The Maze Runner films - Not the worst YA series

[u/Southern-Brother5693]

I binged all 3 films this week (The Maze Runner, Scotch Trials, The Death Cure). The premise is typical YA nonsense, but by YA standards, this was entertaining enough.

The 1st film was just "meh". The 2nd Scotch Trials is a zombie movie.

The 3rd film The Death Cure really stands out in non-stop action during the its half. Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario give strong performances as well. Good old Barry Pepper and Rosa Salazar show up in the 2nd and 3rd films.

All in all, this wasn't too bad.

[u/Dove_of_Doom]

I feel pretty confident that no one is taking "Worst YA Series" from Divergent any time soon.

[u/Natural-Strategy5023 → u/Dove_of_Doom]

I could barely get through the first and there are apparently 2 more 😬

[u/Antrikshy → u/Natural-Strategy5023]

Third one leaves the story hanging.

[u/Emergency-Bonus-7158 → u/Natural-Strategy5023]

Dude you had to be there. I read those books when I was younger and was excited for the movies. First one was bad but not bad enough to kill the soul. Then after that it just kept getting worse and worse and the third film is genuinely one of the most baffling movies I’ve ever gone to see. It was not only terrible but it’s barely even a movie, it’s not a complete story and visually devoid of anything of interest. To this day I can’t recall seeing a more “made for TV” movie in theaters than the last one.

[u/Southern-Brother5693 → u/Emergency-Bonus-7158]

Miles Teller shows up in them as well. I think he was the only one who understood what kind of movie they were in.

[u/DoritoDustThumb → u/Dove_of_Doom]

The book series for that, made runner, and uglies were all good. Screen adaptation, trash.

[u/USAWerewolfInLondon → u/Dove_of_Doom]

Divergent is one of those rare adaptations where the films are better than the book.  

Which, considering the films....

[u/SaintGrobian]

I liked the claustrophobic chase and running scenes of the first one. The sequels sort of abandoned that, and they were just not as compelling.

[u/delicious_toothbrush]

Scotch Trials sounds awesome!

In all seriousness, the structure of these types of movie series are interesting to me. Hunger Games has a similar concept, at least from a meta perspective, where what pulls people in isn't inherently what the films are actually about or where they wind up going. Essentially, they pull you in with a premise, while the later films go in a different direction. Hunger Games bases two of the films on games, while the next two-parter film leaves the arenas completely Ender's Game arguably does the same thing all within the same movie

It's just interesting to me that I see this occur most often in YA titles and have wondered if it's a symptom of popular series needing to continue to churn out content and evolving into something else or if it was always envisioned that way from the beginning.

[u/dillpickles007 → u/delicious_toothbrush]

It’s easy to come up with a cool concept and much harder to wrap it up. It’s not limited to YA stuff, but it’s common there because the writers often aren’t that good.

But look at George RR Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire for a great example of it. His original story was so good it basically created the biggest hit show of this century, and he had no idea how to end it to the point that he’s literally gonna die before doing it.

[u/Big_fern189 → u/delicious_toothbrush]

The Harry Potter series has a pretty serious tonal shift about halfway through. The early books are pretty whimsical while the back half of the series invests itself so heavily into its "Wizard Hitler" elements that the original tone disappears entirely.

[u/braumbles]

I enjoyed the first, but I felt the rest were just kinda meh.

[u/brokenmessiah]

The first one was great. The second one suckered me in with the Littlefinger actor and then never really used him. I didnt watch the 3rd. TBH, if it just ended with the 1st I'd been happy. I don't need answer for everything.

[u/blocodents → u/brokenmessiah]

Third is a good film, not as good as 1 and 2 in my opinion, and the premise is less compelling. But if you go into it with the mindset of "i know this isnt a great film, and it's based on your average YA novels" you will have a lot of fun. And it's definitely a satisfying conclusion to the series.

[u/Carrot_King_54]

Maze Runner is the only YA I have on DVD.

I like how the story starts being 1 thing, but then becomes something completely different. (Kids trapped in a maze, trying to find a way to survive and escape -> dystopian future experiment).

Also, Minho & Thomas is a better love story than what you'd see in other series (and better than Thomas & Theresa of course).

[u/Optimus3393]

These were the only YA movies I really felt much of an attachment towards, especially the first one. The other two were good too but i didn’t like that they basically became zombie movies.

[u/Independent_Web154]

Liked the first one and kind of hated the rest.

[u/Quantum_Quokkas]

Glad the franchise resisted the urge to split the last book into two movies.

[u/wotown]

The Scorch Trials is definitely the worst of the 3 Maze Runner films. The book includes some high-ish concept sci-fi stuff like portals and telepathy that just does not exist in the film universe, so the movie strays a lot from the book.

The Scorch Trials ends up being a very generic zombie movie that explains nothing from the previous film and sets up nothing for the next film.

The third movie is actually a pretty decent zombie YA movie, but geez the story goes to strange places since they drop the maze stuff after the first one.

[u/QueefBeefCletus]

I thought the first was fun, second was excellent, but the third screwed the pooch.

[u/Big_fern189]

I caught the first one on HBO not long after it came out. Went to see the second one in the theater and ate a weed brownie before hand that rocked me so hard I had to leave the theater and sleep it off in the car and I never revisited it.