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Post by limeny on Oct 19, 2020 23:17:27 GMT -5
I re-watched the Maze Runner a couple of nights ago and forgot how good it was! I intend to re-watch the other two before reading the trilogy. I've only seen the films (I know it's terrible and I hate it too), but I managed to buy the books from different second-hand shops last year so I can finally get around to reading them. I was wondering if anyone has read the books, and what they think of them? Or if you've seen the movies I know there are some prequel books too but I haven't seen any copies around.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 20, 2020 5:12:10 GMT -5
I remember watching the first movie, I found it interesting, something involving the escape from a maze. But then I saw a part of the second film and I was not interested anymore. It didn't have a maze ... Not that I remember. I didn't watch until the end. Is there a maze again or not? If in the plot the characters need to escape a maze again, tell me, so I will watch it again or even read the books.
I want to take advantage and say how important it is for film and literary franchises / works to keep their essence. I feel betrayed when something I like changes its essence. See how good ASOUE is. It never loses its essence. Even when new elements are added, when mysteries are included, when the Baudelaires are freer ... Nothing changes the essence. ATWQ already has another essence, which attracted less admirers, but did not change its essence until the end.
Hunger Games, for example ... I liked the first movie, I really liked the second, and I hated the third and I haven't watched the fourth until today. I was waiting to finish watching and then read the books. But the change in essence was so much (and many people told me that they were faithful to the books) that I didn't have the heart to read it until today. I mean ... Hunger Games captured me with a story where there was a ring where people killed themselves. If this cannot be replicated in any way in each of the works, I feel betrayed. And you know, when you realize that the formula is going to get repetitive and uninteresting, it's simply because that work needs to end. It is better to finish something in glory than to change the essence of something.
(Seizing the moment, does anyone know if in the last book or in the last film of the Hunger Games they go back to an arena? Because if they do, I will watch the last film and read all the books).
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Post by limeny on Oct 21, 2020 3:59:29 GMT -5
In the first book/movie, they are in a social experiment called the Maze Trials. This is why the first one is set in the Maze, however the second one deals with different issues within the same universe, against the people who put the characters in the maze, which continues into the third movie. The same with the Hunger Games, in the last book/ third and fourth movie they're not in the arena, but trying to destroy the people who put them in the games in the first place. I honestly prefer the Maze Runner series to the Hunger Games, because the world is really well thought out, with a lot of Easter eggs and links (alike ASOUE). Unfortunately, the Hunger Games was only supposed to be one book, so the second one was rushed, and the third one even more so, due to the popularity of the books and financial gain. This is reflected in the quality of the story, where I think because the Maze Runner was intended as a trilogy, there is more opportunity and thought placed into the plot and characters, which work together as pieces of a puzzle, unlike the Hunger Games where the second one is basically a copy of the first one with a few elements changed, and it is only in the third book that anything meaningful occurs. This is just my personal opinion, feel free to contradict meeeee, I love hearing people's thoughts about books and films
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Post by Dante on Oct 24, 2020 16:02:18 GMT -5
I appreciate the points both of you make. I think it may be difficult for a series structured around a highly choreographed and formulaic ritual like a game to be able to effectively communicate further developments, narrative and thematic, if it remains confined to that ritual; but at the same time, once you diverge from that ritual, then you're sacrificing your series's unique selling point. There are countless books documenting people just wriggling about generically in dystopian turmoil, and the structure provided by something like the Hunger Games is more uniquely identifiable. I would say that an author's challenge is not to lose the unique selling point - the "essence", as Jean Lucio describes it - whilst also finding ways of keeping things varied and ensuring that the formula doesn't become stifling. ASoUE is a good example of how a formula can continually renew itself. Conversely, I found The Hunger Games less interesting once it was no longer actually about the Hunger Games (and I feel I would have felt the same about Maze Runner); though I give the third volume a lot of credit for revealing that some of my criticisms of the series were actually completely intentional and ultimately part of the point.
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