I didn’t even notice the thing about Sejanus and overall I enjoyed the movie but it lost a lot of nuance. I think a good example is that we never see Arachne toying with her tribute, we just see the tribute murder her. Taking that away takes away from the fact that the tributes aren’t inherently violent but are instead reacting to the situation they have been put in.
yeah it definitely also bothered me that there was the whole "bloodbath" scene in the beginning of the arena part, because in the book iirc nobody even died in the beginning and the first death was when lamina mercy killed marcus. the whole idea of the kids not even turning into killers until the situation becomes truly desperate is so important to the message of the book and the movie throws it away for a cheap thrill, which is actually... very self-satirizing of it.
