The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 comes out today, if you haven't seen the other films read this so you can pretend you have...
If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few years and haven’t had time to check out The Hunger Games film series, here’s everything you need to know so that you can impress your friends in the pub without them catching on...
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The Hunger Games Might help if you understand what the games are, huh? So, the games are held by the Capitol of Panem (formerly North America), in a bid to maintain control over their 12 districts. Each year they force a boy and a girl from each distract – tributes – to compete to the death in the televised games. Cheery, we know. But problems begin to arise when people start to question whether watching people fight to the death is really a good idea...
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The Main Characters Oh hey J-Law. Look, you’re never going to be able to blag about the Hunger Games if you don’t know anything about the main characters. Jen plays Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers as a tribute after her younger sister is selected for the Hunger Games - this means she takes her place in the competition. Katniss is from District 12, and goes into the games with Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), at first he and Katiss don’t get on but by the last film she’d [spoiler alert!] totally realised she was in love with him. Overseeing the games are President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) and presenting them is Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci).
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The Three Finger Salute This is used throughout the trilogy to mean goodbye, and in one of the saddest scenes of the whole trilogy (and we don’t say that lightly given the huge amount of dying that happens) Katniss does this salute when young tribute Rue dies. Holding her three fingers to her lips before raising them into the air. It's used in the later films as a symbol of unity with Katniss' rebellion.
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The Mockingjay The Mockingjay symbol is so recognisable within the films that it even has its own Wikipedia entry. Katniss wears a Mockingjay pin as a good luck charm and it later becomes a symbol of her rebellion when it ‘catches fire’ in the second film.
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The Trivia The Hunger Games books, on which the films are based, are the fourth most read books in the world. Elizabeth Banks, who played Effie, wore costumes that were so elaborate she couldn’t go to the toilet without someone helping her out of them. On the set of the first film they had a swear jar and according to the cast Jennifer Lawrence contributed half of the funds… Lol.