YA Adaptations: The Maze Runner
Apr. 12th, 2016 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreJames Dashner's The Maze Runner series has four books, including the prequel that was published last, and movie adaptations for the first two, The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials. I've seen both, and while I certainly have a lot to say about both, for the purposes of keeping things relatively spoiler-free (and also not testing my blood pressure any more than absolutely necessary) I'm gonna stick with the first one.
Book cover via Goodreads
I don't like them.
Rather, I like the idea of this story, and I rather liked the movie by comparison--which is unusual, as I tend to like the book better than the movie--more than its execution. Certainly there have been worse things to happen to the YA Dystopia sub-genre in the wake of The Hunger Games, but this one bothers me for a very specific reason that I haven't seen in any other YA Dystopia so far.
First, a plot summary:
A group of teenage boys are all trapped in this self-sustaining oasis they call The Glade, which is surrounded by the huge, impassable Maze. Every day, when the Maze's gates open, a choice few of the boys go through it to map the area and try to find a way out. Every night, when the gates close, they come back into the Glade and examine their findings. The story begins for us when Thomas wakes up in the Maze via this trap door that brought each of the boys and occasional supplies into The Glade, with no memory. None of them can remember their lives before they got there, and that doesn't change no matter how long they stay. Also there are these Mechasaurs in the Maze that only come out at night that "sting" with giant syringes full of this weird chemical that has memory-refreshing side effects before it kills you.
It's an oddly specific memory-hack these guys have going on, but honestly that's not a problem for me--you'll hear the real reason this story bugs me in a minute. Although as I said, I do like the movie, and it's a fairly close adaptation at least in the beginning:
The first book reminds me a little of the Canadian horror flick, Cube, in which a group of seemingly random people wake up inside, well, a giant cube. Each cell is connected to many others via these square openings in the walls, floor, and ceiling, and some of them are equipped with death traps. All the people in the cube have particular skills that could help them to escape, if only they can get over their paranoia and work together.
But where Cube has this creepy, somewhat nihilistic message about how humans sometimes build things just because they can and maybe it's not such a good idea when you look at the big picture and how many lives will probably be lost in the process, The Maze Runner's big, scary government organization has a motivation that's increasingly convoluted and ultimately self-defeating the more Dashner tries to explain it.
Now, I deduced fairly quickly that these kids are all stuck in the Glade for a reason--they're the subjects of some kind of experiment. But what's the experiment? What's being tested? What's the reward if/when they figure it out? A few of my theories as I was reading it: There's some kind of threat in the outside world and the government is testing their logical reasoning for ways to defeat said threat. The rest of the world has become uninhabitable and they're trying to build these pockets of self-sustaining habitats to survive, and they're beta-testing the viability of these habitats. They're the subjects of a Hunger Games/Survivor type death match thing and the outsiders are taking bets on who's going to break out first. It's a juvenile prison and the kids are criminals whose memories have been wiped to see if they can be reconditioned into useful, productive members of society.
It was none of those things. They have all been put there for a reason, but that reason has NOTHING to do with their logical reasoning, survival skills, morality, past, physical strength, adaptability, or any other type of personality trait that would justify putting them into a death trap. As I said, I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I was amazed at how sloppy the world building and the mystery behind it was once it was revealed. Which is kind of weird, since I found the book overall mind-numbingly predictable.
So, why did I actually like the movie? Two reasons: 1) There's less dialogue because of the compressed time, so the, "As you know, Bob" exposition scenes were dropped or trimmed down; 2) The focus is on the action and the threat of the Mechasaurs in the Maze, and their struggle to find a way out. Also, because of the compressed time, it takes place over a handful of days rather than weeks, like it does in the book. The pacing is more streamlined, and the focus on the action gives you something to attach stakes to instead of wondering why nobody figured out, "Hey, we must have been sent here for a reason!" for so danged long when I thought it was pretty obvious.
I get the impression Dashner came up with this really cool, lush, dangerous, claustrophobic setting first, and had to work backward to come up with a reason for its existence, perhaps stumbling a bit on the way. I can't really fault him but so much for that. Plotting is hard, and keeping up steam for a mystery is harder. I sympathize. Also, I glean from a number of sources that some people think writing for a younger audience requires you to over explain things so your target audience can keep up, which I find insulting and flatly untrue.
Bottom line, it's not awful, but it is kind of disappointing when the closer you get to the truth, the less impressed you are with the answers. Give the movie a look, but I'd stop with the first one.
Book cover via Goodreads
I don't like them.
Rather, I like the idea of this story, and I rather liked the movie by comparison--which is unusual, as I tend to like the book better than the movie--more than its execution. Certainly there have been worse things to happen to the YA Dystopia sub-genre in the wake of The Hunger Games, but this one bothers me for a very specific reason that I haven't seen in any other YA Dystopia so far.
First, a plot summary:
A group of teenage boys are all trapped in this self-sustaining oasis they call The Glade, which is surrounded by the huge, impassable Maze. Every day, when the Maze's gates open, a choice few of the boys go through it to map the area and try to find a way out. Every night, when the gates close, they come back into the Glade and examine their findings. The story begins for us when Thomas wakes up in the Maze via this trap door that brought each of the boys and occasional supplies into The Glade, with no memory. None of them can remember their lives before they got there, and that doesn't change no matter how long they stay. Also there are these Mechasaurs in the Maze that only come out at night that "sting" with giant syringes full of this weird chemical that has memory-refreshing side effects before it kills you.
It's an oddly specific memory-hack these guys have going on, but honestly that's not a problem for me--you'll hear the real reason this story bugs me in a minute. Although as I said, I do like the movie, and it's a fairly close adaptation at least in the beginning:
The first book reminds me a little of the Canadian horror flick, Cube, in which a group of seemingly random people wake up inside, well, a giant cube. Each cell is connected to many others via these square openings in the walls, floor, and ceiling, and some of them are equipped with death traps. All the people in the cube have particular skills that could help them to escape, if only they can get over their paranoia and work together.
But where Cube has this creepy, somewhat nihilistic message about how humans sometimes build things just because they can and maybe it's not such a good idea when you look at the big picture and how many lives will probably be lost in the process, The Maze Runner's big, scary government organization has a motivation that's increasingly convoluted and ultimately self-defeating the more Dashner tries to explain it.
Now, I deduced fairly quickly that these kids are all stuck in the Glade for a reason--they're the subjects of some kind of experiment. But what's the experiment? What's being tested? What's the reward if/when they figure it out? A few of my theories as I was reading it: There's some kind of threat in the outside world and the government is testing their logical reasoning for ways to defeat said threat. The rest of the world has become uninhabitable and they're trying to build these pockets of self-sustaining habitats to survive, and they're beta-testing the viability of these habitats. They're the subjects of a Hunger Games/Survivor type death match thing and the outsiders are taking bets on who's going to break out first. It's a juvenile prison and the kids are criminals whose memories have been wiped to see if they can be reconditioned into useful, productive members of society.
It was none of those things. They have all been put there for a reason, but that reason has NOTHING to do with their logical reasoning, survival skills, morality, past, physical strength, adaptability, or any other type of personality trait that would justify putting them into a death trap. As I said, I'm not going to spoil it for you, but I was amazed at how sloppy the world building and the mystery behind it was once it was revealed. Which is kind of weird, since I found the book overall mind-numbingly predictable.
So, why did I actually like the movie? Two reasons: 1) There's less dialogue because of the compressed time, so the, "As you know, Bob" exposition scenes were dropped or trimmed down; 2) The focus is on the action and the threat of the Mechasaurs in the Maze, and their struggle to find a way out. Also, because of the compressed time, it takes place over a handful of days rather than weeks, like it does in the book. The pacing is more streamlined, and the focus on the action gives you something to attach stakes to instead of wondering why nobody figured out, "Hey, we must have been sent here for a reason!" for so danged long when I thought it was pretty obvious.
I get the impression Dashner came up with this really cool, lush, dangerous, claustrophobic setting first, and had to work backward to come up with a reason for its existence, perhaps stumbling a bit on the way. I can't really fault him but so much for that. Plotting is hard, and keeping up steam for a mystery is harder. I sympathize. Also, I glean from a number of sources that some people think writing for a younger audience requires you to over explain things so your target audience can keep up, which I find insulting and flatly untrue.
Bottom line, it's not awful, but it is kind of disappointing when the closer you get to the truth, the less impressed you are with the answers. Give the movie a look, but I'd stop with the first one.