![]() I’ve got a habit of watching the first film over and over, and there’s no doubt that the same will happen with Scorch Trials when it hits DVD and Blu-ray. Conclusionįirst and foremost, I very much enjoyed Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. You don’t get many moments in a hero’s journey when he or she encounters something that feels unbeatable, but that’s exactly what these things are and they force the Gladers out into the Scorch with an incredible amount of momentum. In the book, the scene has an absolutely brilliant horror-like vibe, with the Gladers essentially blind and completely helpless in a dark hallway as these metal balls eerily roll around before striking. You may know that I love horror movies, so is it a surprise that I wanted to see some skull-crushing gore? I had a feeling the bulb monsters would bite the dust because, really, did they serve any purpose in the book besides being cool creatures to pit the Gladers against during the big finish? The scene with the metal balls, however, really could have been a terrifying introduction to the threats that await the Gladers in the Scorch. There’s no doubt that what Ball, Nowlin and Scodelario have done with Teresa this time around will lead to some especially rich material in The Death Cure. When she makes the choice to betray Thomas, Newt and Minho and take off with Janson ( Aiden Gillen) and Ava Paige ( Patricia Clarkson) at the tail end of the film, it comes as a shock but also feels motivated and earned. ![]() Scodelario deserves some major credit for how well she walks the line between supporting her friends and having a mind of her own. Not only is she in the movie far more than she’s in the book, but the new material she gets actually turns her into a layered character. In Scorch Trials, however, Teresa gets a major upgrade. She shows up to trigger the ending, but then she just follows Thomas around and never really contributes anything significant during the big escape. I’m still somewhat obsessed with the first Maze Runner movie and have a habit of watching it over and over again, but still to this day my biggest issue with it is how underdeveloped Teresa is. By introducing the idea that there are many mazes, it makes Group B feel less important and obliterates the idea that Group A could affect the fate of Group B and vice versa. In the book, there’s only Group A, the survivors from Thomas’ maze, and Group B, the survivors from Aris’ maze. The lack of focus in regards to the experiment also almost completely devalues the addition of Aris ( Jacob Lofland), Sonya ( Katherine McNamara) and Harriet ( Nathalie Emmanuel). ![]() On the one hand, it seems as though Wicked is up to no good, but if the surviving Gladers do really hold the key to the cure and this is the only way for them to extract it, how could Thomas say no to saving the world? ![]() It could work, but hopefully this change still leaves room for Thomas’ conflicted feelings about the experiment. ![]() But the change will undoubtedly affect what goes down in The Death Cure big time. If that’s the way they want to find a cure, sure. Rather than send those who survived the Maze out into the Scorch to map their behavior to develop a cure, the movie version of Wicked has Maze survivors strung up chemistry experiment-style. There’s no mention of “Phase Two” in the movie and it doesn’t seem as though Wicked is taking the same approach to finding a cure at all. Not only does the whole concept of “Phase Two” give Scorch Trials the book clarity and structure, but it also gives what’s happening to the Gladers meaning. He tells them exactly what they need to do to complete them and, boom, they’re off. In the book, Rat Man explains that the Scorch is Phase Two of the Trials. There are certain story elements that were cut from the film that I miss simply because I liked them, but the omission of the whole concept of “Phase Two” is a nearly devastating adaptation flaw. ![]()
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