‘The Maze Runner’ Director Reveals Why They Discarded Parts of The Original Novel In The Film

The Wes Ball hit film The Maze Runner, originally adapted from James Dashner’s novel of the same name, is set to be released on DVD and Blue Ray on December 16. Fans who first read the novel and then watched the movie may have expected to see everything they read play out exactly the same on screen. But like many novels that are adapted into movies, The Maze Runner discarded some elements from the book in the making of the film.

Why? Director of the film Wes Ball told MTV On line that some things had to be changed to make the movie more appealing to the audience.

“The biggest thing that guided us to make whatever changes we made were usually about pace, and a grounded sense of realism. The other thing was how do you make that believable. Even with the world itself, making it a little more grounded, then making it totally so massive that it was hard to believe in.”

There are a total of nine changes in the film and according to MTV Online, one of the biggest excision was Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and Teresa’s (Kaya Scodelario) psychic bond. But Ball explained that there was great difficulty portraying the telepathic connection on screen.

“I just couldn’t figure out how to pull it off in a movie. The only thing I could have done was these two characters staring at one another with voice-over happening off-screen, but that just wasn’t going to work.”

Another great change the appearance of creatures created by author James Dashner known as Grievers. According to MTV Online they are portrayed in the novel as slug-like balls of flesh, hair and machine. However the movie portrayed them more spider-like with mechanical clicking limbs as well as gross, fleshy bodies.

Ball’s explanation for that change is that the way they are originally described in the novel would not be appealing or scary enough for a film. He however maintained that he did try to stay close to what was originally described in the novel.

Other things that the film changed include the length of time that the character Teresa was in coma (longer in the novel), the location of the maze and the idea of the Griever Hole – where the scary creatures go to rest in the day. Whereas the novel made the holes invisible, Ball made them visible and said this added “believability” to the film.

According to an Inquisitr report published earlier this year, The Maze Runner sequel, Maze Runner: Scorch Trials is presently slated to hit theaters across North America on September 18, 2015.

JBG News said the Maze Runner sequel will include some of the most well known TV actors like Aiden Gillen of Game Of Thrones, Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad and Barry Pepper of Kill The Messenger.