Percy Jackson Lightning Thief movie
Just like any other literature turns movie, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief simplified the plot and leave out many details. The white elephant is always in the room when it comes to children fantasy series that becomes a movie – the comparison to the gold standard of Harry Potter! It’s never fair because nothing in the field can compare to Harry Potter, even when they are in their book form, nothing can compare to the popularity of Harry Potter! The only comparison I will make here is how the two series deals with the adaptation of the plot. Harry Potter, all six movies so far, do an amazing job at simplifying the plot, leave out the details and yet keep the stories intact to the point that you feel like they didn’t change too much, things that got left out could still be happening.
Percy Jackson here is a very different story, the writer really take the liberty to change the structure of the story that any reader of the original series can tell you it is a very different story. And yet as a movie itself, it does work to an extend. It works as a stand alone movie. A lot of the seeds in book 1 that will become very significant later on in the series are all discarded. From the tree of Thalia, to camp bully Clarisse, to how Percy can never lose his “pen”, to the prophecy, to how Luke is actually working for something that’s even more powerful than the Olympian gods, all of them gone from the plot. I am guessing they just thought the chances of making a sequel is very slim so they just throw all of those away. It is fine because most of that if there will be a sequel, they can introduce them later on, but one major thing that they taken out of the story that has me quite disappointed are the involvement of the gods. In the movie only Poseidon voiced his advice and warning to Percy, and all the other Olympian gods only showed up in the end with less than a few minutes of screen time. In the book, so many gods showed up in disguise to help or to trick Percy and the gangs along the way. Those were the best part of the book and I am very disappointed that they didn’t make it into the movie.
Another disappointment is with this change of structure, the stake is reduced because the audience just can’t feel why the quest is important. The threat of war by Zeus just doesn’t make too much sense. I just can’t sense the tensions it was presented in the book. Nevertheless, I still like the movie, some of the treatments are better than the book in my opinion, such as Grover is less timid and more funny and kick ass at the same time. Uma Thurman’s Medussa is fantastic, way more refreshing than the one in the book. Steve Coogan’s Hades with the whole rock star look is awesome, so is the increased presence of Persephone – Rosario Dawson, who was just totally having fun in her role.
Overall, it’s a good effort to bring a book that I like to life, I hope it do well enough that the rest of the series might be able to become movies.
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Uma Thurman was like a thousand times drop dead gorgeous when she was still younger.’.;
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