This thread will have open spoilers both the book and the movie for Maze Runner AND open spoilers for the other books in the Maze Runner series.
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So, who saw the movie? What did you think?
I rather liked it. They made some pretty significant changes for the movie adaptation but I thought it made for a stronger movie overall. The casting was good, and the visuals were as well. I liked how the Glade was both bucolic and claustrophobic. I was disappointed that the Grievers looked different than how they were described in the book because they sounded really gross and weird. The grievers as shown were pretty good though.
The biggest problem with the movie, however, was the same as the biggest problem with the book: The ending was lousy.
I’ve only seen the trailer and didn’t know there was a book, but if the prisoners have lots of free time, why not build an earthen ramp up to the top of the maze?
I found some lists of the differences between the book and the movie, and they reminded me of one bothersome thing I noticed: If Ben was the first person who ever got stung by a griever and lived, how did they know what to do with him? The ritual of pushing him out of the Glade seemed well-established, and they had those t-shaped pushing sticks all ready. And if Ben needed to be banished, why did they keep Alby around? If this was explained in the movie, I missed it.
I wondered about that too. I had never heard of the actress who played Teresa so I didn’t know she was English until that scene where she was tied to the post and yelling. Her English accent was completely obvious there, and pulled me right out of the movie for a few moments. I’d consider that a directorial mis-step.
They could get to the top. The walls of the maze were covered in vines and during a chase scene, Our Hero climbed to the top and ran around up there. So we can assume the other runners had already explored the top and hadn’t found anything useful. I didn’t see any vines in the areas closer to the perimeter of the maze, and building a ramp all the way out there wouldn’t have been feasible.
They didn’t seem to have much free time, either, given that they were a farming community, but I’m sure they could have found the time to build a ramp if they had to.
Another minor disappointment was that they ditched the thing about putting the maze maps together to figure out the letter code to get out. I can see why they changed that to a simpler explanation, however, and subbing in the number code worked just fine, IMHO.
Well unless the maze has disconnected sections, wouldn’t getting to the top make it possible to get to the outer edge while avoiding the hazards in the maze? Then climb down with a rope made of vines and, well, escape or something.
I’m cheerfully prepared to assume the movie and book address this, it was just a question that occured to me from the trailer.
In the movie, there were big open spaces in the outer sections so they couldn’t have crossed them on top of the walls. Then again, there were 8 separate sections, so you’d think they had to be divided by solid walls somehow.
Ultimately, the movie addresses the question with several conversations showing that the boys in the Glade had already tried every solution that appeared to be possible multiple times. They portrayed as intelligent and resourceful, so we can infer that the over-the-top route was impossible for some reason or another.
The new arrival, aka Our Hero, did something that was both strictly forbidden and insanely risky, and then his amazing creative problem-solving abilities and bravery led to a new possible solution. As we discover later, the guy-who-shakes-things-up role was exactly what was planned for him by the folks that created the maze. It should be noted that it wasn’t a case of Our Hero saving a bunch of bumbling fools from themselves, but rather that a catalyst was needed to create change.
I don’t recall whether the book addressed the over-the-top route specifically, but it did adequately demonstrate that all the obvious solutions would have been tried.
The ending confused me. Was the whole scene in the research center staged? Clearly main evil lady didn’t off herself, but were all those bodies fake? Were they just counting on the kids not looking closely? Or did WCKD actually purge all of their Stage 1 scientists in prep for Stage 2?
Oh I was definitely thinking the same thing about them hooking up sexually. It would be inevitable that some hanky-panky would be going on. And of course I had to wonder how long it would be before Teresa found herself in an uncomfortable situation–or worse.
But thankfully they chose to leave that aspect of Glade life out of the story.
No clue. I’d check the book, but there is no reason to believe that they would have followed the book here.
My WAG on the ending was that they’re in some sort of simulation. They kept showing scenes of the boys being submerged in a water-filled tube. My guess is that these tubes are life-support tanks with a neural connection. There is no need for tubes if they are sending the boys up in an elevator.
The global catastrophe is real and the explanation of the virus is real. Some people die from the virus. Some people survive, but are mentally broken. So the WCKD project is to find a cure from people with immunity to the virus. The boys all have physical immunity, but they need a cure that contains a mental immunity also.
This also explains how they can build such a huge and expensive maze in a post-apocalyptic world… it’s not really there.
As for Stage 2, that’s the next part of the simulation to find the mental cure.
Stage 2 has been given a release date in September of next year.
Ben was the first to be stung in daylight, not the first ever.
Alby’s their leader and the first one sent up. They needed his wisdom.
No, they couldn’t climb the vines to get to the top. When Thomas asked Newt about that while farming, Newt told him that the vines don’t go all the way up.
Thomas did get close to the top when running from the griever but not all the way up. Some walls were still higher than his level.
