Divergent European Premier

 

I was lucky enough to win tickets to the Divergent Premier this last Sunday in Leicester Square, London. I admit that I wasn't as excited about this movie as I have been previously with other films I don't know why. But once I got there the atmosphere was amazing! 

Leicester Square was all done up to create a Divergent fan experience, you could go around and have a go at the capture a flag challenge (you also had a gun to shoot the targets), you could take a Divergent test to see which faction you belonged to, my sister got Erudite and I was Amity! There was also some wall climbing, the wall wasn't a normal sort of wall either, it would be constantly turning and then start tilting too. You could also get faction tattoos done and take a photo which they would do up like a movie photo. What I enjoyed the most were the people they had dressed up in character, you had people dressed up as Dauntless members, walking around intimidating you, my sister at one point was told it was rude to point and we were looked down upon for being Amity and Erudite members. The best was probably the lady who was in charge of capture the flag, when me and my sister got ready to compete against one another, we were told to take it seriously and she proper got you into the spirit of the game. 

Members of Erudite

Fans taking the faction test

Best Dauntless member!

The fan experience was definitely a great way to get you excited about the film, I had read the book so long ago, that I had forgotten so much that happens in it, so it certainly was a great way of refreshing your memory. I also knew that there would be a lot of bloggers at this event too, so I was really excited about meeting some of them, even though I can get quite nervous. I was lucky to hang out with Donna and Jess from Book Passion for Life and Misti from Bookaholics. We had fun chatting away about what we were looking forward to seeing in the film and discussing books. I also got to meet Amber from Books of Amber at the end of the film. I was hoping to meet so many other bloggers and fans, but with 400 fans invited to the show, it was hard trying to locate everyone. I was even more so gutted when I discovered on Twitter and Instagram later on that there were so many other bloggers and authors who had attended that I didn't even know about :(

But we were also given the chance to walk the red carpet! We walked into the cinema on the opposite side of the celebs, but did see Veronica Roth being interviewed when we were going in. Also just before we entered the factions were divided up into separate bowls (just like in the movie) and we had to choose which faction we wanted to go with. I of course went with Dauntless, despite my earlier test result, also I didn't want to be sitting by myself in the cinema (everyone sat according to chosen faction, which was pretty neat). The stars of the film, Veronica Roth and director Neil Burger then came into the cinema and stage to introduce the film to us, which was pretty cool, seeing as we'd missed out on seeing them on the red carpet.

Similar choosing bowls they had for us to pick our faction tags. Source

Veronica Roth on the red carpet

Director Neil Burger, Ben Lloyd Hughes, Kate Winslet, Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Veronica Roth

And let me just say Divergent was a pretty awesome film, it really did remind me of why I ended up loving the book when I first read it. Although I was a little wary on the casting when it was first announced, the actors actually lived up to the characters that Veronica Roth created. For me Shailene Woodley actually did an amazing job of playing Tris, she was fierce when she needed to be and was exactly like I imagined Tris's character to be like. Theo James actually convinced me too in this film, I wasn't sure that he would live up to the image of Four that I had in my head, but he did a pretty amazing job. He definitely convinced my sister too who actually hasn't read the book, but thoroughly loved the film. The scenes between Tris and Four were also done brilliantly, there was a nice slow build up to their relationship. I liked how much they incorporated from the book; the capturing the flag scene, the throwing the knives scene, jumping off trains, and thrill seeking with other Dauntless members and small things like how Tris finds out she needs to keep her Divergence in check. Also some of the scenes really were made to seem so realistic, such as when the Dauntless initiates had to fight one another, it really was brutal at times when they were hitting one another, at times, I wanted to look away, as I hated characters taking a beating. However what surprised me the most, was that I sort of developed a new favourite character, and that was Jai Courtney who played Eric. I hated Eric in the book, but seriously this guy was just amazing, he was ruthless when he needed to be and just one of those villains you love to hate. 

Eric. Source

Jai Courtney who plays Eric. Source.

My only nitpick was that I totally missed Uriah, I loved him in the book, also we did get to see Peter quite a bit, but a lot of the taunting by him, Molly and Drew was missed out upon (actually I don't even think that Drew was in it), but there is a lot from the book to fit in, so I can understand that they couldn't include everything! I definitely recommend fans in the UK to book their tickets for this film, it will be released tomorrow and is definitely worth the wait. It has also encouraged me to go back to read Allegiant and my sister who hardly ever reads to pick up Insurgent!