Jennifer Lawrence - Katniss Everdeen (Mockingjay S&S) #11 - "Are you, are you, coming to the tree?"

**Violent Delights** · 11-21-2014, 12:26 PM

welcome to the
MOCKINGJAY
spoilers&speculation thread #11

▮ F u t u r e - T i t l e s

01. Coming Soon!

▮ P a s t - T h r e a d s

( 01 ) ( 02 ) ( 03 ) ( 04 ) ( 05 ) ( 06 ) ( 07 ) ( 08 ) ( 09 ) ( 10 )

**Violent Delights** · 11-21-2014, 12:31 PM

Initial thoughts -

1) Jen could have been a silent movie queen. Yet again she gets me choked up without saying a word. I think having read the books is a real bonus with these movies; you get to 'see' Katniss' thoughts and feelings that we read on the page.

2) I think the dam scene worked really well, seeing what the district was willing to sacrifice for the cause

But how the hell were the people of the Capitol watching the broadcasts during a blackout?

3) District 8 was awesome.

4) How could they leave out Finnick and his underwear?

5) Hey Johanna.

6) Peeta's attack was brutal, but so well done.

What else... I guess Effie had her moments, I love how they took certain quotes word for wiped, especially with Haymitch and the revolution.

also the way they seemed to split up the quote at the start between Katniss and Gale.

mlkj13 · 11-21-2014, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

Initial thoughts -

1) Jen could have been a silent movie queen. Yet again she gets me choked up without saying a word. I think having read the books is a real bonus with these movies; you get to 'see' Katniss' thoughts and feelings that we read on the page.

Absolutely. She made it real.

Quote:

6) Peeta's attack was brutal, but so well done.

Agreed.

Having read the book I knew it was coming but they built up the anticipation so well and when he attacked it was so jarring. And the look on Katniss' face when he got at her again gave me chills. Same when she woke up in the hospital and before Boggs calmed her down. That whole segment was definitely well done.

On another note, I can't get The Hanging Tree out of my head.

Oh and I'm happy how they opened the movie.

**Violent Delights** · 11-21-2014, 01:04 PM

Instead of going straight to D12

TPF1138 · 11-21-2014, 04:01 PM

Here's the review I posted on Tumblr:

Quote:

There’s a moment in David Lean’s epic masterpiece (words we’re required to use before…) Lawrence of Arabia, where following the capture, and impending torture, of Peter O’Toole’s eponymous hero, we cut to three British officers discussing the issue of providing ammunition to Lawrence and his troops. The men proceed to walk away from camera having made clear that they won’t be making such provisions available, as the music swells and the word ‘Intermission’ materializes on screen.

There was a time when this was established practice. The four-hour epic was a regular event, but high budgets and low theatrical turnover caused it to eventually fall out of favour and with it went the need for the intermission. Nowadays even those few rare four hour movies tend to eschew any sort of interval, but in the last few years a new methodology has become vogue.

These days it is the custom when adapting the last instalment in a novel series, to split the narrative into two parts. It’s been largely criticised as a purely commercial venture intended to perpetuate a revenue stream that would otherwise have reached its limit. It’s a point of view which is hard to argue with when we consider that audiences are being asked to essentially pay twice for one movie, but in creative terms it is really nothing more than the return of the intermission, even if a twelve month interlude is somewhat extreme.

This approach though makes it very difficult to review The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. The film finds our heroine Katniss Everdeen, trapped in an underground colony - the long thought obliterated District 13 - plagued with nightmares, and struggling to come to terms with the losses suffered in two consecutive Hunger Games. She eventually agrees to front a propaganda campaign inspired by her defiance in the games, to help unite the districts of Panem in revolt against the oppressive Capitol. But can she overcome her own traumas, and shore up her courage enough to be effective? Can she become the Mockingjay the rebellion needs her to be?

Early scenes feel slightly unfocused and languorous rather than mournful and reflective, as would seem to be the intent, but by the time Katniss utters the words, “I am. I will,” in answer to one Panem denizen’s plea that she fight with them, the film is on decidedly sure footing and able to proceed with a story that, while confined mostly to the claustrophobic subterranean confines of District 13, with periodic excursions to the surface showing instances of uprising and Capitol retribution lest we forget what’s at stake, is nonetheless able to broaden the scope of the series as a whole. The extra time in fact, affords Francis Lawrence, ably assisted by screenwriters Danny Strong and Peter Craig, the opportunity to focus in on character and explore and deepen the series themes. It’s a bold move for an event blockbuster to spend so much time on building suspense and examining the fragile emotional interiors of its leads, but it’s quite effective. Thanks largely to the enervating performance of its leading lady.

It would be very easy for Jennifer Lawrence the movie star to overwhelm the film. For the goofball interviews, paparazzi stalking’s, and heinous privacy invasions to be all we see. But Lawrence’s talent is far more robust than all the vacuous celebrity horse manure she’s forced to navigate these days and quite efficiently might I add. This is an actress of preternatural capacity and, (yes, Donald Sutherland) even genius, giving what is very possibly her best performance yet in this series. Lawrence disappears entirely, subsumed by Katniss Everdeen, who in this instalment is wounded and broken perhaps to the point of impotence. There’s a danger given how she’s written here, that the character might play as simpering or even petulant, but Lawrence provides so much authenticity and raw emotive power that all we do is feel for Katniss, and root for her to find her strength again.

The film’s final half hour though, building from a harrowing bombing attack to a finale which crosscuts between a night-time raid on the Capitol and a tension building propaganda offensive, ending in a truly horrifying story turn, could make Katniss’s struggle to rebuild almost impossible. If given all that, Mockingjay Part 1 still feels like half a movie, it does at least manage to construct a truer cliff-hanger than any of its peers ever managed.

I can’t give a definitive opinion on Mockingjay just yet, I’ll have to wait another twelve months for that, but I like what I’ve seen so far…

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

But how the hell were the people of the Capitol watching the broadcasts during a blackout?

Emergency generators??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

4) How could they leave out Finnick and his underwear?

Right!? That's my favourite line in the book, and it's the moment when Katniss decides she likes Boggs. That said, that moment now occurs during the white board scene when he tells Effie her make-up has made Katniss look 35. Just watch the way Jennifer plays that moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

6) Peeta's attack was brutal, but so well done.

I was very pleased with how this played out. Nicely done, and ****ing brutal.

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Originally Posted by mlkj13 (View Post)

Oh and I'm happy how they opened the movie.

Yeah, that worked very well actually, rather that starting in 12. I thought it drifted for a bit after that, but it zeroes in again before too long.

Tati_SwanJones · 11-21-2014, 04:51 PM

again cvjhewvbcjkhewbvkjhebwkv I CANT !!! still not over the song

forget lord JENNIFER LAWRENCE BITCHES ~!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TPF1138 · 11-21-2014, 05:03 PM

Hi, Hannah. You liked it, huh!?

**Summer Falls** · 11-21-2014, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HutchLaw_Girl (View Post)

again cvjhewvbcjkhewbvkjhebwkv I CANT !!! still not over the song

forget lord JENNIFER LAWRENCE BITCHES ~!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The songs amazing .. This movie was so well done

**Violent Delights** · 11-21-2014, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Right!? That's my favourite line in the book, and it's the moment when Katniss decides she likes Boggs. That said, that moment now occurs during the white board scene when he tells Effie her make-up has made Katniss look 35. Just watch the way Jennifer plays that moment.

I remember

but both would be better.

Quote:

Emergency generators??

which they didn't use to power a single light. okay.

TPF1138 · 11-22-2014, 01:49 AM

Girls on Film: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay isn't an action movie. It's a war movie.

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In its third installment, The Hunger Games moves beyond the glitz of the first two movies to offer a hard-hitting look at the impact of war
By Monika Bartyzel | November 21, 2014

After two widely-acclaimed installments, the tenor has changed in the first reviews for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. The long-beginning of Katniss Everdeen's final fight, like Harry Potter and Twilight, has been broken into two parts — and not everyone is happy with the decision.

The complaints over Mockingjay Part 1 extend beyond the perceived cynicism of stretching a wildly popular franchise as far as possible. It's a disappointment of tone, as the Hunger Games franchise moves away from many of the things that made it so popular in the first place. The Games are finally over, war is on the horizon, and Katniss, with increasingly debilitating PTSD, is caught in a drab world without any of the pomp and circumstance of the first two installments.

Critics have complained about "a distinct lack of excitement," and that the story has slowed "to a crawl" with "no sense of escalation." There are "only pockets of tense action" that will make viewers "desperately long" for the "thrilling good times" when children killed each other in the Games. Even worse, the Girl on Fire "has burned out," with "the most popular activist-heroine in modern movies" becoming "a passive spokeswoman" who isn't leading the fight.

What's being overlooked about Mockingjay Part 1 is that all those complaints are exactly the point.

This is why Katniss shouldn't be worshipped as a hero, and why raising her to high, heroic standards makes the viewer into a citizen of the debauched Capitol, buying her image and not the truth of her experience. Mockingjay Part 1 is an up close battle — the heroism matched with the bodies of the fleeing innocent, and the bodies of those who willingly ran into gunfire to fight their oppressors. Katniss is a young woman in the thick of it, suffering over the heinous things she's seen, done, and experienced, in a world focused on survival.

More importantly, she is a media-created hero, whose heroic deeds have made her a symbol for other people's power struggles. Katniss is carefully mediated by her handlers to appeal to all — whether it's the Capitol's efforts to maintain power, or the rebels' efforts to dismantle it. Her actual pain is masked and medicated so that she can appear to be the strong hero ready to fight.

Mockingjay Part 1 is about the games behind the Games. The glitz of the event is gone, leaving bare the manipulation and planning behind Katniss' rise. She has always been a pawn to other people's motivations, whether as a new tribute or the Mockingjay. The minute she volunteered to save her sister in the first film, groups of people began to plan her future without actually preparing her for it.

The Hunger Games series has been systematically wiping away the veneer of the event until we're faced with the reality that lies beyond it. First, The Hunger Games introduced us to the Games — the spectacle used to keep the people of Panem scared and subservient. Catching Fire brought us back to the Games and dismantled it, revealing the ongoing narratives being created for its pawns, all of whom showcase different levels of damage from their experiences. Now Mockingjay eradicates the image for reality; faced with a very specifically drawn enemy (a Capitol overrunning with opulence, vibrant color, and audacious style), the rebels fervently embrace the opposite.

District 13, the heart of the rebellion, is a district seemingly bombed to oblivion. But they're slowly rebuilding a drab world underground, focusing for decades on the ultimate downfall of the Capitol. Everything is made of concrete, and everyone wears gray. Even their leader, President Coin (Julianne Moore), has steel-gray hair that makes her look like she was birthed from her district's dim depths.

They know they must play the Capitol's game to be victorious — stealing Katniss and shooting "propos" (propaganda films) that can help inspire the other districts to band together under their cause. The careful balance of image and power that the Capitol so deftly wields is out of their hands. When Katniss agrees to be their symbol, they go overboard with over-the-top verbiage and style, until her original handlers Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) and Effie (Elizabeth Banks) correct their errors and explain the power of Katniss' appeal.

District 13 is an extreme — one that Katniss fails to fit into just as much as she failed to fit into her role in the previous film. She is a mediated and damaged hero, but she knows that the rebellion and its leaders aren't without their faults. There isn't all good or all bad in Panem; just ever-evolving alliances based on what people know and see.

There are problems with 13's motives, and there are problems with Katniss. More than ever, she's a damaged heroine, and the deeper she becomes involved in the insurgence, the more obvious her inadequacies become. She is a young woman thrust into a deadly adult world and never given a moment to reflect, heal, and mature before the next danger.

Her instincts made her a hero and they also limit her heroism. She relies on instincts so comprehensively that she has little self-awareness. "I knew you'd do that," Gale says to her in Mockingjay. "How?" Katniss asks incredulously. "I didn't." Her actions are foreign to her, but easily anticipated by those around her. She was never the active hero; she's always been used.

Mockingjay isn't fun, and it isn't meant to be. It's about conflict. It's the counter-balance to the Games — the truth behind the glamor, which is the very heart of The Hunger Games franchise. Mockingjay's somber, gray-toned peek into the mechanics of Panem's fight finally gets to the heart of the series: Behind the veneer of well-coiffed violence is pain and devastation, not action-hero quips and happy endings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

I remember

but both would be better.

They would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Devil's Cry (View Post)

which they didn't use to power a single light. okay.

So you agree. Fantastic!

**Summer Falls** · 11-22-2014, 06:50 AM

Wow im lo that review I never thought of it that way

mlkj13 · 11-22-2014, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Mockingjay isn't fun, and it isn't meant to be. It's about conflict. It's the counter-balance to the Games — the truth behind the glamor, which is the very heart of The Hunger Games franchise. Mockingjay's somber, gray-toned peek into the mechanics of Panem's fight finally gets to the heart of the series: Behind the veneer of well-coiffed violence is pain and devastation, not action-hero quips and happy endings.

A world of yes for this review!

I love that the series takes on the bread and circuses of the games and exposes what truly occurs in society and in both political systems. At this point Katniss is just a pawn in a much larger game. Other then a few in MJ part 1, no one cares what mental state she's in, she's just a means to an end. I can't wait part 2 to see how they handle her evolution in the war and aftermath.

**Violent Delights** · 11-22-2014, 12:13 PM

that review is great.

Fooltocry · 11-22-2014, 12:16 PM

Love this excerpt from the positive review from Topless Robot:

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It's no stretch to compare this to some of Lawrence's own media tours, as it is noted by everyone that Katniss only works as a symbol when she's allowed to be herself and not stage-managed (though she does wear impractical boob-armor; have to motivate the young men, I suppose). But it would be silly to think the metaphor only applies to her - young adult fiction catches on by resonating with young adults, who want to shake of their clique stereotypes and often feel like they're not allowed to truly be themselves. That Katniss has post-traumatic stress disorder means the identity crisis is amped up by a factor of at least ten.

Here's where I must take a personal detour...

There is somebody very, very close to me who has PTSD. I won't say more because it isn't my story to tell, but I have seen it in vivid detail. When Katniss gets up in the middle of the night to find a hiding place where she feels safe, and screams when people try to bring her back to bed, I've been there. When she lashes out defensively even at people trying to help, just because her slightly sabotaged survival instincts have kicked in, I've been on the receiving end of that too. When the slightest bump on the road to recovery sends her spiraling back to square one because she doesn't want to deal with something that wasn't part of the plan...I know that all too well. That she manages to be heroic anyway, and realize that other people don't see her as a damaged person but as someone inspiring, well...that's inspiring to me. And true. Lawrence absolutely nails it.

mlkj13 · 11-22-2014, 01:03 PM

Thanks for that review. It's good to hear from an individual who has had personal experience with PTSD to say that Jennifer nailed it.

I saw it again this morning. So glad I did, there were things that I missed on first screening. Particularly really listening to Coins speech at the end. It's a very good movie.

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