It should have been only one film

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2014)

There seems to be a fashion for splitting final movies of a film series into two parts. I understand some of the reasons for this. Often in a book series, the earlier books include a lot of thoughts and internal conflict in the protagonist, which has to be portrayed by a few carefully selected images in a film. Whereas the last book is often full of actions and it is difficult in a film to decide how to cut any of them. Nevertheless, the film makers should take these hard decisions. The problem with splitting to two movies is that they are inevitably splitting what is in essence a single story. Stories have an important structure. Splitting them destroys this. The first part becomes an introduction and some of the middle. The second part has the rest of the middle and the conclusion. Basically neither have a proper structure. The result is a loss of impact. I have read the books and Mockingjay is a great and thought-provoking finale to the series. The film Mockingjay Part 1 worries me. It wasn't impactful. It didn't even work as a great trailer to part 2. To split this story into two parts has been I think a grave mistake.