The prequel film, released late last week, is the latest installment in the "Hunger Games" series and focuses on the stories of characters Lucy Gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler, and Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth.

“I like to think that I don’t scare easily, but I genuinely was scared by what I was seeing,” Williams said.

Williams had her hands over her eyes in fear as characters were stabbed and shot for an audience of upper-class elites.

However, she noted it was nothing new for the series.

“I think that because it's been so long since the (first) Hunger Games were in theaters,” Williams said. “You kind of forget that they're so jarring to see for the first time on such a big screen.”

Williams said she felt moved by the movie’s themes on how desensitized humanity has become to violence.

“It's interesting … that people can so quickly forget about the humanity of people,” she said. 

"The Hunger Games" is set in a dystopian future, where a nation’s districts lost a war to the Capitol. After the war, games were created to punish the districts for their defiance; the event forces 24 teenagers from 12 districts are forced to fight to the death until one survivor remains, serving as entertainment for the Capitol’s elite.

“In real life you can see that in news, tragedies are way more popular than anything else,” Williams said. “I think that’s a similarity to be drawn.”

When watching news today, Williams said, she feels this disconnect. 

“People (are) blatantly disregarding what’s going on with international events,” she said. “They just watch it all unfold and feel … nothing.”

MSU urban journalism professor Danielle Brown said people are often drawn to violent media.

“I think certainly violence, crime, disruption, that kind of thing is something that's immediately newsworthy, and is one of the things that people tend to click on,” Brown said.

Brown said the desensitization of violence is a difficult problem to solve completely. While writing about and explaining violence is one thing, she said, visually seeing it causes "our brains" to "remember it more."

She noted that people should have the choice to avoid violent imagery in the news, but it is still important.

Violent images are more powerful in terms of how people understand particular situations and cope, Brown said, which is why desensitization occurs.

Despite this, Brown said she enjoyed reading the "Hunger Games" series.

“There's a lot of very adult themes that run through it, and really complex themes that aren't taught well in our liberal society,” she said. “That makes it a little scary to be digested by the masses.”

She hopes the audience of "Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" understands the movie’s social commentary.

"I just hope that people will read more into … what (The Hunger Games) are supposed to symbolize,” Brown said. “So that they can at least bring some sort of clarity to what that violence was supposed to mean and how it played out in their regular life.“

Journalism sophomore Ava Mosche, is excited to see how the new "Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" movie will expand on the original trilogy's world. 

“It’s definitely timeless,” Mosche said. “‘The Hunger Games' trilogy will never get old.”

Moschet, who watched the first four movies with her friends in preparation for the new film, said it felt nostalgic. 

"'The Hunger Games' is just very impactful for me personally,” she said. “I am grateful to the producers for creating such a cinematic experience.”