I was just like, all right, well, I guess I'll stay here.

I'll just get in the, I'll get in the ship. Yeah. Just lets himself in, lets himself out.

Oh man. Yeah. Did you see the trailer wasn't out yet? Cause it is.

Is the trailer out? It is out or at least a teaser. I think it's a trailer. Let's watch it.

We'll watch it. All right. Well, well folks stay tuned next time for more misinformation about the Hunger Games.

All right. Thanks for joining us for the first book of season six. We will catch you on the next one.