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.