Since it’s the beginning of the month, I would like to introduce a segment that I like to call Books vs. Movies. I do a lot of versus articles on here and something I hear a lot when a book is going to be made into a movie is that “they are going to mess it up”, and sometimes “they” do, but here is the arena where they duke it out and where I am the judge and you are the jury.
Based on a children’s series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, this movie confused audiences when it came out at the same time as Clash of the Titans, whose main character is also named Perseus. The confusion came over the fact that the fathers were different; in Clash, Perseus’ father is Zeus and in Lightning Thief, Perseus’s father is Poseidon. I don’t think people were aware that Lightning Thief was a work of fiction and that Clash of the Titans was meant to be an adaptation of an actual myth, however inaccurate it was. Nevertheless, the inconsistencies between the novel and the movie are not too great, however the little things have large consequences. Like the fact that in the first book, Percy is 12 and in the movie, he’s more along the lines of 16. I assume the reason why they did that is so that Percy could have a romantic interest in Athena’s daughter, Annabelle, which I think wasn’t necessary because the building of it through a series of movies, like for instance Hermione and Ron from the Harry Potter series, would have gone over better, in my opinion. The reason why I think the age change wasn’t a good idea is because there are five books and it’s a gradual progression of age, by the end of the series, he’s 17 and done with adolescence. By starting the series in movie form with Percy being older, it is going to be hard to make the rest of the books in the series without encountering the whole college thing. Besides that, the movie did a good job of portraying the particulars of the Greek mythology. When I read the books, and generally when I read books like this, I try to cast them in my head because a lot of books are becoming movies, like the Hunger Games. I think it was well cast. I was surprised by the choice of Pierce Brosnan as Chiron/ Mr. Brunner, though happy surprised. When it comes to being true to the words, sometimes there are things that you cannot do when converting to paper to film, but I believe that there was a great effort made and that should be acknowledged.
However, only one can win. So I'm leaving it up to you. Leave in the comments below which you think is better.
We all know that Hollywood is pretty much fresh out of original ideas, so let’s talk about those adaptations and if you think of any that you want me to talk about, feel free to comment below.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief:
Based on a children’s series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, this movie confused audiences when it came out at the same time as Clash of the Titans, whose main character is also named Perseus. The confusion came over the fact that the fathers were different; in Clash, Perseus’ father is Zeus and in Lightning Thief, Perseus’s father is Poseidon. I don’t think people were aware that Lightning Thief was a work of fiction and that Clash of the Titans was meant to be an adaptation of an actual myth, however inaccurate it was. Nevertheless, the inconsistencies between the novel and the movie are not too great, however the little things have large consequences. Like the fact that in the first book, Percy is 12 and in the movie, he’s more along the lines of 16. I assume the reason why they did that is so that Percy could have a romantic interest in Athena’s daughter, Annabelle, which I think wasn’t necessary because the building of it through a series of movies, like for instance Hermione and Ron from the Harry Potter series, would have gone over better, in my opinion. The reason why I think the age change wasn’t a good idea is because there are five books and it’s a gradual progression of age, by the end of the series, he’s 17 and done with adolescence. By starting the series in movie form with Percy being older, it is going to be hard to make the rest of the books in the series without encountering the whole college thing. Besides that, the movie did a good job of portraying the particulars of the Greek mythology. When I read the books, and generally when I read books like this, I try to cast them in my head because a lot of books are becoming movies, like the Hunger Games. I think it was well cast. I was surprised by the choice of Pierce Brosnan as Chiron/ Mr. Brunner, though happy surprised. When it comes to being true to the words, sometimes there are things that you cannot do when converting to paper to film, but I believe that there was a great effort made and that should be acknowledged. However, only one can win. So I'm leaving it up to you. Leave in the comments below which you think is better.
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