New Catching Fire Trailer and Posters

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Of all the books, Catching Fire is my favorite, so I'm almost vibrating with excitement over the release of a new trailer yesterday at San Diego Comic Con, and the chance to see our named victors in their arena costumes.

Some thoughts I had watching the new trailer:

* The Victor's Village is smaller than I expected, and the houses are much grander than I imagined. Kind of a McMansion development that didn't think hard enough about green space. So, from that perspective, it probably is the Village the Capitol would build.

* The scenes of the Hob burning are very dramatic! What's just an off-screen moment in the book is going to be a very dramatic sequence. I love that the film adaptation gives us the chance to see things outside of Katniss's perspective, and I'm really looking forward to more of these moments.

* That shot of the crowd surging forward during the tour (at 0:53)... is that District 3? Oh, please, let it be so! (Alternately, I'm guessing it's District 5, which I would also not mind seeing.)

* Is it just my imagination, or do the shots of the Capitol look bigger and broader than those used in The Hunger Games? I don't expect Catching Fire has a substantially bigger budget (I think Lionsgate expected THG to be a hit and funded accordingly), so I'm not sure why that would be.

* The look between Effie and Katniss at 1:16 is exquisite.

* OMG, the interview set! Am I the only one tortured by the fact that all the victors are there, but the screen size/resolution is too small to get real detail? (Why does District 6 look like they've escaped from the Matrix?)

* The actresses playing Enobaria and Johanna look fantastic. Not quite what I imagined (I pictured Enobaria with darker skin and a buzzcut), but true threats.

* Following Katniss's lift out of the stockyard into the arena could not be more breathtaking.

The victor posters were originally distributed separately to various websites, but Empire Online has posted all of them. The casting of District 3 is particularly important to me (headcanon, I haz it). I am really pleased with the choice of accomplished character actors Amanda Plummer and Jeffrey Wright as Wiress and Beetee. Plummer seems especially right to me, given the niche she's carved out for herself playing the tiny, soft-spoken women with the crazy eyes (if you have the opportunity, check out her Emmy-winning guest shot on The Outer Limits, "A Stitch in Time").

Comments

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I laughed so hard at D6's outfits, especially given that they're morphlings who just run around going wheeeeeeeeeee hiiiiiii preeeeeeeeetty and they're standing there all badass. XD

LOL! Precisely. Everything about D6 is just completely not what I was expecting. I'm thinking waste-oids in bright colors who get distracted by the light fixtures or Caesar's glowing teeth; they give us Neo and Trinity in a pissy mood. Huh?

NO YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO WAS TORTURED BY THE VICTOR SHOT

Glad I'm not alone in my misery. I did finally find that high-res still at Mockingjay.net (yes, I'm slow) and had more luck with that than I had with pausing the trailer. Taking a closer look at the outfits, I'm knocked over by how universally ugly they are. D1=disco ball gone wrong. D5+9= brown sacks. I'm not going to look at Woof and Wiress too long; it's like staring into the sun. IMO, only Finnick and Beetee got relatively flattering styles.

All of the kids in The Hunger Games were wearing reasonably attractive formal wear. I'm not sure what's going on here, except that perhaps this is an intentional choice on the part of the costume designers to highlight the humiliation of trying to mash the aging victors into the tribute role.

I managed to zoom in and laughed myself to death at Brutus wearing the same belly shirt as Enobaria. Like. Well done gender parity I guess?

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY. Belly shirts. Shimmery belly shirts. I'm thinking Brutus's headspace is: "I volunteered for this. Twice. Courage and sacrifice. Bringing pride to my district. Then you do this to me. Forget you people, I'm allying with the Mockingjay."

since the book mentions all her servants and I was like SERVANTS??!

I've read CF three times and somehow missed this. Woah, my bad. Servants, in D12, though? Well, if SC says so, I guess so, but... Well, that does explain why the houses are so McMansion-y.

(omg I didn't know you had D3 headcanon GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEEEE)

Hee! OK, I'll jot a few notes down. But, it's rough. I haven't hashed it out with anyone (none of my friends are into THG in a fannish way), so it's just random ideas that are definitely subject to revision and refinement.

(also hi hi I added you to general filters but if you want in on the Avenger Games AU filter lemme know)

Thanks!