‘Hunger Games’ Clip Reveals Katniss’ Talents — And Some Surprising Faithfulness

By  · Published on March 3rd, 2012

The cinematic adaptation of Suzanne CollinsThe Hunger Games series has a number of obstacles, including: making child-on-child murder fit into a PG-13 film, pleasing fans with casting decisions, not looking silly, appealing to fans, appealing to non-fans, not getting lumped in with The Twilight Saga just because the film includes a love triangle, giving Lenny Kravitz something to do, hiring someone to etch out Wes Bentley’s facial hair, and making back enough bank to not only make the film a “success” but to also provide some financial padding for sequels.

And then there’s the Katniss Everdeen problem. Jennifer Lawrence’s character is the center of the story, the leading lady, a rebel and a firebrand ‐ and she’s also kind of an inscrutable jerk sometimes. But fans who have read Collins’ books love Katniss, even if they had to grow into that love ‐ moviegoers who don’t know her from Bella Swan don’t have that luxury. So what to do? Well, make a new trailer that shows Katniss’ softer side.

And release a new clip that show what an absolute badass Katniss is ‐ both with her bow and arrow and her total disregard for authority.

Now that? That’s a hell of a clip. Not only do we see Katniss breaking out her number one skill, kickass archery, we see it done in a way that also shows that she doesn’t give a holy heck what the Capitol expects of her. Would you be so cool if you were about to fight a bunch of other kids to the death in a giant, televised event? Probably not.

Even better? This clip illustrates perhaps the most faithful scene adaptation of the book so far. Fans of the series have found plenty to nitpick with the marketing we’ve seen till now ‐ even that new trailer with Katniss and her younger sister Prim has some serious deviations from its source material (hint: it involves that Mockingjay pin), but this scene looks to be lensed exactly as it appears in the book. Do all adaptations need to stick to their original material? No, but it’s nice to see at least some of The Hunger Games will have scenes meant to especially appeal to fans, and this clip can appeal to everyone.

The Hunger Games opens on March 23. [via Badass Digest]

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