EDITORIAL – With a plot structure that has more to do with high school cliques than anything abstract, there is no mistaking the intended teenage audience of Divergent. Our main character, Beatrice or Triss, is a tortured soul who has unique abilities which shock everyone; she overcomes not only her fears but those of everyone else; and she also finds someone to fall in love with her. Therefore, a viewer of Divergent would have to be completely oblivious not to notice that Divergent is a much less well written form of The Hunger Games.

First, the viewer will notice obvious similarities between factions or districts in Divergent and The Hunger Games respectively. Both story lines include a set of different parts of the same country which have been separated by “the war” and created for the purpose of maintaining peace, and ironically, both characters also seem to fit into the same type of faction/district and somehow move out of the factions/districts into which they were born.

Second, there’s Triss’s tattoo choice–birds. At face value, one may not have noticed that Triss, or Beatrice, knowingly gets a permanent reminder of her worst fear. Is this visual an attempt at offering the viewer a bit of foreshadowing by hinting that she will overcome her fear, or will the viewer simply realize that the bird as a symbol is something else taken from the plot of the Hunger Games? Mockingjay, anyone?

Third, and most obviously, a strong female lead complete with martial partner love interest is included in both movies. Unfortunately, however, Shaliene Woodley didn’t quite connect with me as much as Jennifer Lawrence. Maybe it was because I had already seen this before.

Clearly, strong female leads who overcome all odds due to being original, unique, and independent are all the rage in young America as well as Hollywood right now, which is ironic because this film is anything but original, unique, and independent. The adjectives of original and unique are obviously out due to the striking similarities between The Hunger Games and Divergent: strong female lead, post-war society, separate districts and factions in which both female characters are wearing gray clothing to symbolize a lackluster society, unlikely romances, coming of age plot structures, martial arts skills, and we could go on. Independence, though, is also ironic because this film was clearly not an independent effort. Not only did big names in acting work together like Kate Winslet and a James Franco lookalike, but so did big names in production which completely undermines the entire film’s idea that originality and independence gets one anywhere in life. Therefore, I must say I’m only impressed with the finesse in which Divergent completely contradicts, in every way, shape, and form, the message it is trying to bestow upon its viewer.