The odds are still in their favor.
Of the three books in the Hunger Games trilogy, “Mockingjay” was easily the least well-received. People blamed its unpopularity on the unexpected deaths of characters, along with the widespread belief that the ending was unsatisfactory. The portrayal of the story on screen has proved to be much more popular however, setting the box office record for 2014 as people flocked like sheep to their closest cinema.
Despite collecting $123 million in only its first weekend, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1” made less money than the other two movies in the Hunger Games series, “Hunger Games,” which amassed $152.2 million and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” which raked in $158 million.
“People just got tired of waiting around for the movies to come out and [The Hunger Games] lost its momentum,” said sophomore Lauren Budreau. “When the first one came out I was so obsessed, and then the second one came out about three years later and everyone just forgot about it. And now, Divergent and all of those other movies are coming out.”
This evidently did not keep students like Burdeau from seeing the movie.
“It wasn’t bad; I expected it to be not that amazing. It was better than I thought it would be, but not super emotional,” said Budreau. “It seemed darker.”
The splitting of “Mockingjay” into two different movies also caused some unrest. It is not as if splitting movies into two parts had never been done before, examples being Twilight’s “Breaking Dawn” and “Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows”. The trend that seems to occur with movies like these is that the first movie contains the build-up and suspense to the action-packed part of the plot, to which directors assign the second movie. It is naturally difficult to make the first movie entertaining enough to attract revenue yet still stay true to the original story from the novel.
“Mockingjay” deserves genuine applause for its success in this aspect. With just a touch of violence, it leaves room for thought, reflection, and symbolism that seems to pop up constantly in every scene. It exposes the raw talent of its actors by showing the characters’ dwindling sanity; this makes the movie worth watching.
To some, its untimely release reflects our own current events in our society such as the situation in Ferguson, Missouri. The themes of overthrowing oppression and unjust governments is thought-provoking in the sense that while the world of The “Hunger Games” is a dystopia, it ends up resembling problems that society is battling today.
Viewers beware – “Mockingjay” might hit a bit too close to home.