Friday, September 24, 2010

Books to Movies- Percy Jackson- The Lightning Thief

A couple weeks ago I started reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. A couple people recommended them to me and when my friend, Montana, saw I was reading the first book in the Percy Jackson series she loaned me rest of the series.

For some reason I added the movie The Lightning Thief to my Netflix. This was a mistake. I was talking with a child actor at work who told me the movie wasn't true to the book. He said it was Annabeth's hair color. In the book she is blonde in the movie brunette.
After watching the film it is so much more than that. I came to the conclusion that this film is a poor adaptation of the book. There are scenes in the film that never happen in book. Characters/plot points are left out of the film. Then there is the fact that the kids in the film are like 16 or 17 while the kids in the first book are 12.

I talked with the kid actor at work who admitted that the first time he watched the movie he walked out. I think this is probably a true reaction. Kids are tough customers. If they read a book and then go see a film based on that book I think they expect that it will follow the same action of the book.

I'm going to finish reading the Percy Jackson series but I recommend that if people like these books they avoid the movie version.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

omg! I felt the same disappointment when I saw the movie. I read and loved all of the Percy Jackson books and expected great things from the movie. Annabeths hair definately threw me off. She is suppose to be blonde! And I'm not racist but Come on Grover is a white guy with red hair!!!! I found myself waiting for my favorite parts of the books to come up but they never did. BUMMER. I hope that if they continue to do the movies that they will get to doing it the way it should be. BY THE BOOK! Great post, great point.