The Divergent Series

The Divergent Series, originating from the book trilogy written by Veronica Roth, was a huge hit in 2014. Dystopian films were ‘the thing’ at that time, given the release of The Hunger Games in 2012, so naturally the movie gained popularity. The series consists of 3 movies, the first movie: Divergent, then Insurgent and Allegiant. There was a planned fourth movie, however, due to the poor ratings of Allegiant, it was never filmed. 

The story follows as the world is divided by factions based on each persons’ virtues. The Factions include Abnegation, the selfless; Dauntless, the brave; Erudite, the intelligent; Candor the honest; and Amity, the peaceful. When all teenagers reach the age of 16, they must choose to either stay in their faction of birth, or transfer into another faction and leave her family behind. The main character, Tris, then makes a choice that surprises everyone. The movie then continues with Tris and her fellow faction members living through a highly competitive initiation process, including undergoing intense physical and psychological tests. Tris then finds out that she’s a Divergent, someone who does not fit into any of the factions. However, Divergents are being seeked out as Erudite does not understand what they are and are afraid of them, and thus wants to kill them all. 

I feel that this genre of movies, and specifically Divergent, is really interesting. Seeing a world where everyone quite literally fights for their lives piques my interest. I personally thought the movie series was a great one; the flow of events and the decisions made by the characters made sense to me. I think the poor ratings were owing to the movies’ difference in writing and faithfulness to the books. Personally, I have never read the books (and I don’t plan to) so I am unfamiliar with how different the movies are from the books. Even so, I feel that with the solid cast, (Theo James and Miles Teller!) The movies should have done better. Maybe in another (hopefully not dystopian) universe, there would be a fourth movie for me to enjoy.

Xanafee Ng

Secondary 4 Unity

2025