Divergent Movie Review

Ever since finishing Allegiant, I've been a little wary of how the first movie would turn out. I was hoping that they'd create a new canon, one that dealt with things better.

On the 22nd, I went with Emily to go see the movie. The first thing that we noticed, even before the movie started, was how many younger girls there were. A lot of them seemed to be in about middle school, or really tiny freshman. My friend found it really surprising considering the weight of a lot of the topics in the book (death, abuse, dystopian society, etc).

I knew that the movie was going to be tweaked from the book, even before I saw it. The clips of the choosing ceremony showed all of the to-be initiates mixed in with their families, whereas I'm pretty sure they sat separately in the book. I mean, little tweaks are to be expected, because the picture in my head will be vastly different from the picture the director wants to create, and trying to condense a 400+ page book into a 2 hr 20 min movie means some sacrifices.



(Spoiler alert. Feel free to skip. I just wanted to note these down for myself.) Notable changes:

• The aptitude test was cut down to just the dog. Probably just to make it simpler. The fear landscapes were also pretty short, usually only having one per scene. Which makes sense. 
• The ferris wheel / war game, and the couple scenes right before it. After Tris' fight with Molly where she blacks out, Tris is informed that Eric is kicking her out of Dauntless. As the others leave for the war game, Tris tags along too. The weapons are also changed from paintballs to some sort of dart that simulates the pain of being actually shot. Very Eric-Dauntless. I also thought that Eric's team hid their flag on the merry-go-round, but in the movie it was hidden at the top of a building. What kind of annoyed me was that Tris was the one to hold up the flag. I'm pretty sure Christina had said something along the line of "C'mon, you spotted the flag, let someone else capture it and share the glory" in the book, which was something that clearly stuck out to me.
• Edward is almost entirely cut from the story, as is Myra. This is most likely to save time, and I didn't even notice until Emily pointed it out. I never noticed either of them really in any scene. 
• Caleb seems pretty in the dark about the Erudite's plans, even supporting their actions to overthrow the Abnegation up until the final scenes. 
• When Four notices Tris' divergence, he teaches her how to react like the Dauntless would, instead of how a Divergent would. I'm actually really glad they did that; in the book, Tris' insistence on beating the simulations despite knowing she was being watched was incredibly idiotic. 
• In Tris' final fear simulation, Four is shown as way more pushy than he seemed in the book version of the scene. A lot of people have been saying "omg such a tw for rape" and "it was such a horrible scene", but I don't agree with that. I think that Tris' fear of sexual assault is entirely real, both because she was Abnegation and is unused to physical displays of romance, and because she was falling in love with a guy older than her. Tris does stand up for herself, and when Four doesn't respect her, she physically fights him off. (The scene changes right after that, so I would argue that the scene should get a tw for "attempted sexual assault" -- twing it for "rape" implies that he was successful, which he was not. Not by a long shot.) 
• The final scenes. The Erudite are carrying out the simulation while based in the Dauntless compound. Tris' mother dies in a different way (though still while helping Tris escape), and Jeanine is directly attacked by both Tris and Four. Tris also shows her Erudite side by injecting Jeanine with the serum that allows her to be "more open to suggestion." They then talk her into shutting down the simulation and clearing the computer. Very smart. 

(End spoiler alert.)

I'm actually really happy with how the movie turned out. I can honestly say I liked its canon better than the book. The time constraint of a movie helped to streamline the plot and keep things moving, and I think the huge collaborative effort that has to go into a movie helped to create better ideas that could be implemented in the story.

Now, if you think that book-to-movie adaptions should stay as close to the book as possible, then I don't think you'll really enjoy Divergent. If you're open to a different interpretation, though, I think the movie will be fine.

I can't exactly say how well the movie would be if you haven't read the book, as I watched the entire movie contrasting it to the book. That, and examining how the movie was made, because I've taken a few movie-making classes in school (and I'm a dork).

TL;DR I really enjoyed the movie, more so than even the book the first time I read it.

(As a side note: I think the most powerful scene personally was the beginning clips. I was confused as to why they would start with a boat in the middle of what looked like a field -- until I realized it was the lake. Or, what was now the marsh. I felt chills as it shifted to show a Chicago that had fallen apart. Part of the reason I liked Divergent so much was my relative familiarity with the setting. And having flown through Chicago on our way to Honolulu, that glimpse of the skyline was still pretty fresh. Seeing all of the buildings in disarray like they were was entirely eerie.)