The Maze Runner - Uncovered

The difference between novels and their movie counterparts can be seen through the history of book to film market. The Maze Runner written by James Dashner, was turned into a movie, still titled The Maze Runner, which was directed by Wes Ball in September 2014. The movie, while extremely well done, is not a direct copy of the book itself, but when does that ever happen?

Some of the changes from the novel to the movie were minor, such as how long the Gladers had been trapped in The Maze (from two years to three years). Some changes were much more major, such as when Ball decided to keep out Gally going through the Challenging, which is a painful process of your memories coming back to you and having memories of life before the Maze. These differences help to the keep the movie from copying the book, which would consider this a Book to Movie Remix. Another example of this type of Remix would be the Harry Potter movies, as well as the Percy Jackson series. Both were series of books before they were transformed into movies. The practice of creating these book to film adaptations helps to widen the intended audience, which is why fanbases for these types of Remixes are in demand.

 When a new movie comes out and it’s based off of a book, book sales go up because most people like to compare the differences from novel to screen, and people who have never read the book are also exposed to new material as well. In order to remake a novel into a film, most authors review the script or even watch the movie being put together. By doing this, many movie directors are able to feel more comfortable with the remixing process, since while they are adding their own artistic flare to the movie, the author is approving it for the audience as well. While reading The Ecstasy of Influence we see that Lethem explains that “Artists and writers — and our advocates, our guilds and agents — too often subscribe to implicit claims of originality that do injury to these truths.” (The Ecstasy of Influence, Lethem) is a quote from the text that I feel helps to show that there is some sort of stigma on the industry.

Everything that is created must be original, although that isn’t possible when there are so many ideas out in the world. The chain is never ending, and it is important to remember that sharing ideas is the best way to create new work to share with the world. The Maze Runner was a great book to movie adaptation and did a great job of adding artistic flare while keeping the plot of the movie related to the book.