Monday, January 5, 2015

If We Burn, You Burn With Us

Mockingjay Part 1

Spoilers Ahead





I haven't spoken much here about the Hunger Games, but I got into the books a few years back through Mark Reads and I felt the movies so far had been very worthy adaptations.

However, I admitted I worried when I heard they were splitting Mockingjay into two parts. The book really wasn't any longer than the last two, and they managed those movies without cutting anything important out. So what, I wondered, were they doing to pad out Mockingjay?

Well, as it turns out, there was something I never realized about the first half of the Mockingjay book: A FREAKING MILLION THINGS happen that we just don't see because we're stuck at Katniss' POV the whole time. She's briefed on them, but that takes a few sentences. In the movie, we SEE these things happen behind the scenes. We SEE the assault on where the Victors are held. We SEE the Districts fighting back. I have never been so happy to be so wrong.

With the Hunger games series as a whole, "shit gets real" very quickly, and Mockingjay is where the shit gets the realist of them all. This part of the film adaptation captures the rising stakes perfectly and doesn't shy away from the horrors. I mean, watching Peeta slowly degenerate from the Capitol's off-screen torture is truly terrifying.

The cast continues to impress in every facet, and I say bring on Part 2!

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