It’s kind of the untold rule that the book is always better than the movie. The books typically are the characters you love, the story you love, and the author you love. They are so perfect they don’t need some directors rubbing their grubby little hands and ‘great ideas’ all over it. So, that might make you wonder just how “Allegiant,” the movie, could possibly be better than the book.
Big spoilers for the book below. Turn away now if you want to be surprised before you suffer!
Let’s take a second to explain what’s actually going on behind the scenes in the Divergent fandom. Consider this insight as to just why the author Veronica Roth has to vehemently defend herself on a daily basis for how she wrote the third book in an otherwise flawless trilogy.
The Divergent Series is composed of three books: Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant. The first book was met with a standing ovation of cyberspace applause. Insurgent was the follow-up. Most people really enjoyed that book as well. It was Allegiant, the last book in the Divergent series, that is notorious for its ending and for forcing the author to justify how she treated her female main character. I don’t want to give away everything here, but let me simply say that you could hear the wails of heartbroken fans for miles.
Oh, let me just go ahead and tell you.
No one was expecting the ruthless author Veronica Roth to kill off her home girl, Tris. I mean, sure, she put down several fan favorite characters before that moment. Beloved characters like Uriah (indirectly killed by the other main character, Four, no less), Lynn, Marlene, and Tori all exited stage left permanently. But to whack the main character and in such a heart wrenching way?
IMAGINE the shock every devoted fan experienced when they found themselves reading Tris’s untimely end and you’d be right! As touching as it was that Tris finally got reunited with her parents in death, it definitely wasn’t comforting for fans like myself who wanted to see Tris and her “twoo wuv,” Tobias/Four, be reunited. We wanted to see that, celebrate it with our beloved characters, and see how the world was affected after all that mayhem finally settled down. But sadly, that just wasn’t in the cards as Tris inhales the death serum while ultimately saving a city that likely wouldn’t even appreciate it.
And even though it wasn’t just the ending that royally upset me, it was definitely the last straw. I could rant for hours about other issues in this book (like Four isn’t divergent? Are you sure about that, Ms. Roth, because that makes for huge plot holes in the previous two books.)
Enter Summit Entertainment…movie making…money making…giant. This is the movie production company that brought the world Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and that fourth and fifth movie we just don’t talk about even if it is part of the series. Word on the street has it that Summit isn’t about to ‘Roth’ themselves, and kill off the main character. But don’t take my word for it. Check out the trailer yourself.
The Allegiant trailer starts out with what must be a recap of the previous movies, albeit it’s not a very good one. If you haven’t seen the last two movies, Divergent and Insurgent, you’re probably going to be very confused. After about a minute of a few scenes and voice-overs, we get to the actual Allegiant part. The trailer is overall fast-paced, and it opens with us seeing Four say “Are you ready?” to Tori, and Tris, who all stand in a forest-like venue. After screaming incoherently for about five minutes, I looked up articles regarding the trailer. Considering Allegiant is the book that the majority of fans remain angry at, who knows what those articles could be about. But, the trailer isn’t the most interesting part for this movie preview. That honor belongs to the tagline on the movie poster. According to those articles, it’s not just changes in the Allegiant story we get to cry and scream in excitement over! It turns out the third book will be divided into two movies, with the last movie being entitled ‘Ascendant.’
Did you catch that at the top of the poster? “The End Is Never What You Expect.”
Allegiant will be the one movie where I won’t really mind any changes made to the story. While I didn’t mind them in previous movies, I still wanted to go ‘That’s not what happened’ whenever I saw a change in them. Allegiant, however, could definitely use a rewrite.
What I’m trying to say is, this could mean that the directors realized what a terrible mistake ol’ Roth made by killing off everyone’s favorite blonde divergent! Summit Entertainment doesn’t make movies just because “why not!” They make them, why? You guessed it! Money! Like Twilight money! Breaking Dawn (aka the Voldemort of the Twilight Saga) was a bit of a fail, but that still raked in a ton of cash. Either the writers are playing a really cruel joke on us, or they could be planning on changing the ending of Allegiant. That book’s ending remains, quite possibly, the worst ending in the history of young adult fiction. I mean, I preferred vampire babies over this, and vampire babies are and will always be a ridiculous premise.
Overall, movies are made to make money. Usually, people are only willing to spend money on things they believe they will enjoy. Maybe after seeing such a huge backlash from the fans after the third book’s ending, Summit decided that now is a good time for a not so subtle change.
There’s a difference between not using the last bit of the memorable ‘Must be because you’re so approachable. Like a bed of nails,’ line in the first book, and completely rewriting the ending of the third book. Huge difference. But, it would be a welcome change to most fans of the series. And, it would definitely interest readers who might be uninterested in the movie because they don’t want to see their beloved heroine die because some author decided to be deep and let her main character be self-sacrificing for ‘the right reasons.’
Self-sacrifice is never right! At least, not when you’ve got millions of adoring readers ready to fork over $10 4 times to see Four and Tris get their well-deserved happily ever after.
So, what do you think iGlobers? Will they change the ending of the movie? Coming to a theatre near you in 2017, expect to hear the wails of fans—happy or otherwise--everywhere.
