The books:
- The trilogy's wording can sometimes delve into the melodramatic, creating unintentional humor. One such instance from the first book, "I avoid looking at anyone as I take tiny spoonfuls of fish soup. The saltiness reminds me of my tears."
- Peeta's reasoning for his talent at camouflage is that he decorates the cakes at the bakery. Because District Twelve's frosted cakes apparently look like trees and dirt for some reason.
- Later on, he manages to camouflage himself to point of near invisibility, but Katniss while impressed notes that most of his body is underneath a layer of dirt and plants, making his camouflage skills, and by extension his cake decorating skills, look pointless.
- During the interview with Caesar, Katniss's wedding dress burns up to resemble a mockingjay. Then, Caesar comments that Katniss looks like a bird. In response, Katniss states that she resembles a mockingjay and flaps the wings on her arms as she replies, making a dramatic scene become unintentionally funny.
- When Katniss tries to defend Peeta from a monkey muttation leaping out of a tree:"I throw my knife at the oncoming mutt but the creature somersaults, evading the blade, and stays on its trajectory."
- The description makes it sound as if the monkey muttation was able to defy physics and fly through the air to dodge Katniss' knife. While the muttations are indeed genetically altered animals, the monkey muttations here sound as if they stepped out of the The Wizard of Oz.
- The name used in the Spanish translation of Mockingjay, translated as Sinsajo (pronounced as "Seen-Sah-Hoh"). According with the translators, they choose that name as a pormanteau of the birds "mockingbird" (translated as "Sinsonte" in Spanish) and the "Eurasian jay" (translated as "Arrendajo) just like in English. The problem here is "Sinsajo", due of the way how Spanish language works, being a phonetic language, sounds as both "Sin Ajo" (Without Garlic) or "Sin Sabor" (Tasteless), losing the translated name any kind of dramatic impact on the way.
- In District Two, the Capitol has established a rather powerful military fortress filled with soldiers and weapons. The fortress's name? The Nut.note
The films:
The Hunger Games
- The face that Peeta makes when Katniss finds him. The camouflage coloring on his face does not help.
- Rue's screaming for Katniss to save her while she's trapped under the net. It's especially egregious because she had previously been established as a stealthy, rational and reasonably intelligent character, and it would her panicking, screaming and flailing seem tailor-made to draw Marvel in and get her killed and give Katniss more angst (in the books, Rue only screams once - when the trap is originally sprung - and Marvel is right there, stabbing her almost immediately, with Katniss arriving too late).
- The fact that the mockingjays are only used to repeat Rue and Katniss' signals back and forth, especially since they're later shown to be able to repeat human speech.
Catching Fire
- President Snow's line, "They're holding hands. I want them dead," sounds more like a line from a Saturday morning cartoon than a line from a movie adapted from a YA novel.
- Something about the combination of the closeness, camera angle, and bizarrely detached expression in Katniss's Crucified Hero Shot when she was being lifted from the arena. Though considering she did almost just electrocute herself she might just be in shock.
- Katniss spends roughly a third of the movie in tears and screaming. It's heartwrenching the first few times, but after a while one tends to start thinking "Here we go again..." In particular, the scene where she gets a PTSD attack after shooting a turkey and the scene where she wakes from a nightmare are heavy narm.
- When Katniss and Peeta are being led away after the Quell reaping and Katniss, upset that she won't be getting to say a proper goodbye to Prim, sticks her head back and throws out a quick "goodbye". It comes off as ridiculous rather than touching.
Mockingjay, Part 1
- The scene with the lumberjacks in District 7 bombing their Peacekeepers can come off as this, due to the Peacekeepers' poor aim and the fact that the trees are left conspicuously undamaged by the bombs. (Granted, if they were antipersonnel mines with shaped charges they wouldn't damage the trees much by design, but the results on the Peacekeepers would have been anything but Bloodless Carnage.)
- Peeta's movements when he's restrained and desperately trying to break free at the end, although some found it incredibly disturbing. Beyond the scene itself, it's rather ridiculous to think that this was their brilliant solution to contain someone who has been deeply traumatized and with an altered mental status. Keep him locked up in a room with a glass wall to make him feel even more observed, and then turn the lights on as brightly as possible to overflow his senses to the maximum.
- Katniss waking up from a nightmare by screaming loudly and bolting into sitting while thrashing.
- Katniss' blubbering and wailing over possibly losing both Peeta and Gale is hilarious rather than touching. It's so over the top that it's impossible to take it seriously.
Mockingjay, Part 2
- The scene in which Katniss breaks down upon seeing Buttercup and yells at him to leave because Prim is dead can be a bit hard to feel emotional over because Buttercup is a cat who barely reacts to her screaming and throwing objects at him.
- The heroes appear to be hiding out in a place owned by a cast member of Cats.
- When the oil water hits, Peeta turns and attacks Katniss with a Nightmare Face that's more goofy than scary.
- While escaping from the sewer, Cressida shouts out "I know a place." She means somewhere for them to hide but she says the line as they're still running up, making it sound like she thinks they should go upstairs.
