(Spoiler Alert)
Regarding the movie - the overall dynamic is painfully clear: Was there ever a chance that the rebels would not win in this move in line with the dominant narrative identified by POP Struggle? Nope. Indeed, it makes you wonder exactly what has to be done in order for a group of rebels/revolutionaries/challengers to not win in modern American culture.
The film began with the inevitable victory always in reach. The film pushed forward like Snow Piercer - mile by mile, block by block, minute by tortuous minute the film went on with the rebels pushing forward, ever forward. The only question remained: who would stand before the rebels as the leader at the end? There was no doubt that there would be a leader in the front because that is what the film series became - a revolution of one or four as it were (Katniss - the face and perhaps the heart, Plutarch - the brain, Coin - the fist and Commander Paylor - the soul). This is what most American films about behavioral challenges come down to.
This outcome is interesting because although the filmmakers seemed to acknowledge that it takes thousands of people to overthrow a totalitarian government (led by Donald Sutherland), the film quickly focused on four people. Every now and then there would be an explosion or two, some special effects, a PSA from the government tv show and at least one crowd scene. Essentially though the film revolved around the complex interaction of the four: e.g., one telling the others what to do (Coin ordering Katniss), one looking at the other (Katniss gazing at Peeta or her other love muffin Gale), one trying to kill the other (Peeta on Katniss) or several of them running away from an explosion (pick a scene from almost any 8 minute interval). Oh, and don't even ask to be around the four because in all likelihood you get killed off like the security detail in the original Star Trek episodes (the soon to be dead guys in red). They dropped off like flies. Consider how many soldiers were lost from the initial group that went on the propaganda mission to film the face of the revolution moving up behind the battle lines of the insurgent push. There were like three of them at the end.
Now despite my dissatisfaction with the Soap Operafication of revolutionary movements, some interesting dynamics were introduced. The divisions within challenging institutions reminded me of the newer scholarship: Kathleen Cunningham, Wendy Pearlman and myself. It was interesting to see more explicit discussion of the propaganda used by challenger institutions which directly mirrored those efforts employed by the state. Recall that the challengers main spin doctor (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) did the same thing for the government creating "spectacles" for mass consumption, reminiscent of the "circuses" discussed by De la Boetie. It was the proto-state formation within the rebels that proved to be the most interesting element of the film: it's mirroring of state practices (reliance on propaganda experts, controlling narrative, providing symbols/heroes) and the desire to concentrate power and never relinquish it because of the crisis (locking the country down like Paul Kagame). The more it became like the old state, however, the more that a revolution within the revolution became more likely. In fact, one began to wonder how the inevitable new state could avoid being the new state. Sutherland noted this explicitly in case you missed it: Coin will be the new me. Coin re-emphasized it further calling for a "new Hunger Games" made up of the loser's children.
Oh my, how would we ever avoid this fate? Enter Katniss, of course, who with an incredibly clear line of sight that it was not much of a stretch to see it coming, moved her shot up a few degrees and killed the dictator to be.
And with the revolution sowed up, the series tied everything off in a nice little bow. The love rival (Gale) was discredited as a devious, tool-like baby killer - leaving Katniss available; Katniss goes "home" with her Natural Born Killer and Porn King escort turned babysitter (Woody Harrelson) - who subsequently disappears, Peeta begins a garden (as all sensitive males who previously were Manchurian Candidates would do) and the nuclear family is started amidst a lovely ghost town right next to amazing fields of green which somehow avoided destruction. What better way for the social revolution to end than a family alone in a field but do not think ill of either Katniss or the scene for as the slain Boggs tells us earlier on: "she earned it." Parliament Funkadelic is right again: "Everybody's Got a Little Light Under the Sun"!!! Go on Katniss.