Thrilling Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

I love second chapters, although I try to ignore the fact that we will all have to wait for the final chapter, but, as they say, all good things come to those who wait patiently.

Now that all the rules are set and we know how the maze works, or think we do, it's full speed ahead from the intriguing opening.

This time Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) and his fellow Gladers face their greatest challenge yet: searching for clues about the mysterious and powerful organisation known as WCKD (World Catastrophe Killzone Department). Their journey takes them to the Scorch, a desolate landscape filled with unimaginable obstacles. Teaming up with resistance fighters, the Gladers take on WCKD's vastly superior forces and uncover its shocking plans for them all.

It's great that Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is once again directed by Wes Ball, who made his feature film directorial debut with the first chapter. He reunites with screenwriter TS Nowlin, who penned the first chapter, based upon the second novel in the epic Maze Runner book series by James Dashner, which has sold more than three million copies.

Ball is a director with great vision who understands how to orchestrate action - and also allows us to crawl into the intimate world of the characters.

Picks up where it left off

For those who have not seen The Maze Runner, the second chapter picks up where it left off, as the Gladers are unloaded from the chopper that flew them away from the maze. We meet Aidan Gillen as the super cool villain who runs an underground bunker and warns them that "the world out there's in a rather precarious situation. We're all hanging on by a very thin thread. The fact that you kids can survive that damned virus ..."

The Maze Runner was the first book in the best-selling post-apocalyptic YA book series by James Dashner. Published in 2009, it became a New York Times best seller and captured the imaginations of readers around the world, who described it as a combination of Lord of the Flies, The Hunger Games, and the legendary television series Lost.

The second book, The Scorch Trials, was published in 2010, and a third tome, The Death Cure, was published in 2011.

The books' legions of fans embraced The Maze Runner, which grossed more than $340 million worldwide. Since it all began with Dashner and his imaginative worlds and vivid, relatable characters, the filmmakers were eager to have the author involved in the development of the Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials screenplay.

Transition from book to movie

"We talked a lot about changes that we feel are necessary to make that transition from book to movie," Dashner recalls. "Some things do have to change, but I have seen at first hand their tremendous effort to stay true to the characters, to the storyline, and to the spirit of the world. I couldn't be happier."

"Specifically," according to Dashner, "we really want people to feel like they are getting enough answers in this film. These answers will lead into even more in the third film, which will be about resolution and revelation."

While The Maze Runner was about escape, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is about a journey.

Says Ball: "In this film, we learn there is a much bigger world waiting for Thomas and the Gladers, one that's been ravaged by the sun and a deadly virus. These young people have to find their place in this world and figure out how they can fix it. The Gladers are very valuable to several different groups, and they're torn between saving the world and their personal freedom."

Answers many of the questions

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials answers many of the questions posed in the first film. The Gladers learn that most of the Earth has been destroyed, and that it was the ruthless scientific government entity known as WCKD that sent the Gladers into the maze as a survival challenge.

They discover that some of them are immune to the fatal Flare disease that is ravaging the population. These Immunes hold biological enzymes within their bodies that may help others resist the Flare.

"The Maze Runner was about claustrophobia and we were always closed in and never saw a horizon. But in this new film we go out into the open world with a giant desert of sand dunes swallowing the whole world basically," says Ball.

The Maze Runner co-screenwriter TS Nowlin says: "Mystery was the engine that drove people through the first movie - who built this maze and why? The engine we created for the second movie was to make it more of a chase and a fugitive story."

Most of the cast from The Maze Runner was contacted to return for the new film, including Teen Wolf star Dylan O'Brien.

The actor notes: "In the first film, Thomas transitions from being a boy to a man, and he becomes a leader. To the Gladers, he represents hope, and Thomas realises it's up to him to get everyone out of the Glade. In this movie, he shoulders the responsibility for what's happened to his fellow Gladers. Thomas convinced them to go for it and escape from the maze. Now they enter this world that's not necessarily what they thought it would be. He promised his friends that leaving the maze was the right move - it was going to save them. So Thomas must carry that weight because he now realises that they aren't safe. It might even be worse for them out there in the Scorch, and in the hands of WCKD, essentially. So it's now about him having to deal with that and staying strong."

The new film's haunting antagonists are the Cranks, dangerous and mutated creatures that are the living embodiment of the Flare virus.

"The Cranks aren't just monsters," says Ball. "These are beings that while being very frightening, also evoke some sympathy because they were once people who have had their lives ripped out from under them."

More formidable than even the monstrous Cranks are the forces running WCKD.

A metaphor for authority figures

"WCKD is a metaphor for authority figures and authoritative governments that believe an individual isn't as important as the whole. I think that's something young people rebel against," says producer Wyck Godfrey (Twilight, The Fault in Our Stars) "They want their own lives. They want to make their own choices."

On the other hand, he says: "WCKD is not 100% evil. They are trying to find a cure to a disease that's wiping out humanity, but, in doing so, they are wiping out the few people who can live with this disease and perhaps restart the Earth. So there's some moral ambiguity there."

For Dashner, creating these characters and their worlds has been liberating: "There are parts of our world that actually are dark and dystopic today. So this is a fun way to go through an adventure, to have some twists and turns in the action, and to also trigger some real moral questions about our world and the direction it's heading."

Bizcommunity readers can win a fantastic Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials hamper worth R600, which includes a scarf, a T-shirt and a DVD of the The Maze Runner. Tell us who wrote the books and send your answer and contact details to az.oc.oidutsgnitirw@leinad