Here are the biggest differences between The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 movie and the book it’s based on. Alongside the Harry Potter movies, The Hunger Games film series is one of the most successful young adult book-to-screen franchises in history. Based on Suzanne Collins’ best-selling books, the films are set in a post-apocalyptic North America where children are forced to compete in a televised fight to the death – the titular Hunger Games – and star Jennifer Lawrence as protagonist Katniss Everdeen.
The four-film franchise concluded in 2015 with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 which covers the latter half of the last book in Collins’ series. The film follows Katniss as she teams with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) and Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) to storm the Capitol and take down the nefarious President Snow (Donald Sutherland). While critics and fans agreed the decision to split the last Hunger Games book into two films was a mistake, Mockingjay – Part 2 was well received and praised for staying largely faithful to its source material.
There are some ways that Mockingjay – Part 2 is different from the book, however. One notable difference is the movie toned down the novel’s more violent elements, presumably to suit a PG-13 audience. For example, Messalla’s (Evan Ross) death is far less gruesome; in the film, he’s caught in a beam of light that vaporizes him while in the book it causes his skin to melt off. Similarly, the Mockingjay book sees Katniss Everdeen kill a defenseless Capitol civilian to protect her mission but the character is spared in the movie.
Some characters from the book didn’t appear at all in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, while others took on bigger roles. Neither Delly Cartwright nor Greasy Sae show their faces in the final Hunger Games film but President Snow and Commander Paylor (Patina Miller) both played larger roles. Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), who didn’t appear in the second half of the book, makes a brief cameo while Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson) play bigger roles too, partly to make up for the lack of Plutarch Heavensbee due to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s untimely death.
Some plotlines that were given greater precedence in Collins’ book were comparatively glossed over in the movie. Katniss doesn’t have to endure the arduous training she does in the book to enter District 2, sneaking in instead in the movie. Likewise, Katniss is only superficially injured after getting shot in District 2 rather than losing her spleen as the book depicts.
The ending of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 differs from the book somewhat as well, with Haymitch rather than Plutarch informing Katniss she’ll be pardoned for killing Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) – again due to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death. Less time seems to have passed between Katniss’ recovery and the final scene showing her and Peeta living happily ever after with their young children too, rather than the 15 years that passed in the book.
