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Maze Runner: The Death Cure · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit.
• 0:49
  Speaker B: You can't save everyone. Thomas.
• 0:52
  Speaker A: I can try. It's Maze the Death Cure and this film is Lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It's the final episode of Our Summer Series 2025, the final installment of the Maze Runner. Or the initial the.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, not counting all the other books he wrote which might be prequels or sequels.
• 1:23
  Speaker A: Some of them are prequels for sure. Some of them are about the maze being built. I know that, but I don't know other than that there may be some other ones anyways. Yeah, so some of them are at least prequels. But anyways, it's our final of the main trilogy of the Maze Runner. Talking about the Death Cure as always, if you have not read or watched Maze the Death Cure, we're gonna give you a brief summary of the film in Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
• 1:55
  Speaker B: This is a summary of the movie sourced from Wikipedia. Thomas, Newt and Frypan, the last of the Free Gladers, join with the Right Arm Resistance to retrieve other immunes from a Carriage of a train operated by wicked, the organization responsible for capturing and experimenting on Immune children, including Aeris and Sonia. Aeris tells Thomas that Minho, their Glader friend whom WCKD had captured, was on a different carriage and is headed to the last city, which WCKD's base of operations. Against Vince's orders, the leader of the Right Arm, the three head to the Last City to rescue Minho. WICKED is torturing Minho and several other children in the hope of developing a cure for the virus. The group is attacked by Cranks, humans infected with the Flare. However, Jorge and Brenda join them and save them. The group makes it to the wall of the Last City, which is heavily fortified. Outside the wall, people are rallying in protest to be let into the city. When WICKED opens fire at the protesters. The group is captured and taken to a hideout by a crew wearing gas masks. One of the members is revealed to be Gally, who survived being impaled by Minho's spear. He then takes them to meet Lawrence, a rebellion leader who helps Thomas, Newt, Gally and Frypan enter the last city. Gally takes Thomas and Newt on a city tour and after spotting Teresa, tells Thomas that he can get them into WICKED Headquarters. Newt then shows Thomas that he is infected, promising to cure him. Thomas and Gally capture Teresa disguised as Wicked soldiers. They escort her inside WICKED Headquarters and toward the location of the Immunes. Gali looks after the Immune Children and stays to find a serum that slows the Flare. Thomas, Teresa, and Newt go to find Minho, but are discovered and chased by Janson. Teresa lets them escape to find Minho before going to do a blood test on Thomas, Blood obtained when she was removing trackers from the Gladers. After delivering the Immune children and the serum to Brenda, Gally returns to WICKED Headquarters to find Thomas. Brenda is forced to flee with the Immune Children to avoid capture. Thomas and Newt reunite with Minho and escape from the Wicked building. Teresa discovers that Thomas blood can cure the Flare. She shares her discovery with wicked's leader, Ava Page, who agrees they must find Thomas. Brenda and the Immune children escape WICKED with Frypan's help. Meanwhile, Lawrence rallies his rebels outside the city before sacrificing himself to blow a hole in the wall, allowing his allies and the infected people to storm the city. Gally saves Thomas, Newt and Minho from WICKED soldiers while Minho and Gally go to get their serum from Brenda. Thomas gets a pendant from Newt before he passes out. Teresa transmits her voice throughout the city and tells Thomas that his blood can save Newt if he returns to wicked. Nearly consumed by the flare, Newt regains consciousness and attacks, then begs Thomas to kill him. When he refuses, Newt fatally stabs himself with his own knife. Thomas returns to the WICKED facility and confronts Paige, while Paige talks with Thomas. Janson, who is also infected by the Flare, kills her and sedates him. Teresa successfully removes some of his blood when she hears that Janson is only interested in curing himself and others he deems worthy. Teresa knocks him out and frees Thomas. Thomas then fights with Janson and releases two Kranks who kill him. With the building on fire, Thomas and Teresa escape to the roof and she gives him the cure. The rest of the team arrives on a berg. Teresa helps an injured Thomas on board, but the building collapses and she falls to her death. The group Escapes with the rest of the immunes to a safe haven island where the remaining population can live safely and rebuild civilization. Thomas discovers that Newt's pendant has a note in it asking him to look after everyone and thanking him for being his friend.
• 5:56
  Speaker A: There you go. That was a brief summary of the film. Now we're gonna get into and break down all of the differences between the book and the film, starting with all the stuff we thought. What's better in the book you like to read?
• 6:13
  Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read. What do you like to read? Everything. So one of the first things we kind of tackle in the book is they call it removing the swipe.
• 6:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. The swipe apparently was the memory blocking procedure they did when they put them in the maze.
• 6:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. So some of the Gladers and the other people who were in the maze trials do get their memories back. They decide to do it.
• 6:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. They give them an option. Yeah, kind of.
• 6:46
  Speaker B: And then they go back on it, like almost immediately.
• 6:49
  Speaker A: Which is a recurring motif in this book.
• 6:51
  Speaker B: Yes. So, like, our main characters, Thomas, Minho and Newt don't get their memories back, but a bunch of the other people do. And I thought that could have been an interesting twist in the movie maybe.
• 7:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, it could have been. Potentially. I. I thought that was. The book doesn't really do anything super interesting with it. In fact, I found it frustrating because all it ends up doing is it seemingly is part of the motivation behind Teresa deciding not to help Wicked. But it all kind of. That all kind of happens off.
• 7:28
  Speaker B: Off page, if you will.
• 7:30
  Speaker A: Like in a way that I thought was super vague and annoying. So them getting their memories back didn't do a lot for me, especially because we don't get. It's not like it gets recounted, you know, like what they remember doesn't seem.
• 7:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, we don't really learn anything.
• 7:45
  Speaker A: We don't learn like anything super interesting about what they remembered or anything like that. And so I didn't do a lot for me, but it was at least somewhat interesting. The idea of it was initially somewhat interesting in the book, but I just found it annoying that we never. It never seemingly goes anywhere interesting.
• 8:04
  Speaker B: Speaking of the chips, I guess.
• 8:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. In the movie, they also have these chips in their brain in the movie. But in the book they do all kinds of stuff. In the movie they seemingly are just like trackers basically.
• 8:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like tracking devices. And in the book they also. There's like a memory blocking thing and a tracking thing and a.
• 8:27
  Speaker A: A body controlling thing and a psychic connection thing for some people. For some People, if they learn how to use it.
• 8:36
  Speaker B: The ones who are special enough, I guess.
• 8:38
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 8:39
  Speaker B: But one thing that I thought was interesting in the book is that when they get to Denver, which I guess is the same as the Last City. It's never called Denver in the movie, but in the book they go to Denver.
• 8:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, they call it the Last City because there's a slight difference there, which we'll discuss later.
• 8:57
  Speaker B: But yeah, so they go to this guy who like deactivates these chips that they all have. Former Wiccan scientists too.
• 9:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Speaker B: And what I thought was interesting is that when they try to do it to Thomas, his has like a fail safe that basically hijacks his body and makes him fight to try and stop them from taking it out.
• 9:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I thought that scene was kind of fun in the book and I thought it would be a fun scene in the movie because he is the entire time like, conscious and like, doesn't want to be doing this, but he can't stop himself from like trying to like, fight them or whatever. It was an interesting scene in the book. I thought it was pretty fun. I understand why they never in there. Because this. The. The mind control.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. They didn't set that up.
• 9:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's not in. It's not a thing in the movies, so I get why it's not in there. But I agree. I thought that scene was fun in the book. A little thing that I thought was some small world building stuff in the book that I thought was pretty compelling that the movie kind of alludes to but doesn't go into quite as much detail on is that in Denver, AKA the Last City, is. It's discussed that when they get there, they find out pretty quickly. I think Galley tells them or somebody that a lot of the city officials in Denver are actually infected and are covering up the fact that they have the. The flare by using Bliss, which is. Bliss is not in the movie at all. I don't believe Bliss is just a drug that essentially zonks you out. Like, it's. It's basically what the name says is Bliss. It. It basically. It's some sort of downer.
• 10:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, they say that it like slows your brain activity, which also slows the.
• 10:42
  Speaker A: Virus down because the virus attacks your brain and it attacks it faster and destroys your brain faster. The more you're like using your brain, I guess, or the more like active you are. And so Bliss, like, is like a super downer. It's supposed to be like meth or something. I. I don't Know, heroin or something similar to that. That basically like knocks you into a semi lucid state where they. People that are on it just kind of sit there, like zoned out basically. But it helps the infection from not spreading as quick. But I thought it was in the book they go into the details of the fact that the flare is actually in the city and is already infecting a lot of people and it's being covered up. And then the Right Arm thinks that actually a lot of like, basically every major city is like inflected by the flare. Because in the book it's not just the last city. There's. Which I guess there could be in the movie. And they just still call this the last city. I don't know. But in the movie it's implied that this is like the last remaining stronghold of humans or whatever. Whereas in the book they say there's lots of cities. And I just like that idea that a lot of the people are. That this disease is kind of running rampant in the cities and it's like not. It's basically being brushed under the rug and kind of hidden from the people and they're pretending everything is fine when it's not. Again, that movie alludes to that with a scene later in the movie where Ava says, like, it's already in the city and already inside the walls and people are infected. I just thought the book did a little bit better job of kind of expanding on that.
• 12:19
  Speaker B: There's a scene like, shortly after they get to Denver where they go to like a coffee shop. More on that later. Where there's a guy who's on Bliss and then these people show up to like apprehend him because he's infected. And like, I don't think they're technically the police. They call them something else in the book.
• 12:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. And eventually I think it's revealed that they're essentially like bounty hunters kind of.
• 12:46
  Speaker B: But for like, in all intents and.
• 12:48
  Speaker A: Purposes they seem to be acting as.
• 12:49
  Speaker B: They seem to be cops.
• 12:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker B: And I like, I read that scene and I was like, well, if nothing else, James Dashner got cops, right?
• 12:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because the main cop is super sadistic about like, the fact that they get to like, when they find this guy who is on Bliss because he's infected, when they figure out he's infected, they use this device to quarantine him essentially. And it seems to be a particularly not pleasant experience. And the cop is enjoying doing this.
• 13:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's super into it.
• 13:24
  Speaker A: So. Yeah, got that part right. There's a little Detail in the book when they're walking through Denver. I don't remember where they're going. They're going from one place to another in the city. And at one point they walk past this, like, abandoned lot. And this is after stuff has started to degrade quite a bit, I think. But not like at the final part where the city's like, overrun. And they just. They come across this guy that they see from a distance in this lot or this field in the city. And he appears to be like, hunched over, digging at something. And then as they pass him, he turns. He stands up and like, hears them or whatever and turns and looks at them like with this crazy look on his face. And he's a crank or whatever. And then it turns and then he like, holds his hands up and his hands are covered in blood.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:12
  Speaker A: And they realize or assume that he's probably like not digging something, but is like ripping apart a person to eat them or something like that, or an animal or whatever. And I thought that was a creepy scene.
• 14:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, that would have been a creepy detail.
• 14:29
  Speaker A: You had this in better in the movie that they cut this out. I actually thought this was kind of interesting. An interesting bit of world building that was more interesting than a lot of the world building that this book series does, which is that after Newt gets infected in the book, they leave him on the burg while they go into Denver. When they get back, he's missing and they find a note that says that somebody took him somewhere. And they figure out that where he was taken was a place called the Crank Palace. And they go there and it is this facility, a city, small town or whatever, that the government built back in the day to give the infected a somewhat normal and relatively nice place to live, like while they were infected. Like a quarantine zone, essentially. And I thought that was at least interesting. But it has since become this crazy, lawless wasteland because all of the people there have lost their minds, essentially. And also the book kind of addresses the idea of, like, if you have a whole group of people who know that they're, you know, hurtling towards madness and death, like, that town kind of becomes a lawless nightmare because nobody there has any long term goals or you know what I mean? And so it's. And I thought that was at least interesting and kind of, again, a little bit of compelling world building. I'm not necessarily missing it in the movie, but I thought it was interesting.
• 15:58
  Speaker B: No, I agree. It's compelling world building. It is more interesting than a lot of the other World building that we get. I was just fine with skipping it.
• 16:09
  Speaker A: I agree. I think it would have been too protracted of a sequence to include in the film and would have taken a lot of. Yeah, I think I'm fine with skipping it, but I kind of thought it was interesting.
• 16:21
  Speaker B: There's one point when they're in Denver, when they're in a van driving. I think they're with somebody from the Right Arm.
• 16:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, they're with Morris. Lawrence drives. Because Lawrence is a different character. They use the name.
• 16:34
  Speaker B: I forgot that his name was Lawrence.
• 16:36
  Speaker A: They used Lawrence in the movie to play a slightly different character or relatively a largely different character in the movie. But there is a Lawrence in the book who works for the Right Arm. He's a member of the Right Arm.
• 16:49
  Speaker B: So they're driving through this van and they get attacked by a big group of cranks. And there's one description of one of them jumps on top of the van while it's driving. And the description of, like, this woman's face starting to creep down from the top of the windshield, just, like, grinning at them.
• 17:09
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: And I thought that was pretty spooky.
• 17:12
  Speaker A: Yes. The imagery that that moment evoked was incredibly creepy of her face, like, sliding down from the top of the windshield, staring into the car, like, grinning at them, was, again, very evocative and very creepy. And I was surprised they didn't do that because it would have been plenty of opportunities for something like that to happen. They even drive a car through a bunch of crap. Like, you could have done that. And I was surprised they didn't, because I thought that scene. I had the exact same note. I thought that was a creepy moment.
• 17:43
  Speaker B: So in the book, part of the Right Arm's big plan is to get somebody into Wicked's main facility. And they have this device that they're going to plant that neutralizes all of their weapons because all their weaponry runs on the same, like, AI system or.
• 18:04
  Speaker A: Something along those lines. And they have an engineer who previously worked for Wicked who is going to be able to do this because they designed all the weapons or was involved in designing all the weapons.
• 18:13
  Speaker B: And I agree with your note here that it was, like, too easy.
• 18:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, my note was that, like, I thought it was going to be a big thing, him, like, planting that.
• 18:21
  Speaker B: Right. I thought they were going to, like, find it.
• 18:23
  Speaker A: He's going to try to get it away or he's going to have to do, you know, like, it's got to go into a spot specific part of the building that's, like, Heavily guarded or something. But no, he literally just like, I gotta go to the bathroom.
• 18:34
  Speaker B: They don't even search his bag when he comes.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: Don't even search his bag. He. He's like, I gotta pee. They're like, okay. He walks into the bathroom and then just turns it on and sets it, like on a shelf on the top of a shelf. And apparently that works. Yeah, that's it. I was like, well, that was very easy.
• 18:50
  Speaker B: And the only, like, the only reason that I put it in here was that I thought it felt like a real thing that could actually happen. Yeah, like, it felt a little more grounded to me than some of the other stuff in the book.
• 19:04
  Speaker A: Another thing that I thought was super annoying about that, and maybe I'm just forgetting is like, I don't remember a moment in the movie or in the book where later when they are like, all the attack is happening where we see that play out that is true. Where like, somebody comes to attack them and tries to shoot them and their guns. Don't you know what I mean? Like anything like that. We assume that it did work because eventually there's a big face off between Thomas and Jansen and some of his guys, and it is like a fist fight. They all just have melee weapons, so we assume their weapons don't work anymore. That's why they're using melee weapons. But, boy, it would have made sense to me to have a moment where they run around the corner and there's some guards there or some wicked people there or whatever, and they raise their guns to shoot at them and then it doesn't work and they're like, haha. You know what I mean? That's like. That's what you do with that. Why would you.
• 19:58
  Speaker B: No, I agree. I agree. This book, these books are full of things that are set up and not paid off.
• 20:03
  Speaker A: It's just like, okay, but this, my.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: Next note is not one of those things.
• 20:09
  Speaker A: True. So this is a payoff that didn't need a payoff in my opinion.
• 20:12
  Speaker B: I mean.
• 20:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. I don't disagree with it being in there necessarily, but.
• 20:17
  Speaker B: So it's set up in the first two books that Newt. One, he has a limp, which he.
• 20:25
  Speaker A: Doesn'T in the movie. I don't.
• 20:26
  Speaker B: I don't think so.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Maybe I can't remember.
• 20:28
  Speaker B: And two, we know that he has some kind of backstory in the maze of, like, how he got that limp. And it's like a traumatizing backstory.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't remember that.
• 20:40
  Speaker B: But so. And then we find out finally in this book that the reason he has a limp is because when he was in the maze, like, before Thomas got there, he tried to kill himself by throwing a. Himself off of one of the maze walls.
• 20:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which again, I thought was fine. It's, you know, finally giving us that answer. Okay, I'm okay with it. It did crack me up that he starts this conversation off by literally saying, you want to know how I got this limp? And I couldn't help but think of the Joker from the dark. You want to know how I got these scars?
• 21:13
  Speaker B: I mean, he's pretty far gone at that point.
• 21:15
  Speaker A: That's true. Yeah.
• 21:16
  Speaker B: Joker esque.
• 21:17
  Speaker A: That's true. Yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: A little moment that made me laugh. When Thomas goes to Wicked at the end and they're like, gonna take his brain out.
• 21:30
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 21:31
  Speaker B: So they have him. They've given him a sedative or whatever that paralyzes him, and they have him strapped to a gurney. And then at one point, they're running with him down the halls and whoever's pushing the gurney loses control of it and he's just careening through the halls of witchcraft in on an out of control gurney.
• 21:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Speaker B: And that did make me laugh.
• 21:55
  Speaker A: It would have been a great comedy beat. I don't think it would have fit tonally in the end of the movie, but it would have been a great comedy beat for sure.
• 22:03
  Speaker B: Another thing that I thought was interesting then this is kind of a payoff.
• 22:09
  Speaker A: Kind of. I thought it was personally a little shoehorned in to, like, why this happens, but it's fine.
• 22:17
  Speaker B: So part of the reason that Thomas goes back into Wicked and, like, turns himself in or, like, pretends he's turning himself in is because he wants to get the other immunes out.
• 22:30
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: The people that they have kidnapped to start.
• 22:33
  Speaker A: Wicked has been kidnapping people to start their trials over again, essentially, is what they say. Yeah.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: And he finds out that Wicked is holding them all in the maze.
• 22:43
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 22:44
  Speaker B: So we have to go back to the maze.
• 22:46
  Speaker A: We literally have to go back into the maze. And I thought it's like, fine. Like, you know, like, okay, give us a reason to go back to the maze for the final book. Like, I don't hate that idea. I thought it was a little convoluted. And they never explained why they're holding them in the maze. They have dorms and stuff. Like, I don't understand. I guess it's more secure. Like, it's maybe. I guess.
• 23:10
  Speaker B: I mean, they do say at one point that they don't need to put guards there because you can't get out.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: Right. I guess that could be it. Yeah. But can't they get out because the maze is not on? Like, the maze seemingly is disabled. Because when they get to the maze, again, like the fake environment is all turned off and so. Because they can seemingly see the Griever hole. True. That's true. So I guess they're stuck there. Yeah, that could make sense, I guess. I guess that makes sense. But yeah, I enjoyed. I did have this as a better. The specifically the, like them having to fight the Grievers again at the end, I thought was fun. I was kind of surprised the movie didn't do that.
• 23:48
  Speaker B: I mean, I. I at the very least appreciated that some of that stuff came back at the end.
• 23:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, I thought. Yeah, it was fine. Again, I just thought getting us there felt a little convoluted. Not convoluted, but just like.
• 24:01
  Speaker B: Not half as convoluted as some of the other stuff.
• 24:04
  Speaker A: No, not. Not at all. Not at all.
• 24:07
  Speaker B: Another thing that was paid off was the flat trans. We get another flat trans moment at the end of this book.
• 24:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I. Again, I was like, it's. Yeah, it's a call. It's a thing we saw in the second one. But I preferred the movie's version of just having the right arm have a plan that involved sailing them to the safe haven, essentially, as opposed to this deus ex flat trans that we get at the end.
• 24:34
  Speaker B: Right.
• 24:35
  Speaker A: But it is at least a callback to a thing.
• 24:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, and I. I honestly agree with you. I think the movie's iteration of that is better. Okay, but in a series with so many elements that are introduced but not paid off.
• 24:48
  Speaker A: That's fair.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: I appreciated that this actually did come back around and matter.
• 24:53
  Speaker A: That is. That's fair. That's totally fair.
• 24:55
  Speaker B: There's a super late reveal, like in the epilogue and like Ava Page's last epilogue letter, that the flare virus was actually released on purpose.
• 25:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:07
  Speaker B: As population control, which I thought was moderately.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: It was at least like kind of interesting.
• 25:13
  Speaker B: But it also doesn't matter.
• 25:14
  Speaker A: Yes. Because the final page of the book.
• 25:17
  Speaker B: Kind of interesting.
• 25:18
  Speaker A: It's like, oh, okay, sure. Yeah. Again, I. Yeah, I felt the same. I was like, oh, it's kind of interesting. Which felt like something you could have done more with if you introduced that idea earlier or something. But whatever. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:32
  Speaker B: And my last note here is. I think the only thing I wrote down about the movie, which was that it was fun, but it is literally just non stop action.
• 25:42
  Speaker A: It's pretty much nonstop action, which is.
• 25:44
  Speaker B: Not a problem necessarily.
• 25:47
  Speaker A: I will say that I think, though, that because you said you had your second part was there very few quiet moments. And that's true. But I still think even still the quiet moments work so much better in the movie.
• 25:59
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 26:00
  Speaker A: That it doesn't. That it almost didn't feel like, to me, like the. It was non stop action necessarily, because the moments that were kind of slow and quiet were so much better than what was in the book. That it. It made it.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: Listen, we have to have some things in this segment.
• 26:18
  Speaker A: I guess that is the end of it. We did get through that in about 10 minutes, so. Yeah, you're not wrong there. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. It is a lot of action, but it was fun action. I enjoyed it, so it was fun. All right, well, we're gonna get into that and all of the things we liked about the movie and better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would.
• 26:45
  Speaker B: Happy endings only happen in the movies.
• 26:48
  Speaker A: So my first handful of notes here are just all stuff from the beginning of the book that I found annoying that don't make it into the movie. That's like my first notes here.
• 26:55
  Speaker B: I, like, found every single word of this book annoying.
• 26:57
  Speaker A: It's very true. There's a moment early on where in the book Thomas is locked in like a padded room for like three weeks. And eventually Jansen, the Rat man comes in and starts explaining some stuff. And at one point he starts to explain some stuff, but he also isn't explaining stuff in the most infuriating way possible.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: A good sum up of these books, honestly.
• 27:23
  Speaker A: Yes. And. But there's this line that happened during that SC scene where. Or this moment happens during that scene, Ratman side. You don't understand. You don't understand what I came in here to tell you. Yes, obviously that shit. And it happens constantly in the book where characters go, you just don't get it. And it's like, no. And I don't either, because Explain, please explain. You will never explain anything. It's so annoying. And there's a similar moment, like, right after that somewhere. It might even been like the same conversation where Thomas, I think, thinks to himself, what was the point of even having a conversation when words couldn't be trusted? Because he's talking about how, like, everything with Wicked that they say you can't trust it. And I, I was like, you know, if you replace the. The words having a conversation with the words reading A book. This becomes very meta. What's the point of even reading a book when words couldn't be trusted? Because that's how I felt reading this whole series. Another moment in the book that was cracking me up because it just felt like Dashner outright. So much of this first part of this felt like Dashner. Kind of like lampshading or trying to address notes from people and like criticisms of the book. Because at one point, this is during the conversation with Jansen. Thomas wanted to cut the man with harsh words, but he held back. How does torturing us lead to this blueprint you're talking about? What could sending a bunch of unwilling teenagers to terrible places, watching some of them die, what could that possibly have to do with finding a cure for some disease? And I was like, Thomas is just asking the questions that we were all wondering. And again, just the infuriating response. It has everything in the world to do with it. Ratman sighed heavily. Boy, soon you'll remember everything. And I have a feeling you're going to regret a lot. In the meantime, there's something you need to know. It might even bring you back to your senses. And what's that? Thomas said. The Flare virus lives in every part of your body, yet it has no effect on you, nor will it ever. You're a member of an extremely rare group of people. You're immune to the flare. And it's just like, didn't we know that kind of already?
• 29:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, I thought we did.
• 29:36
  Speaker A: It's just. And I may be confusing the book with the movies and it's hard to. But it's just so infuriating. Also the reveal in this one early on that because it made no sense early on when we find out WICKED stands for World In World World in Catastrophe. Catastrophe. Kill Kill Zone Examination or Kill Zone Experiment.
• 29:59
  Speaker B: Kill Zone Kill Zone Experiment Department or something like that. Something like that.
• 30:04
  Speaker A: Which is a terrible wonky ass acronym acronym. But we find out in this one because we're wondering, like, what the hell does Kill Zone Experiment Department mean? And it turns out that because they say they need to find a blueprint for the kill zone or something like constantly.
• 30:21
  Speaker B: Like they keep saying that in the second.
• 30:23
  Speaker A: In the second book.
• 30:24
  Speaker B: And we're like mapping the kill zone.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: Kill zone. You're like, what does that mean? Is that the maze or what? And it's so clear that he did not have a plan for this. Because in this one it is revealed that what Kill zone means is the brain. The kill zone is the brain.
• 30:37
  Speaker B: It's like the part of the brain that the.
• 30:39
  Speaker A: No, it's just the brain, period.
• 30:40
  Speaker B: I thought it was.
• 30:41
  Speaker A: No, no, it's because. It's because the virus affects the brain. Yes, the kill zone is the brain, because that is what the virus affects. So it's the kills. It's so like, oh, my God. I couldn't get over how just like retconned of an answer that is of just like. Well, see, the virus affects the brain and it kills the brain. So that means the brain is the kill zone. But also plenty of other times in the series to this point, I feel pretty confident people have talked about examining their brain patterns or stuff like that and not said kills. It just. I. There's no way that wasn't a. Just a retcon, like straight, like, scrambling to make Wicked makes sense in connection with the virus. It's.
• 31:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the whole thing feels like a scramble to make it make sense at the end.
• 31:42
  Speaker A: Well, and there's another note here. Thomas literally thinks to himself, wicked must be part of this whole game. Like the name Wicked must be part of this whole game. A name with obvious menace. But we're told it's good. And it's like, it's just all of the criticisms of the hack ass writing from the first two books being like, but actually it's not. I had a. I had a plan the whole time. It's like, come on, man.
• 32:10
  Speaker B: My first note in this section is about the movie.
• 32:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, that. Yeah, that was also my first note before I got all these in there.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: Because I really enjoyed the opening of this movie. It opens with a big action set piece, a big train heist, and I, you know, a little Mad Max esque action never hurts.
• 32:29
  Speaker A: You say Mad Max mask. Mad Max esque. George Miller might be able to sue the director of this movie. The. They just straight up rip off a lot of shots and moments from Fury Road. Like, Fury Road came out like a year or two before this movie. And like right before this movie was in production and 100%, they watched Fury Road and were like, let's just do that for the opening action sequence. And I will say, not mad about it. If you're gonna rip something, rip off one of the best movies of the last 30 years. And they do a pretty good job. It is a good action sequence, all things considered. It's a lot of fun. There's a handful. One of the opening shots we see is Jorge and Brenda's car, like, parked on in the desert or whatever, which is like the exact opening shot of Fury Road. With Mad Max's car parked, it's like Fury Road. It's like the same framing and then the way the cameras are moving around the cars and the audio. So much of this opening action sequence was just taking all of their favorite bits from Fury Road. And again, not mad about it, they do a pretty good job and it makes that movie's awesome. So it makes for a good opening sequence. But holy. I was like, that is just. We're just doing Fury Road. Also, we talked about in the prequel that during this filming, this opening action sequence is when Dylan o' Brien got injured. He got like severely injured falling off a car.
• 34:05
  Speaker B: They had to pause production.
• 34:06
  Speaker A: They had to pause production for a year for him to recover. And the moment that happened was supposedly where he's standing on a car to jump onto the train, which we see in the movie. And I also read a note in the prequel that said that they used the take where he got hurt in the movie. But I couldn't figure out watching the movie which moment that would have been. Because the take where we actually see him jump off the car, he lands on the train.
• 34:32
  Speaker B: Maybe he fell off the train and went under. Because he went under the car. Was the thing something like.
• 34:38
  Speaker A: I don't remember the exact. They. I don't know if they have the. What I read was that yes, at one point, there was one point they said he fell under a vehicle. At another point it said he just. There wasn't super detailed specifics of what happened. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was on the train and then fell off or something. I don't know. But I couldn't figure out like what take it would have been. There wasn't an obvious moment to me where it's like, oh, they cut that before the moment he falls in their car. I don't know. I'm sure they must have, but. Because I don't know why they would lie about that. Well, I couldn't know why they would lie about that. Just for marketing. But like in interviews just be like, oh yeah, we use it like, I don't know. But I. I just couldn't figure out which take it was. So they did a good job. I. Because I couldn't figure out where. Where it was. My thought was that it was one of the. We see a take where he's climbing onto the hood and then it cuts to a close up of something else. Then it cuts back and we see him jump onto the train. My thought was maybe that scene where he's climbing onto the hood at Some point during there he fell off and that's when the accident happened. And then. I don't know. But anyways.
• 35:44
  Speaker B: I like that Frypan is actually in the movie.
• 35:46
  Speaker A: He gets to be a character.
• 35:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, he gets to be a whole ass character because he vanishes from the book.
• 35:52
  Speaker A: So many characters vanished from the book.
• 35:54
  Speaker B: Shortly after it starts.
• 35:56
  Speaker A: It's one of Dashner's worst skills, writing failings is his inability to maintain multiple characters. Yeah, it's just. And I get that it's written through the perspective of Thomas and from his point of view. So like he's. But it happens with so many characters where they're just. It's like they don't exist in the book. Teresa, Ava Page, Frypan and half the other. Like, it's. It's really like.
• 36:23
  Speaker B: And I think if he just doesn't. He just doesn't want to deal with those characters.
• 36:27
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:28
  Speaker B: So he writes them like leaving the main narrative.
• 36:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker B: And then coming back like at the very end.
• 36:34
  Speaker A: At the end. And moments here and there. Yeah. I thought the same thing though. It's just like. It was nice that. Yeah. Some of the background characters actually get a little bit to do and Frypen being one of them. The movie sets up that the Right Arm actually has a plan to take all of the immunes they've been rescuing. So the movie starts with like six months after the last movie ends roughly. And Thomas has been working with the Right Arm helping them like Cap, save rescue immunes who are being rounded up by Wicked and stuff like that. And they have like a handful of, you know, hundred of them or whatever at this camp that they're working or that their. Their base that they're operating out of. But they also talk about how they. They were repairing this big old shipping like ocean liner or whatever, and they're gonna. Which was too large of a ship for what they were doing, in my opinion, because that's way too difficult to drive. And you don't need a ship that large to transport like a couple hundred people. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Let's find like a big yacht or something. But. But anyways, point being they have this big ship and so it's part of their plan that they're actually planning to take all of these immunes that they're saving from Wicked and take them somewhere to kind of start a new civilization. They are planning to like Noah's Ark, all of these immunes. Whereas at the end that kind of just comes out of nowhere as a solution that Ava Page was. Had Planned secretly behind the scenes or something. And meanwhile the Right Arm becomes evil. Yeah, kind of. We'll get to that.
• 38:04
  Speaker B: The 11th and a half hour.
• 38:05
  Speaker A: So stupid. We'll get to that later. But. So I really liked setting up that this was the Right Arm's plan the whole time they have this, you know, and that's why the ending works the way it does is because this is what they've been trying to do the whole time as opposed to just being this kind of again, deus ex machina thing.
• 38:24
  Speaker B: So most of the movie takes place in the last city. And I, I liked how the city was like set up and presented to us better in the movie. So it's basically this giant fuck off wall that's hiding like a super futuristic city from the rest of the destroyed burnt out older parts of the city that are surrounding it. Yeah, I don't know if it's super unique but I think it's more interesting than the books version which is basically just a regular city that's pretty run down.
• 38:58
  Speaker A: I complet. I had the same note. And now in the book it also has at least some sort of walls because they talk about there being gates that they have right there. So there is some form of wall or something in the book. But I completely agree because the description of Denver in the book is that it seems to be just this rundown.
• 39:15
  Speaker B: I mean it's just.
• 39:16
  Speaker A: It sounds similar to like the city we saw in the second movie when they go. When they're in the scorch and see that like they go to that one crank city, you know, like where it's mostly cranks and other people. It. The book's description of Denver feels more like that to me.
• 39:32
  Speaker B: Where it's mostly like maybe like a little.
• 39:33
  Speaker A: A little nicer. Yeah. A little less destroyed but not like a lot less destroyed.
• 39:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:39
  Speaker A: And they specifically talk about how as you get further away from the wall in the mo. In the book it gets more and more run down and more and more dilapidated and then like blah blah, blah. I really like in the movie that they make Denver slash the last city, this high tech functioning but dystopian authoritarian city. Because that makes way more sense to me given Wicked's technology that we know they have. Because that was a big issue I had with the world building.
• 40:08
  Speaker B: This is a problem we've had with the world building.
• 40:10
  Speaker A: All is that they have all this crazy technology, super futuristic. They can make this huge maze that moves impossibly large walls and they have these, these bio engineered griever things. And they can scan brain patterns and they can. They have spaceships, essentially. They're not spaceships, but they're like super advanced flying ship things. All these. They have stun weapons, they have all this technology that feels very advanced. Meanwhile, seemingly the city where they're like most. And now in the book, to be fair, WICKED is not based in Denver. WICKED is somewhere else. They have their own headquarters out in the. Somewhere else in the mountain somewhere. Doesn't really matter. Point being, I really like having the idea. Yes. The idea that, hey, they have all this technology. They're hoarding it and using it just in this one city. So this one city is like relatively futuristic and quote, unquote, nice.
• 41:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, it kind of has a. Like a Blade Runner feel.
• 41:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But meanwhile, it's also very authoritarian and you can tell like, they're, they're. When they get into the city, there's like a. A police cars driving around and back.
• 41:24
  Speaker B: There'S like drones and stuff like that.
• 41:27
  Speaker A: It's very clearly like a police state. And it's. It's dystopian in its own way, but it's not just.
• 41:32
  Speaker B: It's not just a wreck.
• 41:33
  Speaker A: Dilapidated and wrecked. Which, again, makes sense, given what we know about wicked's technology and budget and finances and all that sort of stuff. Like, they should have a city that seems relatively nice.
• 41:46
  Speaker B: So this is a book detail that I took umbrage with because we learn in the Scorch trials, I think.
• 41:56
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 41:57
  Speaker B: That when the initial solar flares happened, that most of the damage was, like, around the equator.
• 42:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. Basically my idea was like, between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer into the equator.
• 42:14
  Speaker B: From the equator spreading out. We know at least the city that they go to. In the Scorch Trials, I looked this up, is supposedly Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• 42:25
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 42:26
  Speaker B: So spreading out from the equator pretty far. But then they go to Denver and they drink coffee. Oh, where are they getting coffee?
• 42:38
  Speaker A: Maybe it's fake coffee. Maybe it's instant coffee.
• 42:41
  Speaker B: Instant coffee still made of coffee. Coffee can only be grown in very specific locations. And guess what? They're all around the equator in the tropics.
• 42:51
  Speaker A: That's true. I guess the argument could be that the regions where coffee can be grown just moved. Because when the equator, you know, like the area where coffee used to be growing turns into a desert, I feel.
• 43:03
  Speaker B: Like that would take a really long time.
• 43:05
  Speaker A: I agree, I agree. But yeah, that's fair.
• 43:11
  Speaker B: I don't think James Dashner knows where coffee comes from.
• 43:14
  Speaker A: It's Very possible. I have no idea.
• 43:16
  Speaker B: Another thing that the movie does that I thought made a lot of sense was when we catch up with Theresa, she's working for Wicked. And she is, I think we are to assume like Ava Page's hand selected protege.
• 43:34
  Speaker A: It seems like it. She's working very closely with her, it would seem. Yeah. And I agree. I had the same note that I really liked getting to see Theresa working for Wicked and with Wicked. And the first one of the first scenes we see that is they are like torturing Minho to.
• 43:51
  Speaker B: To make his. Him produce antibodies.
• 43:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, to make serum. Which is what we saw in the second movie that. Because again, that's a slight difference from the movie or from the books to the movie is that in the movies they're using the people from the mazes, the immunes, to create some sort of serum that delays, kind of similar to Bliss, but like it's not. It just is like an antivirus or whatever essentially that delays the disease. Because that's what happens with Brenda at the end. They're able to produce, using Thomas's thing, a serum to delay the disease. We'll get back to that later because ends up that he's super special. But anyway, so they're torturing Minho to do this or and to like get information. I think they might even be asking him. I can't remember.
• 44:39
  Speaker B: I don't. I don't.
• 44:40
  Speaker A: Anyway, remember, it doesn't matter. They're torturing Minho. And I liked the idea that Teresa. We get to see Teresa working for Wicked, but also seeing this happening and it kind of mess, you know, giving her. Setting the foundation for her eventual path and the arc that she goes on. Because I wrote here at the beginning, like calling it now. They're going to have Teresa take Ava's role as the. The. The person who. Within Wicked who helps them escape at the end. Which is kind of what happens. Kind of. Not really. The movie takes it even more of a different direction, which we'll get to. But it really does help give her a much more complete arc. I also like the scene where she's pitching the cure to the WICKED board members and basically they want to like, maybe we can use these resources to set up more safe zones or whatever. Use the money for something else. And she's like, no, we can get a cure or whatever. Really showing that she's committed at least in the beginning to the idea of finding a cure. And not even at the beginning, through the whole thing, she's like really committed and believes that they can find a cure for this or whatever. And again, just giving us time with her to kind of see what her motivation is, because it maybe is my biggest complaint with the entire series is Theresa's writing of just. She's barely in the books after the first one, and when she is, I never know what her motivation is. And so showing us more of what she's up to, I thought, helps a ton. Also, another moment of that is that we actually see her kind of have success from what she's doing. There's this girl, young girl, who has the flare, and Theresa's testing some serum or something on her and, like, working with her and sees it seemingly helping her. And it's like that is part of what is motivating her. She genuinely does want to help people and thinks that this is the best way to do it. And we actually see that happening in the movie and why she's doing this. Even though ultimately we see that the little girl still goes. Gets the gaunt. I'm trying to use the stupid language from the book and it's messing with my head, but the disease still kills her, essentially. And so it doesn't work. But it really helps. Having seeing all of this in the movie really helps us as a viewer slash reader, understand why Theresa is doing what she's doing, why she changes her mind about stuff in the book. It all happens, like, off page. It's so infuriating. I hated it. We talked about this earlier, but in the beginning of the book, there's the moment where they're like, hey, we're gonna take the swipe away. If you want, you can get your memories back or whatever. And we have this whole lead up where they're discussing whether or not they want to do it, and they're debating forever about whether or not they actually want to, like, get their memories back. And some of the kids don't want to do it, and some of them do, and we get all this thing. And then after all that goes down and some of the people choose to get their memories back, and like Minho and Newt and Thomas and a couple others decide they don't want their memories back, Jansen just shows up and goes, surprise. Actually, you're required to get your memories back. And it's. It's that kind of thing that makes the book so exhausting to read. Because it just makes me go, well, what was the point of the past four chapters?
• 48:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:00
  Speaker A: And, like, obviously there is a point to it of, like, figuring out which of the different characters want to do what. And why? But it's.
• 48:07
  Speaker B: But. But it. But we don't, though. Because we don't. Because we don't know their motivations, what their motivations are. Some of them are like, yeah, I want to get my memories back. But we don't explore, like, why.
• 48:17
  Speaker A: And then when they do get them back, we don't hear from them what, those memories. Yes. And so it's just. It's just another one of those moments where I'm just like, what is the point of this? Like, we go through this whole big thing where they're gonna give. And it's just the exhausting nature of the constant rug pulls of just like, oh, we get it. Oh, Wicked, Evil again.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: And we're one of the main things that really solidifies my opinion that this was being made up as dashboard.
• 48:46
  Speaker A: Not much of a plan going on here. Yeah.
• 48:47
  Speaker B: Because it really is just like talking in circles until we find something.
• 48:53
  Speaker A: That's what it feels like so often and of. And like, you could kind of defend it by the idea of like, well, that's the whole idea. Is that wicked. It's like they tell them what they're going to do and then surprise, they're not. But it happens so often and so repeatedly. It just gets. It's boring and it's not interesting anymore because we've done it so many times.
• 49:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 49:10
  Speaker A: Where WICKED has said one thing and then done a different thing for the 8,000th time. And I'm just like, I don't care anymore. Like, what is this is.
• 49:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, can we move on to something else?
• 49:20
  Speaker A: Can we do something else? Anything else. This is just exhausting.
• 49:24
  Speaker B: So in the book, when Thomas and company escape from wicked, like close to the beginning of the book.
• 49:31
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 49:32
  Speaker B: They. They're like on their way out and they. I can't remember if this is confirmed by somebody or if they just surmise this that Teresa and everybody who is with her are already gone.
• 49:45
  Speaker A: Like, they already figured out somehow they.
• 49:48
  Speaker B: Yeah. That they already escaped and they left the three of them behind.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:52
  Speaker B: Thomas and Newt and Minho. But then later, when we catch back up with Teresa, Teresa claims that they were led to believe that Thomas and the others were the ones who left them behind. And like, sure. But this is never explained. Or.
• 50:13
  Speaker A: Oh, my God, I have the same fucking note.
• 50:15
  Speaker B: It doesn't matter.
• 50:17
  Speaker A: I didn't understand what the point of this was.
• 50:19
  Speaker B: There was no point.
• 50:20
  Speaker A: Well, yes, because like, that's what I wrote. I was like, apparently Teresa and her group thought Thomas, Newt and Minho had broken out.
• 50:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker A: They were told by somebody. She doesn't say who. She says, like, they told us you. And I don't know who she's talking about in that moment, but she's like, they told us you had escaped into the woods and so we went to look for you in the woods or whatever. But then they go to Denver anyways because they were able to figure out eventually by either tracking the berg. I think.
• 50:48
  Speaker B: I think they track the berg like.
• 50:49
  Speaker A: Jorge or something is able to track the berg that they took and knows that it went to Denver.
• 50:54
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:55
  Speaker A: So if they were had escaped into the woods around the base, why did they fly to Denver?
• 51:02
  Speaker B: Like. And I don't. I don't know what the point of like, is this supposed to endear me to Teresa or is it supposed to make me think she's a liar? Or is it nothing?
• 51:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, like, who told them that? And why is the idea that WICKED told. But why. Who would. WICKED would have told Teresa and her.
• 51:18
  Speaker B: And what the. Does it matter?
• 51:19
  Speaker A: What does it matter at that point? I don't get it at all. I did not understand that at all. I had the exact same. Like, what does this mean? What does this have to do? Like, what. What? I don't. What. I don't get it. I don't understand at all. And like, it does almost feel like. Like what you're saying of like, maybe it's a retcon within the own. The same book of like. Well, he wrote the scene where they leave and like they realize that Theresa and them left already.
• 51:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:48
  Speaker A: And then. But later he wants to kind of redeem Theresa. So they needed to not have just left them there. They need to have thought they were going to it. It's so I. If you under. If you read this and understood what was going on there, please explain because that shit. I felt crazy reading them. Like, what? What. Also, a completely unnecessary detail that this book introduces is the idea that Brenda and Jorge work for wicked or used to work for wicked.
• 52:20
  Speaker B: Well, they still work for wicked.
• 52:22
  Speaker A: They still work for wicked.
• 52:23
  Speaker B: And they were under contract on Thomas's side.
• 52:26
  Speaker A: Yes. Now they're like double agents.
• 52:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 52:28
  Speaker A: Whereas before they were working for Wicked and Brenda got sent into the Scorch.
• 52:32
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 52:33
  Speaker A: To.
• 52:34
  Speaker B: To be like a mole within this group.
• 52:36
  Speaker A: Yes. And then when they get back to the. When they get captured by WICKED at the beginning of this and get back to the or, I guess they were captured technically by WICKED at the end of the last book. But when they're. When they're being held by Wicked at The beginning of this book, when they go to bring Thomas in to get his memories returned. Brenda is one of the scientists who's going to do the brain memory.
• 53:01
  Speaker B: The series is full of child scientists. And you're like, wait, child brain surgeons?
• 53:05
  Speaker A: Wait, what? You're like. She was. And then during that scene, out of nowhere. And this feels completely unfounded and is never really explored why she trusts Ava. She grabs Thomas in this scene and just whispers in his ear, trust only trust me and Ava Page or something like that. And it's like, wait, okay. But.
• 53:32
  Speaker B: Well, I think. Okay, I think this actually is kind of sort of explained.
• 53:38
  Speaker A: Oh, is it? Maybe I just missed it in the book.
• 53:40
  Speaker B: So in the. I'm trying to try to find the. Yeah. In the epilogue, which is Ava Page's final Wicked memorandum, she says, with the help of my partners, two wisely placed immunes, I was able to plan and implement a solution that will result in the best outcome we could have hoped for. So my. I interpreted that as. It was Ava Page. Yeah. Brenda and Jorge were working with Ava Paige the whole time.
• 54:13
  Speaker A: They were almost like triple agents.
• 54:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 54:16
  Speaker A: So they. She. Okay, that has to be what it was. They're basically triple agents. At that point where Brenda was working for Wicked as a scientist or whatever.
• 54:27
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 54:28
  Speaker A: Wicked decided to send her into the field to keep tabs on Thomas or something like that. Because she says multiple times in this book, you know, yes, I got sent out there and, like, I lied to you about why I was out there, but I actually like you and developed really real feelings for you. Blah, blah, blah, that sort of thing. Thing. So Wicked sent her out there, but then also at the same time, she had a side plot going with Ava.
• 54:55
  Speaker B: Right. That we know nothing about. Nothing about as readers.
• 54:58
  Speaker A: As readers. That. Because Ava at this point, who to this point has been a. And I have so many notes about Ava, it's the worst. One of the most baffling writing decisions I have ever seen in anything. Ava, who's been this kind of. I don't. Faceless villain, like major villain in the series to this point, because she only shows up in the epilogue, basically, of every book.
• 55:22
  Speaker B: But to this point, she's basically been like, the big Bad.
• 55:25
  Speaker A: Yes. The big, ominous big bad lurking in the background that we think we're gonna have to deal with eventually. She has this side secret plot because she has decided that Wicked has gotten away from its actual mission and has been corrupted by Jansen and other people within Wicked and they're taking it too far or whatever. And so she is running this side mission with. With Brenda and Jorge to help Thomas.
• 55:54
  Speaker B: Get the rest. Get the rest of the immunes to this safe haven.
• 55:57
  Speaker A: But all of that includes them being captured by Wicked at some. It's. Yeah, it's so.
• 56:05
  Speaker B: Well, I don't. Yeah, I don't know. Because her. Ava page's big plan at the end doesn't work unless Thomas turns himself in.
• 56:16
  Speaker A: Yes. Yes. Yeah. What was the plan if he didn't turn himself? I don't know.
• 56:27
  Speaker B: Search me. Jesus.
• 56:28
  Speaker A: Did Brenda, Did Bryn? But did Brendan know? I don't know if we even know that. No, she must have known because that's what the epilogue says, is that Brendan knew about. Out. Must have known about the whole plan with the flat trends and stuff, but just never mentions it to Thomas, I guess. Why? I don't know. Why would she never.
• 56:44
  Speaker B: I don't know. Like, especially, like, at this point in the narrative. She should be like us, like, before he goes in to Wicked to like, turn himself in, quote, unquote. She should be like, hey, hey, by the way.
• 56:58
  Speaker A: By the way, this plan. Because at that point they're together, right? I'm not crazy. Like, yeah, she's with. With.
• 57:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:04
  Speaker A: I'm trying to remember what happens in the book versus the movie. Like, when he goes to turn himself in, where are they? And like, what are they?
• 57:10
  Speaker B: They're with the Right Arm.
• 57:11
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 57:12
  Speaker B: And she's. She's with him. She doesn't go with him. Like, it's just him in the pilot when they drop him off to go back into Wicked. But she's there right before that. She, like, stays behind with the Right Arm and all of the immune people that they have.
• 57:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't she tell him, hey, by the way?
• 57:34
  Speaker B: Because James Dashner didn't know.
• 57:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. It just feels like. What? Oh, my God, it's so. It's so. It's a mess.
• 57:44
  Speaker B: Speaking of mess.
• 57:45
  Speaker A: Anyways, point being, I love that the movie doesn't make Brenda and Jorge be part of Wicked Undercover.
• 57:50
  Speaker B: None of that. They can. They can just be cool rebels.
• 57:53
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
• 57:55
  Speaker B: God. Okay, my next thing here. This might have been the thing that I hated the most of all.
• 58:03
  Speaker A: In this book, I had a similar initial reaction.
• 58:07
  Speaker B: So in the events of the Maze Runner at the end, Chuck jumps in front of Thomas as Gally is about to shoot him, sacrificing himself.
• 58:19
  Speaker A: Flash, throw a knife in the book.
• 58:21
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he does throw a knife in the book. That's right. So Chuck sacrifices himself to save Thomas, which has been this major source of motivation for Thomas.
• 58:31
  Speaker A: He wants to make sure that Chuck's sacrifice was not in vain.
• 58:35
  Speaker B: And then in this book we find out that Wicked actually forced Chuck.
• 58:45
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 58:45
  Speaker B: They mind controlled Chuck to move in front of Thomas, which wildly changes the scene from the first book. And I hate it so much.
• 58:58
  Speaker A: I had the exact same initial reaction. My initial reaction reading that was, oh my God, why would you make that change? They forced Chuck to take this knife for Thomas. Why would they do that? I was like, because that completely changes. Like, Chuck saving him makes sense and it works. But then I thought about it and I'm like, okay, but in the movies, in the, in the book's narrative, it. Wicked would not have known that Chuck was going to. If Chuck had done that of his own volition. Because in the book galley throws the knife at Thomas.
• 59:43
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 59:44
  Speaker A: To try to kill Thomas. And ultimately what this all is is that, that Chuck dying is part of one of the brain pattern things they need to get from Thomas. So Chuck has to die in that moment. But they didn't. They wouldn't know that. Chuck would. Of his own. They couldn't ensure, I guess, that of his own volition, Chuck would jump in front of the knife. So they have to make him move in front of the knife. And like, I guess it's. It kind of makes sense in that regard of like, if this is all part of. But this gets, gets back to the, the whole mess of what this narrative is of. Like the, the underlying nonsense of all of this needing to play out the way it does in order to figure out a cure for a disease is so stupid that like, you have to invent all of these nonsense scenarios and then retcon them to make sense within the larger framework of Wicked's plan. Because it's this most convoluted plan in the history of the world that. So you have to do like this because again, if they didn't force Chuck to move and they didn't know for sure that he would, and they. How could they know for sure that he would. They were risking Thomas just dying. Yeah, but I agree that it's stupid because it turns into this weird, like, retconned slight on Chuck's character. And yeah, completely undercuts the emotion of that moment. And like, what Chuck. Who Chuck was and what he did and why.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker B: Well, and like, and it's stupid too, because then we're. We're undercutting Thomas's entire motivation for everything that he's been doing from that point onward. But we never address that, so it doesn't matter.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree it's dumb. I agree. It's just the whole thing's dumb again, because the whole premise is dumb. So it. It kind of necessitates dumb like this where it's like. You have to like figure out. Okay, so if I want wicked's plan to be that the whole thing is orchestrated to. To make brain. To. To simulate every possible brain pattern.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker A: So that we can somehow map his brain to cure a disease or something, then we have. Then we. We need. And part of that needs to be that his best friend dies. We have to ensure that best friend is going to die. But. But part of that also needs to be that it seems like the best friend dies saving Thomas. Like, that's a big part of it. Of what motivates that moment, is that Thomas needs to think Chuck tried to died saving him and not just died. Because the way to fix that is just have Gally throw the knife at Chuck and kill him.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker A: And that's a similar moment. But no, no, we need it specifically to be the. It's just. It's just. It's just. It's convoluted nonsense and you can't make it make sense. And what you have to do is this nonsense where you retcon stuff to make it somewhat track with the larger plot and you. I don't know. It's stupid. I hate.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, stupid. I. I liked the ways that the movie incorporated some of the book sci fi elements because we see in the movie that they're. They're making Minho like see things that aren't there.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. He has like a nightmare basically where he like while they're testing him or.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker B: Whatever, which they do talk about in the book, but it doesn't really like come up a whole lot.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker B: And then there's the scene where Ava offers to get rid of some of Teresa's memories of Thomas.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker A: I really liked that scene so that.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker B: It'S not like distracting to her.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, I like that scene a lot because she offers that and then Teresa refuses and wants to keep them, which again is a nice little character moment for Theresa and helps explain and motivate her ultimate character arc. So. Yeah, I completely agree. One of the details in the book that I thought was super dumb that drove me crazy. And was it. It doesn't backfire, I guess. Or maybe it does. I can't remember. Is that when they get to Denver in the book, they give the person at the gate all of Their first real first names, but then fake last names.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker B: Fake last names. Which was also funny to me because half of them don't even know their last names.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker A: But I was like, boy, you're really banking on the ultimate evil sci fi corporation that runs your world not having a way to like query the info of people arriving in one of the major cities. Because so Wicked is like this all powerful Omni. You have little robots and shit everywhere that can spy on people. And they. Again, they have the technology to build this massive underground cave maze system that.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker B: They do, and the flat train and.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker A: The flat trans where they teleport and all this sort of stuff. But you're apparently not worried that if four new people arrive in one of the major cities in the country and give the four names of four of the people they're looking for, that won't like pop up in a registry somewhere and like, they'll get like a Google alert, like, hey, by the way, four people named Thomas, Minho, Jorge and Brenda just showed up in Denver.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker B: It must be a coincidence. They have different last names, so it must be.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, they got different last names.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker B: It must be a coincidence.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker A: I was like, what the fuck? Oh my God, it's so stupid. Why would they not use real or fake just fake names? I don't get it.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's not like they ask them for an id.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker A: So stupid. A little moment in the movie that I really liked is at one point they're discussing they need to get Teresa so that they can get into WICKED Headquarters. And because they're kind of figuring out what they're gonna. How they're gonna solve this whole problem, they need Teresa to get into Wicked headquarters. And they're discussing this plan and they're like, well, I don't really like working the idea of working with Teresa. And Brenda goes, isn't this the same girl that betrayed us? The same dick or bitch or something like that. And Gally just goes, I like her. And I thought that was funny because he also hates Theresa.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker B: Speaking of Theresa, though, I thought that having her be the one who takes the tracking chips out of them was good instead of introducing an entirely new character who vanishes immediately after that scene and no longer matters.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker A: Completely agree. I thought Hans was a fun character in the book, but. But I much preferred having Teresa take the trackers out. Totally makes sense. Totally. She's a scientist who's been working for Wicked. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, have her do it. Also, I like them kidnapping Teresa and that being like an active thing and then bringing her in that way. And in the book she's just kind of like.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker B: She just like shows back up at the end. She's just is like there.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker A: She's just a passenger in the book, like at all times in a way that is completely mind boggling for what is seemingly one of the main characters of the book. She's just like, not in most of the books, which is really weird. Also, during this surgery in the book, a detail that I'm including here because we talked about how the previous movies have left out the idea or the fact that Thomas and Teresa and Eris could all communicate telepathically with each other. And we're like, why would the movies leave that out? See, surely that's going to be an important thing at some point. And of course it's not, because in this one, that is part of what gets removed is that they take. When they take the chips out or turn them off or whatever, it turns off their ability to psychically communicate.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker A: So for this entire book, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker B: It doesn't matter. It never mattered.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker A: It never really mattered. Other than like occasionally giving us some exposition between them in their heads. But yeah, yeah. Another detail in the book that made no sense to me in. In the scene where he gets arrested by the cop guy is Thomas is just suddenly an idiot. Out of nowhere. It's like, what the fuck is that? Thomas has never been.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker B: He just offers all of the information up front.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker A: He's sitting in the coffee shop and they realize that one of the people in the coffee shop is infected and is on blitz and every. Or Bliss and everybody else in the coffee shop, like, runs out when they realize that this is happening. But Thomas does wasn't because he's. I was like, okay, fine, sure, he's immune. So he knows he's. It's fine. But then the cop guy is like, hey, what are you doing here? And he's like, oh. And he's like, what's your name? He's like, I'm Thomas. And he's like, what are you doing here? He's like, I'm immune. It's like, why are you.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker B: Why are you offering information?
• 1:08:36
  Speaker A: All this stuff? And the guy's like, okay, well, I'm gonna arrest you for being a weirdo. Why didn't you report that guy? And Thomas is like, oh, what? And then even within the scene, Thomas is like, man, this was stupid of me. And it's like, yeah, yeah, man. And the thing that was mind blowing to me is like, Thomas has never acted like that. Like, he's never been that dumb in the series. I don't think. Like, he's just like. It's like his brain just shut off and he's just like, oh, I guess I'll. I don't know, I'll just kind of like, hang it out and then I'll just tell this cop every true thing. Like, what is happening in the movie. Back in the movie. I like this. When they're going. They go in to kidnap Theresa or. Sorry, no. When Theresa is breaking them into the tower. They had already gotten Teresa at this point. This is when they're breaking back into the tower with Teresa.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker A: And they're dressed as guards. It's a. Newt and Thomas dressed as guards. And they. Janson, they. They're on the elevator with Jansen, which I thought was a fun scene. He, like, gets on the elevator with them. It's that class. There's another movie that does that exact same thing. I can't remember where it. What it is, but where, like, they're. They're on the elevator and at the last second.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker B: Yeah. It's like a classic heist movie thing.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. Where like, the villain, like, oh, and then gets on the elevator with them and they have to, like, play it cool or whatever. I thought that was fun. But then also he kind of, like, realizes something was up with that. And then he comes back and finds him. And we get kind of an interesting confrontation between Jansen and Thomas and Newt and Teresa, where Thomas is, like, holding Teresa at gunpoint. But then she ultimately decides to help Thomas and. And. And Newt and, like, shoves them into this room and, like, shuts the fire, hits, like, the fire alarm, basically, to kind of save them from getting shot in that moment. But also, she still sells that she's working for Wicked because Jansen's like, what? What did you do? And she's like, I did you a favor. I trapped. They're stuck here now. Like, they can't get. You know. So she's still playing it. Like, I thought that was fun. And again, I just like. I like that all of that. Everything with Teresa is just infinitely better.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker B: In the movie than in the books, though this whole. The whole heist scene where they have to break into Wicked. Yeah, this whole thing was nuts.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker A: It was nuts.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker B: Like, Minho, like, Hulks out and is.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker A: Like, throwing crazy and beating the. Out of cars. They.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker B: They jump out of the window from, like, 20 stories up into a. Like a reflection pool.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker B: A fry pan airlifts an entire bus with A crane?
• 1:10:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker B: There's a bus chase. This heist hit has everything.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker A: It really does it really. I thought the shot of them jumping out of the building was super cool because the. The camera follows them out the window.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker A: Which was really fun. And, like, everything in the building I thought was really fun. I thought the bus chase was cool. Like, Brenda's driving a bus full of, like, immune kids trying to escape with them, but then they get cornered in the middle of the city. I did think the crane that apparently this was the plan was they're going.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker B: To get to get to the specific spot.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker A: Spot in the city and then attach the bus by the front bumper to a crane and lift it up, like, straight over the wall and then take it over the wall. Like, it's. It's fun and it works, but it's super silly.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker B: Was it goofy? Yes, but it was also fun.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker A: It was fun. Yeah. I would agree with that.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker B: Maybe this was just the benefit of having actors, but I thought that Newt's final turn into, like, when he gets.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker A: Gone gets the gone, gets the gone. Yeah.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker B: I found that more emotionally upsetting in the movie than it was in the book.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker A: I thought it was similar, but I. I thought there. I thought that I would have put that in. Nailed it. I thought it did a good job. But I thought the book also was pretty good at that. But yeah.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker B: Although I will say I think that Thomas having to kill him would. Might be better. Although I'm not.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker A: Not.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker B: I wasn't 100% sure if the movie wanted it to be unclear who actually did the stabbing.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker A: I had a huge problem with that.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker B: In the movie because then the Wikipedia page says that I was gonna notice himself.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker A: The Wikipedia page summary says Newt stabs himself with a knife. Maybe.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker B: But I felt like the movie wanted it to not be clear, which I hated.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker A: I thought that was super stupid. So. I agree. I completely agree. The way I had Thomas killing Newt better in the book. In the book, Thomas ultimately just has to shoot Newt in the head after he starts turning and it, like, attacks him and stuff like that. And also he has motivation to do this because he. He read a note.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker A: The note that Thomas that. That Newt gives Thomas in the book is, hey, kill me.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker A: Once I. Once I'm gone, kill me. And Thomas doesn't messes up and doesn't do this initially. And then like, when they see him in the bowling alley or whatever in the Crank palace. And then really.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker B: Because he hadn't read the note yet.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker A: He hadn't read the note yet. And so he didn't realize. But then he has this second chance and he does do it in that moment in the movie. I completely agree. I was like, is it intention? It must be intentionally vague. Which I don't understand the thought process behind that. Cause in the movie, what, Newt gets a knife out and he is like, running at. At Thomas with the knife, slashing. And then we were the cameras behind him, we see him swing his arm around. And then we cut to a close up of both of them. Like. Yeah, up against each other. And we hear. And we hear. No, well, it's not a tussle because we hear the knife enter a person.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker A: And then they're like, both stop. And it's that classic moment of like, oh, my God, did he stab Thomas? Did Thomas stab it? Like, what happened? And then they separate and we see that Newt has the knife in his chest and is holding it. Like, yeah. But Thomas also kind of has his hand on it. And it's incredibly vague and unclear whether Thomas stabbed him or Newt stabbed himself. And I. I don't understand the purpose of making that vague, because what, again, what the Wikipedia article says is, and Newt stabs himself. I'm like, why would you assume that that's. Because the way he does it doesn't look like an intentional stabbing of himself. If that is what was happening. Why would you make it look this vague way where he's swinging wildly with the knife and then it, like, stabs him. Just show him intentionally stab himself if that's what you're gonna do. Or if it was Thomas that was supposed to have done it. It's way more emotionally impactful if we see Thomas explicitly stab him. So why are we doing this? Vague. Like, maybe Thomas stabbed him, maybe Newt stabbed himself. What do we get out of that? I don't. I didn't understand, like, what the benefit of that would be versus either having Newt clearly stab himself or either having Thomas clearly stab him. Both of those are more emotionally impactful.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker B: I mean, I agree. I can only assume that. I guess the writers thought that it would be more interesting to have that, like, uncertainty, but I agree with you.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker A: Yeah. I just. It almost felt like it was in there just for the moment where we aren't sure who got stabbed.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, that could also be stupid.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker A: Like, that's pointless. I don't. That is not an interesting twist.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker B: I mean, we know Thomas isn't gonna die right there.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, we know Thomas isn't gonna die right there. Even as a non book reader, you know, Thomas is not dying in that you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's so that is because that's felt. And they even do that same thing later. They do the exact same gag 10 seconds later with Ava and, And Thomas when he confronts Ava.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker A: And the gunshot goes off and they both look at each other and then it's revealed she got shot. That's the exact same gag again, like 10 seconds later in the movie. Why I hated that. I was like, it's so dumb. Because the whole point in the movie is that. Or in the book, book, not that it's super great, but it's that, that Thomas has to do this for his friend and finally is able to muster the strength, courage, whatever, to. To shoot his friend and put him out of his misery and help, you know, and kill him because he is no longer his friend anymore. He is, you know, whatever. And I, I just do not understand the choice to make it this weird, vague thing. The only thing I could think again, just have Thomas do it. Because if the idea is like, well, I was like, well, maybe they didn't want Newt stat. Like, maybe they couldn't show Newt explicitly stabbing himself for like ratings reasons. Yeah, like, maybe they wanted Newt to stab himself because that's what the Wikipedia article said or summary says, is that Newt stabs himself. Maybe they wanted him to stab himself. But they couldn't show a person like explicitly stabbing themselves in like a PG13, like killing themselves with a knife in a PG13 movie. So they needed it to be vague or something.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker B: Do you think that the ratings could be the whole reason for not showing either of them doing it?
• 1:17:46
  Speaker A: No, because I think you could do Thomas stabbing him in a way, because we see people get killed.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker A: I could understand if there was some weird rating thing with like suicide of like, sure, not showing a character stabbing themselves, but what you could do with Thomas is, is we don't have to see the knife go. You know what I mean? Like, we. You have him like standing there and like coming at him, and then Thomas is holding the knife and then stabs him or what's. You know, and even if you want to make it seem like Thomas didn't want to, like, you know, but. But Newt like jumps at him and in the process of attacking him, kind of in self defense, kind of not. Thomas clearly is the one who stabs him. You could, you could not show. You don't have to show anything graphic. You don't have to show anything. You know, and that would be totally fine within. It would be like what we saw in the movie, but just more explicitly, Thomas is the one stabbing him.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker A: Would be totally fine, ratings wise. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense to me. I. I would love to hear an explanation of the thought process behind that, because I do not understand what the goal of that change was at all. Again, I understand. I even understand changing it a little bit from the. The book of, like, okay, we can't show him shoot Newt in the head with a gun, like, whatever. But even then, you don't have to show it. You can do what you did in the second movie with Jorge and just. We see them struggling. We see Newt asking for him to kill him. You cut to a wide shot, you hear the gunshot, and you see Newt fall off of him. You don't have to show anything graphic. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, it just. I don't get. Anyways, let's move on. I don't get it at all.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker B: I thought the movie made a good choice in, like, officially making Jansen the Big Bad.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker B: Even in the movie, we've barely interacted with Ava.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker B: Jansen has been a dick the whole time, so we might as well just make it official. I had to stamp it, seal it.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was the same note I had. I was like, jansen killing Ava and becoming the ultimate Big Bad in the movie makes way more sense sense. We still get the big square off with him and he kind of is the Big Bad in the book as well, because Ava just isn't in the book, like, at all. But I. I prefer having. It's a fun twist where he kills Ava because she has decided to kind of work against him or work against his wishes. So him killing Ava is like a fun twist even for book readers. Like, oh, shit. But then also it just does what the book did anyways, which is just make Jansen the. The final Big Bad. Does this make it official like you said?
• 1:20:19
  Speaker B: So the ultimate final plan in the book is that Wicked wants to take out Thomas's brain.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker A: They have to vivisect his brain, which.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker B: I thought was kind of hokey.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker B: It was like a schlocky 1950s sci fi movie plot point.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker A: It also, again, kind of just runs counter to what we seem to know about their technology. Like, okay, so they have all this super advanced technology and they're doing all that of. Of this. Have they not been, like, scanning their brains this whole time? Apparently there's some sort of need physically to remove his brain at this Final moment so that he has to die. It just feels like. It's clearly like a. Well, we need a moment where he has to die. Like we have a reason they have to kill him to do this thing, to find the cure, to give him this choice.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker B: The death cure.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker A: Yes. To give him this choice about whether or not he wants to do it, but also to really up the stakes. And, like. Because it's like a ticking clock thing of, like, they're. The Right Arm is coming, and he's hoping they get there in time to save him before they cut his brain out or whatever. But again, it's just like, why do they need to cut his brain out? That doesn't mesh with anything else. We've seen it up to this point again. Yeah, sure, maybe. Whatever. Who care, you know, I'll give it to you, I guess, but it's dumb.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker B: Okay, so let's talk about the deus ex machina of it. All right. So at the end of the book, Ava Page becomes God from the machine and saves the day.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker B: We never see her.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker A: Thomas goes under, about to have his brain cut out of his head.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker A: Thinking, well, I'm gonna die now. This is it. The end. And then wakes up and finds a note from Ava Page saying, surprise. Yeah.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker B: He wakes up alone, and there's an envelope with a letter that's like, actually, I'm a good guy.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker A: I'm a good guy. Ava explaining. I'm a good guy. I somehow was able to stop this procedure.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker A: In the middle of it happening and save you without ever seeing. We don't see her again. Then she just disappears somewhere.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker B: She off to who knows where, and.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker A: Then leaves him a note saying, by the way, here's a map to a flat trans. So you can get everybody out.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. I've set up, behind the scenes, this whole escape route for you.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker B: Because what the fuck were they gonna do without that?
• 1:22:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, they were fucked. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker B: There was no plan.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker A: Well. And. And there. But there didn't. Wouldn't have needed to be if the other thing that happens here in a second that we're gonna talk about hadn't happened. There wouldn't need to have been a plan if the Right Arm hadn't become evil, like, out of nowhere, which we'll get to in just a second.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker B: And. And. And Ava Page does have, like, a change of heart in the movie, but I think it works better because. Because we do it. Spend a little more time with her and her change is more subtle.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker A: Yes. Yes. It's much more Subtle. And like, we see her have a conversation with Jansen.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker A: About, hey, this isn't.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker B: This isn't gonna work.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker A: This isn't gonna work. And, like, you know, we see a little bit of the back and forth and how he has a different opinion and. And what she's like, this isn't gonna work. The disease is already inside the walls. The cure isn't gonna work. Like, she just. We actually see that happen. So her having the change of heart at the end is not just complete nonsense out of nowhere.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker A: Like you said, deus ex machina. Like, oh, surprise. Who you thought was. Which I think he thought was just super clever and interesting. The idea that, like, I can imagine what he thought was going on here that he thought he was doing. That was really fun. Was like, okay. In YA series, it's very common to kind of repeatedly set up in the background the ultimate Big Bad. Yeah. My series is gonna do that. For the first two books. We're gonna keep setting up this ultimate Big Bad who's running things in the background. But then at the end, that's not the ultimate villain. They turns out surprised. They had a change of heart and are good now. And that's like a twist. That's like a fun twist. But it's not because it's completely out of nowhere. It feels completely unmotivated by anything we've seen. Cause we have no idea why she wanted.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's hack shit.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker A: It's so bad. It's so bad. Bad. But what we were just talking about, they wouldn't. He wouldn't need an escape plan in the book from the Wicked headquarters if it weren't for the fact that the Right Arm apparently dis. Like Thomas is working with the Right Arm.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker A: In the book. To break in because they want to take down Wicked.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker A: But then he finds out while he's there that part of their plan to take down Wicked is blowing up the headquarters.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker A: Which apparently is a surprise to him because that didn't seem that crazy to me. When he finds that out, he's like, what? They're going to blow up the headquarters? I'm like, well, yeah, man. They're trying to destroy this. Yeah. This operation. Like, they're going to destroy their headquarters. But I guess he thought they were going to, like, take it over and run it. I don't know. I guess was the idea. But. So he's, like, surprised by that then. And he has this thought which really drove me crazy. The line in the book is, Thomas was beginning to realize the Right Arm had a darker purpose. And it's like, do they, though? Because we never find out what that darker purpose is. They just want to destroy Wicked.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker A: Their idea for the best way to do that is to blow up the Wicked headquarters. And now the big, like, oh, they're evil. Part of that twist is that they don't care. Seemingly out of nowhere, suddenly do not care if any of the Immunes or whatever, or the other people who are not working for Wicked that are trapped there are able to get out or not.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker B: Right. And. Which I didn't really like when he first goes to Vince in the book, and he's like, well, I need to get the Immunes out before you blow this place up. And Vince is like, well, you can try, but we're not gonna wait around. Which, sure, I guess. But then later on, Thomas is like.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker A: Oh, my God, this is the worst thing and maybe the most baffling among all of the baffling things. This specific sentence may be one of the most baffling things in the entire series.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker B: Because then later on, when he's trying to get all of them out of the maze, he's like, oh, no, the Right Arm can't figure out what I'm doing. They'll try to stop me. And I'm like, at what? What point did you glean that.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker B: From what was said.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker A: The nine is if someone from WICKED or the Right Arm figure out what we were doing or figure out what they were doing, they were finished. They being them trying to get the Immunes out of the building. And I had the exact same note. Why the fuck would the Right Arm give a shit about you escaping from the building? They wouldn't at all.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker B: There was zero indication that they. Like, I think Vince literally says, like.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, do whatever you want. Whatever you want, but we're gonna blow it up.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. He's not gonna try to try to stop you. He doesn't want to kill you. He just wants to destroy Wicked. And if people get killed in the process, he doesn't care. He doesn't care which kind of whatever comes out of nowhere. And again, to me, it's just. It's such a clear, like, hackneyed ripoff of Hunger Games. Like, surprise. The guys who were the rebels who you thought were good are also bad. Bad. Like, they also, you know, which works.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker B: In the Hunger Games.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker A: In the Hunger Games and is actually compelling because it's just way more fleshed out and explored and it. We get into the politics of it all and, like, why these people are Doing what they're doing in this. It's just like they. Well, we just want the same twist of like. Well, did you think that the good guys were good?
• 1:28:05
  Speaker B: I think these guys were on. Oh. Turns out there is no good.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker A: There is no good guys. Except. Except for our main character. They're the only good guys. And it's just like, what are we doing here? And it's so clearly just ripping off that element of the Hunger Games. But yeah, that drove me fucking crazy. Like, why they wouldn't care. I was like, they might even help you. Like again, what you're saying is like, there's no indication from the conversation he had with Vince that they. Yeah, that. It's just that they want to blow up the building and kill. Destroy Wicked. And they don't care who gets hurt in the process. Process. Because they need that. They think this is their only chance to do it. And if they wait around or stall or, you know, whatever, that they might blow their shot to bring down Wicked. So. Because that's just like their whole goal and it's. They don't even have a darker purpose. The darker purpose is destroying Wicked. It's the thing you want it to do. They're just not as concerned about like innocence, like getting caught in that as you are. And again, I was like, I think if. If they figured out what you were doing and you could. And they're like, oh, actually if we wait 30 seconds, they'll get out. I think they would wait for you to blow it. Like, I don't think that they're like insane. They're just. They have a committed. They have a specific goal and purpose. And it's so infuriating. It just makes no sense. Like, why would they care? They wouldn't care. At bare minimum, they would be like, sure, whatever.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker B: And you. And here's the weird thing is that you could have still done the little nod to oh, maybe the good guys aren't quite as good as I thought through that non caring of if people die. If we had had Thomas think about that and explore that.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. Similar note from the movie that I think that actually kind of addresses this problem in a roundabout way is the character of Lawrence because. So Lawrence is just a random rebel member in the book. Book. In the movie, he's actually leading kind of a different sect of the fact of the rebels, it seems.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. I don't think they're supposed to be associated with the Right Arm.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker A: Well, they are. They are kind of because Galley is working with them. And I think Galley is Like, thinks he's working with the Right Arm, at least or something. I think they're supposed to be kind of affiliated with the Right Arm in some capacity, but really mainly doing their own.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, they seem to be more like doing their own thing.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker A: And what. What the movie does is it has Lawrence be essentially like the leader of a crank rebellion. Like, he. He is. He has the Flare in the movie and is very far down the path of having the Flare. But he's. He's using the serum to see him using the serum to, like, keep his wits about him, at least for the most part. And so the movie has him lead. Do a similar thing where he is leading part of the rebellion. But in the. In the movies instance, it's a whole bunch of cranks and he. Because he gives this big speech before they go attack the city and try to break in where he's like, gives this rousing speech about how the people in there don't care about us. They cast us out, you know, kind of like, kind of getting like a little bit of like, almost like a homeless, like.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker A: Parallel allegory kind of thing going on. And so he. Having him lead to this rebellion of cranks who, like, are going to take down Wicked simultaneously as the Right Arm is doing it kind of helps it fix the issue of Thomas being, like, concerned about the Right Arm destroying. Because Lawrence's army does in fact start destroying the Wicked building while Thomas and all of the other people are in there. But it makes sense because they're not part of the Right Arms, like, larger plans, and they don't. They have their own motivations that are way more like vengeance based.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. More sinister.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker A: I don't even know if sinister is the right word, but just way more.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker B: Like, less focused on rescuing people.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker B: More focused on destruction.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker A: Just burning it down. Yeah, yeah. And the fact that Lawrence and all of those people are already infected and so are already kind of losing their minds means that their motivations being potentially, like you said, darker or at least less noble than the other people totally works and makes sense. They're just there to burn this system down because it's. It is. You know, I don't even know. I. I just thought that made a way more sense. I really thought that Lawrence's character was interesting. Oh, because there's also the element that you talked about. You didn't mention it in this yet, but we were discussing. Was that potentially the idea that you thought was why Vince was like, in the book. In the book, why Vince was fine with killing everybody is that we find out that he thinks he's already infected in the book.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker A: And so maybe the idea is that he's, like, suffering a little bit from the flare on set. And so he's.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker B: That lack of empathy.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker A: That lack of empathy and stuff. So that that's why he's less sympathetic to the OR is fine with killing a bunch of people to accomplish their means scenes. And so having Lawrence literally clearly be infected by, you know, already having the flare and being very far down that path. And so him not caring about and his. And his group of people not caring about who they hurt or whatever is fine. And, like, works in a way that it just doesn't make any sense in the book with the right arm. Because that's not been what they've been about.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker A: Seemingly this whole time.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker B: So we talked about in the book that Wicked was hiding all of the immunes in the maze. So Thomas has to lead them out of the maze as this facility is actively, like, crumbling and blowing up. Yes.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker A: They're, like, blowing it up and chunks.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker B: Of it are falling and they lose a lot of people.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker B: But it's still, like, based on the descriptions from the book, they get, like, 200 people through the flat trans.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker B: And that just did not seem feasible to me based on, like, the descriptions of, like, what was happening and how far they had to go.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker B: I was like, okay, I guess. Sure. It's a lot of people, but sure.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. I liked the change in the movie of how Jansen dies.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker A: In the movie, Thomas throws something at him. They're in, like, one of the labs. Thomas throws something at him, but misses. But it breaks the window behind him, which is containing a couple cranks.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker B: And the cranks break out and they're, like, gone.
• 1:34:42
  Speaker A: Gone. They're like, super gone. And they break out and eat Jansen. In the book, Thomas strangles Jansen to death. Yeah. Like, violently. With his bare hands. Bare hands. Strangles him to death. And. And, like, we get exposition about hearing, like, the bones in his. Yeah. Crack.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker B: And.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker A: And this is never touched on again. It's just like. Well, it's fine. Like, Thomas had the bloodlust and was like. We're just like, ah, it's fine.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker B: Like, I guess literally says that Thomas had the bloodlust.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like. Like, I get Jansen was a bad guy, but the movie never. Or the book never like, addresses the fact that this seems bad. Like, this seems like something we're gonna have to deal with with Thomas. You would Think that he just, like, literally strangled this guy with his bare hands and, like, felt his neck crush under his hands and, like, revels in it. And he was like, ah, it's fine. Moving on. And, like, it's never touched on because the book just needs to end, which was so much. End of this book was clearly just like, I don't care. I just.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker B: We were all limping to the finish.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker A: Dashner was like, I don't. I just. I just need to end it. I don't care. I think he got it really felt like he got to a point where he was like, I can't make this really work, so I'm just going to end it. I'm just going to get it as done as I can. So I didn't mind the cranks killing Jansen in the movie. I still would have preferred my prediction, which was Griever's breaking out and killing Ava. But in this case, case killing, that.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker B: Would have been more fun.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker A: I thought that would have been more fun. And totally because. Because the movie doesn't bring Grievers back at all, which I thought was.
• 1:36:13
  Speaker B: We see one in Minho's, like, nightmare.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker A: In the nightmare, yes. But I thought it would have been fun at the end to have them, because we know they have them in the lab there. We've seen them. Yeah, I thought it totally would have made sense to have that whole scene play out in the lab area with the Grievers, and he somehow releases the Grievers and they come kill him. I think I understand thematically why the movie made it the cranks, because they're the representation of the people that Jansen didn't care about.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker B: Like, they were expendable.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker A: They're the expendable people that Jansen is. Like, we get to choose who lives and dies. And in his worldview, these people don't matter. So having them kill him, I think thematically makes more sense and works better than Grievers. That being said, I think the Grievers would have been more fun. Could have been both. Could have had both. He could have had cranks locked on one side, Grievers locked on the other. Thomas hits a button, they all get released, and he just gets ripped. The shred by Grievers and cranks, that would have been better. But whatever. I thought Thomas getting shot and telling Teresa to. Because Jansen does shoot Thomas and he is bleeding a lot and he's struggling to move, and he tells Teresa to leave him, but she decides she's not gonna leave without him. I thought that was a good moment of real connection between the two of them that the book really doesn't give us at the end here at all. And it was. It was. You know, it made it clear that they actually both care for each other. Like, he tells her to go without him and she's like, no, I'm not leaving you. Really helps bring their relationship back to its kind of culmination of them, you know, really showing that they do care about each other in a way that the book just never gets done. Yeah.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker B: Teresa got an actual character arc in this movie instead of just getting squished after barely being in the book.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker A: Teresa's death is a travesty in the book. I don't even like Teresa.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker B: I don't like Teresa either.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker A: Be fair. It's because Dashner doesn't like Teresa.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker B: No one could possibly hate Teresa more than James Dashner.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker A: 100. And so as a result, we end up not caring about her, but holy her death in the book. Even for somebody that is team Brenda did not care about Teresa. I was like, what the. Like, this is insane. It's so unceremonious.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker B: She just, like, the building is falling down.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker B: And they're trying to get to the flat trans. And she, like, is behind Thomas, and he feels her, like, bump or, like, push into him.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker A: And then he turns around and she gets crushed. By the building.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker A: In front of him. And he's sad for a second and then leaves. And it's. It's so. There's no weight. There's no nothing. It's just. The movie actually gives it the weight it deserves. They get some time together. She's, like, dragging them across the roof, trying to get them to the berg. And then, like, it's this big moment, and then she. She gets him on there, and then he turns around to try to get her on. And then the building collapses. And it's this big dramatic moment. And it feels. And they've also had time. They also have a whole conversation on the roof. Yeah, we'll get to that in just a second here. But, like, it's just, again, for a character that I don't even care about that much. Such. It's insane how little the author of the book cared about one of his main characters and how much more. The movie was like, hey, maybe we don't just, like, unceremoniously crush one of the main characters and then not really, like. And again, give it no weight. Give it no grab gravitas. Give it nothing. It's just like, yeah, she's dead. Moving on.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker B: Who cares? I. I just. I don't. I don't think the man knows how to write relationships.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker A: No, not at all. All. Not at all. Well, and I had a note too. And again, like you said, hey, Teresa gets an actual character arc. I wrote a note in chapter 67 of this book.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which is 73 chapters, by the way.
• 1:39:59
  Speaker A: Page 288 or 289 out of 320 or whatever. I was like, I feel insane that I am still not entirely sure what Teresa's deal is and what her motivation is.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker A: We are 30 pages from the end of the book and I don't know.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker B: From the end of a three book series.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker A: And I'm like, what is the deal?
• 1:40:17
  Speaker B: In which she has been nothing but. But a woman of mystery this entire time.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker A: They get back to the maze. I can't believe we're back here. Teresa said, moving to stand beside Thomas. Her voice sounded haunted, and it echoed how he felt.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker B: She was in the maze for like five minutes.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker A: And for some reason, with that simple statement, Thomas realized that standing there, the two of them were finally on equal ground. Trying to save lives, trying to make up for what they'd done to help start it all. He wanted to believe that with every ounce his of being. He turned to look at her. Crazy, huh? She smiled for the first time since he couldn't remember. Crazy. There was so much Thomas still didn't remember about himself, about her. But she was here, helping. And that was all he could ask for. And in that moment, I was like, okay, we still don't know it. What her.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker B: What is her deal?
• 1:41:06
  Speaker A: What is her deal? Does she. Because the movie. Because she's off screen the entire time and we never get anything from her perspective. And we never even have have like Thomas and her like never even have conversations.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker B: No, they don't even like, talk about. Chat about. Like.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker A: So I'm like, what does she really want? And again, the. He doesn't know.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker A: He's like, well, I don't know what she really feels, but she's here helping. So I guess that's.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker B: Well. And especially because we know she got her memories back.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. Give us anything about like, what? It's just ins. I. I was like, I still don't know what one of the main characters of the series, why they're doing anything they're doing or what? I don't know, man.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker A: So this moment, it was just mentioned a few seconds ago. They're on the roof. They think they're gonna die. Because they're sitting there amongst the flames. The berg has not showed up at this point. They had nowhere else to go because the building is burning down. And they share a conversation briefly. And then they kiss. Thomas and Theresa kiss. And I don't mind the kiss. I actually like it.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker B: I don't either.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker A: I actually kind of like.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker B: I think it's a good final moment for them.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker A: I thought it gave them closure and acknowledged that there was something meaningful between them. They had true feelings for each other.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, they had something.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker A: They had something. And they share. In that moment where they think they're both gonna die, they share that again. I liked it. I was fine with it.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker B: No, I was fine with it, too. My only other note was as they were kissing, the thought popped into my head. I was like, oh, I bet that made Team Brenda mad in the theater.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker A: I can imagine it made Team Brenda very mad. And I am Team Brenda. I. Like I said, we are both Team Brenda. I do not care about Teresa all that much. Yeah, I like her much more.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker B: First and foremost, I am team Good storytelling.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker A: And I thought that that was a good way to just wrap up their. Again. Because it. And it. It also kind of goes back to my whole. My thesis about this series. I think there is something sweet and nice about the idea that he. Like, if you kind of relate this to the idea of an allegory for high school or growing up or whatever, which the movies are way less of than the book and this book way less so than the first two books.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker B: I didn't really get that vibe from this book.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker A: I didn't really get that at all from this book, if I'm being honest. But from the first two books. But if you kind of go with that allegory, I like the idea of. Because, like, the whole main thing with him and Brenda is like, Teresa is his first love in this context of, like, he wakes up, she's there, or she wakes up, he's there. They get together. He's. She's kind of like his first love. But then he meets this new girl that he actually has more in common with.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker A: And that they get along better. But that doesn't mean that the emotions and the feelings he had for Teresa were fake or wrong or didn't exist or whatever. They're just not going to be together. But they can still, like, they still share this moment of. Of real connection at the end where they think again what they think is the end. And well, it is for her. But again, I thought it worked. I liked it actually. A Lot. And it's surprising because if you had told me going into this movie that Theresa and Brenda kiss at the end, I would have been like, well, that's a twist.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker B: There's the fanfic.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's a twist. No, but if you had told me that at the end of this movie before we read or watched or at least before I watched the movie that Teresa and Thomas kiss, I would have been like, really? Yeah, really.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker B: But I think it's really nice.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker A: And I thought they did it really well. Yeah.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker B: I also really enjoyed the denouement portion of the movie. After they get to the safe haven, I like that we actually see them like. Like settle in and start to build a society there.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker A: I had the same note, although I was a little confused initially that I didn't realize they were at the safe haven. Initially, I thought they were still. Because we saw them at that place where they were prepping to get on the boat.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker A: I was like. And I couldn't remember what that place looked like. So I was like, wait. Are they still waiting to get on the boat to go to the safe haven? But then I realized, no, no, they're at. Because he says in his speech, like, welcome to the safe haven or whatever. And I realized then. But initially I was a little unsure. But, yeah, no, I agree. I thought that was really great. That whole ending scene at the safe haven, I thought was a lot of fun. And it felt like a very good, like you said, denouement for this whole series. But just kind of reward for everything we've been through of getting to see them in this new place, being happy.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker B: Because we don't. We don't really get that at the end of the book.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker A: No, they. They walk through the flat trans.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker A: And then.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker B: And then they burn the flat trans to the ground so no one can follow them.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker A: And then they talk about how Minho or something. Somebody is down beginning to, like, organize building the new society or whatever. But we don't really get any of it. So, yeah, I like that a lot.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker B: I also prefer the movie's version of the note from Newt. Yeah, we get a letter from Newt at the end. Far less depressing than his letter in the book. I thought it fit really well with his character. And I thought it was a good kind of nod to the previous installments where we get to, like, revisit a few things that happened in the other movies.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker A: I had the same note. I liked it a lot. We needed that nice bit of kind of hopeful happiness at the end, especially pertaining to Newt because he was such an important character in the series. And it. Just having that moment kind of really helps round everything out. Although I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of re. Editing that scene to where it's like the big happy ending. He's like, wow. Oh, that. Oh, this is a. There's a note in here. And he pulls it and opens it up and it just says, kill me. If you were ever my friend, kill me. And then the movie ends. It's like the note from the book, but in the movie's version would have been very, very funny to me as like a. But. Yeah, no, I liked it a lot.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker B: I also really liked the movie calling back to the names carved on the maze walls where they have, like, a. A memorial rock that everyone carves the names of their dead loved ones on. Although it did not look nearly big enough to fit the names of everyone's dead loved ones.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I thought bringing back then carving the names of the dead into the wall, which was a detail we really liked in the first movie that wasn't in the book. I thought bringing that back made a lot of sense. And literally the ending of this managed. Of this movie managed to make me a little emotional. I got a little choked up at the end with. And they're showing the thing and. And Barry Pepper is great in this movie. He. He needs to be in more stuff. Like I. The guy who plays Vincey.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker B: Oh, Vince.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker A: I thought he was great as, like, the. He doesn't have a huge part in this movie, but I think he does a really good job as, like, the rebel leader in this. The only other thing I know Barry Pepper from is he's the main character in Battlefield Earth.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker A: But I thought he was really good in this. And I really like the speech he gave at the end. I like little subtle details of the way he said. Says something when he's talking about the. The pillar and he says, in your own time, when you're ready or something. Like, come and pay respects to the. I don't remember the exact thing he says, but just the verbiage of that felt properly heavy and, like, emotional. And you could tell why people would follow this guy because he's very charismatic in that. I don't know. I just really. I just thought the whole ending was really, really well done. Like, I said it actually, and it almost got me. I didn't cry, but it got me a little choked up. I got. I choked up watching the end of the Maze Runner. The Death cure. And I was like, all right, you win. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like when. After he does. When he goes up there and he's reading a note and then he carves Newt and Teresa's name into the rock, I was like, oh, fuck it.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker B: You get a little emotional at the end of the movie. You get a little choked up.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker B: At the end of the book, all I wanted to do was throw it.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker A: I literally. My last notes, I wrote. And people, our patrons will see this when they look at our book. And I. Notes. My last note is just. I wrote. Because I title each chapter with the number. I just wrote epilogue. And my only note for epilogue is off. I was. I was like, are you kidding me? Because the epilogue in this, I hated it. It's. Or. Or prologue. Sorry. Or. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker B: Epilogue.
• 1:49:23
  Speaker A: Epilogue.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Ava Page's last memorandum.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it's a. It's basically just I had a secret plan the whole time and I was secretly good and I was like, off. Like, I just couldn't. Couldn't do it. All right, those are all of our notes for better in the movie. We got a couple things to talk about in the movie. Nailed it. As I expected.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. Jorge did get to be a Berg pilot.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. And he gets to fly the burg around, which is fun. Cuz that's what he does a lot in the book.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty much mostly what he.
• 1:50:00
  Speaker A: Does in the book.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker B: We talked about the scene where the cranks attack the vehicle as they're driving, which was at least inspired by that scene from the book.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Ava mentions that the virus is airborne and is already spreading inside the city, which is mentioned in the book. That it is airborne. You don't have to just get bit or whatever it is in the air.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker B: Galley is revealed to be alive and part of the resistance within the city.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. I will say that I didn't love his reveal in the movie as much because it was too obvious. I thought that it was him with the gas mask on.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker B: I thought it was pretty obvious. Yeah, that's what I mean.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker A: Like, I thought it was too obvious and I thought it. I mean, I guess it makes sense that they did think he's dead, so why would they think this guy is him? But it was just so clearly him to me that I was like, well, that's him. Whereas in the book we get this reveal where they get called to some room and they show up and he's like sitting in a dark living Room. And I was imagining that reveal where we don't get a whole bunch of screen time of seeing what is clearly Gally wearing a gas mask and us as the audience going, well, that's. That's Gally. That's okay. That's Gally. When are we going to take it off and reveal that? That's galley. I thought it could have been more impactful if it was a more sudden reveal. And it wasn't 10 minutes of the audience going, okay, when's he gonna take the gas mask off and reveal? But it's fine still.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker B: We'll call it dramatic irony.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It's fine. Newt does get infected and loses his mind and then is killed, which apparently didn't. Steve, this is what I was talking about. I had this question. Somebody on our Patreon or somebody said that they had read a synopsis or something of one of the other books that was supposedly a sequel and that Newt was in it. Because I remember us having a discussion going, well, at least we know Newt lives. And I was like, well, apparently not.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker B: Apparently not. Yeah, I think that was Steve. It must have been mistaken. That must be a prequel. Because I don't know how there could be a sequel that possibly features Newt.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker A: No, it's not a galley situation. He got shot in the head.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker B: We talked about the character of Lawrence in the book. But what I thought was interesting before I realized, like, who he was in the movie, I was like, oh, my God. They. They brought back the noseless crank who loves roses from the Scorch trials.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker A: They did. They. They used that as inspiration for Lawrence's character, which was fun. And we'll talk more about Lawrence here a second, because that was interesting. I. I had a note that at one point in this movie, we see Minho throw, like, a stun grenade at a bunch of people that explodes and, like, zaps them all. And I. I thought that was in the book.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, those are in the book.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker A: Aren't they like, some sort of stun.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker B: Grenades that, like, we see those in the second movie, too, I think.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm not talking about the ones they shoot. I'm talking. I'm talking about one that blows up. And because they have the ones they shoot, that's done, like, a single person.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:52:56
  Speaker A: In this one, Minho throws, like, a grenade that blows up and stuns, like, six people. I think that was in the book, but it also. I. I realized I may just be thinking about the second movie. Because I think at the end of the second movie, we see that. And maybe that's what I'm thinking of. Because at the end of the second movie, Minho and Vince and some other people are like, around that truck and Vince is like, shooting the thing, and they all get hit with a sun grenade. And maybe I'm just thinking, thinking of that and it's not in the book. I don't know. I know there is another grenade. There's flame grenades in the book. Because Jorge has a flame grade grenade launcher or something.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker B: No, I was like, hell, yeah, Jorge's got a flamethrower.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker A: I was disappointed that didn't make it into the movie.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker B: But, yeah, so I had this note, but I think I was mistaken maybe because I thought we see. In the scene where Teresa, like, sees Thomas across a crowd at the train station, they are arresting an infected guy. And I thought they were doing the goo stuff from the book that they, like, encase the guy in. But you thought otherwise.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker A: So I saw that and I was like, oh, are they doing the thing? But when I looked closer, because I had this embedded in the book, because I initially thought the same thing, I was like, oh, are they doing the thing? But in the movie they just have him in some sort of, like, hazmat suit. Basically boring. Whereas in the book it's described. And I thought this was a clever little maybe, callback back in the book is described that they stick, like, a thing on his head and then his whole body gets, like, encapsulated in, like, glue or goo that, like, contains him. It's like this seeping yellow goo, for lack of a better word. And I thought that was maybe a potentially clever callback to the metal balls from the second one. Like the same type of technology because it does a similar thing, except not oozes down. Oozes down their head and, like, envelops them.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker A: And I was like, oh, it's like the same technology. That's interesting. Yeah. In the movie, it's just like they just had put him in, like, a hazmat suit. But it is a hazmat suit that kind of looks like what is described as the goo in the book. It is a big, bulbous yellow. Again, it's not the goo thing.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker B: I did not look hard enough at it.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker A: It's. It's close, but no, no cigar. All right, we have one quick little news. Different segment. This could be lost in adaptation. Sometimes it's that. We're calling it the big picture for this one, but we're gonna talk about this whole series real quick. Just show me the way to get.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker B: Out of here and I'll be on my way.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker B: And I want to get unlost as soon as possible. So the first thing that I want to talk about here. Does the ending of this book series work?
• 1:55:38
  Speaker A: Nope. Moving on.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker B: Because we've had these questions.
• 1:55:45
  Speaker A: Yes. From the beginning.
• 1:55:46
  Speaker B: From the beginning, from this whole series was how's he gonna stick with this? How the hell is James Dashner gonna stick this landing? How is he going to pull all of these threads together? Did he pull it off? I think no.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker A: I would also think say no.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker B: I think that the explanation for the experiments where they're like mapping their brains, quote, unquote. I think it kind of makes sense if you squint at it, but it reeks to high heaven of making this up as we go.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker A: Oh, I completely agree. I think it, it made some of the, like, explanations for what they were doing and why in this third book made more sense than I expected.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker A: Slightly more sense than I expected, but still nowhere near the enough sense for me to go, oh, okay, I see. That all works. Not, not anywhere near that. It was like, okay, like, if I squint and turn my head and like shake it real fast, I can kind of see what this maybe being like a thing that makes sense, but not really.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then we ultimately end up at a place where the only way out of the story for our protagonists is a deus ex machina with a character that we've never interacted with. Yeah. Like, if the question is, did Dashner pull it off?
• 1:57:11
  Speaker A: No.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker B: It's a no for me.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker A: No, it's literally. Yeah. The ending of this is literally. Well, they're fucked. Except surprise. Who you thought was the villain the whole time, who has never been in the book except for the epilogue.
• 1:57:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker A: Was a good guy the whole time and saved our heroes out of nowhere for reasons kind of unstated other than just she.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker B: She changed her mind.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker A: She changed her mind and it's like, okay, okay, sure. I guess one of the things I want to discuss about the whole thing, because I agree. I don't think it worked. I don't think I. I also don't think the movie pulls it together perfectly, but it's better than what the book does.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:57:49
  Speaker A: One of the things I wanted to discuss was that I wrote this note before we started reading this book. I said, at some point I want to discuss how this whole thing feels like a super contrived way to make an argument against utilitarianism in a. In a way that is Bordering on, if not just a straw man of utilitarianism. Yeah, I think the movie mostly avoids this, but what I, what I want to get at here is the idea that the whole premises of, or the whole premise of the book is that Wicked is doing everything they're doing for the greater good. For the greater good. Like, they think they're doing this so that they can save humanity. Their goals are, we're gonna have. Some people are gonna die die, some people are going to suffer, but the whole purpose of it is we have to save humanity. And I found that particularly frustrating in this series because Dashner writes the, the narrative into a place where it's almost that thing that Marvel tends to do with some of their villains, where it writes Wicked. He writes Wicked into a place where their goals are noble and understandable. But he, he makes them do so many evil things that obviously our, our protagonists are correct in like, rebelling against them and taking them down because they are. They have become so lost in, in their mission to save the world that they are committing at a. Acts of, you know, atrocities in order to, to try to save the world. But it kind of feels to me like what that narrative ultimately does in the book is come down against the idea that utilitarianism is in any way justifiable, which I disagree with because I, generally speaking, think utilitarianism is mostly correct. There are, and I'm not a philosopher, this would be a whole different thing to, to get into the general idea of we should maximize. We should act in a way that maximizes flourishing for as many people as possible, I think is a good idea. And that is kind of at the core of what. And if you're a philosopher person, don't. I'm not. I know I don't come for him. I know I am oversimplifying and under probably even incorrectly, utilitarianism even is more complicated than that. Whatever. But that's kind of the general idea. And, and so it's very strange to me because, like, I guess I got to the point where I'm like, okay, so what is like the, the point of the book? Like, what is the message of the book? And I'm not sure.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:00:48
  Speaker A: Because our protagonists in the book, look, there is no cure. The cure was never going to work.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker B: No, there never was going to be a cure.
• 2:00:55
  Speaker A: And so the whole idea of the utility that they were working towards was doomed from the beginning. So it's like, well, that solves that. Obviously they shouldn't have been doing all that shit. They were doing because this didn't. Wasn't going to work. Didn't work. Couldn't work. And so I'm like, okay, so was the answer to just not try to find a cure for the. This disease or. Like, obviously the answer was not to torture a bunch of children, but you're the one who wrote that into. I don't know. I. I have. I've had a hard time kind of crystallizing my opinion on this, but I found the whole series very frustrating and that it felt like I kept going, like. And I guess this is similar to what I was talking about and a similar feeling maybe I had with Divergent or maybe Hunger, I can't remember of. Like, what were they? The whole world is dying.
• 2:01:46
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:01:46
  Speaker A: Of this awful disease. It makes sense that somebody is like, hey, we need to fucking fix this somehow. And obviously the way they go about trying to fix it in the book is bad because they just torture a bunch of children to do it. But my question goes, okay, well then what's the. Not the alternative, obviously, don't torture a bunch of children. But in the book's universe, the alternative seems to be whatever Thomas and them end up doing, which is fucking off to an island and. Or.
• 2:02:20
  Speaker B: Right. Well, the. The alternative seems to be letting everybody. Oh, well, we'll just start humanity over again.
• 2:02:29
  Speaker A: Which I'm like, I guess that's better. Is that better? Is it better to just let everybody die in the world except for these 200 people. People and start over again versus doing as much as you possibly can to try to cure the disease? And like, again, I. It just feels like a lazy exploration of this idea of, like, utilitarianism and stuff, because it just. He just writes the. The people who are the utilitarians wicked in this instance. Instance as the most evil people ever who are doing all the evil things and torturing and killing children because they think that can cure the disease. And it's like, okay, well, it can't cure the disease. So they were wrong. So they're evil. It's like, okay, but the alternative to trying to cure the disease was what? I don't.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker B: Doing nothing.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker A: Doing nothing. Seemingly. That's where I just get frustrated with, like, the. What the premise of the. And like, thematic point of the book is of like, if your idea is that the people trying to cure this disease, they did all these evil things to try to do that, you're implying that they shouldn't have been doing that they shouldn't have been trying to cure.
• 2:03:43
  Speaker B: The disease, shouldn't have been trying to.
• 2:03:44
  Speaker A: Cure the disease because it ultimately could only have ever led to them torturing a bunch of people. I don't. Which again, I come back to what's. What's the alternative? What should they have been doing? Like, what in James Dashner's ideal universe universe when this all happened? What. What should WICKED have done? I guess just corn.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker B: Perhaps it's explored in one of the prequel books.
• 2:04:09
  Speaker A: Maybe. But it just left me at this place where I'm just like, I don't, I don't understand the point of like, again, I don't even know what the message of the book is.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker B: Yeah. And honestly, I don't. I don't think James Dashner knows either, I guess. And you know, I don't know enough about Mormonism to know for sure, but I would put down money that there might be a connection here.
• 2:04:33
  Speaker A: With what?
• 2:04:34
  Speaker B: With the like utilitarianism thing and the way he's gone about like exploring this.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker A: It very well could be. Yeah. It does feel kind of like a thing somewhat steeped in religion a little bit.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker B: Well. And particularly the idea that perhaps we should just do nothing and let most of humanity and let God sort it.
• 2:04:53
  Speaker A: Out and then maybe some chosen few and some.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker B: A chosen few get to start humanity.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker A: Over civilization in a new garden of Eden. Yeah, I. Sure. And that's kind of where I get to where just the whole thing, I'm just left frustrated of like, okay, yeah, like, I get why WICKED was bad, but you wrote them that way in order to make the point that trying to help people is bad. I don't. Like what again? Because like. And it kind of gets back to the thing you said of like there's this whole. There's. There's this one point in the book where I couldn't. I don't remember where the line was, but Jansen has a line about something like, you know, like we're trying to help people and like it's. They even have the, the thing about like the ends justify the means and stuff like that. And like, obviously not. Like, obviously you can't torture. I don't know. I'm repeating myself now at this point.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker B: Well, I, like, I do think, I do think that the book in is perhaps an attempt to explore does the end justify the means. Yeah, but, but it's an, it's an extremely bad and hackneyed.
• 2:06:02
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:06:03
  Speaker B: Exploration of it that doesn't really work.
• 2:06:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I think that that's kind of what I get to. And I think it reminds me a little Bit of, of kind of what I was talking. I think it was the Hunger Games actually, where I had some frustration with the way that, that the rebellion was written in that and how they just kind of became evil. There's element. It's way more better handled and stuff. But. And I would have to go back and listen to those episodes again and, and see. But I, I had a similar complaint of, like, well, what the Are they supposed to do? Like, I, I, I felt like in that series, that series was maybe a little written in a way to be overly critical of the people trying to overthrow of an authoritarian dictatorship as like, well, they're not perfect either. And it's like, okay, but it's a fascist authoritarian dictatorship. Like, I don't know. It just. Yeah.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker B: Anyways, there was one other change that I wasn't really sure what to do with, and I just wanted to know if you had any thoughts on it, which is that, as you. As we mentioned in the book, there is no cure.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker B: And there's never going to be a cure in the movie. There is a cure.
• 2:07:11
  Speaker A: There is a cure. Thomas's blood works as a cure, but.
• 2:07:14
  Speaker B: It ultimately doesn't matter because they still go live on Immune Island.
• 2:07:19
  Speaker A: So I will say I disagree. I think the movie implies at the very, very end that he's gonna go save everybody.
• 2:07:28
  Speaker B: Oh, okay.
• 2:07:29
  Speaker A: So that final shot, he's looking at the ship and he looks down at the serum in his hands, and then it ends. I think we're supposed to glean from that is Thomas isn't satisfied with them just staying here being safe.
• 2:07:46
  Speaker B: He's gonna go on a mission.
• 2:07:48
  Speaker A: He's gonna potentially try to get them to go back and help save.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker B: You know what? I would watch that movie.
• 2:07:53
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that, I think that is what was going on there. I don't know if that's intentionally setting up a sequel a little bit or not or, you know, I have no idea. But I don't think it needs to even be setting up a sequel. I just think it's supposed to. In your head. Yeah. It's supposed to be like, oh. Cause I think, again, I'm not 100% sure that was the vibe I got from the final, like, five seconds of the movie.
• 2:08:10
  Speaker B: I like that I can get on board with that.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right, time to revisit our predictions for the Maze Runner series.
• 2:08:18
  Speaker B: It's going to happen. Edward X is a maze.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker A: So we're going to go back and forth here and see how we did. My first prediction for the death Cure was that Jorge dies saving Brenda and gives Thomas and Brenda his blessing to be together. And no Jorge survived, which I was. Yeah.
• 2:08:36
  Speaker B: My first prediction was that I thought Teresa would end up sacrificing herself to save Thomas. And I. I think. I think. Yes.
• 2:08:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker B: I think it's a little. Not well handled in the book.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker A: Oh, it's terribly handled.
• 2:08:56
  Speaker B: The text reads, right before she gets squished, the sentence says her body slammed into his, shoving him toward the maintenance room film. So it's not like a hundred percent clear if she just, like, fell into him or if we're supposed to think that she pushed him out of the way.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker A: I 100% interpreted that as meaning she pushed him out of the way was how I read it. But. But. But I agree with you that it's vague enough that you.
• 2:09:22
  Speaker B: It's vague, but I. I'm gonna call this one a yes.
• 2:09:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:09:26
  Speaker B: A win for me.
• 2:09:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that kind of ties into my second prediction, which was that I thought Brenda and Thomas were endgame, and I was right. And that Theresa was either going to become a villain or die after realizing she messed up and saving them. And. Yeah, that's exactly what happens.
• 2:09:40
  Speaker B: My second prediction was at one point early in the Scorch trials, Aerys posited that maybe Wicked wanted to use the two groups to breed like super immunes. And I predicted that that would be revealed as part of Wicked's ultimate plan. And I was very wrong on that. That never comes back.
• 2:09:59
  Speaker A: You were wrong on that. But it's kind of the implication of the new safe haven, and I did.
• 2:10:06
  Speaker B: Have that thought as well, is that.
• 2:10:07
  Speaker A: That is kind of what the safe haven is, which is all these new. All these immune people are gonna go breed together and create a new civilization of people who are immune to this disease, is the idea. And then my final prediction was that Thomas doesn't kill Ava. Nailed that part. She is ripped apart by Grievers. Did not nail that part. I already kind of addressed this earlier when I talked about how Jansen dies. But she doesn't die in the book. She does die in the movie, but Jansen kills her. But I was close. I will say I was close. Ish. In the movie with Jansen being killed by the cranks.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker A: Is.
• 2:10:44
  Speaker B: It's. It's kind of a similar.
• 2:10:46
  Speaker A: Similar idea. Not the same thing. Yeah.
• 2:10:50
  Speaker B: My last prediction was the third book will get weirdly religious out of nowhere, and Thomas will have to die and be resurrected in order to find the cure for the flare. And I'm counting This as kind of correct. Even though Thomas didn't actually die because the Christian motif of him as the chosen one who has to die to save everyone else is still present. Plus he then becomes Moses and leads his people to the promised land.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. And in the movie, it's the ark. He becomes Noah. Well, I guess Vince is Noah, maybe. I don't know know. But yeah, yeah, 100%. And then I had another prediction that you had on here that I'd forgotten about that in the first movie or in the first the Maze Runner episode. I predicted for the Scorch trials that galley would return and help them. And I was just wrong about which movie book it happened in because just.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker B: Took a little longer than we thought it would.
• 2:11:47
  Speaker A: A little long. Which makes sense in retrospect. I should have guessed the third one is too quick to bring him back immediately in the second one. But yeah, he does come back and help him, so. Got that one right. Just not on the wrong or on the right wrong time scale. All right, we got to get to a few odds and ends before the final verdict.
• 2:12:13
  Speaker B: When they're driving through the tunnel in the movie before they get attacked by all the cranks. This movie did the classic. It's okay. It's just one. It's never just one zombie, guys. Never in the history of media has it ever been just one zombie.
• 2:12:30
  Speaker A: You've been existing in this world for, like, quite a while at this point. You guys. You would know it's not just one zombie. Yeah.
• 2:12:37
  Speaker B: I thought it felt like a missed opportunity in the movie to not have them wear, like, medical masks. Masks when they. The first time they sneak into the city. Oh, yeah, because we see people wearing them.
• 2:12:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Tons of people in the city are wearing them.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker B: And it feels like a no brainer for both blending in and avoiding the face recognition technology that we know they have.
• 2:12:59
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 2:13:00
  Speaker B: There was a line in the book. I. I can't remember who said it, but there was a line in the book that was like, maybe Vince says this where they're talking about how everything got so out of hand and somebody says, like, no government has gotten desperate enough to start killing people as soon as they catch the flare.
• 2:13:25
  Speaker A: It's a random guard.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, yeah. They say, yeah, like, no, no government has gotten desperate enough yet to start killing people as soon as they catch the flare. And I was like, as an American, I disagree.
• 2:13:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker B: I think the United States would start immediately killing people.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker A: I don't think they would be alone in that. I think. Yeah. I think plenty of countries There are quite a few out there that would consider that.
• 2:13:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, Yeah. I thought the makeup on Walton Goggins was pretty gnarly.
• 2:13:59
  Speaker A: I lost my mind when Walton Goggins showed up and I was like, holy. It's whatever his character's name is from Fallout. Yeah, I was.
• 2:14:07
  Speaker B: Do you think that this is how he got the role in Fallout? Like, the producers were like, now that's a man who can be charismatic with.
• 2:14:15
  Speaker A: No, no, it has to be. It's insane. I. I was like, wait a second. I. It was so crazy because I was like. And obviously this came out well before Fallout did.
• 2:14:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 2:14:25
  Speaker A: So, you know, like, you said him. It wasn't or wasn't this movie copying Fallout? I thought that was crazy that. That Walton Goggins plays and he's kind of a similar character in terms of, like, personality a little bit morally gray. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, he doesn't have a nose. He's. He's got kind of a. He's a different looking affliction in. In this. He's a ghoul. Sorry, He's a ghoul in Fallout. I couldn't remember what the heck. Yeah, he's a ghoul in Fallout, but he doesn't have a nose. And yeah, I was like, that's. It's crazy. It's like the same design.
• 2:14:57
  Speaker B: It's kind of a similar, like, undead creature kind of concept.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker A: And it was cracking me up that it's. I was like, oh, he's doing that again, huh? All right.
• 2:15:06
  Speaker B: Another line from the book that I just wanted to call out. As Thomas is hiking through the wilderness to get to Wicked's headquarters, he's like, looking around and he's like. It's like he wondered what life would be like for all these animals if humans really did go away for good. And I was immediately like, oh, infinitely better.
• 2:15:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:15:28
  Speaker B: So much better for literally all other life on Earth if humans were to vanish.
• 2:15:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much, except for domesticated animals. But yeah, yeah. Before we wrap up, we wanted to remind you you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, threads, Goodreads, Blue sky, any of those places. We would love to hear from you, hear what you have to say about Maze, the death cure. You can also drop us a nice little five star rating and write us a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to our show. And you can Support us@patreon.com thisfilmis lit. Give us some money, get access to bonus content, early access, all that kind of Good stuff. Katie. It's time for the final verdict.
• 2:16:11
  Speaker B: Sentence passed.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker A: Verdict after.
• 2:16:15
  Speaker B: That's stupid.
• 2:16:16
  Speaker A: So this book was actually my favorite of the series. Once they got to Denver, it finally felt like we could tell the story without layer upon layer of mystery and obfuscation and I actually became interested in seeing how the story ended. But the movie managed to engage me right from the jump. The opening action sequence was dynamic and fun and the movie never let off the gas pedal from there. Teresa has a better arc, Janson is a better villain, Ava is actually in the story and we know what's going on with her and the ending legitimately, as I mentioned, left me a bit emotional. This entire movie series takes almost everything that works in the book books, removes all the stuff that doesn't, and fleshes out the characters and their arcs in a way that works infinitely better than anything in the novels. These movies are not perfect, but they are fun action flicks with solid performances. I enjoyed watching them and the finale was a satisfying conclusion to the series. Something that I cannot say about the book. So for the final episode of the 2025 series, I'm picking the movie.
• 2:17:19
  Speaker B: We finally made it. We're out of the maze. Yes, the Maze Runner trilogy has truly been a summer series of diminishing returns. The further we journeyed into James Dashner's dystopian world of teenagers, wicked science experiments and violent zombies, the less sense it all made. And I'm sorry to say that the Death Cure was no different. While this third installment was, in my opinion, more palatable than its predecessor, it was still marked by all the same old inconsistent worldbuilding, inconsistent characterization elements that are introduced and completely abandoned, etc. Etc. Etc. The one thing that was different My growing suspicions that Dashner was making this up as he went were all but confirmed. The third film installment also has something in common with its predecessor. It also completely abandons the book's narrative, opting instead to become a zombie heist action thriller. The movie went hard on the action, and again, much like the Scorch trials, it was at least fun, if not particularly unique. I could give a plethora of reasons that I'm choosing the movie over the book, but here's the biggest the ending the book had to resort to using an off screen change of heart from a character that we've never interacted with to get things wrapped up. The movie chooses to take a character who's been complicated the whole time, give her an actual arc, and have her death and sacrifice actually mean something. And for me that alone is a good enough reason to say that the movie movie is better.
• 2:19:08
  Speaker A: Absolutely. Katie, what's next?
• 2:19:10
  Speaker B: Up next, it's my birthday and we're going to be talking about the School for Good and Evil which is a book and movie I have never read or watched.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker A: Me neither.
• 2:19:23
  Speaker B: But I'm really excited because it looks bad in a fun way.
• 2:19:27
  Speaker A: Fantastic. Can't wait. That should be a lot of fun. That'll be in two weeks time time. But in one week's time we'll be previewing the School of Good and Evil.
• 2:19:36
  Speaker B: School for Good and Evil.
• 2:19:37
  Speaker A: The School for Good and Evil. As well as hearing what you all had to say about the final installment of the Maze Runner series and the whole series as a whole for that matter. Can't wait to discuss that. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being up.
• 2:19:57
  Speaker B: Awesome.