Divergent (The Movie)

So I noticed there was not a thread for this particular movie. Is it because it sucked? The movie wasn't very good, but I think we can get some good convos on the failures and themes in it.

For my two cents!

Well, There are a lot of things I did not like about this movie, but the main thing is the anti intellectual overall theme. How the smart guys were the bad guys and actively trying to mind control the population and stuff. Its also very pro militaristic, they are the cool guys everone wants to hang out with. The other factions are just...there, doing nothing interesting. Are the books like that?

Saw the trailer for this, and at about the time they showed Kate Winslet doing some kind of ceremony in the hall, I was all, "Is this based on another young adult novels series?"

We got to the title card and my mates were all, "Yup."

So, uh... Yeah. Is it any good? My gut says no.

Saw it a couple of days ago. Not bad, just generic.

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I do know this article claimed it was a very important film for defying rape culture. Having not seen this film, I dunno if that's true, if they're good scenes in a mostly bad film, or if the author is making the scenes to be a bigger deal than they really are. *shrugs*

edited 9th Apr '14 3:34:07 PM by Tuckerscreator

I think the thing about this movie is that its boring. Its not good enough to be interesting and its not bad enough to be enjoyable. So yeah, if you want to see it don't waste money seeing it in a theater.

If it truly is an important film for defying rape culture (which therefore gets my support), then it's truly unfortunate that the message is couched in a boring film.

So good for being progressive, but bad at originality and interest. As The Nostalgia Chick put it: "I wanted strong female sci-fi protagonists. Just... not like this."

I thought the movie was pretty good. Though I'll admit, I mostly ignored the interactions between Tris and Four in favor of picking apart the faction system as a whole. Despite feeling repulsed by the idea, I'm also intrigued enough to want to know as much as I can about it. Mostly so I can pin down what it is that I hate about it and why. (I mean, hate as in "I would never want to live in this society", not hate as in "this is a terrible story setting".)

Picked up the book after seeing the movie, and it explores the concept a lot better, since we get to see more of Tris's introspection and stuff.

I get the feeling it's more Jeanine than Erudite.

Dauntless got a lot of the spotlight because we're following Tris, and she joined Dauntless and went through initiation and all that. And Erudite and Abnegation are directly involved with the plot. Candor and Amity, not so much. Though the wiki page says the later books give those factions more attention.

Also, everyone (in-universe) thinks Dauntless are insane daredevils. Plus the "faction before blood" thing means everyone would rather be with their own crowd than with random strangers from another faction.

Personally, I would prefer to hang out with Amity, from what I've heard of them so far. And Erudite, if you put aside the whole coup d'etat business.

edited 9th Apr '14 5:31:51 PM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Well, the way the movie put it the whole Erudite was in on the take over chicago thing Still, I should probably read the books before I go making assumptions.

Now, on a second revision of my oppinion, its not so much as Pro Militaristic, as the movie does not really glorify military culture. As a whole House Dauntless was not as strict and firm as an actual military would be. I mean, did you see the long hairs and piercings? those are a grabbing hazard people!. Rather it was trying to be a modern "True warrior" culture. I mean, the guys despite being nominally in charge of being police and military, dont learn about crowd control or any courses on human behavior. They were just learning to kick ass, and might I point out their training program is not very good. I mean, who let the psycho kid teach?

Anyhow, with the braids, and piercings, and daredevil attitude and the focus on battle (single and in squads, there are probably not enough people for actual armies) it glorifies what would be modern warrior culture.

Having not read the books I enjoyed the film, and I think it was a well rounded production overall, had some issues with it however.

First of all, the whole thing about Abnegation being traitors and Erudite taking over as a result felt like an empty plot point. The audience is shown no evidence to support nor deny the accusations against Abnegation; in fact we're not really given any details about it at all, so the whole thing just felt like one big set up to introduce some conflict in an otherwise conflict-free society. This bothered me a lot, because characters were arguing about it, and then full on fighting about it, and yet I still have no idea what the issue is or why it is there in the first place. I suspect that there is more detail about this in the book.

The overall style and artistic direction left a little to be desired in my opinion. As far as post-calamity settings go, this one looked and felt very uninteresting and generic, even with the props; those guns looked kinda silly, too much like toys. In terms of visuals, I found the fence to be the most interesting part, visually. Also the soundtrack annoyed me.

Another thing that I noticed was that Dauntless aren't so much fearless as they are reckless and adrenaline junkies. While this bothered me initially, I felt like it redeemed itself, and it's an interesting comment on what bravery itself is.

Acting was good overall, the payoff after all that build up was well executed, and having not read the book some parts did feel genuinely tense. Long movie though, which I don't mind because I like long movies, but I can imagine lots of people growing bored very quickly.

TL;DR: Hunger Games was better.

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Fairly mediocre and derivative film, but I enjoyed it for all that.

Interesting social system. It actually seemed like a not-bad structure, with a reasonable amount of flexibility (you can choose which group you want to be part of, regardless of your family or your personality test results).

In particular, deliberately selecting out people who are selfless to make up the civil service and government makes a lot more sense than our present-day system (where ambition is pretty much an inherent requirement for gaining elected office). The life of people in Abnegation is challenging enough to discourage anyone from choosing that faction unless they genuinely valued a life of selfless service over all their other options. Having a justice system whose members are all selected for honesty also makes good sense - again, in contrast with our current system (ref.: every lawyer joke ever). It's easy to see how selection of some of the other factions could cause problems (e.g.: picking your security forces for bravery and skill but no other traits is a good way to end up with a substantial number of thugs), but it's pretty clear from looking at our own society that it has the same problem in that regard. Obviously the treatment of the Factionless is a problem, but (unusually for a dystopia) the primary conflict of the story was precipitated not by the existence of the overall social structure, but by an attempted coup by Erudite.

I tried to fit the three factions into Hogwarts houses - obviously Dauntless is Gryffindor, while Erudite is Ravenclaw; Amity, Abnegation, and Candour all have aspects of Hufflepuff House.

edited 21st Apr '14 6:27:08 PM by WarriorEowyn

By process of elimination, the Divergent are all Slytherin.

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Saw it the other day.

It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad either. The only think I can really complain about is that they probably could have shaved a good 30-45 mins off of it.

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The Dauntless'... I guess social structure is hilarious to me. The early scenes of them just running through the streets hooting, combined with the voiceover about how they're the soldiers of the society was some amazing unintentional humor.

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I found it mildly entertaining. The acting was fine from almost everyone, and the building blocks of an interesting setting are there. The romance should have been a Vitriolic Best Buds relationship instead. The actors certainly had the chemistry for that.

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The theme isn't anti-intellectual, it's anti-ambition. The books are wrapped in religious and existential themes so of course ambition is going to be bad. And it's certainly not pro-militaristic. We're forced to spend most of our time with Dauntless but it's hardly an optimistic view of a military.

Is it better than Twilight's reputation?

Well, shit actually happens in the first hour and there's no pedophilia.

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Yeah. I think my only complaint is that it was longer than it needed to be. I mean, I REALLY love that they actually take the time to develop their lead and her fighting ability and etc, but maybe longer than it needed to be because the Villain's plot has a lot less time to develop and it comes about rather randomly ('Hey, I found this thing and I think it does all of these things that are true that I had no way of knowing').

I'm a critical person but I'm a nice guy when you get to know me. Now, I should be writing.

The A$AP Rocky and Gesaffelstein song from the soundtrack was pretty cool, but honestly I can't stand this deluge of Young Adult Post apoc bullshit so I'm not gonna bother with it.

I watched it because someone recommended it to me, so I went into it knowing nothing about it...and I really enjoyed it. There are some iffy aspects (What exactly bring the Kandor to society?) and large parts of the plot are predictable...but others aren't.

I especially enjoyed the dream-landscape, though I halfaway expected that the movie would end with her waking up, revealing that everything she experienced was actually part of the test.

It is really well acted...the material is not THAT good, but the two main actors sell the hell out of it, so that I really felt for both of the main characters, and Kate Winslet is just delightful in her role. It is beautiful shot - the cinematography made me pay attention during the first five minutes. I wasn't really interested in watching the movie and mostly did because I felt I had to, so I first mostly glanced at it and did other stuff at the beginning, but I was enthralled pretty fast. The soundtrack, especially the piece they play every time the dauntless turn up, demands attention imho.

I have by now read up on the books and what they are about and this might be a case in which the movie is actually better than the source material. For example, a common criticism of the books seems to be that the side characters are not fleshed out enough. The movie doesn't exactly recertify this, but it doesn't really matter so much, because it instead focusses on the relationship between Trish and Four, and I didn't really feel the desire to know more about them, because they didn't feel important in the first place. The staging sells some scenes which might be a little bit more difficult to swallow if you just read about them.

And I might be wrong, but reading the synopsis of the books I got the impression that the best scenes in the movie, which is when Four starts to train Trish in his landscape, where not part of the book. They also changed the ending a little bit, apparently. Overall I got the impression that the movie is a little bit less grim and focusses less on brutality (still there, but considerably toned down) and more on the question of identity and how it relates to the expectations of society.

Oh, and I don't think that it is pro-military at all. I think the aspect which stuck out to me is the day of the decision. It's a little bit like the moment you leave school, and you have to make a decision NOW what you want to be for the rest of your life. If you are lucky, you already know what your desire is, but if you don't, you are pretty much screwed. Naturally our society is not THAT narrow minded that you can't change your mind ever, but it is hard to pick a different career path after you already have invested some time in a specific one, perhaps not even knowing what you were in for.

In the end, the movie gave me something to think about.

Necroing because Insurgent's movie came out earlier this year.