We all know that book-to-movie adaptations can range anywhere from dead-on to disastrous, and as many know, James Dashner's The Scorch Trials, the second book of The Maze Runner series, recently became a movie. Unfortunately for the series' super-fans, this adaptation changed a number of significant details in the book, one of which being the dynamic between WICKED (World in Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department) and the Gladers. The book's characters blindly follow WICKED into the scorch with the promise of safety, while still confused about the company's motives. They become especially skeptical after the suspected kidnapping of their friend, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), but they follow WICKED's orders nevertheless. The movie makes the characters out to be pugnacious fighters that have to wrench themselves from WICKED's evil "safehouse" (with Teresa safely following behind them!).
The ending also had a major change. The book ends with Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) reaching a departing blimp back to WICKED just in time while saving Brenda (Rosa Salazar) and Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito). As for the movie, it ends with a very dramatic fight scene caused by Teresa after giving out their location to WICKED, who is desperately searching for them. WICKED captures a few of the group members, Minho included, and Thomas makes a final resolve to go save his friends before the screen goes black.
However, negative points aside, the movie did a fantastic job on the cranks. The cranks are similar to zombies in look with the added ability to run fast, which made their pop-outs effectively terrifying. Many action movies do a terrible job with costuming; after getting into a huge, bloody fight, the characters would have the tiniest scar imaginable and still have no dirt on them whatsoever. The Scorch Trials was a nice contrast because they got a better sense of what a person would realistically look like after days of walking without a shower. It was definitely a welcomed reality.
If you've read and are a fan of the book, don't go to this movie expecting it to fulfill all of your expectations. But if you're into interesting, action-packed movies, The Scorch Trials can definitely be a good choice for you.
Written by Emma Komar, TAB Member
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