12 Book to Movie Changes in ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ (MOVIE SPOILERS)

We had to be nit-picky to find changes in ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’.

 

‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2’ is out and fans are more eager than ever to see one their favorite book series on-screen for the last time! But how does it hold up next to the book? Were there Mockingjay, Part 2 differences? This is the case of the Mockingjay movie vs the book.

It goes without saying that ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ is perhaps the most faithful of book-to-film adaptations (no, really, it almost perfectly mirrors the book). But that doesn’t change the fact that some things were changed in ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’. Still, don’t worry, we didn’t count nearly as many changes in ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ as we did in ‘The Scorch Trials’, but it’s still always fun to look for the differences between the books and the movies!

Bear in mind, many of these changes are nit-picky. As in, they’re very small changes that hardly affect the story, if at all.

Here are all of the Mockingjay, Part 2 movie differences!

BOOK AND MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY.

Katniss asks to see Peeta

Early in the movie, Katniss asks to talk to Peeta. This doesn’t happen in the book. In the book, after Peeta’s attack, Katniss doesn’t want to talk to him because of what happened. However, in the movie, after their conversation goes sour, Katniss takes on the attitude she had toward Peeta in the book and decides that she’s no longer interested in talking to him.

Prim tries to help Peeta

Prim in Mockingjay

To help Peeta recover, District 13 tries to expose him to people he trusts from District 12. In the book, they send in Delly Cartwright, one of Peeta’s lifelong friends who survived the Capitol’s attack. In the movies, Delly never makes an appearance. Instead of casting someone new for that scene, the filmmakers chose to send in Prim to try to talk to Peeta and help him regain his true memories.

The extra scenes with President Snow

President Snow and Egeria I totally sense a romance

Because the books are entirely from Katniss’s point of view, we never see what President Snow is up to back in the Capitol. However, all the movies have taken time to give the audience glimpses into Snow’s efforts against the rebels.

One particularly fantastic scene in ‘Mockingjay, Part 2’ that didn’t exist in the books shows Snow seated at a table with his advisers. One of the men seated at the table is Capitol Minister Antonius. Snow toasts to the Capitol and then asks Antonius why they’re celebrating. Unfortunately for Antonius, his glass of wine is laced with poison and he dies. Antonius’s death comes from Snow’s dissatisfaction with the handling of Katniss and the rebels. President Snow seemingly uses this as an opportunity to warn the rest of his presidential cabinet to not disappoint him.

Another scene shows Snow passed out over his desk, presumably an effect from his old age. In this scene, we notice that he’s developed a serious cough/illness which more than likely has to do with the poison he drinks, as revealed by Finnick in ‘Mockingjay, Part 1’.

Katniss sneaking away from District 13 and into the Capitol

In the movie, during Finnick’s and Annie’s wedding, Johanna gives Katniss the idea to sneak onto a supply ship headed to the Capitol, giving Katniss the chance to get to Snow. In the book this doesn’t happen. Instead, Coin and District 13 deliberately send Katniss and even train her and the others to fight in war. What the movie did get right, however, is that Squad 451 was always supposed to be more about filming the war rather than fighting in it.

Boggs doesn’t die in the apartment

Boggs in Mockingjay Part 2

Boggs’s death is almost exactly like how it is in the book, however in the book he doesn’t die as quickly as he does in the movie. In the book, he survives long enough for the squad to carry him into the apartment. That’s where he eventually dies. But in the movie, instead of dying in the apartment, Boggs dies moments before and is left outside. (We know, we said we’re being nit-picky!)

Caesar Flickerman delivers the news of Katniss’s death

After taking refuge in an apartment, a Capitol broadcast delivers the news that Katniss and the rest of her squad have been killed. In the movie, good-old Caesar Flickerman is the one to deliver the news in his punchy and theatrical-style broadcasts. In the book, Caesar isn’t the one to deliver the news. Katniss simply refers to a “reporter” who’s telling the story. Seeing as Katniss knows Caesar, if it had been him, she probably would have pointed him out by name, but she doesn’t–so we can assume that it wasn’t him in the book.

There are no flesh-melting pods

In the books, Messalla gets trapped in a cage-like pod that melts his flesh off like the wax of a candle. This doesn’t seem to appear in the movie, although shortly after escaping the lizard mutts the squad does encounter a pod that seems to disintegrate people (this is perhaps the meat-grinder pod that appears in the book).

Jackson’s death

Mockingjay lizard mutt

Speaking of the meat-grinder pod, Jackson’s death is slightly different in the movie than it is in the book. In the book, Jackson stays behind to try to fend off the lizard mutts. She dies sacrificing herself during this sequence. In the movie, Jackson is the last to crawl through a small hole to continue through the underground systems of the Capitol. Just as she’s about to crawl through the hole, the lizard mutts appear and kill her.

Leeg 1’s and Leeg 2’s death

At the same time that Jackson is supposed to die at the meat-grinder pod, Leeg 1 is also supposed to die. She stays behind to help Jackson. However in the movie, Leeg 1 dies shortly after Bogg’s death when she chooses to stay behind with her sister who’s been badly injured (in the book, her sister is already dead at this point). In the movie, Peacekeepers shortly arrive and collapse the building that they’re hiding in.

Katniss doesn’t kill the Capitol woman

After escaping the lizard mutts, Katniss and the rest of the squad are supposed to find refuge once again in a Capitol apartment. When they arrive in the apartment, they find a startled woman who suddenly screams upon seeing them. Katniss kills the woman before she can alert the authorities. In the movie, this scene is completely absent. Instead, they go straight to Tigris.

Katniss doesn’t pick a rose for President Snow to wear at his execution

Katniss in the rose garden

In the movie, while Katniss does in fact go to the rose garden to pick a rose, she never hands the rose off to President Coin for Snow to wear at his execution. In the book, Katniss does this during the meeting where it’s decided that they will continue the Hunger Games.

Effie and Haymitch kiss

Haymitch and Effie as a couple

Um. Uh. Yeah, that happened. Haymitch and Effie kiss. Looks like it is possible to win the Hunger Games after all, Haymitch. #Hayffie

And on an opposing note, in case you were wondering, yes, the final words of the movie were pulled directly out of the book: “It’s like a game. Repetitive, even a little tedious after more than twenty years. But there are much worse games to play.”

RELATED: 13 Book to Movie Changes in ‘Insurgent’ (MOVIE SPOILERS)

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE FINAL HUNGER GAMES MOVIE? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!

Saul Marquez founded Bookstacked in 2014 and serves as the site's Editor-in-Chief. He primarily covers news for Bookstacked. He also co-hosts Bookmarked: A YA Book Podcast.

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