Julia Slaughter

Posts Tagged ‘Chris Columbus’

The Movie Poster for The Lightning Thief

I had mentioned in a previous post that I was so excited to go see The Lightning Thief movie. The only thing that kept me from seeing it opening weekend was that one of my friends who had read, and loved the books as much as I did was too sick to see it and I didn’t want to see it without him. (I like to have someone to compare notes with on these things.)

This past Friday, six of us went to the theater – three who had read the book (two who had read the whole series and one who had just read the first book) and three who had not. My friend Michael and I were sitting next to each other squealing like adolescent girls who had stumbled across Rob Pattinson in dark secluded corner.

From what we knew, we had every reason to believe the movie was going to be wonderful. I had been studying the casting and was pleased with the cast. Kevin McKidd as Poseidon, Sean Bean as Zeus, and Pierce Brosnan as Chiron had me more than hopeful. There were little casting decisions that I was a little hesitant about Alexandra Daddario as Annabeth was going to take some getting used to but I wasn’t ready to write her off  just because she didn’t fit the picture I had in my head of Annabeth.

Of course there was also Chris Columbus heading up the whole thing and anyone who loved Harry Potter and saw what he did for those movies would have to feel safe with any beloved piece of work placed in his hands. The man is meticulous in his attention to detail and really seems interested in preserving the integrity of the work.

As I was sitting in that seat waiting for the movie to start there was only one thing that I was worried about, one thing that could really make or break it, I thought, and that was the special effects. However as the lights dimmed and Kevin McKidd strode out of the waves larger than life and then in an explosion of waves he became a mundane human I breathed easy and settled back into the seat – this was going to be great. However, this was unequivocally not great.

The one part of the movie that I never doubted or questioned was the actual story, after all I read the book, twice in fact, I knew the story. The inconsistencies were small at first, the way Percy learns about his heritage, his introduction to camp and camp life and then things took a turn for the strange.

***There will be spoilers not super specific but still spoilers about the books and the movies, if this sort of thing bothers you, please skip down until you see the next blue!***

When we walked out of the theater, the people who hadn’t read the book were relatively happy with the movie, but I looked at Michael and whispered – “I missed Ares.” It was like opening a flood gate, as we talked about all the things that we were disappointed in that were different between the books and the movies.

If you did a broad overview of the books and the movies they seem similar, but if you dig a little deeper things start to get different. In the books the world of mythology is almost seamlessly integrated into the modern world, but in the movies there is a tangible barrier between the two somehow. It somehow makes the mythological world seem less real for me than it did in the books. The relationships in the book seem more shallow than they do in the books, all of the relationships – Percy and Grover are best friends, but that doesn’t resonate in the movie, not to mention the Demigod relationships with their parents in the book are very complicated and in the movie they are merely dismissed as being made complicated because of a whim of Zeus. The characters themselves come across as very one dimensional – the good guys are all wearing the white hats and once the bad guy puts on his black hat, he’s without any redemption. I know it’s a common thing to say but the book was just so much better.

***Spoilers Ended***

The more I reflected on the movie, the more I wondered how did things go so wrong? How were so many of the pieces there but the most important piece fell short?

I got my answer on Rick Riordan’s website. Apparently he sold the rights to the movie before the books were written, for extra buzz for the series. Therefore, he had no creative control over the movies whatsoever. Rowling and Meyer were smarter in that regard, they cared more for their audience, because when you fall in love with a story – it becomes important to you. I would be interested to see what Riordan thought of the movie, though I suspect that he’s savvy enough not to make any negatives comments in the press, but he can’t be pleased. His writing was sharp, his characters complex, and there are threads that travel from the first book to the end of the series, and the movie plot was not.

I will say that one part of the movie exceeded my expectations though – Grover, portrayed by Brandon T. Jackson made the movie, the character had all the best lines and never failed to steal the show when he stepped onto the screen.

I wonder with the relative success of the movie, where will they go from here? I just hope they decide to take advantage of the wonderful resource available – Rick Riordan save us!