The importance of color in this film really impressed me.
The opening was cold, blue, not terribly unlike Gattaca, only it was a wide shot and not a close-up. It set up a similar tone. There was something wrong, to be sure, and something industrial. There was a lot of blue and cold greys and the people and their clothes were not even warm tones.
Inside the facility, it is very clean. There is precision in everything: lines, corners, white, grey, blue, order, edges, and officers. The only warm tones are in skin and caution paint. Even then, the paint is yellow, which is borderline cool/warm. The harsh fluorescent lights keep the skin from appearing too lifelike and warm. There is little comforting, as far as colors go. We miss the comfortable green of the Glade.
When the kids get out, at first I was hopeful. I thought the colors of the outside would again bring comfort and safety. But no. We are taught to not trust the browns and golds of the sand dunes as they conceal more enemies. Even down in the abandoned warehouse, or mall, or whatever it was, there were yellows and reds in food wrappers and toys. The lines were less definite and maintained. There was clutter. It looked promising. Sadly, these colors then bring no trust because they mean there are people around, and people are dangerous.
The cityscape is a mix of brown and grey, with some blue thrown in. That cannot be trusted, either. There is some play with black, too, in the subjects of the scorch. Basically, by halfway through the movie, there are no colors we have seen that have been associated with anything happy. The only hope is green. Nature provides the group with safety, or at least familiarity.
There are some other pretty cool storytelling techniques in here. The environment, for example, seems to pick the kids off one by one. This keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, waiting to see who is next. The contrasts in setting but steadiness in tone was also pretty cool. There were some glimpses into other stories, like the lotus-eaters and the party Thomas "attends." Even the need for the blood of one certain leader to save another, who had been left helpless by the tortures of the world, could be pointing to a bigger, different story.
As with The Maze Runner, this was set up brilliantly for the next part of the series. I hope the team can continue to pull off these stories. So far they have done a decent job.
I believe colors affect us a lot more than we immediately realize. Once you have harnessed the knowledge of how colors work, and shades and hues, you can work it into your art and make it way deeper without anyone noticing. How cool is that?
