Blog: ‘The Maze Runner’ & ‘Listen to Your Heart’
I discovered a box of gold.
While I’ve been staying at my mom’s house in Arizona, I came across a box of old DVDs that I didn’t remember owning. They never made the trip to New York I suppose. I then simultaneously discovered that my 4-year-old laptop has a DVD player. So, I buckled down and got to work. Right off the bat, I dove into The Maze Runner series.
Nothing feels better than revisiting your favorite trilogy, don’t you think? To be honest, I don’t know a lot of people who know about The Maze Runner series or if they do, they aren’t fanatics of it. I remember when I saw the first movie by accident at a friend’s house back in 2014 and I instantly fell in love with it. I don’t know if it was the mysterious dystopian plotline, the comradery of the characters or just Dylan O’Brien himself, but I was hooked. Once I found out The Maze Runner was based on a book series well, that was that. Much like the other young adult series that came before it (Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Harry Potter), I knew once I bought those books that I was in deep with another fandom. I already loved the movie so of course, I would love the books even more.
In this world, a virus has run rampant turning most of the human population into what they call “cranks” (zombies more or less). There are some, specifically young kids, who are immune to the virus. An organization called WICKED, which consists of scientists and doctors, find those who are immune and put them through unbelievably inhumane tests and trials to try and discover what makes them different, and formulate a cure. Their memories are wiped, some characters act as double agents, and it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s a test.
I noticed that a lot of people didn’t like the movie adaptations because they didn’t follow the books. I mean, it’s not even close in my opinion. But I think you have to separate books from their movie/TV adaptations always because they will NEVER be the same. You cannot expect a highly detailed novel to be perfectly converted into a two-hour movie. It’s just not possible. I do admit that The Maze Runner adaptations took a complete left turn but I was okay with it. In a way, I had a book series that I loved so much and then I had a different story with the movies that were equally as epic. I loved them both.
The Maze Runner to me is what The Hunger Games is to a lot of other people. Does that make sense? There were a handful of YA books/trilogies/series that were transferred to the big screen and while it felt like people were obsessed with The Hunger Games, I was infatuated with The Maze Runner. I had nothing against the former, I was just attached more to the latter. For a while there, it seemed like Hollywood has an endless supply of YA series to cash in on but I don’t think most franchises ever finished off as strong as they started, according to critics on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb. Although, the box office still made delicious profits (with the exception of Allegiant).
Do people still like YA books? That may be a dumb question, but I feel like they aren’t as popular as they once were. Or, maybe I’m just not a teenager anymore with friends shoving strange books in my face at after-school theatre rehearsals. I don’t think the dystopian theme will ever go out of style, but I wonder if YA series have done their time on the big screen.
Actually, all movies are done making it to the big screen for the time being, with COVID-19 and whatnot.
But what hasn’t stopped appearing on our home screens is glorious content from The Bachelor franchise. If you’re a part of Bachelor Nation, you’ll know that the franchise has recently started another spin-off: The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart. Great. Another one. I wasn’t sure that I was going to watch it. It seemed lame okay? How many spin-offs can one franchise produce?! But in all honesty, it’s just the gift that keeps on giving. With the virus halting production of The Bachelorette, LTYH is thee only Bachelor content we’re going to get for a while- and I’m here for it y’all.
This spinoff is what you get when A Star Is Born meets Bachelor in Paradise. It promises the same amount of drama but with the added twist of freakin’ talented contestants. I bet you Jed Wyatt is sitting wherever he is during this quarantine, swearing under his breath that he ended up on the wrong branch of The Bachelor tree.
I’m not sure if LTYH will be a recurring spin-off because well, you know, some have thrived (Bachelor in Paradise) while others died (Winter Games, Bachelor Pad). Plus, it’s not like they know what the future holds for its more prominent installments as of right now. I’m just thankful that this first episode was surprisingly satisfactory and we have five more glorious episodes of drama to look forward to.
