Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 - 9 Easter Eggs You May Have Missed

2. All Those References

Mockingjay: Part 1 marks the point where The Hunger Games series all-but gives up on trying to win over the unconverted. The first two movies are essentially pre-reading, with the events of the treequel directly continuing an already in-progress story. But the film goes one further than other fan-exclusive franchises, with copious direct references to The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, showing that the events of those movies have become as mythical in Panem as they have in the real world. It all helps further increase the meta-feel of the whole thing. Hopefully even a passive viewer would have picked up on nods to Katniss volunteering for the Games or Peeta "making" people like her during the brain-storming session, but there's more obscure ones (see Finnick's talk of discovering Katniss' feelings for Peeta). Sure, they're not the most hidden of references, but the sheer number of nods (compare this to Harry Potter or Star Wars, which lean noticeably less on earlier films) makes it a worthy mention.