So why am I bringing this up? The movie adaptation of Insurgent (based on the book written by Veronica Roth) tries to do its own thing which has the side effect of shooting itself in the foot.
Below, with minimal use of spoilers, I'll list my top three things that won't just make Insurgent a better adaptation but a better movie overall.
In the book Tris and gang spend a lot more time in Amity. So you get to understand more about the faction such as there's a "happy serum" to help control people in their faction. Yeah, you also get a little drugged out Tris for a little bit which is hilarious.
So spending more time in Amity in the movie would help expand on the mythos of one of the factions in the Divergent series as well as giving Octavia Spencer more screen time. As it now stands, she wasn't advertised heavily as being in the film and her part is very small as is.
Evelyn isn't in Insurgent that much as it now stands and you don't get a clear sense of her motives. Now I know there is time in the next movie to expand on her, but each part of a series should be able to stand on its own. In the book there is more time spent on her, if I remember correctly, and by the end of it she has hijacked the coup to overthrow Jeanine by her taking control over the city.
But the only time in the movie you get a real sense of where she stands is in the final shot (pun intended).
And if you give her as much screen time as she got in the books you are also left with a much bigger cliffhanger at the end than in the movie.
Out of all the things I saw in the trailers for this movie, I knew that the stupid box would be the end of my sanity. Let's start with the one good movie reason for removing the box: it gets rid of Tris being a 'chosen one' figure.
Can't we get through one Young Adult series with the main character not being a chosen one? In the books Tris was a very powerful divergent, but never to this level where the whole plot of the movie revolves around her doing something only she can do. Yes, in Allegiant (the final book of the series) Tris is the only one that seems to be able to complete a task but it isn't as big of a plot thing as her opening the box in the Insurgent movie adaptation. In fact, in Allegiant what she does is sort of an act of forgiveness and shows character growth.
Removing the stupid box would also work on humanizing the figure of Jeanine (the leader of the Erudite faction). In the movie she is just your standard evil villain. In the books her whole reason for attacking Abnegation was to keep the message from the founders from getting out. Yes, in the books she already knew about it and knew that the Abnegation leaders were the only ones, besides her, that knew about the message. So while she was a villain, she was also extremely human in being afraid of change.
Plus, Jeanine would get a much better death. Something with an emotional impact that a villain of two books deserves.
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