The Hunger Games Structure Breakdown
For some reason, autumn is the time where I go back and watch some of my favorite popular Hollywood franchises. And up near the top is the The Hunger Games (2012) directed by Gary Ross and starring Jennifer Lawrence. As a major franchise, The Hunger Games can’t take too many narrative risks, and indeed, its structure is fairly typical. However, The Hunger Games also stands out with it’s unique protagonist Katniss Everdeen. So checkout the breakdown and observations below and let me know what you think in the comments!
As always, these breakdowns contain SPOILERS, and are only recommended if you've already seen the movie. You can check my introduction to these breakdowns, to get an overview of my process and philosophy.
The Basics
Director: Gary Ross
Writers: Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, Billy Ray
Release Date: 2012
Runtime: 142 Minutes
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392170/?ref
Movie Level Goals
Protagonist: Katniss
External: To win/survive the Hunger Games
SUCCESS | FAILURE | MIXED
Internal Goal: To form bond/return Peeta’s feelings
SUCCESS | FAILURE | MIXED
Goal Relationship: Internal Goal leads to External Goal
Three Observations
Feel free to watch the video or read the (slightly edited) transcript below.
The Hunger Games is an interesting movie. It's well-loved by many people, and in a lot of ways, I think that has to do with the fact that, in some ways, it's a very traditional movie, and in some ways, it's not a very traditional movie. I think it's traditional in its very typical four-act structure, which we're going to talk about, but it's very untraditional, of course, in its protagonist and the way our character, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is portrayed in the movie.
Observation #1: The Untraditional Protagonist
So let's dive into our observations and touch on some of these topics. Let's start with this idea of Katniss as an untraditional protagonist. Katniss definitely fits a new mold for a female lead in a big-budget blockbuster type of movie. Of course, it's not like she's the first strong female lead in a movie; we can go all the way back to movies like Alien with Sigourney Weaver and plenty of movies along the way where we have seen strong female leads. But I think there are a couple of things that set The Hunger Games apart from some of those other movies.
The first thing is that there is also a very strong romance component to this movie. So in a movie like Alien, the character of Ripley really doesn't have much of a romantic life, and everything is very straightforward in terms of her simply pursuing her external goals of surviving and defeating the alien in that movie. In The Hunger Games, a big part of the plot, not only of the first movie but all of the movies, is Katniss's confusion and attempts to make a choice between her conflicting romantic views over two different partners. That would be Peeta, who, of course, she is sent to the Hunger Games with, and her friend Gale, who, over the course of multiple movies, becomes part of the leadership of the resistance.
This is somewhat similar to what happens in Twilight and Bella's choice between Edward and Jacob, but it's really rare overall that we get to see a female protagonist not only have agency over her choice of romantic partner but specifically get to choose between multiple romantic partners. Even though in the first Hunger Games movie, Katniss's feelings towards Peeta seem more aimed at the camera and seem to be about a performance in order to get likes from the audience, we also understand that those feelings seem to have some genuine qualities to them. And, of course, we also know that she has feelings for Gale as well. So in the end, we have a protagonist who really is in love with two different characters. For that to be a female character is very unusual, and again, I think the only similar comparison we have in contemporary movies is Bella from Twilight.
The other interesting thing about Katniss's choices and her situation as a strong female lead is that one of the characters she's interested in is Peeta, and Peeta takes on a much more stereotypical female role, whereas Katniss is playing the strong role that, in a lot of ways, is considered more stereotypically masculine. Peeta is more stereotypically feminine; he is open with his feelings, he is willing to admit to Katniss how he feels about her, and he's not afraid to admit those feelings. He's willing to admit when he is weak and when he needs help. In fact, if we want to really take the classic idea of the prince rescuing the princess—the very old-style stereotypical kind of version of a romance story—it's Peeta who is constantly in need of saving by Katniss rather than the other way around.
And of course, we can also extend this across the multiple movies of the whole series and note that, in the end, Katniss chooses Peeta, the more stereotypically feminine character, over the more masculine character of Gale, who ends up becoming a soldier and really fitting into a lot of the stereotypes almost of a toxic masculine character. So Katniss is a very interesting protagonist, and the way the movie positions her as a strong character but also still allows her to have a heterosexual romance, but a romance that she controls largely in making the choices, I think is very fresh and interesting for The Hunger Games.
Observation #2: Act 2
The other two observations I'd like to make focus on the more traditional four-act structure of the movie. Now, of course, a lot of movies have three acts; a lot of movies have four acts; and of course, we can have sequences and other kinds of possibilities. But I would say these days our most common structure is a four-act structure. I'd like to touch on the two middle acts because, in general, any movie is going to have a very similar first act and a very similar last act, in the sense that the opening act is all about establishing character, establishing exposition, creating an inciting incident, and getting the ball rolling. And then, of course, the final act is about, generally, the protagonist facing up with the antagonist, facing up with their own fears, coming to some resolution, whether they either succeed or fail at their movie-level goal.
So what happens in act two and act three, I think, is always interesting because writers and filmmakers are often making different kinds of choices of what to do with an act two and an act three, and how those things can move the plot forward. So let's take a look at our second observation, which is the act two goal for The Hunger Games. Act one climaxes with Katniss and Peeta arriving in the Capitol, and act two's goal is to prepare and to train for the Hunger Games. This is an incredibly common setup for an act two in a four-act structure, where the characters either arrive in a new place or they're given a goal or a challenge, and before they can directly begin to pursue that goal, they have to prepare for it. They have to figure out the rules of things; they have to literally train.
And so what we see in The Hunger Games is, first of all, they arrive in the Capitol, which is a much different place than District 12, so they have to get used to the fashions, the people, the wealth, the riches that they find in the Capitol compared to what they're used to from District 12. They also have to learn the rules: how actually are the Hunger Games going to work? And we get this through training exercises, we get this through television interviews with Caesar Flickerman, and we also get this through subplots with other characters where they're setting up the game and how the game is going to work. But overall, they are learning the rules and figuring out how it is that the Hunger Games are going to work and coming up with strategies for how they're going to survive.
Of course, there's still conflict there, and Peeta and Katniss have very differing views on how they're going to get through things, and we see that with some of the supporting characters as well. And then finally, of course, we see the characters trying to make allies and figure out who their enemies are—who are people that they can see as less of a danger, who are the people who are going to be most dangerous? For example, we learn that the contestants from districts one and two are specifically chosen and trained in order to try to win the Hunger Games, and those are going to be the primary enemies for Katniss and Peeta. And then we learn about other characters like Rue, who, of course, will play an important part in act three of the movie, and we begin to see that those are going to be allied characters to our main characters.
So overall, act two is very much a preparatory act. We don't make a lot of progress in the plot. That is, by the end of act two, the Hunger Games still haven't started, but our characters have a much better understanding of the expectations of the game and what it is that they're going to be trying to do and how maybe they're going to try to do it.
Observation #3: Act 3
So then we get to act three, and act threes are always really interesting, and they can often be really challenging for filmmakers because maintaining external goals that advance the plot both through an act two and an act three in a four-act structure can be hard. So a lot of times, the act three goal is a little more vague, it's a little more weak, or at least the external goal is. And sometimes we have a little more focus on the internal goal of the characters, and some of these things are true of act three in The Hunger Games. So Katniss’s at the beginning of act three is to survive.
At the end of act two, of course, our characters are launched into the Hunger Games. Characters initially get killed as the game starts; other characters run, other characters hide, other characters are on the hunt. But what we see Katniss specifically doing is biding her time. She makes the choice to try to survive as long as possible without going on the attack or even spying on or following other characters. So, for example, she spends a large part of the beginning of act three up in a tree, hiding, trying to avoid any sort of confrontation. Of course, she can't avoid that confrontation, and she ends up using the tracker jacker hornets to take out some of her enemies. But she ends up hiding; she bides her time. Slowly, other characters are killed, and the number of possible survivors goes down. But for a large part of the first half of act three, Katniss is relatively passive. She's just hiding and biding her time. But she meets Rue, who, of course, helps her defeat some of the characters, and that begins to make her a more active character.
And so Katniss ends up coming down from the tree. She ends up forming a plan with Rue where they're going to destroy the big pile of supplies that have been set up at the Cornucopia at the center of the game. They come up with a whole plan for how to communicate, for how to destroy all of the supplies. They do this. Katniss succeeds in blowing up the pile of supplies, and in the process of that, a few more of the contestants are killed.
But, of course, we create the big climax of act three, which is that because Katniss and Rue are separated, Rue is captured and killed by some of the other contestants. Now, this is really interesting for a couple of reasons. One, because as long as Katniss has not had any ally, not really been partnered with anyone, including Peeta, and as long as she's been relatively passive, she's actually been successful in staying alive. Once she partners with somebody and becomes a more active character, immediately it blows up in her face. She seemingly is successful by blowing up the supplies, but Rue is killed, and this of course causes a major issue for Katniss.
So, the first interesting thing is that in choosing to have an ally and in choosing to become more active, she actually causes the death of someone she ends up really caring about. But the other thing that does is set up act four and sets up the relationship that she is eventually going to have with Peeta. Because when Rue dies, it causes Katniss to open up emotionally, really for the first time in the entire movie. She sets out flowers; she sort of does a burial ceremony, even though she can't really bury Rue. But she sort of does this ceremony; she sings the song. And, of course, this draws a lot of people to her cause who are watching on the outside.
But it also seems to open her up a little more emotionally. So when we move into act four and she finds Peeta and she begins to interact with Peeta, she is open to expressing her emotions towards Peeta, and that becomes part of the game. Now, this is where the movie is incredibly clever because as Katniss becomes more romantically involved with Peeta, it really is difficult to determine whether this is an act, whether she's doing this on purpose in order to get more supplies and in order to get the support of the Capitol citizens who are watching, or whether there are genuine feelings involved towards Peeta.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, and when you watch those scenes between the two of them, you can see clearly there are times where she is acting, and it even feels forced. The actors act the scene as if that relationship is being forced. But at the same time, I don't think we can do anything but also begin to realize that the death of Rue has opened up Katniss to emotional expression a little bit more, and she does become more open to helping Peeta, risking her own life for Peeta.
Finally, at the climax of act four, Katniss and Peeta, or really just Katniss comes up with a plan. She and Peeta both threaten to eat the poison berries. So it becomes an all-or-nothing. That is, Katniss is willing to sacrifice her own life in order to save Peeta because, obviously, she could very easily kill Peeta and win the games. But she fights both against the system and opens herself up emotionally to Peeta, and is able to save Peeta as well as herself.
So, act three becomes very interesting. Even though the external goal is weak, we see the developing of internal goals that have major repercussions both for the events of act three and into the launching and conclusion of what happens in act four. So in the end, we have a traditional, but well thought out middle two acts.