THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART TWO Full SDCC Panel Video

On Thursday, the main cast and crew of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 visited Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con to talk about the conclusion of the massively popular sci-fi franchise. Series stars Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen), Josh Hutcherson (Peeta Mellark), Liam Hemsworth (Gale Hawthorne), and Willow Shields (Prim Everdeen) were joined by director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson.

The panel started with drummers dressed in the white uniforms of District 13, then segued to “A Message from District 13” — a (pretty cool, actually) teaser that went online shortly after the panel. You can watch that here. Then for some reason Conan O’Brien came out to moderate the panel. I cannot imagine how much that cost Lionsgate. He was joined by the panelists, and they started talking about the movie (Well, first they all dove for the free water like they’d just spent a week in the Sahara. Why do they do that? Is it a contractual obligation with the sponsor? You can get SmartWater anywhere, J.Law).

They showed the first full trailer for the movie, and since it was mostly just quick flashes of scenes, I can’t give you a detailed description, I’m sorry. But here is a non-comprehensive list of things I saw in the trailer, which will make more sense if you read the books and may contain mild spoilers if you didn’t: a lot of tiny parachutes, that tiger lady, Joanna, President Coin, the evacuation of the capitol, the (I think) ceremony for Snow’s execution (that was a spoiler, but you’ll never believe what happens next!), a black female rebel leader, Katniss walking alone through the snow, Peeta and Katniss hugging, Gale being a badass, Peeta giving an inspiring speech to Katniss again, Snow creepstalking Katniss again. Also: action, action, action, action.

I know that splitting the final installment of a trilogy into two films is a cynical trend driven by Hollywood’s craven desire for money, but…I actually think it works really well for Mockingjay. The book suffered from trying to do too many things, and giving the disparate parts some breathing room was necessary. Plus, now pretty much all that is left is to cover in the final film is the assault on the Capitol and the fallout from that, so about 2/3 of the movie is going to be crazy action. I can’t wait.

Watch the full panel for more insight into the characters and to see the main threesome's bizarre enmeshment.