The Hunger Games has to be one of my favorite books. Mockingjay -- the third and final installment of the trilogy? Not so much. In fact, it was such a deviation in tone, style, and characterization that many readers felt let down, so much so that an essay on why people hated the third book made it into Smart Pop's collection, The Girl Who Was On Fire.

So it almost seems as though Lionsgate is adding insult to injury by taking "the worst of the three" and extending it out over two movies, drawing out the agony.

However, this is the movies -- and with movies, the source novel isn't so much a script. It's more of a guideline, really (to borrow from Captain Jack Sparrow). And even as much as the story is recognizable in pieces of this new trailer, the filmography of it imbues it with an element of action and excitement that almost makes one forget how this was the novel where Katniss quit being a leader and became a drifting character in other people's machinations.

This Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence) seems to have more gumption, and President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is the creepiest we've ever seen him. This may be a redeeming factor in the film's success -- enough so that I'm at least now interested in seeing it, and probably a million or so other Hunger Games fans will follow suit. This one's easy money for Lionsgate.

"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" Part 1 debuts in theaters November 21, with advance tickets going on sale October 29.