The Mortal Instruments

The Mortal Instruments is a very out of the box fantasy book series by Cassandra Clare about a young girl names Clary and her entrance to the Shadow world. She finds her ability to see things that no one else can frightening, until she discovers that she can use this and her skills in rune drawings to help her and find how she fits in to the Shadowhunter world. She could use their help too, after her mother is stolen form her by creatures from the shadowworld.

The first difference that I noticed in the conversion to film is the pacing of this storyline. In the book, it takes a while for Clary to understand what the shandowhunters do, what she can do and how she is a part of their world. She also learns about her mother and what she is toward the end of the book, just like the movie, but the time it takes for her to get there is substantially longer. In the movie, everything is very fast-paced and it is hard to see how Clary found everything out about everything that she did in the amount of time the movie gave.

Another change from the book to the movie is the way the first scene is handled with Clary's mother. Jocelyn. In the movie, Jocelyn is shown to be strong and fighting the demons that attack her. In the book, it seems as though Jocelyn did nothing to save herself and Clary is left to fight the creatures that she couldn't. Also, the way Clary kills the creatures is different. In the book, she throws the sensor in its mouth and it dies. In the movie, she sets things on fire and sets off an explosion to get rid of them. Either way, Jace has to come back to help her.

Hugo's role is downplayed in the movie more so than in the book. They also leave out much of how he finds out all his secrets, which are through his animals: his cat and bird are spies for him. Another character who has less screen time is Simon, and his feeling for Isabelle. I think that a large portion of this could have been explained during the scene that Simon is turned into a rat, but the that scene is cut from the movie. Yet another under-represented character is Magnus Bane, who helped Clary learn some runes and admits that he's the one who has been changing her memory her whole life, and that Jocelyn was paying him to.




The very end of the movie with the portal was set in different locations. In the movie, it is in the institute, but in the book it is in an abandoned mental hospital on an island that they must drive to in order to save Clary's mother. Luke, Jocelyn's on-and-off boyfriend turns out to be a werewolf and is the one who helps Clary save her mother. He and his pack fend off Valentine's people while Clary goes inside to get her mother. Luke's entire story is different, and a bit sped up from the book.

All in all, a O.K. book-to-movie adaptation. Not the greatest, and then were quite a few important omissions, but I think that if a sequel is made, they can improve on it a lot. Overall, I would give this adaptation a 2.5 out of 5 rating.

The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner book is the first book in a trilogy written by James Dashner. It follows a group of boys trapped in an unsolvable maze without their memories. They are trapped there with no way to know why they're there or how to get out. That it, until the first girl appears with no memory but a strange connection to Thomas and then everything changes. Now, in a race against other creatures in the maze trying to kill them, they must find a way out before they are all killed. So there are a few differences between the recent movie that was released and the book.



For one, the serum to cure the stings given by the Grievers exists before Teresa shows up in the book. Every time a Glader was stung, in the next batch of supplies a cure would show up. In the movie, Gladers died from the Changing that occurred when they were stung. Only when Teresa shows up do they get a cure, and only two of them.

Another large portion left from the movie was Thomas and Teresa's telepathy. The moment she comes out of the supply box she says Thomas's name, and when she is unconscious in the building Thomas can hear her telepathically. This has a large influence later on in the movie, and I am curious to see how they will fill the gap in the plot line that its omission has left.




Another, more minor detail was the lack of beetle blades and their watching the Gladers. Beetle blades were small beetle shaped cameras that had the name WICKED on them. Thomas sees one of these for the first time when he is trapped in the maze at night. Another small change was the spelling of WICKED, in the movie it was changed to WCKD.

Gally is a character who had drastic changes to his role in the movie. In the book, Gally runs away in the woods for most of the time, until he is captured by a griever and brought to the exit.In the movie, Gally follows them out. Also, the end of Gally's story was different. The book says that Gally is mind controlled by the creators and attacks Thomas with a knife. In the movie, Gally shows up from having followed them out of the Exit and attacks Thomas willingly with a gun.


Another change to the book storyline include the Gladers meeting creators at the end. In the book, the escaped Gladers meet the maze creators and speak with them, and then their rescuers show up and kill the creators. In the movie, the creators are already dead when they show up and they see a video of the a woman explaining things to them. They also see on the video the violence and fighting that had taken place there just minutes ago.

The last few changes that I will mention are that there were 30 original Gladers in the book. In the movie they have made Alby the only one. Also, Alby wasn't as nice to Thomas in the book as he is in the movie. The rescuers use a bus to bring the Gladers away from the maze. When they leave the facility, it is raining and nighttime in the book. Whereas in the movie, they are taken away in a helicopter, it is sunny and they appear to be in a desert. Lastly, in the book the maze is underground and they see a fake sunny sky that never rains, until Teresa comes. In the movie the maze is a part of a complex where they can see the real sky above them from inside the maze.



Overall, I would say that this is a very good book-to-movie adaptation. Other than a few things being left out, I think that the film followed the book's storyline fairly well. I do think that they might have trouble creating the sequels because a few of the changes, but we'll see. I would give this book-to-movie adaptation a 3.5 out of 5 rating.