One of the best pre-Games moments in Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games book comes when Katniss Everdeen is presenting her skills for the Gamemakers. Furious that they're paying more attention to a dead pig than a teenager with her life on the line, she shoots an apple directly out of the swine's mouth – it's an "I'm not gonna be ignored, Dan" moment if there ever was one.
Judging by the latest clip to surface from the upcoming Hunger Games film adaptation, the scene could be a highlight of the movie as well. We saw a bit of this apple-shot scene before, but now we're getting a much bigger bite.
Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence) shows all the controlled rage her character is imbued with right up until the moment she says, "Thank you for your consideration" and leaves the training area, where she's been showing off her skills. (Even though it's not really visible in this clip, this will presumably be when Lawrence pulls off the best "hell-to-the-naw" face of 2012.)
The new Hunger Games clip also shows the brilliant reaction of head Gamemaker Seneca Crane (Wes Bently). At this point in the book, the Gamemakers are supposed to be reaching a heavily sauced state, but here he's been beyond sobered. (So were we.)
In other Hunger Games news, the latest track from the hotly anticipated movie's soundtrack hit the web Friday. "Abraham's Daughter" by Arcade Fire starts with a nearly metal riff before descending into something that sounds almost like a requiem.
Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler said the band's members tried to create something that truly served the Hunger Games' brutal story with the two songs they wrote for the soundtrack.
"There's something in the story of Abraham and Isaac that I think resonates with the themes in the film, like sacrificing children," Butler told Entertainment Weekly. "So we made a weird, apocryphal, alternate-universe version of that, where it's as if Abraham had a daughter – kind of a metaphor for Katniss."
The movie's soundtrack comes out March 20. The Hunger Games, rated PG-13, hits theaters March 23.
