Vulture spoke to Insurgent author Veronica Roth about the changes that fans (and Hypable) have been talking about recently.
The second film in the Divergent series opened in theaters last Friday, and as we pointed out earlier this month, there are several changes made between the book and film that didn’t, in our opinion, work well.
Roth addressed some of the changes with Vulture in a new interview today. Here are the highlights.
On where to split Allegiant:
I don’t know. For me, it’s one story, because if it hadn’t been, I would have split it. [Laughs.] It does seem to me that Allegiant has two major arcs, dealing with the aftermath of Insurgent inside the city, and what happens once they go outside. There are a couple places where they could split it, but I’m not exactly sure how they will do it at this point. I’m curious to see how it goes!
Their departing from the city happens pretty early on in the book, so filmmakers would have to beef up that half significantly. Perhaps they’ll use elements like Tris discovering the woman in the big video is Edith Prior, like what happens at the end of the Insurgent book?
On how splitting the story worked for Harry Potter:
With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it was so necessary, and maybe I feel that way because I’m such a crazy fangirl, but I felt like that really worked, splitting it. And each unit felt complete. When I saw Part 1, and Voldemort was casting that spell that lights up the sky, I was just like, “Oh my God! This is amazing!” So in that sense, it really worked for that. I would hope that if they split something, it’s because it’s necessary to tell the whole story.
On the film’s ending being changed, Roth was initially surprised Vulture was asking the question (“The ending. [Laughs.] Really?”) before sharing this:
Um, yeah. I guess. I don’t know if they’re necessarily leaving the city. Tris certainly hasn’t left yet, so that part of the story hasn’t happened. I’m just speculating, I don’t really know what they’re going to do yet, but I think they’ll still have to deal with that. Because there’s a lot going in that early part, before they leave the city and figure out what’s out there. I think Tris will still have to go through all the conflicts that are happening inside the city, in the wake of Evelyn taking over. But I think it makes a lot of sense [to have a different ending in the film] because in the book, we’re kind of seeing it with Tris, so we don’t see everyone’s reaction. We only see the people in that room with her. But when you’re showing a bigger world, you can show that the people closer to the fence are straight-up running to it, and that makes sense to me, because that’s the first thing I would do: “Okay! Let’s go see what’s out there.”
We think one of the biggest problems Insurgent’s film ending created was that now Tris, Four, and company won’t be sneaking out of the city like they do in the book. Unless there’s a new scene where Evelyn stops them? The tension in this area runs the risk of being less significant.
Allegiant, Part 1 opens in theaters March 2016, with Part 2 opening a year later in March 2017.