"The Maze Runner" wins! 

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Blu-ray widescreen and DVD widescreen, 2014, PG-13 for thematic elements and intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, including some disturbing images

Best extra: It’s all good – especially the detailed, five-part making-of

AUTHOR JAMES DASHNER has every reason to be happy. Proud, too. The film adaptation of his novel “The Maze Runner” is a winner.

Fox’s Blu-ray presentation is even better. Loaded with extras – commentary, a detailed making-of, deleted scenes (to be played with or without director’s commentary) and actor’s video diary, with a terrific comic enclosed, written by director Wes Ball and screen script writer T.S. Nowlin – we get a genuine bang for our hard earned bucks. We also get to see “Ruin,” Ball’s action short that got him “The Maze Runner” job. It’s easy to see why Fox would take a chance on him.

Digitally shot, the high-def transfer in super widescreen 2.40:1 ratio presents rich color, with natural skin tones and sharp detail. The palette is consistently warm, even in high-tech visuals – all the better to understand the appeal of the characters’ home base. From sunlit fields to towering, ivy-draped maze walls, the look is organic and realistic. Effects are good. Especially nice are the scorpion-like Grievers, a monstrous mash of fur, teeth, tech and glistening black eyes. (There’s an image to haunt your dreams!) One-on-one and group battles are as good as we’ve seen from Weta and DreamWorks. In the making-of, we’re treated to consecutively running before-and-after effects and action, and they are impressive.

An immersive DTS-HD Master Audio eight-channel mix keeps sound moving throughout the speakers. We are surrounded; conversation, effects and ambient sound arrive distinctly and clearly. Kudos to Ball and his team for creating such a believable – and exciting – film experience.

But what’s it like having your best-selling series adapted to film by a relative newcomer? Although Ball has a good background in visual effects and film art, “The Maze Runner” is his first feature-length movie. Not every transition from book to film hits the mark, yet Dashner was confident his “Maze Runner” was in good hands.

“Ball has such a good knack for storytelling,” Dashner said in a phone interview. “He’s really sharp, really smart and we liked a lot of the same movies. He took me around the set, showing me what they were going to do. The energy and enthusiasm was contagious.”

Absolutely. Viewers get their own feel for that in the extras. The director is a virtual dynamo and we can see it in the making-of and hear it in his commentary as he talks about the adaptation, concerned about how book fans will react to changes or deleted material. At the time of recording, the follow-up film based on “The Scorch Trials,” the second book in the series, was still in question. Fox has now given it a go with a release date set for 2015.

If you’re among the uninitiated, “The Maze Runner” is a sci-fi tale set in – yes, yet another – dystopian future. (Is there any other kind?) The story uses a “Lord of the Flies” model, although it’s not as bleak as William Golding’s tale. Here, the threat comes from without, rather than the politics of personality. A group of boys of various ages and nationalities are thrust, one-by-one, into a mysterious, near idyllic glade, where a mile-high steel maze looms. They receive a modicum of supplies every month along with a new member. Everyone arrives as a complete blank; they can’t even remember their name until a few days later. All other personal history is gone. Their goal is to survive and, for that, they’ve got to work together.

And, together, they make a home for themselves.

“It’s about hope, loyalty and friendship,” Dashner said. “They never give up. They stay fiercely loyal to one another.”

That doesn’t mean their world is without trouble or punishment. Gally (Will Poulter, “We’re the Millers”) feels threatened by new arrival Thomas (“Teen Wolf”). Thomas is smart, capable and curious, especially about the Maze, which the boys think may be a way out to their other, mysterious lives. Will there be parents? Will the struggle for food and shelter be lessened? Maze Runners are the boys – teens, mostly – who dash in to explore and map the Maze, charting the ever-changing pitfalls and traps while dodging the Grievers.

Right away, we’re pretty sure Thomas will be the one to make a difference – to help them break through. It’s the fear of change, leaving the safety and comradery he knows in the glade that drives Gally, pitting the two against one another.

Dashner said his inspiration for “The Maze Runner” may have started with Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of “The Shining.” “I was really too young to see it, but checked it out anyway,” he said. “The last scene in the snow really creeped me out,” with the child stuck in the maze and his father coming after him. Books like “The Lord of the Flies” and films like “Road Warrior” also bled into the story. They “made [him] think about humanity and how we treat one another.”

As for the trend of dystopian books and film, Dashner feels lucky to have stumbled onto the bandwagon.

“Fantasy is so big with Harry Potter and all that. ‘The Maze Runner’ is another version of that other-worldly excitement. It makes people think. Teenagers, especially as they contemplate their future … think about what kind of world they’d like to live in … But, honestly, my number one goal is that I like to write and create stories that are fun to read.”

As for seeing those books on film? Like writer George R.R. Martin, Dashner said the film gave him “a way of experiencing the story for the first time again.”

“I think studios are giving more credit to the source material and the readers,” he said, citing adaptions of Martin’s “Game of Thrones” and Nancy Collins’ “The Hunger Games.” “Fox did a great job of making me feel like a part of things from the beginning,” he said. “I was involved enough to feel a part of it and be happy with what they were doing.”

Chances are, if you like sci-fi adventure with good characters, you’ll be happy with “The Maze Runner,” too.

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