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So last week I saw The Maze Runner. I skipped it when it first came out, because it was another one of those dystopian YA books I hadn't read starring some guy from the CW or something that I couldn't identify. But now I've seen it! And it was fine, but it started to get really good right at the end, which was handy for me, because I only had to wait a week to see Scorch Trials.
I've done that now, too. And I have some questions I'm hoping someone can help me with. (And no, the questions don't include "Why is Aiden Gillen even sexier as a sociopath in 2015 than he was as a mere narcissist in 1999?" I'm content to leave that as one of life's delightful little mysteries.)
Now, I realize the questions can be answered one of three ways:
1) This will all be explained in the third book/movie! Hang in there, kid!
2) There is absolutely no explanation. These books were probably written in five weeks to get in on the Hunger Games wave, and none of it really fits together. You only saw it for Dylan O'Brien anyway, so don't get greedy now.
3) AN ANSWER GOES HERE.
If it's #2, so be it. If it's #3, great! Someone smarter than me, please catch me up in the comments! If it's #1, please be aware, I'm not looking for spoilers! You can just tell me, "It's #1," and I'll be happy, knowing that eventually everything's going to come together. I just hate waiting for things to come together if they're never going to. I want to know whether or not to abandon hope, is what I'm saying.
HOW DOES ANY OF THIS RELATE TO THE MAZE?
I saw the first movie *last week.* It hasn't had time to fade from my memory yet. I remember that it was mostly about the maze, and what appeared to be some kind of extended intelligence/personality/leadership test being performed on these kids over the course of roughly three years. Great! They were looking for which of the kids could defeat the maze... I mean, right? That was pretty clear?
Otherwise, just -- *why* was the maze at all? It makes sense that if these kids are the Immunes (although, for some reason, not all of them? Why did WCKD want non-immune Vincent but reject non-immune Brenda?), aka the hope of human survival, and they need to be kept alive for eventual harvesting of their enzymes, you'd warehouse them someplace -- I dunno, nice-ish? They built them a little pastoral hamster-run. It seemed nice -- nicer than where everyone else on Earth lives now, at any rate. It seemed like the kind of thing you'd do, if you weren't a total sadist. At the very least it would allow you to feel humane in a way that you probably couldn't if you were herding these kids back and forth between barracks and cafeteria every day for years, looking them in the eyes and stuff. The more contact you had between WCKD staff and test subjects, the closer to 100% your chances become of having someone like Thomas go rogue. So the Grove makes perfect sense; you can store and monitor them, but tell yourself they're happier in the pretty green place, frolicking with their friends.
But all you need to create the Grove is *walls.* Maybe a few layers of walls, sure, I dunno. Homicidal biomechanical spiders to guard the walls, okay. But they're not even sending supplies through the walls! That came up through the elevator shaft thing! You sure as hell don't need an elaborate self-moving maze that operates on predictable patterns that can be mapped and navigated, unless you're *hoping* someone figures out how to map and navigate them.
And I thought that's what was going on! They were testing for the kids with the wherewithal to beat the maze. Made total sense.
Okay, but. In this movie -- totally unrelated to Thomas beating the maze -- it turns out they've been evacuating *all* the mazes over the course of several weeks and harvesting the kids who've been in the various Groves for *years.* Which -- *why did any of that happen?* They don't seem to need the Immunes to be be bright or ingenious or have leadership skills or whatever. They just need the Immunes to have functioning circulatory systems. That's *literally all.*
I liked Scorch Trials. It was a fun movie. I can't figure out how in the fuck it's remotely related to all the stuff they set up in the *first* movie. We might as well have begun with Thomas waking up with missing memories in a weird bunker dormitory and just started here.
What am I not getting about the necessity of the maze, and why Paige calls it the "first phase" of anything?
I've done that now, too. And I have some questions I'm hoping someone can help me with. (And no, the questions don't include "Why is Aiden Gillen even sexier as a sociopath in 2015 than he was as a mere narcissist in 1999?" I'm content to leave that as one of life's delightful little mysteries.)
Now, I realize the questions can be answered one of three ways:
1) This will all be explained in the third book/movie! Hang in there, kid!
2) There is absolutely no explanation. These books were probably written in five weeks to get in on the Hunger Games wave, and none of it really fits together. You only saw it for Dylan O'Brien anyway, so don't get greedy now.
3) AN ANSWER GOES HERE.
If it's #2, so be it. If it's #3, great! Someone smarter than me, please catch me up in the comments! If it's #1, please be aware, I'm not looking for spoilers! You can just tell me, "It's #1," and I'll be happy, knowing that eventually everything's going to come together. I just hate waiting for things to come together if they're never going to. I want to know whether or not to abandon hope, is what I'm saying.
HOW DOES ANY OF THIS RELATE TO THE MAZE?
I saw the first movie *last week.* It hasn't had time to fade from my memory yet. I remember that it was mostly about the maze, and what appeared to be some kind of extended intelligence/personality/leadership test being performed on these kids over the course of roughly three years. Great! They were looking for which of the kids could defeat the maze... I mean, right? That was pretty clear?
Otherwise, just -- *why* was the maze at all? It makes sense that if these kids are the Immunes (although, for some reason, not all of them? Why did WCKD want non-immune Vincent but reject non-immune Brenda?), aka the hope of human survival, and they need to be kept alive for eventual harvesting of their enzymes, you'd warehouse them someplace -- I dunno, nice-ish? They built them a little pastoral hamster-run. It seemed nice -- nicer than where everyone else on Earth lives now, at any rate. It seemed like the kind of thing you'd do, if you weren't a total sadist. At the very least it would allow you to feel humane in a way that you probably couldn't if you were herding these kids back and forth between barracks and cafeteria every day for years, looking them in the eyes and stuff. The more contact you had between WCKD staff and test subjects, the closer to 100% your chances become of having someone like Thomas go rogue. So the Grove makes perfect sense; you can store and monitor them, but tell yourself they're happier in the pretty green place, frolicking with their friends.
But all you need to create the Grove is *walls.* Maybe a few layers of walls, sure, I dunno. Homicidal biomechanical spiders to guard the walls, okay. But they're not even sending supplies through the walls! That came up through the elevator shaft thing! You sure as hell don't need an elaborate self-moving maze that operates on predictable patterns that can be mapped and navigated, unless you're *hoping* someone figures out how to map and navigate them.
And I thought that's what was going on! They were testing for the kids with the wherewithal to beat the maze. Made total sense.
Okay, but. In this movie -- totally unrelated to Thomas beating the maze -- it turns out they've been evacuating *all* the mazes over the course of several weeks and harvesting the kids who've been in the various Groves for *years.* Which -- *why did any of that happen?* They don't seem to need the Immunes to be be bright or ingenious or have leadership skills or whatever. They just need the Immunes to have functioning circulatory systems. That's *literally all.*
I liked Scorch Trials. It was a fun movie. I can't figure out how in the fuck it's remotely related to all the stuff they set up in the *first* movie. We might as well have begun with Thomas waking up with missing memories in a weird bunker dormitory and just started here.
What am I not getting about the necessity of the maze, and why Paige calls it the "first phase" of anything?
no subject
Date: 2015-10-01 04:58 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-10-01 06:44 pm (UTC)From:I WTFed through book 2 for the very reasons you describe. Like it'd have been as an entirely different book to me.
I hear you on Gillen though!!! :)
no subject
Date: 2015-10-03 09:33 am (UTC)From:.
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In the book we discover that the immune agent is stimulated by certain emotional and cognitive states, so by stimulating those emotions/thought patterns the immunes will reveal the key patterns that could be replicated for survival. It looks as though that may not be the case in the movie, because they've gone for blood-immunity rather than something genetic. (Interestingly in the books Brenda is also immune and a member of WCKD.)
However, there is also a sub-agenda for one memeber of WCKD, who is selecting the kids on basis of physical, emotional and cognitive capacity so that they can start humanity anew.
I don't know what they're going to do with any of this in the third movie; they could go somewhere very different with it. There's a lot of differences, not least that in the book the Scorch is another trial which brings them all back to WCKD, rather than an escape. But I'm optimistic it'll all come together. And anyway, Dylan O'Brien. <3
no subject
Date: 2016-02-11 09:49 pm (UTC)From:So I plan Dylan O'Brien YAY for the rest of the movies with all higher brain functions turned off.