Watch The Destruction Of District 12 In This Hunger Games: Mockingjay Trailer

By Brent McKnight | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy may be the highest grossing movie of the year so far, but most of us don’t expect that to last much past the point where Lionsgate releases The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1. We suspect Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and company will take the annual box office crown for a second straight year. To make sure that happens, the studio is going to make a big push leading up to the release, and though we already saw the “final trailer,” they’ve released this short one for your perusal.

This is a quick hitter, and instead of focusing on the larger picture, it zooms in on a single element, though one that carries a great deal of emotional weight in the context of the story. After the first sequel, Catching Fire, Katniss finds herself in District 13, which was supposedly destroyed long ago. This is the seat of the rebellion, and as the face of the uprising against the Capital—both figuratively and literally the face—they want to make full use of her.

As you might imagine, a strong-willed young woman would much rather control her own destiny than be used as a political tool. To quell her reluctance to get with the program as it were, President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the two voices you hear talking off screen, send Katniss to see what the Capital, led by the sinister President Snow (Donald Sutherland), did to her home in District 12. And it ain’t pretty.

Katniss is in a fragile mental state at this point in the saga, suffering from what is implied to be PTSD, and you have to admit that’s a manipulative dick move to send her into the ruins of her former home, where she can see that everyone she knew, with a few exceptions, is totally dead. No matter how hard she struggles against it, she’s just a pawn, and in the end, she has to fight the “good guys” just as hard as the bad.

The Hunger GamesYou can see in this footage just how affected she is by the destruction and carnage. But you can also see, obviously played or not, how this sight steels her resolve to fight. With all of the mind games going on from both sides, it also raises questions in your mind about what you see. Who left that rose there, who is telling the truth, and questions like these don’t always have the easy answers that you automatically expect. Who is playing whom?

If you haven’t already, check out the latest full trailer. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 hits theaters everywhere on November 21, while Part 2 is slated to open a year later on November 20, 2015.