This is the transcript of my latest podcast episode.
Hello and welcome to Resurrected Reviews Revisited, part of the Will You Still Love It Tomorrow podcast. I’m Annie and, in each Reviews episode, I pick something I’ve reviewed sometime since 2005, reread or rewatch it, and then compare my reactions. Fair warning: there will be spoilers.
This month, my pick is Mockingjay, the third and final instalment of The Hunger Games trilogy, which came out in 2010.
Before revisiting it, my recollections of my original experience of encountering this book are as follows:
Since I looked up my original read of Catching Fire for the last Reviews Revisited episode, I know I read Mockingjay in 2012, and that I read both of them in quick enough succession that I combined my review.
I remember the story quite well and that the first half of Mockingjay was my favourite section of the whole trilogy, so I’m looking forward to finding out if that’s still the case. I thought it was a much longer book than the first two (probably because I remember the film is split into two parts) but it’s actually the same length as the first one and Catching Fire is the longest, but only by 15 pages.
Here’s what I thought on revisiting it this year.
What I remember thinking was particularly good about Mockingjay is the exploration of the mental health effects of all the trauma experienced earlier in the series – particularly that of Katniss and Peeta. And that’s a clear focus right from the start of the book, and it is done very well. As is the comparison between District 13 and the Capitol in terms of putting pressure on Katniss to do things for them, and having a team to make her look a certain way for propaganda purposes.
Everything gets very much more interesting when it’s revealed that Peeta is alive and apparently working towards the Capitol’s aims in calling for a ceasefire. Not least because it’s what persuades Katniss to take up the Mockingjay role for the Rebellion.
It’s Prim who points out that Katniss can make demands before she agrees to do what District 13 wants. Katniss reflects on how much Prim has grown up and how sad it is that she’s never really had the opportunity for a proper childhood, even now they’re relatively safe.
District 13 is presented as just as bad as the Capitol when Katniss discovers her prep team have been kidnapped, imprisoned and mistreated. The rules and attitudes in District 13 are very rigid and unbending. The prep team represents the complexities of Capitol citizen attitudes and the question of whether or not they’re fully complicit in Snow’s terrible deeds. Katniss sees the nuances because she knows them as people and understands how they’ve come to be as they are, but Gale doesn’t because he’s only ever seen the Capitol from the outside.
I like that Plutarch only knows a certain amount about what goes on in District 13 – he’s complicit to an extent but not actively involved in everything, and it’s clear Coin has all the power.
Finnick represents the more extreme end of the trauma fallout, since he’s barely functional at the start of the book and takes a lot longer than Katniss to recover – though it’s clear that all the surviving tributes have continuing mental health issues, which is good in terms of realism.
This book feels a lot more futuristic somehow, with the weapons and the Capitol traps later on. I think the futurism and realness are heightened because things are now happening and being used outside the arena. There’s a more global sense of conflict and momentum towards some kind of climax.
Haymitch’s reappearance is great, laughing at Katniss trying to play a revolutionary on the propaganda video.
There are lots of new characters introduced, largely just so they can be horribly killed in the Capitol assault, which is a bit annoying. But I do like the development of Katniss’ varying levels of interaction with them.
Katniss sees firsthand what she’s started, however inadvertently, on the front lines, with the visit to District 8 and the bombing of the hospital. She carries a lot of guilt – but she also acknowledges that there needs to be some kind of change and that escaping to the woods before the reaping in the first book would have just left everyone else under Snow’s control.
She still feels very much like a pawn in everyone’s game – but also acknowledges that she does have some leverage:
“I have a kind of power I never knew I possessed. Snow knew it, as soon as I held out those berries. Plutarch knew when he rescued me from the arena. And Coin knows now, so much so that she must publicly remind her people that I am not in control.”
Peeta’s second TV interview makes it clear the Capitol have been mistreating him. Peeta’s is my favourite arc in this book – it’s so interesting and layered. And it gives Katniss a lot to think about, deal with, work towards and question, in terms of how little she trusts even the faction she’s working with.
The propaganda battle between the Capitol and the rebels is well done, with Katniss doing videos about the war and Beetee breaking into the official feed to broadcast them, while Snow is using Peeta to sow doubt and talk about the need for a ceasefire.
I love that Haymitch defends Peeta and it’s their mutual love for him that brings Haymitch and Katniss back together, after a long period of tension because of Haymitch’s role in bringing Katniss into the rebellion.
We get more background detail about Haymitch and Finnick, which is all pretty horrific.
The Finnick and Annie arc is my least favourite aspect of the whole series, but the use of Peeta as a weapon to try and assassinate Katniss is really well done, as is his path back to sanity and autonomy throughout the rest of the book.
In District Two, Gale increases the violence and death by coming up with the plan to collapse the mountain over the Capitol’s nerve centre, while Katniss makes a speech to save lives by trying to convince the remaining troops to surrender. It’s a good distinction between their attitudes to the war. Gale wants revenge, while Katniss wants to end the cycle of violence. It’s very realistic that Katniss’ attempt at this point doesn’t work – instead of sparking a ceasefire, someone shoots her.
That’s when Joanna Mason comes back into it and she’s always good value. She announces her presence by coming into Katniss’ hospital room to steal her pain meds. Joanna represents another reaction to trauma – she attacks as a defence mechanism, throwing multiple verbal barbs at Katniss and then telling her to ‘feel free to take them personally’.
And then there’s the wedding between Finnick and Annie – a moment of peace and celebration that just makes the horror of what follows even greater. It’s very effective, but I don’t like how it feeds into the utter pointlessness of his subsequent death.
I like the alliance between Katniss and Joanna, built through their shared determination to be part of the team that goes to the Capitol.
It’s interesting that they compare the pod traps in the Capitol to a new arena, controlled by Gamemakers. But it’s always felt much less realistic to me somehow, because they’re actually in the city streets, rather than an arena designed specifically for the Games and contained in one location. Plutarch seems to suggest the pods have been there a long time, which feels like a very odd thing to have lining the streets of the capital city for years, even if they can be switched on and off centrally.
It’s still being televised, though, but by District 13 for propaganda purposes, instead of by the Capitol for entertainment. But it’s essentially the same, which is the point.
The ‘real or not real’ game devised by the squad to help Peeta separate actual memories from things implanted by the Capitol is my favourite aspect of the whole trilogy.
A lot of Mockingjay is very dark and grim and violent, though. And I’d forgotten quite how horrific some of it is – Boggs’ agonising and protracted death, for example.
The Capitol mission adds to Peeta’s trauma as well, because he relapses back into hijacked mode during the chaos and pushes one of the team into a pod trap that kills him. The others argue he wasn’t in his right mind and wasn’t actively trying to kill the guy anyway, but Peeta doesn’t see it that way, so it’s a death he’s going to carry with him.
Finnick’s death goes by almost without anyone taking any notice. Katniss thinks that ‘human feelings will come later’ but they have to keep going and can’t stop to mourn. But it feels like rather an unfair departure for a character who’s made such an impact across two books, especially given he’s only just been reunited with his lost love and had a brief moment of happiness at his wedding.
It just keeps getting darker and darker, with the silver parachutes dropping bombs on a group of children, enticing the rebel healers out into the open so they also get blown up – including Prim.
At the end of the day, though, Katniss doesn’t actually achieve anything at all in her assault on the Capitol. She and her crew weave their way through the city to the main square, where she and Gale are intending to try and get access to assassinate President Snow somehow. But the rebel forces overwhelm the Peacekeepers, the explosions kill the kids and the healers, and a stray bomb also incapacitates Katniss. She then loses some time due to her injuries, by which point everything is over.
Later, Katniss resorts to her old tactic of reciting facts to try and keep herself grounded in reality. One of them is: “I took down the Capitol” – but she didn’t! She was there, sure – but she didn’t actively do anything at all, and only actually hears about the end of the war second hand while recovering.
Then comes the emotional climax, when Katniss comes across President Snow in the rose garden and he claims the parachute bombs were dropped by the rebels to make the remaining loyal Capitol citizens think Snow ordered it. Katniss knows the double-strike bombs were something Gale came up with as a potential weapon, and also considers Coin might have done it to eliminate Prim, in order to incapacitate Katniss with grief and keep her on side by giving her the opportunity to take revenge on Snow at his execution.
Then Coin reveals that her idea for how to deal with the Districts’ desire for revenge on the Capitol with the lowest further loss of life is to hold a final Hunger Games using the children of senior Capitol officials as tributes. The victors get the chance to vote on whether to do it – Peeta, Beetee and Annie vote no, Joanna and Enobaria vote yes. Katniss says she votes yes because of Prim, though she’s thinking the idea proves that nothing will ever change. Haymitch says he votes with the Mockingjay, so the idea carries.
And at the execution, instead of killing President Snow, Katniss shoots and kills Coin to stop her from taking over, since she’s proven herself just as bad. Peeta stops Katniss from then taking her Nightlock pill to kill herself as well. Then it all goes a bit weird because Katniss is locked in her old room in the training centre for weeks entirely alone, until Haymitch comes to tell her the trial is over and they’re going home.
Plutarch explains everything after the fact, so we get another climax where Katniss is absent and just gets the highlights afterwards, which is a very weird way to finish a book. Apparently, she was let off the murder charge by reason of trauma-induced insanity and the decision is just to confine her to District 12, which is fine by Katniss.
In the summary section at the end, where it talks about people rebuilding in various ways, I’d completely forgotten that this book contains my most hated trope of all time – it’s okay that Finnick died because Annie has a baby!!!
I’m also not sure how I feel about Peeta trying to persuade Katniss to have kids with him – and persisting for fifteen years until she finally agrees. But hey…
On the romance front:
Katniss thinks about Peeta a lot, right from the start, which makes sense, given that he’s been captured by the Capitol and she has no idea of his ultimate fate. When she’s touring what’s left of District 12, it says: “Peeta would have nothing to come home to anyway – except me.”
Gale is mentioned a couple of times at the start, but only in terms of providing information about what he did during the razing of District 12. When Katniss thinks about leaving District 13 and heading off into the woods alone, the only thing that stops her is not knowing what’s happened to Peeta. She doesn’t consider Gale at all. But then she holds hands with Gale in the hovercraft on the way back from the trip to District 12. And they seem to have developed a casually tactile relationship since arriving in District 13, even if it’s not actually romantic.
Katniss says they’ve rebuilt their friendship but Gale doesn’t push it, by trying to kiss her or talking about love. So maybe he’s gained a bit of maturity.
When Peeta appears in the TV interview with Caesar Flickerman, Katniss equates seeing him apparently whole and healthy to the morphling they gave her in the hospital – ‘dulling her pain’.
Gale seems very equanimical about Peeta’s reappearance, at least to start with – which seems at odds with his previous knee-jerk jealousy in the previous books. But I guess Peeta’s still in the Capitol while Gale is in District 13 with Katniss, so he probably doesn’t see him as a threat anymore. But it’s still a more mature attitude than he’s shown previously in the series.
When Gale throws himself on top of Katniss during the bombing in District 8, she looks in his eyes and “the world recedes”.
But then Gale lies to Katniss on Coin’s instructions, which puts up a barrier between them because Katniss has major trust issues and thinks Gale is the one person she can count on to tell her the truth. But, when they go back to District 12 to film, she’s reminded of what he means to her and decides to forgive him because she can’t bear to lose him altogether.
When they’re in her old house, he mentions remembering her kissing him after the whipping and she kisses him again. He says he knew she’d do that because he’s in pain and that’s the only way he can get her attention. So, now, even when Katniss is warming up to him, he’s starting to see the issues with a potential romance between them and understands she doesn’t really feel the same way he does. Maturity again from Gale – colour me surprised!
Katniss finds comfort in the pearl Peeta gave her in the second arena and it comes to represent Peeta’s life, as if she can keep him safe by holding onto it.
Finnick says it’s been clear that Katniss loves Peeta since he was electrocuted in the arena and she begged Finnick to try and save him.
When Katniss sees Gale looking annoyed after she seeks out Finnick instead of him, she decides she’s got too much to worry about (including Peeta) to care about Gale’s potentially hurt feelings.
Gale volunteers for the mission to rescue Peeta. When they return, Katniss is concerned at his injury, but “lightheaded with giddiness” at the prospect of seeing Peeta.
When Gale talks to Katniss about Peeta’s condition he says, “I’ll never compete with that, no matter how much pain I’m in. I don’t stand a chance if he doesn’t get better. You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me.”
Which shows absolutely no consideration whatsoever about Katniss’ preferences in the matter – and we’re back to Gale being rubbish again.
Katniss says she always felt bad about kissing Peeta because of Gale, but he doesn’t believe her. She confirms it’s true but that it’s also true she feels bad in the opposite direction too. So the triangle is back in full force, but without really much to back it up, since it hasn’t been too great a focus in this book.
Then suddenly there’s snuggling and smooching with Gale, but only because Katniss has accepted that Peeta will never recover enough to come back to her. And also because she thinks it doesn’t matter anymore, since she assumes she’ll die in her attempt to kill President Snow. Which seems a bit unfair to Gale, even despite all his flaws.
To his credit, Gale realises Katniss isn’t truly in her right mind and pulls away, saying it ‘doesn’t count because it’s like kissing someone who’s drunk’ – so I have to be impressed with that, considering she was just about to give him what he’s always wanted.
Katniss comes to see Gale’s ruthlessness when they join the war effort in District 2. He suggests causing an avalanche to destroy the Capitol’s nerve centre there, and is completely unaffected by the thought of the suffering and death it will cause for those inside. Katniss reflects that he used to suggest things like that all the time when they were hunting back in District 12 but that now it’s suddenly real people in real situations that they’re both actually involved in. So, it’s good that it’s an aspect of his character that’s established as longstanding, rather than being crowbarred in to contribute to the ultimate conclusion of both the book and the love triangle.
Katniss’ experiences of violence make her more empathic, not wanting anyone else to suffer anything similar – except those specifically responsible for it – Snow and Coin. Gale’s make him want to cause other people to experience similar things, even if they’re only tangentially connected to those who were responsible. It’s the difference between them that ultimately separates them once and for all. Whereas Peeta always represents kindness and compassion, which is why he is the only real choice.
When Katniss is under the influence of morphling after being shot, she dreams of Peeta caressing her.
When Peeta’s love is broken by the Capitol conditioning, it takes Katniss a while to figure out why she’s so upset. She’s taken his feelings for granted all this time and it’s painful to see what she thinks of as her true qualities – violent, distrustful, manipulative, deadly – through his eyes. Always before, she could try to fool herself that there were good things about her because Peeta thought she was wonderful.
Interestingly, it’s Gale who reassures Katniss that the way Peeta sees her now is twisted by his torture and not based on reality.
And it’s Haymitch who prompts Katniss to start thinking of Peeta as a victim to be helped, rather an enemy who’s beyond rehabilitation.
During the Capitol mission, Katniss starts to see more and more of the old Peeta coming back, and she comforts him at one point by stroking his hair. Gale is barely mentioned during the infiltration of the Capitol.
Later on, Katniss overhears Gale and Peeta discussing which of them Katniss might choose if they all survive the war. They’re both fairly resigned to the fact that they can’t do much to influence her, but they both still seem to want to be considered. Gale says she will choose “whoever she thinks she can’t live without”.
Katniss’ reaction is to think that this is a pretty horrible thing for Gale to say and for Peeta not to refute, as if her decision will be based on a calculated assessment of what they can offer her, rather than an emotional one. She determines she can survive perfectly well without either of them.
But when Gale comes to see Katniss on the day of the execution, it’s him who acknowledges that she’ll never be able to separate him designing the double strike bomb from the fact that it was that type of bomb that killed Prim. She wants to call him back and tell him she’ll figure out a way to get past it, but knows she can’t. And that’s that – Gale’s out of the running.
While Gale represents death and the continuation of violence, Peeta represents the opportunity for hope and life by stopping Katniss from killing herself after she murders Coin.
When Katniss arrives back in District 12 and discovers Gale has moved to District 2, the only thing she feels is relief.
I guess it’s true that Katniss never makes an active decision to be with Peeta, but I quite like the way it’s described and, overall, it works for me as a conclusion to the romance aspect of the series:
“Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children – but his arms are there to comfort me and, eventually, his lips. On the night I feel that thing again – the hunger that overtook me on the beach – I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring, the bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction, the promise that life can go on, that no matter how bad our losses, that it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me – real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.” “
And that’s a great way to end it, if you ask me!
In terms of diversity:
I don’t think the ethnicity of any of the new District 13 characters is specified.
But the films continue to have some decent diversity in their casting.
Final thoughts:
I didn’t get on as well with this instalment as I thought I would. There are aspects of it that are really well done, particularly the effects of all the trauma on the various characters. But it’s so dark and so grim. And I’m actually a bit apprehensive about watching the movie versions of this book too…
Brief notes from watching the films:
I think the main thing that’s been established from revisiting this whole franchise is that I very much prefer the films to the books, and that’s always been the case, based on my previous reviews.
The Mockingjay films certainly don’t shy away from the darker aspects of the books and the PTSD of the various characters is portrayed very well.
Julianne Moore comes across as a bit too warm and human for President Coin as she’s presented in the books. She’s also very flat and bland instead of being hard and authoritative, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is still very subdued as Plutarch Heavensbee. They are very rare iffy notes in the otherwise amazing casting.
Mahershala Ali certainly gives an excellent showing as Boggs.
In the book, Effie reappears only right at the very end, once all the fighting is over – I’d forgotten that Elizabeth Banks is in the films from half an hour in, filling the roles taken by the prep team in the book, once Katniss agrees to be the Mockingjay.
She’s still awesome but the film doesn’t really come alive until nearly 40 minutes in when Woody Harrelson turns up again as Haymitch with his bone-dry snark.
Plus, he plays off Effie really well, as always. But they’re not in it enough.
And then Natalie Dormer turns up as Cressida, and her styling is basically designed exactly to appeal to me so that was nice!
But it’s all very slow and dark and grey…
The emotion ramps up with the visit to the hospital in District 8 and the subsequent bombing, which is all done very well. And Jennifer Lawrence is so good!
I never would have recognised the actress who plays the District 8 commander – but it’s Daisy from Madam Secretary!
Gale’s pretty rubbish in the film, but in a different way to in the book – he and Katniss are alone when they see Peeta’s second interview, with Peeta suddenly looking thin and ill, and Gale blows up about it, calling Peeta a coward and claiming he’d never say such things, even if he was tortured.
He gets a pretty epic moment just afterwards, though, telling the story of the razing of District 12 while standing in the wreckage – but it seems like an odd way round to do his arc.
The film makes the attack on District 13 much more exciting, with the bombers starting the air raid long before everyone’s made it down to the lower levels, so we get panic on the stairs and the whole structure shaking, rather than the calm, ordered evacuation in the book.
They approach the rescue mission in a much more dynamic and suspenseful way, as well, intercutting between Finnick’s tell-all about Snow’s rise to power and the mission itself, with Katniss watching both on monitors in Command at District 13. It works really well, especially with the video call between Katniss and Snow that’s supposed to distract him and keep the Capitol from reinstating their air defence signals, but in fact resulting in Snow revealing he knows about the rescue attempt and Katniss fearing she’s lost both Gale and Peeta in one fell swoop.
But having Coin come to comfort Katniss while they’re waiting for news humanises her and shows her demonstrating compassion, which goes wholly against the foundations of her character and rather undermines what Katniss does at the end in killing her.
They did pick a good point to split the films, with Peeta rescued but under the influence of the hijacking – but I don’t actually think there was enough to make a proper film in the first part, as not that much really happens.
At the start of part two, they do a good job of showing what Peeta is going through, but the Katniss kissing Gale to try and reassure him that she’s not thinking about Peeta is really painful.
I’d forgotten Gwendoline Christie was in it – always nice to see her.
Liam Hemsworth does a good job of showing Gale’s attitude to the war and making it seem almost reasonable. And Jennifer Lawrence is even better at showing Katniss’ weariness of the whole thing and heartfelt attempts to get the Capitol loyalists in District 2 to give up their weapons.
Jena Malone is still also awesome as Joanna Mason.
But they cut the whole thing about Katniss and Joanna training really hard to persuade Coin to let them go on the Capitol mission – here, Katniss stows away in a supply ship instead and forces the issue that way. So Joanna really isn’t in it all that much, which is a shame.
After the glacial pace of the first part, the second part moves very swiftly and Katniss is in the Capitol with her squad and Peeta joining them in less than 45 minutes.
The various deaths of the squad are just as horrifying as you might expect – it’s so grim!
In particular, I really could have done without the mutts in the sewers being visualised on screen…
But Annie and Finnick’s wedding is glossed over pretty quickly, which reduces the impact of Finnick’s death somewhat.
Tigress actually looks way better than I ever imagined from her description in the book.
They save a good 30 minutes for the aftermath, but it still seems weird for Katniss to miss the climax of the war and need to have it explained to her after the fact.
Coin’s presentation in the first part really doesn’t track with her presentation in the second part, and Plutarch is much more involved in all the machinations than he is in the book.
The look that passes between Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson during the vote about the Hunger Games with the Capitol’s children is an absolute masterclass, with Katniss silently asking Haymitch to trust her and him voting yes in support of her, even though he doesn’t understand why he needs to.
It weirdly all somehow makes more sense in the film than it does in the book, even without the benefit of Katniss’ inner monologue.
The smooching between Haymitch and Effie just before Haymitch and Katniss leave for District 12 was a bit of a surprise, but I’m here for it!
Katniss losing it at the cat but Buttercup not running away totally got me – though how on earth he made it back to District 12 is anyone’s guess…
Then Daisy from Madam Secretary gets to be President and I’m totally on board with that too!
The series of clips showing the gradual redevelopment of the closeness between Katniss and Peeta is done really well, even in only a few minutes. And when he says, “You love me – real or not real?” and she answers, “Real,” I even believed her!
Looking back to my original reviews, it turns out it I read the book straight after Catching Fire in April 2012, then watched the films when they came out in the cinema in December 2014 and November 2015.
Here’s what I thought the first time around:
My Mockingjay book review was written intertwined with my thoughts about Catching Fire, as I read them back to back, so I’ve extracted the Mockingjay-specific points as follows:
“The lack of a sense of reality I felt with the arena in Catching Fire, is also the same for the mission into the Capitol in the second half of Book Three, with the weird booby-traps, which make them somehow less impactful.
However, there was also a great deal to like, especially in Book Three. Peeta’s arc is fantastic – making him initially the Capitol spokesman for ceasefire and then turning him into a weapon aimed directly at Katniss was very clever, and threw an enormous spanner in the love-triangle aspect that I really wasn’t expecting.
I also really liked all the evidence of the rebellion leaders being no better than President Snow. It was great to have that ambiguity – that there were no clear-cut good guys, and the sense that little would change if the rebellion was successful added a huge amount of depth to the struggle.
Ordinarily, an event like Prim’s death would really piss me off – but the bleakness of its message just seemed to fit in with the rest of the story so well. If you think about it, Katniss first stepped up to take action in order to protect Prim – so having her go through everything that happens and then *still* not be able to save her was a very effective way to demonstrate her ultimate powerlessness and the power hungry nature of Coin.
The conclusion of the love triangle surprised me, but I thought it worked really well. Realising that Gale meant struggle and Peeta meant safety brought it to a satisfying conclusion without any gag-worthy sentimentality or undue angst.
What I liked most, though, was the fact that Katniss’ weaknesses were demonstrated throughout just as much as her strengths. She was deeply flawed, and came to realise it herself, and I think that was both brave and very effective on the part of the author. I particularly liked the fact that her military test was based around her having to follow orders, even if she then totally didn’t once she was out in the field.”
My review of the first Mockingjay film reads as follows:
“The reviews I’ve read have been criticising the splitting of Mockingjay into two films. Now, I don’t necessarily disagree with them on that – if they can make the first two books in one very good film each, why do they need two films for the last book (other than to make extra money)?
However, I do disagree with their reasoning – they said the lack of action in the film makes it tedious (treading water, as Empire put it). But I thought it was awesome!
I love the first half of Mockingjay (the book) – it’s actually my favourite part of the series – and I thought the film more than did it justice. As with the other films, the wider perspective allowed for additions and improvements that filled out the world a lot more and gave more insight into some of the other characters.
I didn’t feel the film dragged at all, and I thought it had more emotional impact than either of the other two with their flashy arena sections.
What worries me is that Mockingjay Part 2 is just going to be all action, all the time (including some of my least favourite bits in the books to boot), though I’m hoping the film-makers’ presentation of the ultimate conclusion of the book series will make up for that (I’m of the opinion that the climax and epilogue are really good, by the way, which I know a lot of people aren’t).
So, another excellent entry into the set of Hunger Games films!”
And my review of the second film is as follows:
“I thought Mockingjay Part 2 was pretty good.
One of the bits from the book that I thought was going to be traumatic was less so, and one was more so than I expected.
Generally, I thought it was an extremely faithful adaptation of the book – which was perhaps a slight weakness, since I’m very familiar with the book, so it maybe felt a bit too predictable. Though, of course, this wouldn’t be a problem for new viewers.
Perhaps because the third book has more scope than the other two (Katniss is out in the world rather than trapped in District 12 or the arena), the film (both parts) felt as if it was a bit more limited than the first two – since it stayed very much from her point of view, rather than showing more from the wider world. The aspects in the capital and from Snow and the Gamemakers’ points of view in the first two films were a major strength in my mind, and that seemed to be a bit lacking here.
But it was still a very good film, and a fitting conclusion to the franchise.”
So, I perhaps wasn’t quite so much of a fan of the first half of Mockingjay (the book) as in previous reads, and it seems like I didn’t enjoy the films quite as much as the first time around, either.
However, I’m really glad to have revisited the whole Hunger Games series over the last few months, and I definitely enjoyed the experience overall.
And that’s it for this episode of Reviews Revisited.
Next month, I’m going to be doing something a little different, using the results of my recent survey to go in search of a new five-star read.
Many thanks to Cambo for our theme music. And thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you have any comments, or if you want to tell me about a time you revisited some media, and whether or not you still loved it afterwards, you can email me at willyoustillloveit@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Lastly, please join us for the next main episode of Will You Still Love It Tomorrow in two weeks to hear what happens when Dave gets me to watch the 1983 sci-fi movie, Brainstorm. Will I like it at all? And will Dave still love it after our discussion? I’m looking forward to finding out!
Bye for now!