Book Talk is an occasional feature where I talk about book-ish non-review topics.

Today is all about Mockingjay, which I saw yesterday!  I’m not super-picky when it comes to movie adaptations, but The Hunger Games movies have been really, really good!

First, the non-spoilery part!  I really liked the movie, and thought it was pretty true to the book.  There are changes, of course, but I thought they worked really well.

Now, it’s time to get spoiler-y, so read at your own risk!

So, after seeing Mockingjay, I decided to re-read the book, since it’s been a while since I’ve read it.  (Admittedly, I only read part of it, because I kind of stopped a few pages after where they decided to split the movie into the 2 parts).

I think the biggest change was how we didn’t see most of survivors from District 12 in the movie- just her mom, Prim and Gale. Which was fine, because there’s enough going on.  All of the stuff with her prep team wasn’t in the movie, and a lot of their story (plus a lot of the story that features District 12 people) were incorporated into Effie’s story, which I liked.  They had to make cuts and changes, and they did make sense to me.  Having Effie…I just love Effie, and while she’s still her, she a more muted Effie. I do wonder if we’ll see her prep team at all, but I doubt it, since the movies really focused on her relationship with Cinna.

The two scenes that really got me were in District 8- in the hospital- and when Jennifer Lawrence was singing The Hanging Tree. And I really loved seeing some of the rebellions in the districts, particularly the District 5 rebellion.  Although…they had her sing The Hanging Tree, but not Rue’s Lullaby from the first movie?  I’m still annoyed that wasn’t in the movie.

I also liked actually seeing the propaganda spots and the mission to get Peeta, Johanna and Annie out of the capitol.  When I first heard that they were splitting this book into 2 movies, I wasn’t sure how it would work, but so far, I’m actually glad that they did. There’s not a lot of action in this one, because of where they ended it, and it’s really setting up the last 100+ pages (or, part 2).

I was also curious about where they were going to end the movie, which is Katniss watching looking in on Peeta in the hospital wing.  It did seem like a good place to end the movie, but there was part of me that was hoping they wouldn’t end the movie with Peeta choking Katniss, which did seem like a possibility for a few seconds.  I’m glad they didn’t end it there, and gave us a little bit more.

I’m really happy with the movie overall, though.  I didn’t recognize Julianne Moore as President Snow, and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t figure out who it was.  I don’t pay a lot of attention to casting news, and while I’m sure I heard that, it also didn’t stick.  I liked the cast they went with for the new characters, and I really liked Pollux!  I think he’s my favorite minor character in the movie, and Jennifer Lawrence was completely awesome as Katniss.

I’m definitely looking forward to the 2nd part of Mockingjay!