Divergent

The movie Divergent, based on the book by Veronica Roth, was in my opinion not a very good adaptation. The book is about a dystopian society based in Chicago that has been split into five factions that are based on different characteristics that the faction strives for. They are Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), and Candor (the honest). Everyone grows up in a faction, but when they turn 16 they choose whether or not to stay in that faction or to switch factions and be disowned by their families. Before they decide, however, they take an aptitude test to tell them which faction they should be in, but they can pick a different one if they want to. Rarely, the test will give them more than one result, and these are the people who are Divergent.

Beatrice Prior grew up in Abnegation along with her brother, an they both decide to go to other factions, he to Erudite and she to Dauntless. The story follows Beatrice, or Tris, as she makes her way through Dauntless training and discovers what truly lies behind the leaders' intentions of all the factions, as well as trying to stay alive long enough to make it into Dauntless.

For the book-to-movie adaptation, I think that a lot of essential parts were left out and many extraneous details were kept in. Many details about Tris's training in Dauntless that were important to the story, like Al's death, Edward and Mia's leaving, and Tris nearly being thrown over the chasm, were left out. Also, all of the details of Tris and Four's budding romance were left out, and it made the love interest feel rushed and sudden. Just from watching the movie, I would have never understood how or when the two fell in love, only that it happened when Four doesn't assassinate Tris toward the end.

Another detail I had a huge problem with was the characters' physical descriptions. Now, normally I don't get very upset when the details don't match up perfectly. After all, we all picture different things when we read the books. But in this book, each character was described in painstaking detail, and there was a reason for it. Half of Tris's fight in the book is being so physically small and having to fight with the other initiates in Dauntless. Shailene Woodley, who plays Tris, does not fit this description at all, and so many of the details that highlighted this struggle for Tris in the book were cut out of the movie, but then, it does not seem so miraculous that such a tiny person could fight some of her bigger competitors, like Molly. Interestingly, Zoe Kravitz, who plays Christina, does have this characteristic, but does not seem to have the struggles that Tris does in the book from being so small. All together, I was extremely disappointed that so much was left out to accommodate the actresses' physical traits.

I think that this movie was incredibly difficult to follow if you had not read the book, and left out so much that it seemed unnatural. The pacing was way too fast and so confusing if you could not fill in the blanks from reading the book beforehand. Overall, I would only give this movie a 2 out of 5 rating, and I think I'm being generous, for the book-to-movie adaptation.

Vampire Academy

I read this book series about a year ago and just loved it. The concept for the series is unique, which is a difficult feat to accomplish with so many authors overloading the market with vampire books. The characters are entertaining and relatable, as well as believable. The world building on Richelle Mead's part is done fairly well, with details about people in other countries or professions and a very good look into this world's government and political system.

In early May this year, the Vampire Academy movie was released, and I was so excited for this movie, I downloaded it from iTunes a week early so I could watch it on a plane ride. I personally enjoyed the movie on its own, but as a book to movie adaptation it fell short.

There were a few things about this movie that didn't meet my expectations as an avid lover of the book series. First, I think it's important to take into account that this movie had a very low budget. For a comparison of graphics, the recent film Guardians of the Galaxy had a budget of $170 million, and just from commercials I've picked up that they have some pretty awesome graphics. Vampire Academy had a budget of only $30 million. That being said, the low budget of the film definitely showed. A lot of the action scenes were unrealistic, the movie was not publicized much at all, and the film was cut quite a bit shorter than it could have been.

Aside from the budget, the actors were not exactly who I would have pictured for a number of reasons. Zoey Deutch is the actress who plays Rose Hathaway, the main character of the story.

I expected someone a bit "curvier" to play Rose because she's described as not only having certain female assets but also being to kick some serious butt in the book. This actress does not look like she could kill a hoard of vampire murderers. Also, Rose has a very sarcastic sense of humor and can truly be a brat, but I love her because you get to watch her grow through the book. In this movie, she showed no growth or better sense of the world, she was the same bratty child she appears to be in the beginning of the book. Not to mention, most of the humor in the movie was almost making fun of how bad the movie was in graphics, jokes, and general put-together of the film. Her immaturity in the movie is also what make the love interest somewhat awkward. Which leads me to the next set of problems...

Dimitri is played by Danila Kozlovsky, which was an interesting choice for the character. His facial features and accent did fit, but the way he delivered was a bit off. It seemed strained and awkward, which was reflected back in the love interest. Zoey and Danila have very little chemistry, not to mention he seems so much older than Rose in the movie that it seems almost gross that they have a scene getting a bit less clothed together.

Lissa Dragomir, Rose's best friend, was played by Lucy Fry. Lucy was a generally good choice for the role, but the way her lines were written is the strangest thing. They gave her these lines that were very old timey, and it just came off as confusing. I understand that they did it to show the disconnect of the vampire world to the human, but it just seemed strange and out of place, seeing as no one else spoke like this in the movie. She is from Australia and has an accent, but it didn't fit Lissa's character, who grew up in the States.

Overall, not the worst book to movie adaptation I've ever seen, but definitely could have been done to infinitely higher standards. I think that a lot of us fans were really hoping for more out of the film, and it kind of just fell flat on its face. There were huge chunks of story line that did not make sense unless you read the book. The love interest was incredibly rushed and random in the movie, and it was inorganic and painfully awkward. I enjoyed watching the movie, if only because I was so excited for it to come out, but I think that in comparison to the book series, it just did not do justice to Richelle Mead's world or characters.

A little additional information, the movie is based only off of the first book. They did try to make a second movie, but they did not receive the funds for it. I'm almost grateful for that, because it would have turned into the Twilight series movies.

Well, that's all for this post! Thanks for reading!

- Savanna