We have finally reached the final book in the Hunger Games series (not including prequels, but don’t worry;)) and don’t you worry we will be unpacking a lot with this blog post. So I recommend to prepare yourself because this will be another long one.

Book and Film Synopsis: Katniss Everdeen is now a symbol of the rebellion, and confronts the capital’s brutal regime and psychological toll of war. We follow Katniss as she and others navigate a revolutions battling the capital. Not only do we follow her on that journey, but we also follow her figuring out her new role as the Mockingjay.

Now let’s get into it! We’ll be starting with Mockingjay Part 1 first and then Part 2.

The first difference we have is how the beginning of the film and book are different. The book opens with Katniss in District 12, but in the film she doesn’t visit her old district til later. They actually start the film with her in one of her hiding spots that she talked about in the book because throughout the book she would sometimes have trouble with reality and would have to go hide and remind herself of who she is. While they do show her reminding herself who she is in her hiding spots, there is an added addition to this scene. There are people who work for District 13 who are trying to get her back to bed, but Katniss just needed some time for herself. Well they didn’t like that she wasn’t listening so they immediately took her back to where she should be.

My boy Finnick is much more lost in the book than how he is in the film. In the book he has a few meltdowns and don’t get me wrong you can tell in the film that he is clearly upset and trying to get better, but he isn’t as bad as he was described in the book.

When Katniss is listing her demands before she agrees to become the official Mockingjay, she has in her list that she gets to kill Snow. Well in the film when she is doing this scene that isn’t apart of her list and she also doesn’t say it until later. However, all of the other demands that she had on her list were accurate.

Katniss’ prep team. In the book they actually have a bigger role than in the film. In the book her prep team was kidnapped by District 13. She actually found them chained up in a separate floor and Katniss was very upset to see them in that state, especially when they’re not used to any district’s normal conditions since they are from the capital. She also forms a stronger bond with them throughout the book. However, they’re not even mentioned in the film and were immediately killed off. Also Effie has a bigger presence in the film, than in the books. She makes an appearance towards the end of the book. This is obviously because of Elizabeth Banks killing the role of Effie for the films, so I will not complain about this because I loved Effie having a bigger role throughout the whole film series.

We get to see more of Plutarch’s and Coin’s perspective with all of the planning they have to be doing in order to take down the capital. We don’t get any of those scenes in the book, except for when Katniss is invited to the planning meetings. We also don’t see Coin control schedules and food rations in the film like how we do in the book. In the book, she was absolutely on top of making sure nothing gets thrown out of order with the planning for the district.

Peeta’s warning to District 13. In the book, his warning was actually a little bit harder to decode than in the film. They should’ve changed Haymitch’s line for that part because it was the same line in the book, but in the film it was easier to break down than in the book. That scene is also less gory as well. In the book that scene ends with him getting attacked and you end up seeing his blood splattered on the floor, but we don’t see any of that in the film. They actually just bluntly ended the broadcast instead in the film.

The rescue scene. In the film, we actually get a bigger action packed scene and see more of what happened than in the book. However, I won’t complain about this addition it made the film more interesting to watch. Plus they have to add some exaggeration to the film so then they can get more people to watch, so it makes sense on why they added more to this scene.

Now for Part 2!

Delly. In the book, she was actually mentioned in the first book when Katniss saw an avox she recognized and used Delly as an excuse as to why she was trying to talk to the avox, but in the mockingjay book she actually has a few scenes. Delly is the one who actually talks to Peeta about District 12, not Primrose. I think they should’ve kept Delly because they wanted to trigger a good part of his memory and nothing that could remind him of Katniss (because he was highjacked to want to kill and hate her) and I think using Primrose instead in the film made no sense given the fact that is Katniss’ sister.

When Katniss got shot in District 2 she actually ended up losing a spleen in the book. In the film she just had some bruised ribs and lung. She also spent way more time in the health ward in the book and during the time she spent in there she was actually with Johanna Mason more. They ended up getting somewhat closer and ended up training together and sharing a room together in District 13. They didn’t show any of this in the film. I wished they did thought because that would’ve been big character development for the both of them, since they were originally not the biggest of each other.

Finnick’s and Annie’s wedding. There were two missing details in the film. In the book, Annie’s wedding dress is actually from Katniss from her wedding dress photoshoot that Cinna designed for her and their wedding cake was decorated by Peeta. The cake detail is more important than the wedding dress detail because it made Katniss and others think that the original Peeta is still in there and is slowly coming back.

The pods. There are not as many pods shown in the film because almost all of them would’ve been too violent. Not upset that decided to not include all of them because I can only handle so much gore at once.

Katniss shoots someone. In the book, when they are entering an abandoned building Katniss ends up shooting a capital citizen. While they did feature the abandoned building in the film, they did not show any kind of person being in the building. I think they did this to not lose all of her humanity in the film because in the book you can see her slowly getting hungry to kill Snow more than in the film.

The underground mutts. The mutts they use in the film are nothing close to how they are described in the book. In the book, they are described as half lizard half human. In the film, they were these scary white deformed bodies of humans almost. I don’t know, but I hated this scene because those mutts freak me out and because one of my favorite characters died (rip Finnick).

Finnick’s death scene. Ugh I hate to bring this up, but I have to. In the book, Finnick is killed by the lizard mutt from them decapitating his head. In the film, they show Finnick being all strong and mighty by fighting off the mutts, but he starts to get overpowered. They all start to grab him and take some chomps out of him. During this everyone is climbing up the ladder to above ground and Finnick is calling for Katniss to help. Obviously Katniss knew they couldn’t go back down there and even if they did Finnick would only slow them down from his injuries. So Katniss took the hollow and said nightlock three times, which made it explode. When she said the third time she threw it down to where Finnick was to serve as a mercy killing.

Katniss’ trial. After Katniss shot Coin instead of Snow, she ends up going two days without food or water while she waits to see what they decided for her punishment. During all of that waiting she had to do, she even started to think of her own death. She was also pardoned on a televised trial by Plutarch. Now I think they would’ve kept this scene the same, but because of Philip Seymour Hoffman passing away they obviously couldn’t keep it the same. So in the film, while they are deciding her fate she was only in there for not even half of that time. Also her trial was not televised and Haymitch was the one who broke the news to her. Also the speech that Plutarch gave during the trial it was actually done in a letter. Obviously if he didn’t die I would’ve loved to see this scene in person, but I know they had to adjust.

Then that’s everything I noticed! I honestly thought it was pretty accurate and they had to adjust things because of the movie rating and to also not make it so long and I think that’s a fair stance on having to change some things.

If I didn’t mention one of the differences that you noticed, feel free to put it down in the comments!