Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, is a film directed by Chris Columbus released in 2010, adapted from the first book of the famous book series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, authored by none other than Rick Riordan himself. It is a fantasy/adventure film which is inspired by Greek Mythology. It’s a good movie, except that a lot of details were overlooked and changed from the original.
The movie is about a dyslexic kid, Percy Jackson, who later on discovers about his demigod identity. He gets accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt, thus setting off to retrieve the missing weapon, settling the fight between gods along the way.
Personally, I am a fan of genres like these, and Percy Jackson is actually my favorite book series. I have read all the books, so if I were to be more honest, the movie adaptation is kind of disappointing. I have noticed a lot of important scenes from the book that got excluded in the movie, and that’s just upsetting. In the book, Percy Jackson’s godly parent was supposed to be unknown, which means he still has to wait to be claimed. He got claimed in the middle of a war game, by one of the big three gods, Poseidon, the god of the sea. Being a child of one of the big three actually is a big deal, for that could mean a very powerful demigod, and also because that rarely happens. Everyone at camp then kneeled in front of Percy and that just speaks a lot about the importance of his character… except they excluded that part in the movie. As a person who looked forward to the film adaptation, it was just so dissatisfying.
Talking about the movie alone, no doubt it’s a very good movie. Characters did great, scenes were spectacular, amazing plot, and smoothly directed. Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d give it a 10/10. I mean, that genre is my jam! Plus, the characters did really well, and the plot? Hands down! Though most details were very different from the book, I liked how they got creative in the movie, except that in some parts, they just got too creative.
One thing that got me furious about the movie was how they picked out the wrong characters. Well, the artists played their role well, no hate on them, it’s just that they became so different. Especially my favorite character, Annabeth. They just completely ruined her in the movie! In the book, she was described as a girl with gray eyes, and a curly blonde hair, but the character who played her role was completely different. She also was supposed to carry her Yankees cap everywhere since it was her magic item, invisibility cap, but that never appeared in the movies! It was a very important weapon for Annabeth and it helped them a lot during their adventures.
Character wise, I’d say the picking wasn’t wise. They were all supposed to be around 12, except that they chose artists who were around 17-20 years old to play the roles. Important characters such as Annabeth and Grover were not supposed to be overlooked, but they really just changed them in the movies. Grover was barely recognizable in the movie anymore. I only knew it was him because of his goat legs. They completely changed Grover, from the way he looks, and his personality. They just changed a LOT in the movies.
The movie alone was great, but knowing it was inspired from a book (a book that I have already read), and that it was completely different, just makes me want to rate it a negative. Overall, the film adaptation was very disappointing, from the exclusion of important details, up to the way they chose the characters. A lot of things just really went wrong in the movie.
Comments