Maze Runner Books vs Movies: What Changed From Page to Screen

Thomas keeps his role as the curious newcomer who breaks the rules and finds the route out, but Teresa is the character whose treatment shifts most across the trilogy. In the first film she arrives in the lift as the first girl the Glade has ever received, carrying a note that says she is the last one. By The Scorch Trials she secretly passes the Right Arm camp's location to WCKD, and in The Death Cure she works with the organization and Thomas uses her to reach its headquarters.

Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario are billed first and second in all three films, and in my opinion that continuity is what lets the betrayal land. A relationship that has to be carried by performance and a handful of scenes gets its payoff on the roof of the burning headquarters, where Teresa removes Thomas's blood so that the cure can be made, and then falls to her death when the building collapses. Thomas Maze Runner and Teresa Maze Runner follow each of them in more detail.

The films show Newt infected with the Flare in Maze Runner: The Death Cure, where he begins to lose control, and the story plays that as the emotional center of the final act. He begs Thomas to end his life, Thomas refuses, and Newt stabs himself. The note Thomas finds later in Newt's pendant, asking him to look after everyone, closes the film.

Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays Newt in all three films, billed third each time. His full screen story is told in Newt Maze Runner.

Minho is a runner in the Glade, played by Ki Hong Lee, and Gally is the boy who distrusts Thomas from the start, played by Will Poulter. The films give both characters clear arcs across the trilogy.

In the first film Thomas and Minho work together to kill a Griever and examine it, and Minho later kills Gally after Gally shoots Chuck. Gally is then believed dead until The Death Cure, where he turns up and helps the rescue party into the Last City. Minho meanwhile becomes the captive: WCKD takes him in The Scorch Trials, and Thomas, Newt and Frypan set out to bring him back in the final film. Putting Minho at the center of the third film's rescue gives the trilogy a simple through line. Both characters have profiles: Minho Maze Runner and Gally Maze Runner.

WCKD is the organization behind the maze in the films, and it runs as a branded, institutional threat across all three.

In the 2014 film a recorded message from WCKD tells the survivors that the maze was a test while a deadly disease spread across the world. In The Scorch Trials Thomas learns that Janson's facility belongs to WCKD and that Ava Paige is alive. In The Death Cure Janson kills Ava Paige, and the Cranks that Thomas lets loose then kill Janson. The organization is covered in WICKED Maze Runner, and Paige has her own profile at Ava Paige Maze Runner.

The second film turns the Gladers' escape into a chase through a ruined desert. After leaving the maze, the survivors are taken in by Janson, who says his facility protects them from infected Cranks. Thomas discovers that the place belongs to WCKD, and he and his friends flee into the Scorch.

Along the way the group loses Winston to the infection and meets Brenda and Jorge, who guide them toward the mountains and the Right Arm resistance. Teresa's betrayal leads WCKD to raid the camp, capturing Minho, Aris and Sonya, and Mary Cooper dies in the attack. At 131 minutes it is the film that most clearly trades the first story's puzzle for momentum. The film also uses Giancarlo Esposito as Jorge and Rosa Salazar as Brenda, and both return in the finale. See brenda maze runner and jorge maze runner.

The films close the story on Thomas reading Newt's note on a safe island, and in my opinion that is a quieter and more personal ending than the scale of the trilogy would suggest. Thomas and the survivors escape the collapsing WCKD headquarters by Berg after Teresa has removed Thomas's blood so that a cure can be made. Teresa dies in the fall, Newt has already died by his own hand, and the group settles where the Flare and WCKD cannot reach them.

Each film also ends differently in kind. The Maze Runner (2014) closes on a helicopter rescue that looks like safety but hints at more trials, The Scorch Trials closes on the Right Arm raid with Thomas vowing to hunt down Ava Paige, and The Death Cure closes the whole story. That is a puzzle, then a chase, then a rescue and a loss, which helps explain why the third film runs 143 minutes against 113 for the first.

The money follows the same shape. Budgets rose from $34 million to $61 million and then $62 million, while worldwide grosses fell from about $348 million to $312 million and $288 million, according to Box Office Mojo. It could be argued that the trilogy spent more on each chapter while audiences shrank, and that the island ending, which sets nothing further up, is a tidy way to stop.