Friday, April 11, 2014

Giving Me a Splitting Headache


All right.  Here we go.  I'm going to say this right here at the beginning: Harry Potter was justified in splitting the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, into two separate films.  Yes, I'm biased, and I welcomed more of those movies with open, fanboy arms.  It was just announced that Lionsgate is planning on splitting the final book of the Divergent trilogy, Allegiant, into two movies.  STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!!

I have been vocal in my distaste of Veronica Roth's novels.  While they have succeeded in bringing a young woman to the forefront of a major set of films, the execution kind of pales in comparison to other young adult adaptations.  Since Harry Potter, The Twilight Saga (a saga?) broke up Breaking Dawn into two parts, and we will see The Hunger Games: Mockinjay not once, but twice in theaters.  The insanity must end.

Yes, it's a cash grab, but isn't it also a risk?  Allegiant: Part I (or whatever inane title it will be given) is slated to come out March 18, 2016, but the second part of that adaptation won't be out until March 24, 2017.  Holy waiting period, Batman!  The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I and II (fuck, those titles are wretched), and by that point the vampire craze was officially dead.  Will dystopian, young adult fiction be on its way out by the time Tris inks up for two more movies?


Deathly Hallows' split had two things going for it.  One, no one had ever really done the split before, so they capitalized on that.  The other reason is that the way the series had been adapted over the years meant nothing could be cut out of the final movies in order for them to make any sense.  If you read the book before the movies came out (like the psychotic that I am), you kept saying to yourself, "can't cut that...or that...or that..."  

I am not sure that Allegiant will be the same way.  Who knows, I could be wrong, but from what I understand, the final book in the trilogy angered the majority of its fans.  Maybe they are going to retool the entire thing?

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