
This was a tough decision to choose which two topics to compare and contrast as there were so many different options. After coming to a difficult decision I decided to go down the science fiction route and compare the two movies of The Hunger Games and Divergent. Science fiction is a genre of fiction in which the stories often tell about science and technology of the future. This has been become an extremely popular genre in many different movies here in the past ten years it seems like it. I enjoy watching science fiction movies as I enjoy movies that have a futuristic feel too such as these two movies. 

A brief summary of The Hunger Games and Divergent before getting into the similarities and differences in case you have not seen the films, however most people have. For The Hunger Games The nation that the movie takes place in is called Panem which is a totalitarian nation and it is broken into twelve different districts and the capital. The district that the main character lives in is district twelve the poorest out of the districts. Every year each district is forced to randomly choose two tributes, one girl and one boy to fight in the annual Hunger Games. A fight to the death on live television, which is just unbearable to think about especially since these tributes are ages twelve- eighteen. The main character Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her little sisters place who was originally selected for the games, but would have had no chance of winning.

As for divergent it also takes place in a futuristic society and it is where society is divided into five factions that each represent a different virtue, teenagers have to decide if they want to stay in their faction or switch to another for the rest of their lives. Abnegation the selfless, Dauntless the brave, Erudite the intelligent, Candor the honest, and Amity the peaceful. The main character Tris Pryor learns she's Divergent and won't fit in which means she could be killed. The story follows her as she tries to conceal her secret while discovering a war that is on the verge of breaking out, putting Tris entire family at risk. There is a lot more going on, but it would take up this is entire essay if I went into great detail about the summary.

 One similarity in the movie is the setting of the story. Both Divergent and The Hunger Games take place in a futuristic society. The Hunger Games and Divergent take place in dystopian society which is an imaginary or futuristic place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. Both societies rise from the ruins of North America. Divergent is set specifically in the city once known as Chicago while The Hunger Games is set throughout North America. The general theme of both is similar as both are war and survival.  Another similarity is that both movies are dominated by tough girls that both really start their lives at the age of sixteen. The age of sixteen is an important age in each series, with Katniss being eligible even though this is not her first year being eligible she is still in the age range for the Reaping and Tris taking the Aptitude Test and deciding which faction she will live in for the rest of her life. Each girl has a big decision to make that will decide her fate, although the decisions come about in different ways. The last similarity was how brave both Katniss and Tris were. An example of bravery displayed by Tris was when she got to the dauntless base, the leaders told all of the new tributes to jump off a roof onto something that nobody knew what it was. Tris was the first to jump and it ended up just being a net, but it still showed great bravery. Katniss showed great bravery by stepping up and volunteering for the games in replacement for her sister.

A few differences between the two movies is appearance in the Hunger Tris in Divergent has blonde hair where Katniss has brown hair. Another difference is that in The Hunger Games you don’t have an option to determine your fate. What I mean by this is that you don’t have an option to not fight in the games if you selected whereas in Divergent you have the ability to choose what faction you want to live in. Another difference is the issues within the government in The Hunger Games there has been issues with the government for several decades where in Divergent conflict within the government seems to be more recent.  The protagonists also face difference difficulties in their stories. Tris mainly struggles to find her place in her new faction, while Katniss has more day-to-day problems, such as finding food for her family. Katniss struggles getting this food too everyday she has to go past a fence that nobody is supposed to go past and she does this every day. The last main difference that I noticed was the fact that Katniss  wanted to stand out and Tris wants to fit in. To Katniss, The Hunger Games were all about standing out so you could get more sponsors and have a better chance at survival. Another reason that Tris needed to stay in the middle of the pack was the fact that people could not find out that she was divergent.

In conclusion, both Divergent and The Hunger Games had many similarities and differences that both made them very interesting to watch in my opinion. They are both different enough to both be interesting sometimes in series one book is way too similar to the previous one and it just not that interesting. After writing this essay it really made me think about the two because before I also thought they were a little too similar, but now after refreshing my memory on what they were about I missed some major differences that really changed my opinion. Personal opinion I enjoyed watching The Hunger Games over Divergent, but have not read either book yet and I heard those are even better than the movies, so I need to give those a shot.