Book Talk is a sporadic feature where I talk about bookish but non-book review things, and this time, I’m talking about Insurgent! Be warned, there are going to be major movie/book spoilers ahead.  You have been warned!

I really liked Insurgent, but not as much as I liked Divergent.  It’s great movie and a great adaptation, but for some reason, I’m just not as enthused about it as I was Divergent.  I saw it a couple of days ago, and while I really liked it, something about it seemed off, and I can’t pinpoint why.

I didn’t mind the changes they made for the movie.  It’s very streamlined and condensed, but I thought they did a great job with that.  It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, but I didn’t realize how much was cut until I started re-reading the book when I got home from the movies.  Like, most of the time at Amity and Candor were cut, as was the time back at Dauntless. And even some of those events were at Candor instead of Dauntless. I didn’t mind it, because the movie had a lot going on and something had to go.  It does make me curious about how some of the events in Allegiant are going to be handled with such a condensed movie.  But since there’s this trend where book trilogies become four movies (which I assume is going to happen with Allegiant), maybe there will be a little more they can put into the movies.

Because so many of the faction/faction-less scenes were cut from the movie, things were changed, and they actually made a lot of sense.  And were actually interesting.  Like, the scanner technology that knew what faction you were and if you were Divergent and how Divergent you were.  And all of the scenes in Erudite to get the information is easily solved by the simulation box that can only be opened by a Divergent.  Which does also explains why they’re looking at the percentages, because they need someone who’s Divergent enough to open the box.

Given they never mentioned that Tris is immune to the different serums, they really needed to explain it and set it up for Allegiant.  Actually, I didn’t mind that they didn’t explain it, since the percentage thing kind of implied that Tris is really special, while also setting it up to be explained in Allegiant.

It is a very different movie than Divergent, which I expected since it has to wrap up things from Divergent while setting up Allegiant.

I feel like I really need to talk about the soundtrack really quick!  I loved the Divergent soundtrack a lot (it’s been out for a year, and it’s still played on repeat quite frequently) but I didn’t really fall in love with it the way I did with Divergent’s soundtrack. Don’t get me wrong, all of the songs fit the movie and book so well.  They definitely go together very well, but it just didn’t grab me the way I thought it would.  I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have a lot of listening to music time right now (which is a completely different story, and entirely possible) and made myself listen to it in the middle of the night because that’s the only time I could get myself to listen to it or other reasons I’m too lazy to think of right now.  Given I’ve been in a low-energy funk lately, it could be that.

It is half the length of the Divergent soundtrack, and while the songs go well together, there was something about it that seemed like they weren’t as carefully chosen as it’s predecessor.  And I felt like the soundtrack wasn’t as integral to the movie as Divergent’s soundtrack was.  But maybe the Insurgent score is super-awesome- I’ll definitely have to give it a listen if I can manage to carve out some music time.  And after actually buying it, of course.

Overall, I really liked Insurgent, and it really was a good adaptation of the book.  The soundtrack went well with the movie too, but I do wish you had some of the songs scattered throughout the movie the way you did with Divergent.

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!