Hacker Cinema
The Maze Runner
2014 · Film · 113 min
Part of The Maze Runner Collection
Directed by Wes Ball
ActionMysteryScience FictionThriller
A teenager with no memory of his past finds himself among a group of boys living in a walled enclosure surrounded by a massive, ever-changing maze. As he struggles to adapt to their rules and society, he begins to uncover clues that may lead to escape and the truth behind their confinement.
1 negative8 neutralfrom 9 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
Gibson was obviously very inspired by Japan. The Matrix was also in part directly inspired by Ghost in the Shell, even creating The Animatrix at the same time. But Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner was told from the inside. It is about the authorities chasing down rouge elements. Neuromancer and The Matrix is from the perspective of the outsiders.
Like someone else said in the comments here, cyberpunk is counterculture. It is in the name. Gibson moved to Canada to avoid getting drafted into the Vietnam war. Japan never really did counter-culture as mainstream as the US does. Considering the overlap between cyberpunk and anime, I would actually say that Japan is sometime given too much credit by being treated as the superior original with deeper meaning. When it is Western media that have explored more advanced and diverse interpretations.
A similar thing happened with Battle Royale. A niche movie. The same concept became a cultural phenomenon with The Hunger Games, and later Maze Runner and Divergent series. And then video games. Now made from the outspoken perspective of the teenagers.
So you should absolutely credit the US counterculture and environment for a large part of cyberpunk and dystopian, but also more utopian science fiction. I don't even like Hollywood much, but it still has a far wider catalog than anyone else. Who else could make Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or even Star Trek: Voyager? Disney made Andor by the way.
The Mario Movie was directed by a couple guys who were best know for creating Teen Titans Go!, which had similar middling reviews.
If I had to guess Nintendo is going with people they think can do a lot with a relatively modest budget.
Maze Runner pulled in $350 million on a $34 million budget, which is remarkable. The franchise made $950 million on a $150 million dollar budget which is wild.
Nintendo isn’t going for high art with these. They want someone who will make an entertaining enough movie while staying faithful to the material.
It's the director of the Maze Runner movies.
I don't think we're getting artistic and high concept fan appeal unless that note is a hard requirement from Nintendo directly.
I am talking about the western society. In the 80s and 90s, you don't really see movies about an entire generation of teenagers being oppressed. The main characters are likely to be teenagers but most adventure stories have teenage main characters.
In the 2000s, you started seeing popular sci-fi books (then movies in 2010s) like The Hunger Games and Maze Runner that depict teenagers as the opposed class.
Personally I think the 2000 Japanese classic Battle Royale started it all.
These are all generally highly reviewed can lead to interesting discussions:
Gattaca - interesting take on genetics/DNA discrimination
Europa - hard science fiction, maybe a bit slow for a 12 year old
The Net - older movie but the concept of digital exile resonates today
City of Ember - post apocalyptic civilization that lives deep underground
First Man - dramatization of Neil Armstrong and the first moon landing (not realy "fiction")
Arrival - first contact situation, tastefully done
Contact - another first contact situation that explores how politics, skepticism, and fanaticism react
The Martian - easily as fun as the book
The Prestige - competing magicians in an industrial age setting
The Hunger Games - extreme class divide in a future setting
Jurassic Park - the original not the sequels
Stargate - wormhole travel to another planet (be careful with the TV shows though, SG1 on streaming has full frontal nudity and "not ok" scenes which were obviously not on the broadcast version and a total shock when we watched it as a family)
District 9 - has some graphic gore and language, so it might be 14+, but is an interesting look at aliens as refugees
Contagion - a look at how a pandemic could play out. Premiered before COVID.
The Maze Runner - interesting setting and look at group dynamics
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids - fun setting
The Village - scary movie with a sci fi twist
Galaxy Quest - comedy
Short Circuit - old movie that deals with AI sentience
Innerspace - another old one, but has some fun concepts
Game of Thrones had a horrible final season. The first six seasons were maybe the best in all of television.
It's rare for a TV series to be excellent and stay excellent it's entire life.
This doesn't really seem unique to Netflix.
There's a ton of movies, shows, books - where the first installment is outstanding and the rest are trash.
My favorite example as a kid was Maze Runner. The first book has terrible prose - but is actually pretty well paced and a good story. The second two are utter garbage (fun fact: the editor quit after the first book AND the publisher dropped the author when the first one was the next best selling sci Fi / fantasy since Harry Potter... That's how bad the sequels were).
This happens more times than not.
> Children aren’t at risk here, reason why still unknown.
Isn't this the underlying plot of Maze Runner, and a bunch of other books/movies?
A decade of young adult fiction dystopian worlds of only young adults, followed by an actual decade of dystopian world of only young adults.
Annihilation, Dark City, Riddick Chronicles, Babylon A.D., Guardians of The Galaxy, Fast and Furious, Hummingbird, Transporter, Crank, Hardcore Henry, Revolver, Lucy, Ghost in The Shell, Now you see me, Passengers, Transcendence, Maze Runner, Limitless...
I think we've had a good run; I also think it's easy to be biased and not see it because of some nostalgia-effect of sorts. If you are f.e. 30+ you might more easily dismiss a movie as Limitless or Lucy as uncredible; both are based on a common myth that we only utilize a low percentage of our brains capacity, as an example, so they are that: unrealistic. But I think that's an unfair comparison because of an inherent bias that when you think about a movie like The Matrix you don't see it with the same critical lens because you perhaps had less knowledge of the world in your earlier years. #JustAFewThoughts
I really liked all of them, but episode 2 was probably my favourite of season 1. It is over the top compared to other parts of the series, but not compared to other experimental far future or alternate universe scifi. For example: Dark City, Idiocracy, Cube, Moon, Battle Royale, Maze Runner.