i’ve told myself over and over again never to judge a movie by its book but i keep repeating the same mistake, always to a fault. the film adaptation of percy jackson and the olympians: the lightning thief is no exception. and this is why i ended up disappointed after watching it.
as i said in my book review below, the lightning thief has all the elements of a good fiction and in fact, i thought there was a conscious effort from the author to turn the book into a movie with the combination of its action-packed narrative and intriguing twists and turns driven by a mix of extraordinary and yet still relatable characters and literally out-of-this-world creatures. it is therefore interesting to see why there was a need to re-write the plot when they could have easily lifted it from the book and condensed it into a two-three hour film as faithfully as possible.
i was confident that chris colombus would stay true to the book’s content. after all, he directed the first two harry potter films which to me, were the closest adaptation in the series thus far. but the discrepancies between the book and the movie are very much apparent that it’s not difficult to overlook them, but more importantly the deviation somehow attenuates the very core of the book.
firstly, it fails to capture the essence of camp half-blood as one of the primary settings. my main criticism on the book is that it does not allow its readers to create a distinct parallel universe and what’s little of it in the book, i.e. the camp half blood, is not even given much screen time as it should have had. sure, we see glimpses of the camp per se; the other demigods, the satyrs, the centaurs and the other strange beings that make up the myths; the classes that take place like archery and sword-fighting; and, even percy’s cabin. but it fails to be the training ground that it is for percy in the book. we don’t see him understanding the true nature of his quest, or learning the prophecy of the oracle, or honing his swording skills with luke’s aid, or directly interacting with his fellow half-bloods apart from luke and annabeth.
second, most of the major characters are two-dimensional. annabeth is the daughter of athena, goddess of wisdom but we don’t get that impression from the movie if she didn’t explicitly state it. she could have passed as the offspring of ares, the god of war, what with her bold stance and exceptional dueling ability. in the book however, we see her past beyond the brave front. she is also bookish and almost always has the answers for everything. the parallelism between annabeth and hermione granger of the harry potter series is visible in the book, something which i don’t quite like and yet ironically, i find it wanting in the film. in addition, we also feel her loneliness in the book having stayed in the campyear-round with no family to go home to. chiron is another example of this flimsy portrayal. he is more than a centaur professor to percy, at least that’s how it is in the book. he is the lone voice of reason, similar although still incomparable to the likes of dumbledore and gandalf. the depth and magntitude of his character are significantly diminished. why does he not explain in the film america as the current home of the gods and goddesses, it being the present-day cradle of western civilization. why can’t he be the mentor that he supposedly is? his character is only memorable as his horse ass.
third, the movie lacks the gamut of emotions that we get to feel from the book. in particular, i am disappointed to how the movie revealed that percy is the son of poseidon. it is a big scene to me in the book, perhaps its main highlight. even though i already had strong suspicions that percy is sired by the god of sea, i was still deeply moved when a trident appears above percy’s head as a sign that poseidon claims. and being that he is a son of the big three, all the campers kneel in front of him in awe and reverence after the revelation. in contrast, the movie discloses this piece of information in a straightforward manner such that it does not ensue any strong reaction from the audience. it could have been a ‘gasp’, or at least an ‘oh’ moment of the film, but it’s not. even the characters in the movie seem to be unaffected too by the fact that percy is the son of a higher god, whereas in the book, most of his fellow half-bloods shied away from him. being alone in his cabin makes us ache for his isolation even while marveling at his eminence.
fourth, the plot twists are not as well established and elaborate as in the book. who stole the lightning bolt of zeus? that was pretty much the question that runs through the heads of the audience. of course, i knew it is luke all along having read the book before watching the film. but this treacherous act of luke has greater impact in the book because he was more than just a camp leader to percy. he is his dueling trainer and in the process becomes his friend. moreover, the oracle in the book warns percy that he ‘shall be betrayed by one who calls (you) a friend’ and so the readers look for any possible signs of betrayal from people who are close to percy. it all leads up to the climax when percy discovers that luke is the lightning thief after all. in the film, percy is hardly friends with luke. the idea to ask his help before they leave on a quest comes from annabeth. even us, the viewers did not get enough time to spend with him and establish a connection with him so when he is revealed as the true villain in the film, there is no empathy on luke for being framed up and all that. we look at two teenagers fighting for the lightning bolt instead of two demigods breaking their bond of loyalty and friendship.
having said all these criticisms, the movie per se is not bad. if i am to judge it on its own merit without comparing it from the original literature and keeping in mind that the target audience are the children, then the lightning thief is indeed a delightful and enjoyable adventure kid flick. however, i hope that the audience, especially the young ones, do get more out of the movie than pure entertainment. i fervently wish that the film motivates them to pick up the book if they haven’t yet, or to read other books of similar genre, because we shouldn’t limit our imagination on what the eyes can see. there are plenty of worlds to explore, stories and plots to unravel, characters to meet and lessons to be learned that a 2- or 3- hour long movie often cannot give justice to.
