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The Hunger Games Episodic

almightycutie

almightycutie

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I love the Hunger Games books, and I thought the movies were well done adaptations, but there were some aspects I thought could be trimmed and the pacing of the final movies improved. Originally I was going to leave the first two movies alone and just work on the last one, but earlier this year I watched MisterCooper's fantastic edit of the Hunger Games movies into an 8 episode miniseries. Because movies 2-4 were so connected the miniseries treatment worked really well. Mine is heavily inspired by his edit so please check out his if you're interested!

I don't want this to sound like I am bashing MisterCooper's edit because I really enjoyed it and mine is heavily inspired by his. But I did have some things I wanted to change, mainly around pacing, a couple story choices, and the music. Most of his series worked really well for me, but some of the pacing didn't feel right, such as starting his third episode with the last few minutes in the arena from the first movie. It felt anticlimactic to me to resolve the first movie in the initial ten minutes of that episode. His Catching Fire arena episode also ended up being a lot longer than the rest of his episodes, and while that isn't inherently bad I wanted to find a way to make the episode lengths more similar across the board. I also wanted some different story and music choices, such as my edit getting rid of most of the Gale romance from the latter movies as I thought it wasn't well done and didn't add much, and then keeping more of the original music from the series.


Main Changes:
  • Separate each movie into a series of 11 episodes roughly between 40-50 minutes each, ending each episode on an exciting cliffhanger
  • Cut the ridiculous visuals of Peeta painting himself like a rock
  • Cut down on the Gale relationship, especially in the later movies
  • Heavily trim the final two movies to fix the slow pacing
Credits:
  • MisterCooper
  • Sam Cushion music - I used many of his Hunger Games Fan Album tracks in the opening and closing credits sequences

Full Changelist:

Total Series Length - 495 minutes / 8.2 hours (Original Length - 548 minutes / 9.1 hours)

1 - The Reaping 49:30
  • Cut the first shot of Effie so she now first shows up at the mic in her real introduction
  • Trimmed a bit of Katniss not talking to Peeta on the train to cut back on the awkward pauses
  • Cut Katniss watching a previous year's game on the train. We don't see any violent game action until the actual Hunger Games starts
  • Cut Cato staring down Katniss after the opening ceremony
  • Trimmed Peeta saying he has no chance to win the games. The delivery here was a bit much
  • Cut Peeta's painting in the training center (and all of the shots of face painting going forwards)
  • Cut Peeta telling Katniss to shoot straight before her evaluation
  • Trimmed Haymitch talking about Katniss' evaluation
  • End the episode on Snow telling Seneca to contain the hope
  • Credits song - Real or Not Real (Sam Cushion)

2 - The Hunger Games 40:00
  • Opening song - Reaping Day (Sam Cushion)
  • Cut the dinner scene where Haymitch says that Peeta wants to train alone. This plot point goes nowhere
  • Trimmed some of Katniss yelling at Peeta to remove her saying that he wants to train alone
  • End the episode at the end of the hallucination scene
  • Credits song - Mockingjay (Sam Cushion)

3 - A Piece in their Games 43:45
  • Opening song - Finnick (Sam Cushion)
  • Cut the shot of Peeta covered in rock paint. Noticeable cut, but worth it to remove the painting scenes. Still working on this shot to try and make it less noticeable
  • Cut Peeta asking why Katniss won't leave him
  • Cut Peeta joking about taking Katniss' bow. Really awkward joke
  • Trimmed some of them walking in the dark before the mutts attack
  • Trimmed some of the action with Cato at the Cornucopia
  • End episode with original Hunger Games ending
  • Trimmed the original credits to match the credits length of the other episodes
  • Credits song - Abraham's Daughter (Arcade Fire - from the Hunger Games soundtrack)

4 - Victory Tour 47:30
  • Opening song - Life Changes (Sam Cushion)
  • Added 1 Year Later title card
  • Cut Katniss kissing Gale while he is recovering from the lashes
  • End episode on the Quarter Quell announcement
  • Credits song - Avox (Sam Cushion)

5 - The Quarter Quell 38:45
  • No opening song. Instead have the Quarter Quell announcement played back over the initial credits sequence
  • Trimmed Beetee laughing excessively in the training room
  • Added deleted scene of Finnick showing Katniss the rope tying
  • End episode with Cinna's attack and Katniss raising up into the arena
  • Credits song - Hunger Games (Sam Cushion)

6 - The Arena - 52:30
  • No opening song again. Slowly have the sounds of Cinna's attack over the initial credits sequence
  • This episode is in full 1080 IMAX size
  • Trimmed minor scenes throughout to lower the length of the episode just a bit. Nothing major was cut, just shortened scene lengths throughout, cutting down about 2 minutes
  • Cut Gale's first interaction with Katniss to get to him telling her about District 12 faster
  • End episode with original Catching Fire ending
  • Credits song - Come Away to the Water (Maroon 5 - from the Hunger Games soundtrack)

7 - Catching Fire 47:00
  • Opening song - Katniss is Chosen (Sam Cushion)
  • Cut Katniss PTSD scene where she recaps the last movie
  • Start with Katniss in the hospital then going to talk to Finnick
  • Cut Katniss seeing Gale before visiting the remains of District 12
  • Added District 12 title card
  • Cut Snow's shaving scene
  • Trimmed Katniss returning
  • Cut Katniss talking to Gale after seeing Peeta on the TV
  • Trimmed Plutarch walking over to talk to Effie about joining his team
  • Cut Plutarch talking to Coin after her speech
  • Cut Katniss talking to Boggs on the way to the aircraft
  • Added District 8 title card
  • End episode on Katniss saying If we burn you burn with us
  • Credits song - The Fog (Sam Cushion)

8 - The Hanging Tree 45:00
  • Opening song - Mockingjay (Sam Cushion)
  • Intro with the District 7 rebellion scene
  • Cut Gale and Katniss hunting
  • Cut Gale and Katniss in the house talking about their love
  • Shortened the Hanging Tree song
  • Added District 5 title card
  • Cut the sequence where Katniss goes to find Prim and her cat while the bombing is going off
  • Trimmed some of Katniss and Finnick's conversation about Snow manipulating them
  • Lightened many of the shots during the Peeta rescue mission just to add some visibility
  • End episode with Peeta attacking Katniss and getting knocked out
  • Credits song - Stay With Me (Sam Cushion)

9 - Symbol of the Rebellion 39:30
  • Opening song - A Piece in their Games (Sam Cushion)
  • Cut Plutarch saying what happened to Peeta with the trackerjacker venom. This is now revealed later by Peeta and not fully explained
  • Intro with Coin's speech up to Katniss seeing Peeta thrashing in the hospital
  • Cut most of Katniss trying to recover her voice
  • Cut Katniss talking to Gale while flying to District 2
  • Added District 2 title card
  • End episode as Finnick says Welcome to the 76th Hunger Games
  • Credits song - Squad 451 (Film Score)

10 - 76th Hunger Games 47:30
  • Opening song - The Assault (Sam Cushion)
  • Trimmed some of Peeta talking about not remembering things and the group telling him to ask
  • End episode on Peeta saying that everyone who died, died for Katniss
  • Credits song - Mockingjay 1 Outro (Film Score)

11 - Mockingjay 43:30
  • Opening song - Reaping Day (Film Score)
  • Cut Gale and Peeta talking about Katniss choosing one of them
  • Cut Gale not knowing if the bombs were his or not
  • Cut ending future scene and put it in as a mid credits scene without any talking
  • Credits song - Safe and Sound (Taylor Swift - from the Hunger Games soundtrack)
 
Coming back to this with fresh eyes has helped already. I was still having a lot of trouble with the transition where Katniss finds Peeta because I wanted to cut out the Peeta painting himself plotline. Originally I tried to just cut around it and use some reaction shots to bridge the gap and it never really worked well, but today I pulled the scene of Snow and Seneca talking and placed that as a transition scene. Doesn't feel so awkward anymore.
 
Made a few adjustments to episode 8 -
  • Adjusted the music fade in the intro so it blends better into the opening shot
  • I cut out Katniss and Gale hunting, but the shot of them returning has Katniss reference it so I cut it a few seconds shorter to remove that shot.
  • In the bombing run I had already removed Katniss searching for Prim. In the very beginning though I had accidentally left her checking the mess hall to see where Prim was. I cut that so there was no foreshadowing.
  • I made a slightly better transition where I cut out Katniss searching for Prim. It looks more natural now.
 
Excellent choice using Safe and Sound as the final song! Taylor‘s two songs for that soundtrack were absolutely incredible. Super excited to watch this!
 
Wish I was tagged on this. had no idea about it. I don't think you really understood my edit, but that's ok.
I wasn't trying to make a TV show, I was making a mini series and each episode has 3 acts and everything mentioned throughout has a set up and payoff and leave on cliffhangers if you take a look again.

I pretty much did what Stranger Things did in S4 before it was even released. Sorry you didn't quite get it. It's about telling the full story, it's not about length or sticking to tv standards.

Some of the action scenes were even trimmed up (not sure if you even noticed)

And the song choices were very important to the end of each one (and during some of the other bits where they were added).
Good luck with your edit though.
 
Last edited:
Hey MisterCooper,

I want to say again how much I enjoyed your edit. I felt like I understood what you were going for (though maybe not!) but I just wanted something a little bit different. Like not feeling constrained to episode lengths is totally cool and works fine in your edit, I simply wanted a version that was more consistent like a tv show. I also really liked the different song choices you brought in and thought they were for the most part very well picked and utilized. I felt like it created a new, different experience, but again I wanted a version for myself that didn't have such large musical changes.

The only negative critique of your edit that I stand by is some of the pacing choices, notably having the third episode finish up the climax of the first movie within just a few minutes. I personally don't think it worked very well. The rest of the things I made different from your edit were all because I wanted something a little different, not because I thought they weren't well done.

Just wanted to get that all out there. Sorry if I came across as more negative than I meant to, that was not my intention!

-AC
 
Are you going to update this with the Taylor’s Versions of her two songs? 🤔 I guess you don’t need to because you’re not licensing or making money off of it lol
 
I hadn't really considered it. Maybe when the new movie comes out I may revisit this edit and make some updates
 
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