Disclaimer: I never read the books, only ever saw the films of the things listed here.

In "The Hunger Games", we are required to suspend our disbelief, and accept a universe where the people are so oppressed that they will allow their government to force upon them an annual sport where their children are required to participate in a deathmatch. Let's assume for a moment that we're already suspending our disbelief to that degree.

I recently saw the trailer for the sequel...


... and its main plot seems to be that the government goons are now surprised to discover that, after years of successful games, this sport of theirs has suddenly backfired, and that the victor of the deathmatch is, surprise surprise, now the hero of the people. The people are now, finally, after all these years, rising up and rallying behind the hero... the hero that the government created themselves by having the sport occur in the first place.

Anyone remember Rollerball? (The 1975 James Caan film, not the 2002 remake.)

Same thing.

In both cases, didn't you find that root concept to be functionally impossible? Not just that the government would fail to predict that they'd create an uncontrollable hero-of-the-people with the sport, but more specifically, that this sort of thing could go on for years without that very thing happening *every single time the sport was played*?

How could you *not* create a rogue, rebellious hero in those situations? Sure I could theoretically imagine a government that creates the sport in an effort to control/pacify/subjugate the populace. But the idea that such a sport didn't immediately backfire, the very first time they held the very first game, is crazy. Especially when the plot of the film revolves around showing us just how inevitable it is that such a thing *would* backfire.

Did that bug you, too?