The Lightning Thief: Book VS. Movie - Cora Lewis-Patterson

    The Percy Jackson series is one that many people have grown to love over the years. With five books, two movies, and an upcoming television show, it would be a lie to say that it is not extremely popular. However, that does not mean everyone loves the franchise. Unfortunately, as with other franchises that made live-screen adaptations to their books, the fans absolutely despise the movies. There is hope for the new television show, however, and surprisingly fans are quite excited about it. In this post, I am going to compare the first book The Lightning Thief to its movie adaptation, and we can all together hope the T.V. show adaptation will actually be good.

    When I first started reading the Percy Jackson series, I had accidentally read the second book, The Sea of Monsters. Although I was very confused about who this mysterious Percy Jackson was supposed to be, it was still very enjoyable. When I finally discovered that I had been reading in the wrong order, I went back to the first book and started reading. The characters and plot made a lot more sense to me, and I was able to enjoy it and also get background knowledge on things I had no idea about in the second book. I read the rest of the series soon after and was content with all of the books. Once I reached middle school, I discovered that a movie for the first book existed and we were going to be watching it in reading class. I was very excited to watch the movie, being a large PJO fan myself. However, once the movie had started, I knew it was going to be bad. The plot had changed, the characters looked nothing like how they were described in the novels, and the special effects overall were terrible. The only thing I enjoyed was making fun of how cringey it was with my classmates. I had soon after forgotten about this movie, as I had been brought little joy because of it, but recently in Latin Club it was brought to my attention once again. This time, I decided to read the book at the same time we were going to watch the movie. I figured it would be a fun idea for a blog post, plus I knew that there was soon to be a new television show for the franchise. So, I watched (and made fun of) the movie, read the book, and here are the main things that I have to say:

1. The soundtrack is surprisingly good.

With songs from famous artists such as Lady Gaga, Elvis, and AC/DC, there are some pretty fun tunes that keep with the mood of the movie, even if they can be a bit extra. When I first watched the movie, these recognizable songs helped me distract myself from how bad the special effects were. With original songs such as “Victory” and “The Minotaur”, the movie is given its own unique feel and intensity. I admire that they created these songs to help set a good atmosphere, and did not just fill the entire movie with popular songs to try and make it as relevant as possible.

2. Although the plot changes add some level of uniqueness to the film, they are not needed at all.

In the book, there are some filler parts and some extra stuff here and there, but most of it helps add humor, charm, or drives the plot forward. However, the movie adds so many unnecessary characters and changes that it strays so far from the book it is almost completely unenjoyable. For example, in the first book Percy goes to a private boarding school to keep him safe from anyone who wishes to harm him because of his father. In the movie, he goes to a regular school and his mom is married to an abusive man whose entire purpose is to mask Percy by how awful he smells. I find this extremely dumb and totally unnecessary, as the original version was fine, and in my opinion, was better.

3. The characters are changed (and not for the better).

I’m sure we all have experienced that feeling of dread when the screen adaptation of a book cannot even keep the characters' hair color right. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens in The Lightning Thief. The character I am most upset about this happening to is Annabeth. I find it extremely sad that they could not even keep her blonde, and for some reason she is brunette. It is so ridiculously easy to change hair color that I cannot help but become heated. If characters' appearances are changed, I usually only like it if it is because the director doesn’t make the cast all white except for like two people. However, this clearly is not the case for this movie.

    All in all, the movie isn’t the most terrible piece of film I have ever seen, but I probably would not go out of my way to watch it again. I sincerely hope that the television show will live up to its expectations.