Alternatives is the tagline feature for other forms of entertainment outside of discussing literature. These posts may encompass television, movies, games, and music with a randomized flavour of the moment approach to each post.
Alternatives
Movie Review –
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Adventure
Duration: 132 Minutes
Directed By: Wes Ball
Written By: T.S. Nowlin
After having escaped the Maze, the Gladers now face a new set of challenges on the open roads of a desolate landscape filled with unimaginable obstacles.
This review comes from someone who hasn’t read the trilogy.
Exposition. Running. More exposition. More running. Run here. Run there. Run.
Rinse and fucking repeat.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials was damn tedious and added limited substance to the actual plot—but more importantly—what this story now lacks is depth to care for the characters. To REALLY care for them. Not just a “rooting for the heroes to do shit and overthrow people—because fuck ya—youth power!!” but to actually create emotive impact when you strip it all away.
Chuck? Honestly…that sort of stung.
Characters acting heroic and others doing stupid shit for what they believe in? Meh.
All they stand to lose is a replaceable character archetype. Sure the acting feels improved and their companionship radiated more-often-than-not when compared to The Maze Runner with its claustrophobic tone but I struggle with being told a loss is painful rather than having the building blocks to experience that myself.
Aside from the lackluster character development, the production value seemed to increase ten-fold. Good on make-up and design of the cranks. They felt aggressively haunting (once you didn’t question their unintuitive nature a la every other zombie) and were physically repulsive.
Can I just ask how the kids of other clinical trials escaped at roughly the same time (at least the expectation is there)? Because they all look like the same damn age. They seemed to gloss over that one…
So, yes, this film is a visualization of second book syndrome. Can I just say that they could have just crossed-over Max Rockatansky or Furiosa (a la Mad Max) and get shit done? Damn, what a missed opportunity.
Afterthoughts:
If anything, watch The Scorch Trials as a satirical comedy sketch. It is incredibly funny [near the end] to think one character acted on their own accord/beliefs that ended fucking everyone (including the protagonist) over. Think about that one for a second and what the main character usually puts the cast through. Sounds like good ol’ karmic justice.
Cheers,
Joey
connect: afterthoughtAn // twitter | anotherafterthought // goodreads
thoughts and afterthoughts. 
Ha! You’ve accurately articulated exactly how I felt about this movie, thanks for that, lol. I’ve legit been struggling with how to quantify my let down after I walked out of the movies a week or two ago.
I did read the trilogy, and I’m not one of those people who’s all “ugh they changed stuff”. I’m totally down for a good adaptation. But as I think back on this movie, the adaptation really did fall short of the mark. The changes don’t matter, so much as the significant lack of character development, like you said. So my “care” factor goes way down because of that. *shrugs*
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I read a few book-to-film articles for The Scorch Trials and some of the changes didn’t make sense to me from a storytelling perspective (I think it loses a bit of plotting clarity in the adaptation — but that’s just me).
After Maze Runner (which had a coolness to it being trapped inside a damn maze), the follow-up was all run run run run run run…and that’s all I’ll really take away from it, unfortunately.
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I just watched this movie yesterday. As someone who has read (and loved) the series, and as someone who likes the movie adaptation to stick somewhat close to the original book, I was sorely disappointed. I felt like there was no sense of direction or clarity in the movie, and there was limited character development for people like Newt and Minho. Bah.
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I feel you. I mean, I heard gasps when the Minho stuff happened and cheers when Petyr Baeli–errr Janson stuff as well but at that point…there was no character development in the film for me to really feel anything. It was an empty promise filled by lots of sand, and if second -film- syndrome exists, this film is full of it.
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