The Maze Runner (2014)

[Divide by Zero]

This past weekend I got to see The Maze Runner with a friend.

It was kind of similar to The Hunger Games, but with a different goal for the "game", more tied to a post apocalyptic world.

The characters were pretty static, but the dynamics between them were pretty accurate in terms of society with a few main characters:

-You have the main character who bends/breaks the rules as he is curious and has a drive to find a way out through the maze.

-The main antagonist is a "jock" who is satisfied with living life inside the "safe area" and will fight hard to keep the status quo of comfort.

 

[riccadus]

Watched this tonight. It was moderately entertaining and obviously directed toward a younger audience.

It did come across very much like a Hunger Games clone. But I also happened to watch Enders Game a couple of weeks ago and that seemed very much the same as well. I mean, are all these authors just jumping on the same bandwagon or are they all being inspired from particular 'higher sources'?

I found the common themes between all three movies particularly interesting, and kind of disturbing at the same time.

[list type=decimal]
[*]All 3 movies had a strong aspect of kids being in a situation where they were isolated/separated from the adults (including their family) in some fashion.
[*]The adults were experimenting on them / subjecting them to a "test" of some kind because they were "special" for some reason and possibly the key to saving the world.
[*]Strong military themes - in Enders Game the kids were actually in the military, whereas in the Maze Runner the dudes in black with machine guns were the ones that "saved" them.
[*]Gender imbalance - in both Enders Game and The Maze Runner you basically have a big group of boys. A single girl is then dropped into the mix which provokes a strong reaction in some form or another.
[/list]
Definitely very interesting themes considering the state of society today and where it's heading. Is this popular culture conditioning kids to accept a more militarised society where they are cut off from families and raised in an institutionalised environment? I certainly don't remember movies with such repeated themes when I was growing up.

Also, in The Maze Runner you had a bunch of people basically ponerized into accepting their conditions, until the main character comes along who sees things a different way and he has to push through their opposition to rocking the boat, so to speak (I hope I'm not revealing any spoilers). He then has to endure various trials to discover the 'truth' and lead (a select portion of) the others to escape from their situation. I mean if that isn't laying it all out on a platter I don't know what is...

Oh, and why does every second movie these days have some kind of zombie theme? Enough already!

 

[gdpetti]

You could add the film 'Logan's Run' to that list.