Okay, Here Goes--I Didn't Like the Ending of The Hunger Games. Hear Me Out (And Hopefully We Can Still Be Friends!)

There, I said it. If you're still reading, please hear me out. I know that concessions have to be made when turning a book into a movie—things have to be cut, plot lines have to be tweaked and in some cases consolidated and creative license is taken. But the ending of The Hunger Games' movie should have remained truer to the book. Why am I breaking my vow of silence? Well, news came today that HG director Gary Ross will NOT return as director of Catching Fire. My guess is he was freaking out about the way he ended HG and the problems he created for himself moving forward! Kidding . . .

Here's the deal (and if you don't want to know how this goes down, the mother of all spoilers is finally here). In the book AND movie, Katniss and Peeta are the last two left in the arena. Unwilling to kill one another, Katniss gives them each deadly berries. Before they can swallow—game maker Seneca Crane announces that the rules have been changed again and they both have won.

In the movie, we see Katniss and Peeta back on stage with Caesar Flickman. They both look healthy and only a little unsure. Next thing we know, they're on the train heading home to District 12, nervously awaiting what's next for their post-Arena lives.

In the book, Peeta can barely get on the hovercraft that whisks them out of the arena because his leg is bleeding so badly. A glass wall separates them as doctors start working on Peeta—and Katniss is hysterical. She wakes up in the Capitol and panics because she doesn't know if Peeta is alive or dead. When she finally is reunited with her team (Haymitch, Cinna and Effie), Haymitch tells her in no uncertain terms that the Capitol is furious with her for the stunt with the berries and the only acceptable defense is she was "so madly in love she wasn't responsible for her actions." Peeta and Katniss also aren't reunited until Caesar interviews them on stage at the closing ceremony. That's also when Katniss discovers that Peeta now has a fake leg. Things get a little tense on the train home when Peeta finds out that Haymitch prompted Katniss to play up that she was "hopelessly in love" but didn't tell him to do the same.