UPDATE: Here Are The Bizarre Muttations You Didn't See in The Hunger Games

As often happens, since these images were not approved by the studio I've been asked to take them down.

H is for Hunger Games
Ian Joyner (Thor, Cowboys & Aliens, I Am Number Four) has posted some concept art from the film The Hunger Games showing some freaky creatures called "muttations." Apparently, they are a pretty big departure form the film. Book fans may appreciate these more.

If, like myself, you are new to this series here's an explanation: Muttations, sometimes referred to simply as "mutts," are animals that have been genetically altered by the Capitol for use as weapons, forms of torture and intelligence. - thehungergames.wikia.com

The designs are reportedly very different from the final version, but I haven't seen the movie yet. So, I can't say for sure. Here's what the artist said about the designs.

Tasked with designing the ‘muttations’, the idea was that these creatures were the fallen children brought back as horrible mockeries of themselves, forcing the survivors to deal with old friends and foes in a whole new way.

Here is just a small sample of the work I did on the film, from the very first pitch to the ‘final’ design. Sadly, it appears they’ve changed the designs pretty drastically later in film production.

Gary Ross, the director decided not to use the faces of the tributes for a specific reason according to ScreenRant:

GR: “We made the decision that they not be specific tributes, because if we did it, we would have been a massive digression at a moment in the movie where I didn’t think it could have afforded that. You’re hurdling toward the end and that would have taken a tremendous amount of room at a time when we didn’t have it. However, I will say that all the mutts, if you really look at them, they’re really half-human and half-dog. If you put a mutt’s face next to a dog’s face, and next to a human face, you really will see that they’re a hybrid of the two. And so we were specific about that.

The important thing about the mutts to me was, not specifically that they were tributes, but that they were a creation of the Capitol designed for this particular instrument at this particular moment in the games. And because we had the games and were actually able to show their creation, we were actually able to show them being birthed in that game center and then revealed in the games.

We had the ability to do something by cutting away that a novel isn’t when it’s constantly maintaining Katniss’s point of view."

You can see more of Ian Joyners portfolio at http://www.ianjoyner.com.

@ 2012 All images property of Ian Joyner, Lionsgate Films and Legacy Entertainment.

Via mockingjay.net

What do you think of the concept designs? Have you seen the Hunger Games? Would it have been better or worse with these designs?

This post is part of the month long "A-Z Challenge." For 27 days, I'll be choosing a letter from the alphabet and crafting a post around it. To read more of the posts in the series click here. To find out more about the challenge go here.

Hosts: Arlee Bird at Tossing it Out, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Jenny Pearson at Pearson Report, Matthew McNish at The QQQE, Tina Downey atLife is Good, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Elizabeth Mueller, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Karen Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain, and Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small. Check the Facebook page and the Twitter hashtag is #AtoZChallenge.