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From Elizabeth Wein

My daughter Sara, age 12, is a HUGE Percy Jackson fan. She was 10 when she discovered the books, and we fought over them while I was writing my essay for Demigods and Monsters. She’s now lost count of how many times she’s read The Lightning Thief but she reckons it’s about 10, and she can actually recite the chapter titles without looking. She’s also in the middle of reading Demigods and Monsters (I did ask her to mention the book in this essay but it was her choice to mention my contribution to it!). So I’ve asked Sara to review the film as well. I figure Sara’s got more authority than me—not only does she know the books better than I do, she’s in the target audience.

Just for a bit of contrast I also asked Sara’s brother Mark, age 9, to write a review. He hasn’t read any of the books and he thought the film was great!

And me? I was just baffled by some of the changes. Why make Athena’s daughter red-haired—what is up with that? Why cut out the prophecy? (Presumably because they’re not banking on a sequel.) Why cut out the Mist? (I know, everyone who’s read the books says this.) Why cut out the cool mystery over who Percy’s father is? A couple of lines in the film really made me squirm, like when Percy asks Grover to hand over his jacket to wrap Medusa’s head in and Grover says “Why my jacket?” And Percy answers, “Because you’re my protector.” It really was just one itty bitty step away from, “Because you’re my servant.”  It didn’t need to be there.  Especially since in the book they wrap the head in some old grocery bags. Just cringe-making dialogue. And WHY ARE THESE KIDS ALWAYS STEALING CARS??? Is this OKAY?

There were a few things I really I did love about the film, though. The water effects were fantastic—every bit of Poseidon’s and Percy’s water magic was good enough to watch over and over. Despite the advanced age of the main characters, I thought that Grover was really well-cast. He was a natural. And the appearance and assistance of Persephone in the Underworld was unexpected, but I sure did like her.

Finally—I do love a movie with a punchline in the credits.

Take it away, Sara and Mark!

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From Sara Gatland, age 12

After reading the books, I had high expectations for the film. I was very disappointed with how much was left out and added in.

For a start, important characters like Dionysus, Ares, Thalia, Clarisse, and lots of other specific campers were left out. Big chunks of the story were abandoned without Ares, and Annabeth seemed to play the part of Clarisse.

Percy’s dyslexia only showed up when it was convenient (e.g., reading Greek writing in a museum to help him answer Mr. Brunner’s question), and his ADHD was mentioned at the start of the film but no examples of it were shown after that. Annabeth and Percy, who are also supposed to be dyslexic, are both very quick to read the writing on the pearl map. (That’s another thing—where did the original quest to find the lightning bolt disappear to?) I think the reason they forgot his ADHD is because the parts in the book that he mentions it—on the bus with the Furies, for example—were cut out in the film. Rick Riordan was a bit sloppy about Percy’s special needs, as Elizabeth Wein points out in her essay “Not Even the Gods are Perfect” in Demigods and Monsters, but nowhere near as much as the filmmakers.

In The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan explained very clearly about Mist and what it does.  In the film, they left the Mist out—but they didn’t need it, because very few scenes were in public.  In the public scenes, nothing strange happens, like at the Parthenon (which, in fact, isn’t in the book), where it was too crowded, so one of them suggests they wait until everyone was gone. The hydra at the Parthenon, by the way, shouldn’t have shown up until The Sea of Monsters.

Little things in the film don’t look like much, but they can irritate some people (my mom, for instance). My mom was annoyed that when the map pointed to somewhere near Illinois, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover would get off a bus that said “Atlantic City” in bold lettering. She also noticed that the hydra had five heads, instead of seven. I noticed that Mrs. Dodds was switched from being a math teacher to English. This may have, however, been to introduce Percy’s dyslexia. Why do Annabeth and Athena have blue eyes and brown hair?  This is the “gray-eyed goddess.”  She’s also meant to have blond hair. Another strange thing was, if Percy already looks 16, then what is the prophecy age? This may have been why the characters didn’t mention the prophecy.

A lot of the humor was lost in the film because in the book, most of it was what Percy was thinking, whereas in the film you don’t hear any thoughts.  There could have been some voice-overs saying these thoughts, or Percy could have said things to his friends out loud instead.

Throughout the whole film, I kept whispering to my mom, “Look, they’re buying hamburgers, Ares must be coming soon!” (and, of course, he didn’t) or “They’re going to a tourist attraction, do you think they’ll meet Echidna and the Chimera?” (they didn’t).

I guess that if I had not read the book and saw the film I’d think the film was pretty good. Since it happened the other way round, I don’t think too highly of it.

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From Mark Gatland, age 9

When the movie first starts, it wasn’t like I imagined it to be. It was rather strange.  After they drove to “Camp Half Blood” it was how I expected. Fighting, and that stuff. When they go to Medusa’s place (Auntie M’s garden gnome emporium) and they find Medusa and use an iPod instead of a mirror, I was surprised. Also, I like it when they find the hydra. When they go to the Lotus casino, I was a bit “weirded.” Using flowers as food?…

When they arrive in the underworld, it is a bit nice seeing Percy’s mom. But I love the next bit… Luke fights Percy, using the lightning bolt. At the end of the fight, Luke gets covered in water, and Percy (like Moses) just pushes it away from him.  At the very end, Percy goes back to the camp and stays there. RATING: 7/10

I liked this movie.

First up, Elizabeth M. Rees:

Now and then a movie adaptation of a terrific book—of the contemporary or classic lit variety—really works. And now and then the film version of The Lightning Thief works. Unfortunately though, only now and then!

Rick Riordan’s first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians is one of the best middle-grade/young adult books on the market today. It’s a remarkable mix of humor, compassion, true-to-real-life tween and teen dilemmas (including some hard-hitting situations of domestic and alcohol abuse, absent parents, single parenting problems, and the onus of learning and/or physical disabilities). All of this is coupled with the best introduction to the magical world of classical Greek myth. Riordan’s genius has been the translation of the old Greek Olympian tales, their gods and heroes, into a thoroughly modern idiom, through action, drama, great characterization, and for me (and probably for most kids reading the books in the series) side-splitting humor.

The Lightning Thief movie seems to miss the point—or at least most of the points—and turns the material of the book and the characters into a good, entertaining run-of-the-mill kid’s flick—complete with pretty cool special effects, tons of action and some decent and excellent at times performances. But what’s missing—for those who have read the book—are some of the series’ best features.

First of all what happened to the Mist? The whole idea that these demi-gods can wander around having sword fights in the middle of modern-day America without any normal mortals noticing is ignored by the film’s writers and directors. Mist was a great Riordan construct, but toward the beginning of the film, Poseidon emerges god-sized from the Atlantic ocean near Coney Island and a fisherman on the boardwalk sees him and looks startled—this just doesn’t happen in Riordan’s world (or in the book for that matter) without the fisherman not really seeing what he thought he had seen.

Secondly, the plot was altered so that Luke places Zeus’ lightning bolt inside a shield he gives Percy. Not so in the books. It’s Ares who hides it in Percy’s knapsack. And speaking of Ares, he was totally left out of the story. One of the coolest translations of a Greek god to present-day America was Ares on his Harley—that whole plot line was lost.

Third, the actors did a good job—but who decided that Percy should look 16 when he’s 12 in the book? Annabeth (who is an amalgamation of the novel’s Clarisse and Annabeth) looks like a college girl about to try out for the football squad’s cheerleading team. Poseidon, when Percy meets him, looks like a “beachcomber form Key West” wearing Bermuda shorts and a cool Tommy Bahama shirt—he isn’t a bearded guy in Dockers, as presented in the film. And Zeus looks anything but imposing. To be fair Pierce Brosman as Chiron was great. And casting Uma Thurman as Medusa was brilliant. After the end of the film, the “epilog” mid-credits with Gabe finding her head in the fridge was a very nice, cool touch. Too bad most of the audience had already left!

Understandably a film has to telescope a book’s plot and combine scenes and in a sense collate characters, but in doing so, the spirit of this book was lost in the making of what in the end is a fun, but rather run-of-the-mill film.

And from Ellen Steiber:

I’d seen the trailer. So when I went into the movie, I knew it was going to be heavy on special effects, and I knew the filmmakers were going to have to cut things from the book and change others, because that’s the only way you can fit almost 400 pages of story into a two-hour movie.

But I wasn’t prepared for the book’s 12-year-old Percy to look as if he were at least 16 and Annabeth and Grover to look as if they were in college. And I couldn’t believe just how many characters were cut. I mean, except for Luke, we didn’t meet any of the other demigods. And they took out Mr. D! (Confession: I am partial to Mr. D because I wrote my essay about him.) And Ares. And Aphrodite.  And Grover freeing the animals from the animal smugglers. And Percy and Annabeth playing fetch with Cerberus. And the way Annabeth always called Percy “Seaweed Brain.” Oh, and the prophecy—the motive that drives the gods’ actions through the next four books—was gone.

Okay, some of the special effects were pretty nifty. I have to admit, I loved Percy’s tent, and I thought the Underworld was exceptionally cool, especially Charon’s boat ride to Hades’s palace.

Overall, though, I couldn’t help feeling that the filmmakers picked the four or five biggest fight scenes—and the monsters that would give them the wildest special effects—and decided nothing else really mattered. They got the big events, but they lost the heart of the story. Because the heart of The Lightning Thief is in the Greek mythology and the way that those stories still have the power to tell us something about what it means to be human in a world that is often complicated and frightening.

So I missed the brilliant way that Riordan brought Greek mythology into the 21^st century—how, for example, when Ares appeared it didn’t always mean that war was about to erupt, but that everyone around the god would became edgy and angry and argumentative. And I missed the way Percy grew into his powers, not just as a dazzling fighter, but as a real friend to Annabeth and Grover. It bugged me that Riordan made sure that the meeting at the end between Percy and Poseidon was not at all sentimental, and the movie managed to turn it into pure schmaltz.

The book is rich in character, detail, and humor. It isn’t just one monster after another or, put another way, “three exceedingly good-looking teenagers battle spectacular special effects.” Rick Riordan’s Lightning Thief is exciting, funny, and wise. I was hoping the film would be more like it.

Have you seen the movie? What did you think?