Introduction:
The Good, the Bad, and the No Place
In the summer of 2012, millions of people flooded movie theaters and sat
riveted as the latest Batman movie trilogy came to an end, and as the first installment
of the film version of Katniss EverdeenÕs story played out. The Dark Knight Rises
and The Hunger Games are only two of the many movies that premiered that summer,
but they are part of incredibly popular franchises, especially among teens and young
adults. These films stayed true to their sources, accurately portraying the bleak worlds
of BatmanÕs Gotham City and KatnissÕ Panem. With the popularity explosion of The
Hunger Games trilogy and the continuing longevity of Batman as a vigilante both in
graphic novels and on the movie screen, the magnetism between these dystopian
worlds and their audience is incredibly strong, but why? What makes the
unwelcoming landscapes in not only these series, but in the dystopian genre as a
whole, so appealing? …