The Hunger Games trilogy has captivated teens and adults alike from all over the country. Before the final installment of the Hunger Games movie series, Mockingjay Pt. 2, was released last November, The Hunger Games: The Exhibition opened in New York, celebrating the franchise and giving an inside look into how the movies were made. Currently, the exhibition is on display in San Francisco at the Palace of Fine Arts and will run through July.
The exhibition successfully immerses visitors in the world of The Hunger Games through set recreations, subtle background music, and interactive displays, making it an enjoyable experience, especially for the franchise’s most devoted fans.
Each room within the exhibition brings visitors to a different part of The Hunger Games world. With 46 iconic costumes and over 1,000 props from the films, the attention to detail makes the experience extremely real. For example, one exhibit depicts the Reaping, where Katniss volunteers as tribute. Complete with Effie Trinket’s recognizable dark pink dress and the Reaping bowls, one can almost hear the words “May the odds be ever in your favor.”
The immersive set pieces are accompanied by fitting music. Often, Katniss’s quintessential four-note mockingjay call can be heard around the exhibit, and soundtrack pieces from the movies accompany certain exhibits. The first exhibit that depicts the Capitol fittingly greets visitors with the piece “Entering the Capitol,” allowing visitors to experience the exhibit not only through sight but through sound as well.
Perhaps the biggest success of the exhibition was its interactive displays. In the Training Center exhibit, one display featured motion recognition cameras to help teach visitors hand-to-hand combat, while a knot-tying display came straight from the sets of the movies. Another exhibit allowed visitors to explore the post-apocalyptic North America where The Hunger Games takes place, with an interactive map of Panem and extensive information about each of the 13 districts and the Capitol.
In the District 13 section of the exhibition, a computer allowed you to make your own propaganda video by taking photos and combining them with clips from the movies.
The exhibition also included informative panels telling visitors about how the movies were made, Suzanne Collins’s inspiration behind writing the books, and neat information about the world of Panem that didn’t make it into Collins’s books.
One panel explained the names of characters in the books; names of characters from the Districts like Katniss, Primrose, and Rue all come from the names of flowers, while names of characters from the Capitol, like Cinna, Caesar, and Corionalus come from Roman history — and the entire idea behind having tributes fight each other as a form of entertainment was inspired by Roman gladiators.
However, other panels seemed to be superfluous. Many merely quoted lines from the movies, or just explained what was going on in an exhibit, not giving any new information or insight.
The last exhibit was the most moving. It depicted Katniss’s journey through her most iconic outfits — first, her simple hunting jacket and pants from District 12. Then, the sparkling black Mockingjay dress. And finally, her defined, technologically advanced armor — effectively telling the story of a girl who went from a simple life at the beginning of The Hunger Games, to a battle-hardened warrior in Mockingjay.
As visitors exit the exhibition, the walls are lined with fan made art. From beautiful drawings of characters from the series to handmade clothing with District logos on them, the art represented The Hunger Games’ large fan base extremely well.
Visiting The Hunger Games: The Exhibition is a great experience for any fan of the series because it takes visitors through The Hunger Games in an interactive and immersive fashion, and provides insightful information regarding the author’s inspiration.
To visit the exhibit, buy tickets online at www.thehungergamesexhibition.com. Tickets are $27.50.
