Movies

Fake Spoiler Alert: The Divergent Movie

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The movie Divergent comes out this week. Before the movies of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games came out, I read the books to orient myself in the beloved world of these properties. I have not read Divergent. But I have seen the trailer a bunch of times. I am seeing a press screening of the movie tonight so I thought I should explain what I think this movie is going to be like.

What I Assume Happens in the Movie Divergent Based Only On Watching the Trailer a Bunch of Times

Backstory delivered by opening narration: 100 years ago, there was some kind of war, possibly topiary in nature. Then someone declared color-war and divided everyone by their shirts.

Shailene Woodley plays a character who I think is called Tris, a girl who gets up on roofs and admires the peace topiary while also kind of wondering what it all means, also is maybe kind of Amish or something. She is almost ready to go to vocational school and her affectionate boss at the barn where she works is played by Ashley Judd.

On orientation day, everyone and their families, or bosses if they don’t have families, goes to hear a lecture from Kate Winslet’s character, who I will assume is called the Peacekeeper. She explains the rules of color-war and then all the teenagers, even the ones from the Amish districts, have to go get tested to figure out what team they’re on. So the teens get tested on skills such as getting injections, knowing object permanence in a world of mirrors, dog-hugging, and hitting floors when you fall on them.

dog hugging

But Tris DIVERGES from floor-hitting. Maggie Q, playing a character I will assume is called Q, tells Tris that her lack of fear and respect for the property of floors makes her eligible for a full Divergent University scholarship to the individual college of her choosing. She chooses College of Dauntless, because her totally unique and divergent fearlessness will blend in well with the group whose name includes a synonym for “fearless.” College of Dauntless used to have a firepole but then there was the war so now you have to get to it by jumping down a hole into a net.

Tris goes on fun runs and hears some speeches in the College of Dauntless cafeteria and learns how to throw sharp things. She also meets a 30-year-old man who touches her hips. They go on side climb-training/butt-looking missions on ferris wheels which are a major part of the new topiary landscape. All of the good stuff like new uniforms in your color-war color or the best-tasting granola bars is either at the top of or on the other side of ferris wheels so you have to climb over them to get to that stuff. And if you concentrate on Shailene Woodley’s butt then your fears will be quieted which is one of the things that makes her so powerful (this also explains the movie’s poster).

divergent ferris wheel

This dystopia also has killer birds, possibly like in the third Resident Evil movie.

The Peacekeeper sends troops after Tris to fight her in hallways but she gets out of the hallways and runs toward a train with the thirty-year-old, who also has a bunch of tattoos because he got one tattoo and it was kind of embarrassing but he decided to make it his thing and keep getting them and he’s just a few tattoos away from a really bitchin’ rendering of the movie poster for The Crow.

In the climax of the movie, Tris is captured and made to be a magician’s assistant but she escapes from a water tank with her glass-tapping skills, which are also divergent. Everyone else in this dystopia has been killed by drowning in a glass tank, or else by birds or failing to hug a dog properly, but Tris is different and this will have ramifications in the world of Divergent.

What Happens in the Second Divergent Based Only On What I Assume Happened in the First Movie Based Only On Watching the Trailer a Bunch of Times

Divergent 2, or Revergent, opens on a ferris wheel. It is no joke THE biggest ferris wheel in the district, and Tris and the thirty-year-old with the tattoos have to climb it… side by side, to test Thirty’s resolve. While they’re doing this, there’s a cutaway to the Peacekeeper in her office, assuring her boss played by Emma Thompson that she has the Divergent thing under control. Then some soldiers come and attack Tris and Thirty while they’re at the top of the ferris wheel but they get to the other side of the ferris wheel and meet a new color faction no one has ever met before called the Red Team and they have a plan.

The Red Team also has a guy who looks thirty but a little younger — like maybe only thirty-ish — and Thirtyish puts his hands on Tris’s back sort of like the way Thirty used to put his hands on Tris’s hips and Tris gets super confused.

Anyway, the Red Team, led by Thirtyish and Thirty and Tris, are going to invade the Peacekeeper’s office and demand that the Divergent Electoral College be abolished in favor of a popular vote, and also that maybe on some days, like on a Casual Friday, you can wear whatever colors you want, not just the one assigned to you by color war. They will demand this by punching or possibly sit-ins. The office, which is called Command, is at the end of a longer and darker hallway where they have to fight some more soldiers and hug some fiercer dogs. They get to the end of the hallway and then there’s a closeup of Tris’s face as she gets ready to open the door and then the movie ends setting up a cliffhanger for part three.

Also at some point Ashley Judd betrays Tris but then Tris throws her off a ferris wheel and weeps. Not sure when this happens. Sometime in the middle.

What Happens in the Third Divergent Based Only On What I Assume Happened in the Second Movie and Also My Understanding of Economics

Divergent 3, or Threevergent, opens with the Red Team opening the door at the end of the hallway and it turns out the Peacekeeper isn’t there anymore and they have to go on some other mission. Some soldiers come after them but Tris uses her divergence to go through the floor and then they’re safe but for how long?

Also there are bigger, meaner birds.

Also it turns out that Q was also a Divergent this whole time.

Also Tris almost kisses Thirtyish and then she almost kisses Thirty.

Then they find out the real hideout for the Peacekeeper is back on the Dauntless Campus that they thought had been destroyed.

Then it ends in the middle and you have to pay another $15 to see the rest of it in Divergent 4.

are you nervous 2 are you nervous

Jesse
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