Hunger Games Retrospective

Hunger Games Retrospective

I meant to do this sooner, but I forgot. Never mind, though, since I’m doing it now. Recently, I used the Hunger Games simulator to generate a Hunger Game, then wrote a story based around the results. I must admit that I’m quite pleased with the results. It presented a fun challenge, and having to write around situations that I had no control over, forming a narrative through them, provided a unique writing exercise. I would recommend doing it yourself if you’re interested. I might do another one sometime in the future, and I already have rosters planned for when the time comes.

I feel that I was fortunate here in that the random generator was on my side for the most part, giving me scenarios that made it easy to have a continuous plot and character relationships, as opposed to a series of vignettes. These included:

·         President Snow being the last to die: Considering the prologue in which he became a tribute against his will at the last minute, Snow being the final tribute to die was the best possible outcome for the story. There’s something poetic about this frail old man with no particular abilities outlasting a rogue’s gallery of killers and ne’er-do-wells, all far more capable than him, only to trip at the final hurdle, to another ordinary person that he considered an ally to boot. It would have been a bit of an anti-climax for Snow to die early after being set up as one of the main protagonists at the start, so I’m lucky that didn’t happen.

·         Negating Dio’s weakness: As a vampire, Dio wouldn’t have been able to do much in the daytime scenes, and I would have had to keep coming up with ways for him to stay in shelter if he was to contribute. Fortunately, teaming up with Amanda Waller on the first day gave me an opportunity to write out that weakness via the containment suit Waller gave him, allowing Dio to play a more active role. This leads perfectly onto the next point…

·         The Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller got her own little subplot where she went on a recruitment drive for a Suicide Squad in the arena, and gathering intel on the other tributes in the process. Her control of the other tributes, disposing of them once they had outlived their usefulness, scored her the final two kills of the games, and the title of Champion. She even got to detonate a head bomb once Xigbar proved to be unsuitable for the Squad, having his own agenda.

·         Freddy VS Jason 2: I will admit, this one was a bit of a cheat. The simulator text said that Freddy, Jason, Needles Kane and the Giant Chicken formed a suicide pact. After seeing that Freddy and Jason were involved, I couldn’t just do as the text said, and the result was the big action setpiece of Part 3 that killed all four characters involved. Any of those four committing suicide would be out of character, but Freddy and Jason in particular provided the perfect opportunity for a rematch, with the other two getting brought in later.

·         Dio’s Road Roller: No appearance from Dio Brando would have been complete without a reference to the iconic scene where he crushes Jotaro under a steamroller and starts pummelling it violently, trapping Jotaro underneath. I could have left a steamroller lying around from the arena’s construction, but using the Sweet Tooth van instead allowed me to bring back something that had already been introduced, particularly since its driver had died by this point in the story. This writing technique is known as Chekhov’s Gun, fact fans.

·         Friends on the Other Side: Part 2 had a lot of bloodshed thanks to Dr Facilier summoning his Friends on the Other Side, with around half the surviving roster from Part 1 being killed off. This was poison gas in the simulator, but I changed it after seeing that Dr Facilier was dying in this scene, allowing the opportunity to recreate his death scene from The Princess and the Frog. This would also be a bit more exciting than writing 15 variations of “Character dies from inhaling poison gas.”

·         Actually a Doombot: Even though he didn’t win, Doctor Doom still survived the Hunger Games because he didn’t compete and sent a Doombot to compete for him. I would have had this reveal regardless of when Doom died, but it worked particularly well when Doom ended up being a jobber who was only there as cannon fodder which would have been rather disappointing for such a grandiose, bombastic character. Now for a bit of what could have been – If Doctor Doom had won, Doom would have been killed by the 2^nd place finisher, only for the real Doom to appear, reveal that the Doom the 2^nd place finisher killed was actually a Doombot, then kill them to win the games.

·         One, two, Freddy’s coming for you: Like Dio, Freddy was another character whose full potential was dependent on the time of day. I was very happy therefore, to see Freddy kill Luke Atmey at night, allowing me to write a scene where Freddy killed someone in their dreams.

·         Inconceivable! Vizzini’s death was another one that let me pay homage to the character’s source material. The simulation text dictated that “Needles Kane, Vizzini and Wario get into an argument. Needles gets the last word by killing the other two.” Vizzini is more of an intellectual than a physical bruiser. (In The Princess Bride, he had Inigo Montoya and Fezzik to provide the brawn for him). Him getting into an argument instead of an action scene let me show off Vizzini’s cunning by recreating his scheme with the iocane powder, which worked this time as Wario isn’t nearly as smart as the Dread Pirate Roberts. I also enjoyed having Needles steal Vizzini’s moment of glory by killing him from behind as Vizzini was bragging to the poisoned Wario “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”

·         Saboteur T1000: That shape-shifting power was fun! It also let me do a bit of messing with the character’s heads, playing them against each other or leading them into traps. Killing him off near the end was tough, though. I think I could have come up with a better death scene for it (It sure is convenient that there is now a lava moat around the edge for you to fall into, huh?)

There were a couple things that happened that I wasn’t hugely happy about, and these are those.

·         Bakura and Alduin dying early: This is the major one, and it’s a perfect example of the risk that comes from writing a story from events I have no control over. Bakura and Alduin were built up to be major characters early on, by virtue of teaming up with President Snow, who was one of the main characters. Alduin in particular ended up being a surprise favourite character of mine, since I got a fair bit of mileage out of using Brainwashed Good Alduin as comic relief. Therefore, it was disappointing to see them both go out early in the arena event. On the plus side, I do think I was able to salvage their early prominence by working their deaths into President Snow’s character development, and having the Millennium Ring come back as a MacGuffin that several characters fought over later on.

·         Venom the Wimp: Of all the characters in this game, I think Venom is the one who comes off worst. I feel like I overdid Venom’s fire weakness, having it come up in all of his scenes, and he didn’t get any cool scenes to balance them out. Jagi was similarly pitiful, but he’s both a much weaker character than Venom, being pitiful fits him since he’s underhanded and sneaky, preferring to avoid fair fights whenever possible, and he was portrayed sympathetically in his death scene, so I don’t feel bad for portraying him the way I did.

·         Character balance: Some characters didn’t get much flavour text, particularly early on. In a sense, the premise makes this difficult – in a last man standing contest, someone has to die early otherwise the contest wouldn’t progress, and 36 characters is a lot to have to balance. This got easier as time went on – more characters had flavour text or appearances in the narrative in Part 3, and by Part 4, all the remaining tributes had a defined personality, relationships to other characters and a role in the plot. Nevertheless, I do think I could have done a better job in this regard. I choose to see this as a learning experience, and I hope to do better next time.

And finally- Scenes I’d have liked to see. These are a few ideas for how certain characters would have interacted had the story allowed for it.

·         A dragon battle between Alduin and Maleficent, with a terrified Ripto caught in the middle.

·         Joker, Kefka and Needles Kane form the Insane Clown Posse (I got two of them together in the story, but I’d have liked to complete the set) but then Joker steals Kefka’s magic and becomes Emperor Joker.

·         Bakura uses the Ring of Destruction trap card to give Amanda Waller a taste of her own medicine.

·         A hunting contest between Predator and Gaston. After all, no one hunts like Gaston!

·         An alliance of feathered fiends between the Giant Chicken and Lord Shen.

Ghost Ship (2002)

Ghost Ship (2002)

Is it safe to come out now? Nobody got mad at me, so I guess it is… (Lowers flame shield)

WHAT IN THE NAME OF SWEET MERCIFUL POSEIDON IS THAT?!? (Raises flame shield again)

Sorry, I just got spooked solid by a spooky sailing skeleton. You’ll want to be ready if you venture further. Just to be safe, I’ll put some cute kittens here as a buffer. Consider this your one and only SPOOK WARNING. See the capitals? It's like I'm shouting this, so you have no excuse for not seeing it.

Now that you’re sufficiently cutened up, here’s today’s blog.

Spooky sailing skeletons send shivers down your spine!

Release Date: October 25, 2002

The film blows its load early with a flashback scene where partygoers on a cruise ship get sliced in half with a razor wire deployed by an unknown assailant, who seems to be a homicidal version of Billy Zane’s character in Titanic – in other words, Billy Zane’s character in Titanic.

In the present day, (or 2002 at least. It was present at the time the film was made, but now contemporary would be a better term) a crew of ocean salvagers are tipped off to the location of the now abandoned ship from the prologue by Ferryman, who is astonishingly appropriately named for his line of work. Only the respective casts of Horrid Henry and Ace Attorney have names that are more on the nose. The salvagers take Ferryman with them to the ship where they find that it contains spooky ghost girl Violet Baudelaire (The actress went on to play Violet Baudelaire in the film adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Seriously, look it up), a whole load of dead bodies in a locked room, and not cut in half at that, and most importantly, boxes full of gold (Bullion, not Aztec or Chocolate.) The crew plan to take the gold and go home, but their savviness counts for nothing when their boat is destroyed in an explosion, leaving the surviving crew with no choice but to repair the ghost ship and get home using it.

The crew start getting killed one by one until the ghost of the ship’s captain explains the backstory to the leader of the salvagers, who promptly goes mad and tries to kill the Final Girl when he starts being haunted by the ghost of the crew member killed in the explosion earlier. Ferryman knocks him out and locks him in the brig. Meanwhile, Violet Baudelaire explains the story to the Final Girl. It turns out Ferryman was behind it all, having taken the gold onto the ghost ship, convinced the crew to kill the passengers and then let their greed kill each other, thus trapping the souls of everyone on the ship until he has enough to send them all to Hell. Since then, he’s been luring more crews to the ghost ship to get the gold and killed them too. Fun fact, I saw this twist coming in the first five minutes as soon as the character’s name was given, but dismissed it fearing a repeat of 12 Rounds, where I anticipated an entire elaborate plot involving modern-day equivalents of the 12 labours of Hercules and the story of Persephone and Hades, then ended up disappointed when this didn’t happen, the film was far more straight-forward than that, and I had merely latched onto a meaningless background sign.

I sure hope somebody picks up the phone... 

Now that the jig is up, Ferryman quickly kills the rest of the crew, leaving the Final Girl for last. He tries to convince her to leave him alone, but she sacrifices herself to sink the ship and let the lost souls move on, though Violet Baudelaire thanks her by helping her escape safely. Adrift at sea, the Final Girl is found by a passing cruise ship, taken aboard and returned to dry land, but as she is loaded into an ambulance, she sees that not all the souls were saved. Ferryman reappears, loading the cursed gold onto the saviour ship with the help of the damned deceased salvagers. Effectively, the whole thing kicks off again, on a new ship with a more modern build and not rusty and decaying, meaning it’ll be much harder to blow up in the sequel that was never considered anyway so why am I even worrying about this. Nice job breaking it hero.

Disappointingly, Ghost Ship is not a scary film, and I say this as someone who is normally a great big sissy when it comes to horror films. Despite the ghost ship being suitably ominous and decayed (the set design is a comparative strength of the film), an extended sequence of the characters exploring the ship before things go bump in the night somehow doesn’t build tension, possibly because of the film’s short length (82 minutes, not including the credits). When they come (at around the 50 minute mark), the scares are pretty tame too, mostly relying on gore that quickly loses its effect. The origin of the ghost ship could have been terrifying, but it doesn’t dwell enough on the atrocities committed by the crew in their greed for the cursed gold, moving from one shot to the next too quickly for them to have much impact, and the ill-fitting rawk music that plays during the scene dilutes it further. On the plus side, there are no volume wrenching scare chords or obnoxious jump scares artificially telegraphing to the audience that this is the part where you’re supposed to be scared, which is much appreciated.

After the gruesome opening, gore hounds will be disappointed that there isn’t anything comparable to that in the rest of the film, possibly thanks to the small cast and no nameless extras to act as cannon fodder. The second flashback isn’t as elaborate despite having the prologue as part of it, and that was really the best opportunity to try topping it. The opening scene sets the bar high, but not in a good way, as everything else is disappointing in comparison.

On another note, the original script for the film sounds much more interesting and scary than the final product. The first half is largely the same, with the main changes coming in the second half. Ferryman and the supernatural stuff is mostly gone (Mostly, since Violet Baudelaire remains), and the crew instead fight among each other over the treasure, with each one going mad and plotting to kill the others so that they could have the gold for themselves. This version would have ended with the Final Girl again being the sole survivor, choosing to flee the sinking ship with Violet Baudelaire’s help. The captain (who survives longer in this version, instead of being the third to die, outlasted by Ferryman and the comic relief duo) would have taken the gold now that he was the only person who wanted it, but the extra weight meant he would have been too slow to escape and gone down with the ship. Essentially, it would have been The Shining at sea.

In conclusion, Ghost Ship is a little bit ship. You’re clever, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

3/10

You know what the worst part is? The spooky sailing skeleton is on the poster. It’s on the DVD box art. It’s even in the trailer. But at no point does it appear in the actual film. I got spooked solid by that bony buoyant bastard for nothing!