Here we go, I have a lot to say about the Lighting Thief movie, it’s absolutely horrible, and I can’t wait to share my opinion. If you haven’t read the Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan, please do so, because spoilers! I don’t wanna ruin the book for anyone.
A lot of people agree with me, thank goodness, and I’m just going to skim the surface of this movie. As it completely ruined the book. Here we go! Enjoy!
The Podcast
Pros
This is probably going to be a very short segment. Yes, they got the characters right. (Not their appearance, but we’ll get to that later), like Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and the others. (Most of them at least) Luke was probably the most accurate, appearance-wise, and he was pretty spot on. The setting was good. The effects were pretty cool… Ok, I won’t extend this, let’s just get to the Cons, because it’s a lot.
Cons
First of all, Percy’s sarcastic personality is barely there. He isn’t funny and it’s nothing like him. Sure, he’s the son of Poseidon. But that’s it. Annabeth’s hair is not correct. As we already know, Annabeth is clearly blonde, but in the movie, she’s a brunette and paired with brown eyes! Like what? It makes no sense! Grover, I don’t think his acting was too bad, so I won’t get into that.
Yes, he was a bit more, funny, and outgoing then he is in the books, which could’ve helped if they switched Grover and Percy’s personality. Minor thing, Chiron’s a white stallion, but that’s beside the point. We don’t have big characters, like Mr. D (I know..), Clarisse, Ares, or any side characters, which is really bad. Let’s move onto the scenes. The whole plot of the movie is to obtain the three pearls. Does that sound a little wrong?
Well, it is. In the books, the pearls were just given to Percy. This is already a bad sign. They cut out scenes like, Waterland, Ares fighting, meeting up with Ares, and others. It’s really bad. Remember the scene with the Ares kids and Percy fighting during capture the flag? Well, let’s replace Clarisse with Annabeth and make Percy and Annabeth on opposite teams!
Wow, the more I say this out loud, the more I’m realizing how horrible this movie is. As you may know, Percy and Annabeth end up together, but it’s not rushed. In this first movie, it is. And oh boy, guess what. They. Are. Sixteen. Which is completely wrong! The trio is supposed to be twelve years old, which ultimately makes the situation they’re in more impressive.
Spoiler for The Sea of Monsters movie (though, I think that it wouldn’t really matter), but instead of the line going like, “when a child of eldest gods reaches 16 against all odds”, it instead says 21!
This movie really messed up the plot, characters, scenes, and overall feel of the PJO books. For a good alternative, I would move to the Lighting Thief Musical. It has that feel of reading the first book, we have side characters, along with the mains. It’s so much fun, and it’s music!
So I would recommend taking a listen. But I digress. I hope you enjoyed my rambling about the Lightning Thief movie. Or as we like to call them, the Peter Johnson Movies.
On a good note
If you haven’t heard already, we are getting a Percy Jackson and the Olympians Disney Plus remake! Each season will be one of the books, and I’m super excited. Hopefully, this one is faithful to the books! Let’s hope guys! Anyway, without further ado, here is our official Readability ending.
Thanks for listening!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. It was a lot of fun to do because I’m pretty passionate about this topic, believe it or not. After listening to this, I hope you agree with my opinion about these horrible movies. If you like them, that’s totally fine. This is just my opinion on them. Anyway, without further ado, here is our official Readability ending.