MJ Part 2 Countdown BEGINS!

HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS, TRIBUTES.

The continuation of our Mockingjay Countdown series is finally here for part 2 and..... it's very sad. Here we are, counting down the last Hunger Games movie. Seems like not too long ago, we were having book discussions on Tumblr and the rights had just been bought by Lionsgate. In honor of the last book, we kicked off this series where we examined the book chapter by chapter and created some kind of "art". We did some cool, silly, and weird things last year and we hope this time is no different! If you would like to check out chapters 1-12, please read our series from last year. Every week we will be posting a chapter starting from 13, and by the time we reach the end, the movie's release will be within a week.  We proudly present the Mockingjay Part 2 Countdown.

CHAPTER 13

What do you get when you mix our love of cats, Mockingjay, and morbid humor?  The Catniss Cone of Shame. In the beginning of Ch 13, Katniss is dealing with a cold and obnoxious collar from her injuries that Peeta inflicted, which inspired the above drawing. WE LIKE CATS, OKAY?! So let's examine what else happens in this chapter...

The first few pages pretty much go over what the end of Mockingjay Part 1 explained, and the film did a pretty good job of addressing what a hijacking was. We see Prim becoming a well adjusted adult, followed by a seemingly harmless scene with Beetee and Gale designing war traps. WEE-OOO WEEE-OOO not an innocent scene in the slightest! Book readers are well aware of of how important this scene is, and I trust Francis completely to leave it in. If you're reading along with us, you will notice how painfully specific the human traps are described. It's another one of Suzanne's great discussion points: How far is too far?

The last big event in this chapter is the first interaction with Peeta since the incident. I think most people assume Delly Cartwright will not make an appearance in the film, but when it comes to Francis I always give him the benefit of the doubt. I am interested to see who they will substitute for Delly if she is cut out, or perhaps they will jump right to the Katniss interaction for time reasons. Either way, the scene is going to be unsettling seeing Peeta perceiving Katniss as a creation of The Capitol, not the girl he's grown up loving. Rereading this chapter is all the more intense reliving all of Katniss' emotions in her confused state. We've been with Katniss on her entire journey again and again, and experienced it through film over the last five years. Now that the films are ending, I can't help but feel Katniss' emotion ten times over as she realizes that Peeta has been conditioned to forget he loves her and even more horrifying-- that his true self might never return. Tissues, please.

MOCKINGJAY PART 2 COUNTDOWN

Chapter 13 ---- You're here!
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

The Hunger Game of Thrones: JON SNOW MUST DIE

In a new mashup video featuring OUR FAVORITE THINGS EVER, it's Jon Snow versus Katniss Everdeen.

Definitely the best use of the new Mockingjay trailer we've seen. Good use of Gwendoline Christie and overall seemless transitions!! We cant help but hope for more GOT related mashups like this one. *SPOILERS* Maybe when Jon Snow rises from the dead? Oh what's that? He's dead forever? Oh DARN if only someone who had that power had just mysteriously shown up to Castle Bla-- OH WAIT.

Source: youtube

MOCKINGJAY PART 2 TRAILER

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 trailer is here:




FINALLY! There are so many things about this video that we can talk about now! Peeta. Prim. Finnick. Katniss. THE PARACHUTES. You guys.

I'm actually honestly not sure how I'm going to survive this movie when every time I see this trailer I cry.

Comic Con 2015 Mockingjay Part 2 Panel

As with most (all?) Hall H Panel stories, ours starts the day before.

The Mockingjay Part 2 Panel is on a Thursday around noon. It’s late morning Wednesday when Courtney and Tiffany arrive in San Diego and camp out at the Hall H Line. They hang out there for a while, making friends, making sure Denise and I get there on time, taking pictures...

Denise and I are still stuck in traffic at this point so that’s not exciting. Tiffany and Courtney then head to the Lionsgate mixer to hang out with our Lionsgate and other fansite friends somewhere on a hotel rooftop. Willow Shields (who plays Prim in the movies, in case you might have missed that. We love her.) heard about the mixer and decided to join everyone!

She stayed for about 40 minutes where everyone discussed Dancing With the Stars, Jennifer Lawrence, and theme parks among other things.

Denise and I got to the mixer just in time to take this site picture with Willow!

Then it was time to head back to the Hall H line and get ready for bed

Thursday!

In line to be let in to Hall H !

And then we were in.

(HQ pictures from the panel are in the gallery below, so this recap won't have a lot of pictures.)

Mockingjay Part 2 was the second panel of the day. From the time we noticed the drums they set up on the stage, we knew it was going to be awesome.

The panel started off with the Stand With Us Propo, with the live drummers on stage and in the aisles (behind where we were sitting) accompanying the drumming onscreen. It definitely upped the intensity and made the whole thing more moving.  Check out this video we took of the drums onstage:

The drummers on the stage! #Mockingjay #mockingjaysdcc #unite #sdcc

A video posted by Welcome to district 12 (@welcometodistrict12) on Jul 9, 2015 at 1:22pm PDT

After the propo, Conan O’Brien, who was moderating introduced Francis, Nina, Willow, Liam, Josh and Jennifer. With a quick comment about the movie from Francis (“Katniss is back into action and she’s coming after Snow with Squad 451”) and a short intro, we were shown the newest trailer (which will be out IN A WEEK! We’re all excited to see it again!).

It’s kind of hard to describe the trailer without giving away any spoilers, which we don’t want to do since when we saw it for the first time not knowing what was going to be in it was very emotional and moving for all of us and we want you to experience it the same way. We will tell you though that it was amazing and that we cried both times they showed it to us!

And then it was time for the panel! We livetweeted it, so you can check out our twitter for it. Everyone was funny and adorable as usual, and we learned quite a bit about the movie. Some highlights include:

• “He couldn’t stay away. He couldn’t resist. This.” – Jen commenting on Peeta being back with the rebels after being captured by Snow.
• Jen deciding her favorite Katniss moment was “I volunteer as tribute,” (thanks to Willow’s suggestion) when she was asked.
• The cast talking about how emotio
• nal the end of filming was, and how they “held each other and slept like puppies” after they wrapped filming. Jen saying that if she could keep any prop or costume from the movies, she would keep the orange backpack (which, if you listen to the Hunger Games Fireside Chat, would be extra funny to you).
• [SPOILER] While talking about filming the epilogue, Josh talks about playing in the field with Jen’s nephew!
• Jen was asked if there was anything she did to say goodbye to Katniss and she had said that it hasn’t happened yet, and that she probably would not say goodbye completely because of how playing Katniss has changed her life.
• When Conan was trying to end the Q&As, Jen made sure that a girl who cosplayed as Katniss got to ask her question.
• The Q&A in general was great, but obviously our favorite part was when COURTNEY GOT TO ASK A QUESTION!

Video: Courtney asks Nina and Francis a question! #hallh #mockingjaysdcc #sdcc

A video posted by Welcome to district 12 (@welcometodistrict12) on Jul 9, 2015 at 1:40pm PDT

In Mockingjay, there was a lot of material between the climax of the book and before the epilogue. What were the challenges you faced in adapting that section of the book? Which Nina Jacobson answered with: Finding the balance between taking time for emotion and propulsion towards the end was a challenge.

In case you were wondering what Nina thought of the question:

They showed us the trailer again at the end of the panel and right before they got up to leave, Josh took a second to thank the fans and tell us they love us.

This was my first ever Comic Con and Mockingjay Part 2 was the first big panel I saw and I was definitely blown away not only by the stuff they showed us but also at how fun and informative and IRL adorable the whole thing was! Kind of bittersweet that this will be their last Comic Con panel ever, but what a way to go! Check out our Mockingjay Part 2 @ Comic Con 2015 Gallery:

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And here's the FULL Mockingjay Part 2 Panel video

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(video source)

Mockingjay Part 2 at Comic-Con 2015

San Diego Comic-Con was last week and the whole Welcome to District 12 team was there to soak up all of the Mockingjay goodness!! We camped out every night, and captured all we could of Mockingjay's last presence at the con. If you haven't already, make sure you check out our post about the Mockingjay Part 2 panel complete with photo gallery, which has lots of adorable cast moments.

Inside this edition, we will go over what the Lionsgate booth had to offer and take a look at some totally rad cosplay we found around the convention!

Lionsgate Booth

It seems as if Lionsgate has finally got the hang of their booth design in terms of crowd control. A couple years ago, the booth had to get shut down several times due to Mockingjay pin mobs. That didn't seem to be the case this year, at least in our experience. Whenever there was a freebie line happening it could get long (sometimes wrapping around the whole booth more than once), but you could always get to the back of the line and the wait was reasonable.

Freebies

Lionsgate gave a lot of mini posters for their various films coming out soon, including the war paint portraits for Mockingjay Part 2. Every freebie giveaway was different in terms of which war paint mini poster they gave out, but the most coveted item was the newest ringless Mockingjay pin. 

Mockingjay Part 2 PIN!!

Lionsgate poster freebies 

We managed to pick up some extras so hopefully, we will have a giveaway soon?

Mockingjay Photo Booth

Tiffany sending the rebellion her information!

The photo booth allowed SDCC goers to get their Mockingjay war paint and send it to their socials. Using XBOX Kinect, fans used the three finger salute to select their affiliation and pose for the camera. After this step, fans entered their information to be emailed their photo and chose whether or not they wanted their photo to be included in a massive fan poster. Here's how ours turned out:

Courtney

Tiffany

Denise

Janine

Lionsgate did an excellent job with their booth for the last Hunger Games installment. It was well designed for large crowds, Mockingjays everywhere, and with rebel soldiers stationed at all times:

Lastly, Lionsgate added one last small touch that might have gone unnoticed by some convention goers. If you waited in line for the photo booth, the overflow line went along the convention center wall. When you got towards the front of the line, the staff had to communicate to each other when to send a few people from the wall into the normal line amidst the busy foot traffic. The staff used THE THREE FINGER SALUTE to signal when to send more people over to the photo booth line. I was just beside myself when I witnessed this, and I give Lionsgate major props for being so creative and faithful in terms of how the booth was run. It's too bad that Mockingjay won't have a presence at SDCC next year. 

COSPLAYERS

We only managed to spot a few dedicated hard core cosplayers at the convention, but that doesn't mean that there weren't tons there! We saw hordes of fans sporting Hunger Games gear, but here are a few that really caught our eye:

Meet Caroline, Katie, and Brandon and their EPIC cosplay! These guys camped out with all the other fans for the MJ panel in Hall H!

We caught these guys when we were in a rush so we didn't get their names, but DANG look at that Mockingjay dress!

Comic Con 2015 was a blast, and we're sad we will no longer be celebrating the movies at the con, but there will always be cosplayers representing for years to come!

More from SDCC:

Mockingjay Part 2 Panel in Hall H

'Faces of the Revolution' Character Posters

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 "Faces of the Revolution" character posters have shown across different online media outlets. We're super stoked about San Diego Comic-Con this week, and we're hoping that these will show up there one way or another since our team will be there!

Check out the 8 posters below:

Katniss - Yahoo! Movies

Prim - The Hunger Games twitter

Peeta - MTV

Gale - Entertainment Weekly & People.com

Finnick - Metro

Johanna - IMDb

Cressida - Mashable

Boggs - Fandango