Remember about 15 years ago, when Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games books became the hottest thing in teen literature? Suddenly, every publishing house and production studio was pumping out YA dystopian stories, usually centering on a harried teen girl who had a symbolic romantic choice to make between two very different dudes, while also trying to bring down a corrupt, oppressive state.
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Tasha Robinson is Polygon’s entertainment editor. She’s covered film, TV, books, and more for 20 years, including at The A.V. Club, The Dissolve, and The Verge.
Scott Westerfeld beat Collins’ series to publication by several years with 2005’s Uglies, the first installment in a planned trilogy that has now stretched to eight books. But it’s taken more than 20 years for a screen adaptation to manifest. Netflix’s new trailer for the Uglies movie is a real flashback to the 10-years-past heyday of YA movie adaptations like Divergent, Maze Runner, The Fifth Wave, The Giver, The Darkest Minds, and so forth. Its CG-slick future feels familiar. So does the imperious representative of the oppressive regime (played by Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox), the stressed-out teen heroine (Joey King of The Princess) and the attractive boys she has to pick between.