Summit delivered on its promise to give fans of Veronica Roth's Divergent their first official look at the film during tonight's MTV Video Music Awards pre-show. The previously released teaser for the preview hinted at some serious action and the full video, which clocks in at a minute and fifteen seconds, offers a bit more of that, and then some. Among the best moments, the memorable knife-throwing scene, which - as fans of the book should remember - demonstrates Shailene Woodley's character's trust as much as it does her bravery.
Divergent is set in dystopian Chicago, where society is broken up into five factions, which determine a person's way of life. The story centers on Beatrice "Tris" Prior, a teen who comes of age and must decide whether to stay with her family's faction, the selfless "Abnegation," or choose a new faction. It's only a mild spoiler to point out that she chooses Dauntless, the faction known for its daring and brave members. But before that, she discovers she's "Divergent," which means she'll never truly fit into any one faction, and "they" can't control her. The preview shows Tori (Maggie Q) feeding Tris this information in the form of a warning. To put it mildly, being Divergent isn't something she should advertise.
Not only does the preview give us a look at Woodley and Maggie Q, but it also shows Kate Winslet, playing the intelligent Erudite faction representative Jeanine Matthews. We also got a quick glimpse of Tony Goldwyn and (the back of) Ashley Judd, who play Tris' parents. They appeared among the scenes that showed us a bit of Abnegation life, where the clothing is as gray as the buildings.
Featured a bit more prominently in the preview was Theo James, who plays Four, Tris' trainer and as you may have noticed by that smooch, her potential love interest. He's also the guy that's going to help get Tris up to snuff as a fearless Dauntless, and hopefully help her not get killed. Beyond that, we saw fights, guns, tattoos, more fights, Tris' drop from the roof, her jump from the train with Christina (Zoe Kravitz), a quick snippet of the ferris wheel climb and that mentioned knife throwing! That last one is a big scene from the book, and one that Roth revisited with a short story published as an eBook, which tells that part of the story from Four's perspective. We'll be getting four more stories told from Tobias' perspective, beginning this fall, not to mention the third book in the trilogy, Allegiant, which will be told from both Tris and Four's perspective. All four eShorts and Allegiant are expected to arrive ahead of the release of Divergent, which arrives in theaters March 21.
In the meantime, for those of you trying to get your factions straight, here's a helpful graphic that lays it all out for you.
