The 10 biggest changes the 'Hunger Games' prequel movie makes from the book

At the book's start, Snow hopes to earn a monetary prize to cover his college tuition based on his performance as a mentor of the Hunger Games along with his academic record.

The Plinth Prize, unassociated with Snow's school, isn't introduced until late in the book when Sejanus (played by Josh Andrés Rivera in the movie) announces that his family will cover the tuition of the mentor whose tribute wins the 10th annual Hunger Games.

The movie simplifies and combines the two ideas by initially introducing the Plinth Prize as a reward intended for the most academically gifted student upon graduation.

Dean Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) then informs the students that the prize will now go to whoever is the best mentor.

Early in the film, Arachne (Lilly Cooper) taunts her tribute by holding a glass soda bottle at arm's length from them. The tribute gets a hold of the bottle, breaks it, and jabs it into Arachne's neck, killing her.

In the book, her tribute steals Arachne's knife to slit her throat after she refuses her a sandwich.

Of adapting the violent scenes, Lawrence told Business Insider, "Part of the appeal of the books is that Suzanne never talked down or aged down the story for teenagers. She treated them like adults."

"The trick is when translating that to a film, you don't want to get an R-rating because you don't want to alienate the sort of target audience," he added. "You want to get the PG-13. What I always tried to do is approach the violence in an emotional way where you feel that sort of emotional value of what's happening versus the gore."

After getting bit by several genetically modified snakes in the book, Clemensia starts to become snake-like, growing scales over her body.

In the movie, a solitary snake bites Clemensia before she's taken away. Dr. Gaul advises Snow to keep that information to himself and pretend she came down with a terrible flu. She's never mentioned again.

In the book, Clemensia returns by the end of the games and is angry with Snow.

"We never shot it, but it was definitely cut. It was cut for length," Lawrence told Business Insider of why we didn't see Clemensia's transformation on-screen.

"We had to make some choices of, who are the characters that are most important to this movie," Lawrence said, referencing seven characters — Snow, Lucy Gray, Sejanus, Tigris, Dr. Gaul, Highbottom, and Lucky Flickerman.

He added: "As soon as you start to invest too much time in people like Clemensia, as fun as it is to see in the book, it expands an already long script. That was something that was excised, I'd say, quite early in the adaptation process."

The movie shows Snow sneaking into the arena before the games to find potential hiding spots and give Lucy Gray a leg up.

In the book, Snow only enters the arena when he's asked to retrieve Sejanus during the game.

One of the film's shocking changes occurs when Snow pulls away from Lucy Gray as she's about to kiss him from the zoo cage.

Snow asks her if their romance is real, and she assures him it is.

In the book, Lucy Gray tells Snow the only boy her heart has a sweet spot for is him before she kisses him in front of his classmates. It's uncertain to the reader if she's sincere or simply playing her mentor to try and stay alive in the games.

In the movie, they don't kiss until Snow finds Lucy Gray in a District 12 meadow, singing "The Hanging Tree."

In the book, Reaper contracts rabies after drinking from a poisoned puddle. Wovey also drinks poisoned water. Lucy Gray embraces Treech and places one of the poisonous snakes on him. Mizzen is killed after a swarm of drones causes him to fall to his death.

In the movie, Reaper, Mizzen, and Wovey are swiftly killed by the swarm of snakes. Treech is poisoned by Lucy Gray.

In the book, Snow places the handkerchief into the tank to give Lucy Gray an advantage in the games. It's not until after the games are over that Dean Highbottom reveals that Snow's father's initials, CXS, are stitched very small, with the same thread as the border pattern.

But in the movie, the gold font is big and obvious. It's hard to believe Snow didn't know he was incriminating himself, and ruining his chance at winning the Plinth Prize, as cheating was against the rules.

Perhaps the tweak is supposed to show that Snow really didn't care about winning and loved Lucy Gray so much that he'd do anything to save her life. Otherwise, this change makes Snow look sloppy.

As they're running away, in the book, Snow starts questioning his choice and slowly realizes this life isn't meant for him. It was a fun adventure for a few hours.

That's in direct contrast with the movie where Snow seems fully committed to running away with Lucy Gray. He's into the idea of fishing and having a more carefree life.

He only starts to reconsider his life when he finds the guns that would incriminate him of murder. But even then, he's still interested in running away with Lucy Gray until she gives him a reason to believe she may one day squeal on him.

In the book, after Snow finds the guns, Lucy Gray pulls back and tells Snow she'll dig up some katniss for them to eat. He initially questions her, remembering it wasn't ripe enough two weeks earlier, but lets it go. He then points out the rain. Lucy Gray's final words to Snow are that she's not made of sugar.

She's never seen again.

In the movie, Lucy Gray receives an extra bit of dialogue. When Snow finds the weapons this time, he considers returning to his old life if he disposes of the guns, saying there wouldn't be any other loose ends. Lucy Gray then says, "Besides me."

Visibly confused, Snow tells Lucy Gray she'd never tell the truth to anyone and she unconvincingly says, "'Course not," before venturing outside.

In the book, it's difficult to discern whether or not Lucy Gray was coming up with any reason to get away from Snow or if she was genuinely eager to get them some grub and then disappeared.

Snow starts spiraling wondering if he can trust Lucy Gray or if she may be a loose end when there's no proof she'd ever betray him. The book makes it seem like it could all be in his head.

So it's a bit disappointing Lucy Gray vocalizes these thoughts, giving credence to Snow's paranoia in the movie. Confirming his worst fears, it's easy to momentarily sympathize with Snow before he completely loses himself.

In the book, when Snow chases after Lucy Gray in the woods with a gun in hand, it's never clear whether or not he actually sees and hears her or if he's hallucinating everything in his head.

The book claims that Snow hears and shoots at something and then hears a faint cry, but he never finds anything.

In the movie, we see Snow shoot at Lucy Gray and subsequently find her earring.