Divergent Movie: The Good, The Bad, and the Missing

Okay, I typically just use this blog to discuss books, but after seeing the Divergent movie this weekend, I had to get on my soapbox for a few minutes. SPOILER ALERT!!!! If you haven't seen the movie, and are planning to, don't read this blog until after you see it because I will be giving some movie specifics.

First of all, Divergent was a good movie, and most everyone I spoke to and the comments I read online were positive with most people saying they "loved" the movie. In fact, it was enjoyable, the sets were phenomenal, and the acting was true to the type of movie. My husband, who is not a reader, enjoyed this movie more than he enjoyed Catching Fire. I am beginning to think that the best way to enjoy a book-movie is to NOT read the book before seeing the movie.

While the actors were all (for the most part) good actors, Theo James, Shailene Woodley, Ashley Judd, Kate Winslet, etc., I did not like the casting. Now, I know I'm getting into reader opinions here, and your reader opinions or the characters may be different from mine, but this is my blog so you get my opinions. So, here goes.... Four was too sexy and too old (don't get me wrong, he was nice to look at on the screen, but he just wasn't "Four-ish"), Christina was too short, Al was too skinny, Peter was too ugly, Marcus was too... not sure, really, but he just wasn't the evil Marcus I had in my mind, Eric was too clean and too thuggish, Molly was too pretty and too nice, and Edward was too MISSING!!! Which leads me to the next part of my blog title, The Missing. Where was Edward? How do you leave him out without completely screwing up the next two movies, and how do you decide to just omit the knife-in-the-eye incident?!? Where was the water at the bottom of the Chasm in the Pit? Where is the hard drive? And if there is not hard drive, how does Peter try to steal it in the next movie? AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Why do directors choose to change so much of a perfectly good story? I know that there is no way to fit a 487 page book into a two hour movie so things have to be omitted, but changing the very essence of a story by modifying the plot is just wrong.  Jeanine is a major character in the books, but she is way too prevalent in the movie. She opens the choosing ceremony, she's at the final examination of the Dauntless initiates, she is constantly showing up at Dauntless headquarters, she is in the control room controlling the simulation when Tris breaks in even though, according to the book, Four, alone, is controlling the simulation at that time. Why the need to add a fight scene between Tris and Jeanine in this movie when it was already written into Insurgent? I think the thing that makes me the maddest about the movie changes is that the author was very involved in the film-making process even appearing in a small scene in the movie. Why didn't she fight the changes? I know the answer, money. Film-makers want to make the movie the way they want, and if the writer interferes too much, the movie may not get made. The back of my copy of Divergent says,

"ONE CHOICE 

DETERMINES YOUR LOYALTIES--FOREVER  

ONE CHOICE 

CAN TRANSFORM YOU"

Veronica Roth's choice to give the directors free reign definitely showed me her loyalties and, most assuredly, transformed the story of Divergent into a good movie, but a not-so-good book-movie. Now, don't not go see the movie just because of my soapbox rant here. Go enjoy a good movie, but just don't spend your time picking out all the differences (more than I even included here) like I did.