By: Young In Seo and Aisha Singh

The Scorch Trials, which came out on September 18th, was filled with action-packed and nerve-wracking moments. Despite having great cinematography, the movie diverged from its book counterpart many times. See the differences that we spotted below!

*spoiler alert!*

The trials

All throughout the books, it is clear that WICKED’s goal in making the Gladers to participate in the trials

is to examine their brains to find a cure for the Flare. As a result, in the book, the Gladers were told they would be put through another trial — the Scorch Trials. But the movie did not mention anything about a second trial. Not only does this plot point deviate from the book, but it also does not follow up with the first movie, which did mention a second trial.

The Flare

In the film, we saw that people became infected with the Flare virus as soon as they came into contact with other people with the virus. For example, if someone sustained an injury from a Crank the Flare infection would be immediate. But the serious effects of the Flare virus in the books took a longer time to show themselves – there were different ‘levels’ of the virus that one slowly descended into over time; for example, the people populating the party scene were also Cranks – the movie did not make this clear.

The mission

In the book the Gladers were given a clear mission — to traverse the Scorch, go over the mountains, and

to the safe haven where they would be given the cure for the Flare which they were all told that they were infected — all within two weeks. This gives the Gladers a purpose throughout the book.  However, in the movie, the Gladers were given no such mission – rather than obeying WICKED, the Gladers run away from them during the whole movie.

Teresa and Aris

When Teresa was abruptly separated from the Gladers, her connection with Thomas was also lost. After much questions, Thomas finally follows Teresa into a cave in the mountains and discovers that Teresa was only pretending to be on Thomas’s side when in reality when she was working with WICKED along with Aris helping. Thomas, who had developed special feelings for Teresa throughout the book feels completely betrayed not only when Teresa reveals that she was cooperating with WICKED, but also when he sees Teresa and Aris kiss. As well as this, the tension and suspicion of the entire book increases tenfold as Thomas is constantly betrayed by Teresa and doesn’t know who to trust – the movie falls flat.

The hanging scene

At the very beginning of the Scorch Trials book, the Gladers had woken up in the WICKED facility only to find the Right Arm members hanging grotesquely upside down from the ceiling. This scene was portrayed in the exact opposite way in the movie. During the middle of the film, the Gladers travel to the Right Arm in a desperate attempt for safety, but once they get there they are captured and hung upside down in what is one of the most comical scenes of the film.

More gladers

This may be a small difference, but one nonetheless. The book had many more people undertaker WICKED’s mission to survive the harsh Scorch and to safety. But the movie started off with a very small group, a few of which were killed off.

Scorch city inhabitants

In the book, all the inhabitants of the Scorch City were technically Cranks. Everyone in the city had been infected by the Flare because the government, due to its strict quarantine measures, had sent all

the infected to isolated places like the Scorch City. However, in the movie it was implied that there were still normal people in the desert (as seen by the party scene). The film didn’t explain why there were people living in the Scorch.