D.O.A. at the Movies: Maze Runner

Maze Runner

I watched all the clips of The Maze Runner movie, and follow the Maze Runner Trilogy and the author James Dashner on Facebook.  I had a few concerns going into the film:

I didn’t like that Teresa and Thomas couldn’t speak telepathically, though in retrospect I can see where that complicates things in a two hour movie.

 

From the clips, I didn’t think I’d like the actor playing Thomas, he seemed kind of gravelly voiced and flat.  In fact, Dylan O’Brien as Thomas completely nailed Thomas and his confusion as he entered the Glade and it’s world, and he had the honesty and vulnerability of Thomas in the book, so I was really pleased.

I really liked the portrayals of Alby, Newt, Minho, Chuck and Gally.

I didn’t care for the Teresa character, but having read the entire book series, I think I just don’t like her as a character so I was swayed by that.

I would like to have seen more time spent on the really well organized society the boys created.  More time could have been spent in the Maze itself.

The way out of the Maze and the final battle there was way cooler in the book, and I think they should have stuck with that.

Since they were varying from the book in so many places, they could have altered Chuck’s fate, right?  Sometimes the film version can have a happier ending than the book.

Filming is already set for the sequel : The Scorch Trials to come out in late 2015.  That was a great adventure, and I can’t wait to see how they bring it to the screen.

Librarian D.O.A. Booknotes: The Maze Runner

 

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

I saw this author at Comic Con in 2012 on a panel and he seemed so nice and kids at the library just loved his Maze Runner series, so I finally got around to reading this recently.  Maze Runner is the first in a series.  As soon as I finished the Maze Runner I ordered the next two and just zoomed through them.

As it happens, the film version of this comes out tomorrow.  A few things in the previews I’ve seen make me twitch but the buzz on the movie is good, so I guess I’ll go with the flow and enjoy the movie.

A teenage boy who knows only that his name is Thomas wakes up in a cage like elevator which seems to take forever to travel to the top of its journey.  He is met at the top by a group of teens who call him such odd things: Klunk, shuck-face, Greenie.

They stood in a vast courtyard several times the size of a football field, surrounded by four enormous walls made of gray stone and covered in spots with thick ivy.  The walls had to be hundreds of feet high and formed a perfect square around them, each side split in the exact middle by an opening as tall as the walls themselves that, from what Thomas could see, led to passages and long corridors beyond.

Sixty or so boys are captive in the Maze, with a new one showing up in The Box once a month.  The boys have created a society for themselves with everyone having a job to do, rules of behavior that all are expected to follow. 

The first rule is that only Runners are allowed in the Maze.  These boys literally run through the Maze every single day, creating a map from memory that they duplicate in The Map Room.  The Maze is not static and changes every day.  The kids are determined to solve the Maze which they hope will get them released from their prison.

 

Thomas is determined to become a Runner and help solve the riddle of the Maze.  He feels he was sent here to do just that, though he has no idea why.

The Maze Runner is a great read, just one of those pulse pounding type books that never lets up on surprises and action.