The Percy Jackson and the Olympians books are a globally loved fantasy series with a modern twist on Greek Mythology, with a fandom similar to that of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. However, unlike the latter book series, The Lightning Thief movie and Percy Jackson’s other movie adaptations (of which there was only one despite there being five books and multiple spin-offs) were utter failures in the eyes of the fans. The author of Percy Jackson and other series like the Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordan, has himself spoken out about how badly adapted the books were. Likewise, even the Percy Jackson movie star Logan Lerman has said on multiple occasions that the books deserved a better adaptation than the one given by the movies.
Looking at the Percy Jackson movie and the lack of attention to detail displayed in the plots, it’s understandable that fans were and still are very frustrated at the way the big-screen adaptation turned out. When a Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV series was announced for Disney+, fans were immediately doubtful but were reassured to learn that Riordan would be involved, unlike with The Lightning Thief movie. With the new Percy Jackson show being actively in the works, now is a good time to look back on the Percy Jackson movies in order to explain why exactly the author, actors, and fans couldn’t have possibly appreciated it.
The Percy Jackson Movies Rushed The Characters’ Stories
Character changes aren’t always bad, but Percy and other characters being 11 or 12 years old at the start of the books was an important part of their story. By contrast, The Lightning Thief movie made the age difference between Percy and Luke invisible, removing the tension in many moments .12-year-olds falling off a bridge or fighting gigantic monsters and facing gods makes for more drama than teenagers (who are almost adults) doing the same. In addition to making the main characters from the books older, the movies also changed core aspects of their personalities and their relationships to one another.
Since the characters in the Percy Jackson movie were 15 or 16 years old, Annabeth and Percy almost instantly developed romantic tension, whereas in the source material they barely like each other as friends and take four books to begin admitting the feelings they have – even to themselves. This gradual build makes sense for children who grow into young adults, but because the movies start with Annabeth and Percy as teenagers, they jumped towards romance without really having earned it.
Character Changes Ruined Percy Jackson’s Biggest Reveals
The changes made to Luke’s character were particularly detrimental. In the movie, he confesses to being the bad guy early in the second half, whereas the book had him come back in the last chapter, sending a monster from hell to poison Percy. Since Percy beats Luke before getting to Olympus in the movie, it completely undermines Luke as a villain, as audiences already know that when push comes to shove, Percy can beat the son of Hermes (played by Nathan Fillion). In the original work, the first real confrontation between Percy and Luke as a villain is at the end of the second book. Percy barely makes it out alive, and wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for the group of centaurs that came to his rescue.
Percy’s changes also make him a less compelling character. A lot of the sass that Percy displays in the books is taken away in the Percy Jackson movies (in order to make him seem more mature, perhaps), and he’s almost immediately in full control of his powers in The Lightning Thief movie, whereas it takes him years in the books to grasp just how powerful he is. Annabeth comes off as much more arrogant in the problematic Percy Jackson movies. Grover is given a much bigger role and, in turn, comes off as much more confident than in the first book. This isn’t a negative trait to give a character, but Grover’s confidence comes progressively in the books because his background and past failures have led to his shy nature.
Percy’s Quest In The Lightning Thief Is Worse
Plot changes are a common practice when it comes to adapting books into movies, but it shouldn’t mean rewriting the entire story. The Percy Jackson movies did just that, incorporating monsters and storylines that didn’t appear until later in the book series. While changes aren’t always bad, they can be alienating to the movie’s built-in audience of existing fans. When people saw the movie adaptation of Dune or Harry Potter, they expected the core story to stay intact and for the characters to be relatable in the same way that they were in the book, and weren’t disappointed. The Percy Jackson movie’s modifications to the plot were so extensive that they changed the characters’ development, and not for the better.
In the movie, Percy needs to acquire three pearls in order to get to the Underworld to confront Hades about Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover go looking for trouble because they expect to take the pearls from monsters. They have to sneak out of camp because Chiron forbids them to go look for Percy’s mom – and the bolt. But in the books, the fact that Percy’s mom is missing is what guides him in his adventures. Chiron encourages him to go on the quest, and Percy, who was only just made aware of Mount Olympus and the world of Greek Gods, barely cares about the bolt. On his way to the Underworld, he accidentally runs into a couple of monsters.
In the case of The Lightning Thief movie, the changes weren’t earned, and they made the story more confusing. On top of everything, the end of the movie doesn’t make for a good transition into the rest of the saga, whereas the book had the perfect way to introduce the rest of the series’ main plot. Because Percy was already a great warrior and had already defeated Luke once and had seemingly completely come into his powers, not only did the movie provide fans with a disappointing and inaccurate adaptation, it also put the rest of the series on a weak footing, something Walker Scobell’s Percy Jackson show will hopefully avoid in its first season.
The Sea of Monsters Unnecessarily Merges Two Percy Jackson Books
Because the first Percy Jackson movie didn’t set up the rest of the series properly, the sequel, Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters, turned out rather confusing. The first scene is very intense and begins with a much older-looking Percy – Logan Lerman, who was already 18 in the first movie, was now 21 – fighting with a random new character who apparently is his nemesis. In the books, Clarisse is a bully to Percy from the second he gets to camp. That enables their rivalry to grow over the years and, in the second book of the series, causes tension when the quest is assigned to Clarisse, but Percy still decides to go.
On top of the lack of continuity, Sea of Monsters totally changed the outcome of its book(s). In an odd inverse of how franchises like The Hunger Games made two movies for one book, The Sea of Monsters is a merger of books two and five, causing a lot of confusion, a lot of plot cuts, and a story that feels unnecessarily rushed. In the books, Luke and an army of angry demigods and monsters spend five years bringing back a Chronos that was cut into pieces and thrown into Tartarus. In the movies, Luke manages to bring back Chronos at the end of Sea of Monsters, and it takes Percy a little less than 10 minutes to destroy him. Not only is that anticlimactic for a fantasy adventure saga, it once again destroys the characters.
Part of the reason it takes Chronos so long to come back in the books is that Percy is an obstacle every step of the way. Luke — played in the Percy Jackson movies by Jake Abel of Malignant, another box office failure — actually sacrifices his body for Chronos to possess, making Percy and especially Annabeth hesitate when it comes to killing him. This storyline enables Luke to find redemption in the end. The movie’s depiction of Chronos is a giant fire monster that would be able to crush any of them under his feet and creates no moral dilemma for the main characters.
What Percy Jackson Got Right
There are so many things that went wrong with the Percy Jackson movie that it’s impossible to list them all. However, as a movie, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief wasn’t all bad. The CGI was pretty decent, and the storyline is serviceable. Moreover, The Lightning Thief movie had some successes, such as the casting of James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan as Chiron and Steve Coogan as Hades. Even more broadly, the movie helped introduce Greek mythology and the Percy Jackson books themselves to a wider audience. At the end of the day, though, The Lightning Thief movie was supposed to be a book adaptation and owed at least some faithfulness to the source material. The script just took some aspects of the book, like the character names and the notion that the stories bring a modern twist to mythology, and ran with it – without doing the book series any justice. Hopefully, the Disney+ Percy Jackson and the Olympians series will be better both as an adaptation and a standalone story.
Why Disney Hasn’t Given Up On Percy Jackson
Two words explain why Disney hasn’t given up on the Percy Jackson show — franchise potential. The first of the Percy Jackson books came out in 2005 and amassed a strong following. While the young adult novels didn’t quite reach the fame of say, Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, the universe of Percy Jackson attracted plenty of readers and garnered enough attention to get their own feature films. The relatable characters and intricate story world built by author Rick Riordan captivated readers across the globe, with his Westernization of classic Greek myths taking the world by storm. The author has won multiple Mark Twain Awards and Children’s Choice Book Awards for his works of fiction, proving that the Percy Jackson series has merit despite the failures of the movies. So, there’s certainly enough fan interest to justify Disney’s choice to bring the Half-Blood demigod back to the small screen.
Outside of general interest, Disney recognizes that there is huge franchise potential with the successful Percy Jackson series. Ever since Warner Bros. snagged the rights for Harry Potter, with the planned park almost landing at the Magic Kingdom, Disney has been trying to do anything and everything they can to promote a worthy competitor. The mega studio even wants to set up competition in-house, with the Percy Jackson series possibly rivaling that of their Marvel division. See, Percy Jackson isn’t the only series that author Rick Riordan has under his belt. He also has The Kane Chronicles, Heroes of Olympus, The Trials of Apollo, and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, which explore the ancient myths of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse. With all of this content, there’s huge potential to create some in-house rivalry between the Percy Jackson series and the MCU. Therefore, it’s highly likely that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is just the beginning.
