The Maze Runner hit theaters on September 19th, and since then has taken the box office by storm. Internationally and domestically, it’s made a total of $149 million so far on a $30 million budget, which is absolutely brilliant. Was the movie faithful to the book? In my opinion, yes, it was faithful. However, I say that from the perspective of someone who follows a lot of books become movies, and realizes that movies will never be carbon copies of their source material. Also, I’m also of the opinion that sometimes movies need to make some big changes since plot points and details from the novel just will not transfer well to the big screen.
In The Maze Runner‘s case, I think that the changes and liberties taken with James Dashner’s source material were all excellent decisions which only drove the movie to new heights. In my instance, I found that the world Wes Ball created in the film adaptation was even more large and all-encompassing than the one my imagination had come up with when I had read the novel…which is a pretty amazing undertaking. I don’t think that has ever happened for me, in all the years I’ve been reading books and seeing them become films.
The main change that the film-makers decided to make, overall, was to completely cut out supernatural elements from the plot and make The Maze Runner universe rooted in reality. If a plot point seemed to be somewhat magical, or not something that an audience member could believe maybe could happen in our actual future (not in the wizarding world, for example), then it had to go. Plot points in this vein include Teresa and Thomas’ telepathic connection, and the grievers jumping off an invisible cliff and vanishing into thin air. If you replace the telepathic connection with dreams, and the griever’s mysterious cliff/hole with an actual electronic door in a wall, then the entire universe seems much more rooted in reality. It seems like it’s not taking place in a strange magical dimension, it’s actually taking place in our world sometime in the future.
Other book-to-film changes that I enjoyed were ones that were used to decrease lag, or to increase conflict. Two of these include alterations to the details of the changing, and Gally’s motives. In the movie, Gally is a central antagonist who spends almost the entire film going after Thomas for what he’s been doing to the Glade’s community, and many plot points drive his perspective. For example, you learn that he’d been in the Glade for three years, and he hadn’t gone through the changing (as he did in the book), and the circumstances of Ben’s sting and following banishment also drive his perspective that Thomas is no good. In the book, these plot points were not all used to drive Gally’s perspective, and I liked that they used them to make Gally more of a well-rounded character that wasn’t just a stereotypical baddie…he actually had reasons to behave how he was behaving.
The decision to have Teresa only briefly be asleep and not stay in the coma, plus be the one to deliver the serum to save those going through “the changing,” drove the plot forward and removed any lag that would have occurred from having a character sleeping for half the movie. That would just be silly, wouldn’t it? In the book, it works because it drives Thomas’ perspective, and the reader can wonder about this mysterious character that we haven’t met yet. In book, we have the luxury of a longer time-period to work with, but in a film the producers and filmmakers have to work with the two-hour time period they’ve got. Any scenes included need to introduce characters, drive the plot, and create conflict and resolution.
