Hunger Games: Mockingjay "The Hanging Tree", The

The franchise was Always a little love/hate with me. I watched the first film after reading the books and didn't like some of the changes, but I understood why they happened as they did for pacing. When the second film came out I'm not sure if my memory was less hazy because I thought it was a much better adaptation but I decided not to bother with the announced films....until one day you find yourself on an 8 hour flight and what are you gonna do but resort to watching in flight entertainment. That time was Early March of last year.. I watched Mockingjay part 1 and really liked it quite a fair bit... but when part 2 came out it was like seeing THG for the first time all over again. The Hunger games ended and it was with a whimper.

Thankfully Jerick saw what I could not concieve, how to take the weakest entries and strengthen them into one better narrative. It's not perfect you might noticed one or two cuts even if you aren't looking but it's a lot better than what is officially out there.
Admittedly I did watch a downgraded version of the vimeo file since I need to fit on a memory stick (I don't like using my external drives on the WDHD player) but I thought it looked fine on my 40" I probably lost something in the sound but I don't have the best audio set up anyway.

If you were dissatisfied with Mockingjay as I was then I'd like to think The Hanging Tree will be the resolution you were hoping for.

Decent. There are a few things I would change, but overall, a better watch than the original. I would barley change anything about your part II edit which says a lot given how much was removed. Two of my favorite changes were removing the scene where Prim goes missing in search of the cat and the removal of most of the beginning of part 2.

improvement suggestions
-Remove dam attack as opening: Didn't feel like it worked as an opening.
-Bring back Katniss entering house at district 12: This scene shows that Snow is always around and also reintroduces the cat.
-Cut Snow ordering to bomb hospital: It's better if the hospital bombing is a surprise than knowing it's about to happen.
-Cut district 7 scene: Not necessary to the story and kind of disrupts pace.
-Bring back return to District 12: Initially I would have agreed to remove the return to District 12 because of redundancy, but the story feels incomplete without it.
-Bring back cat flashlight and Finnick conversation: This helps the pace because cutting directly to Katniss and Haymitch conversation felt abrupt.
-Bring back scene of Plutarch talking to Katniss about sending Prim to Peeta: Cutting directly to Prim seeing Peeta was confusing.

Possible suggestions-
-Make Snow and Peeta deleted scene as opening.
-Keep the Snow scene where he executes people (without the scene of him having his beard trimmed).
-Remove Plutark talking to Effie: Story doesn't necessarily need the scene.
-Keep hunting scene: I feel like there should still be some of the love triangle since it was apparent in the first two movies. Keeping this scene keeps the triangle at a minimal and also helps with pace.
-Keep Peeta's second interview: kind of an important scene to keep.
-Remove Snow's toast for time and focus.
-Bring epilogue back: The epilogue ending was bittersweet but conclusive. I would make it stay as a post credit scene or just bring it back to the end.