Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a newest adaptation of Rick Riordan’s famous Percy Jackson book series. The text is based on Greek mythology and essays the adventures of its titular character Percy Jackson. The novels were a great success in the early 2000s. They were and are one of the most popular books in the fantasy genre. In fact, I only remember Percy Jackson and Harry Potter to be the options when it came to fantasy books in my school time. Naturally, the book series got some attention for a big screen adaptation. However, the two movies that we got were hate crime against the books. The movies were terrible and it took almost a decade for a new adaptation to be sanctioned. The Disney Plus show has opened up to rave reviews but that’s not enough. For truly redeeming the Percy Jackson franchise, the new show has to do certain things better than the movies. Let’s find out what they’re.
All The Things Percy Jackson and the Olympians Need To Do Better!
- Aging up the main trio: One of the biggest flaws of the two movies were making the main characters like Percy, Grover and Annabeth sixteen. In the books, these characters start as tweens and later grow up. The change was done to attract more teenage audiences like a lot of other young adult fiction novels. The change might seem inconsequential but the characters’ age was a huge factor, as it made the quests even more dangerous. Another detail in the books is that most demi-gods don’t live up to sixteen because they’re so often attacked by monsters. The fact that these three have come this far is an achievement and character statement itself.
- Skipping the dynamics between cabins in camp half-blood: The movies skipped many fan favorite characters from the books. The Half-Blood camp was barely shown and the interpersonal dynamics, something that made the books special, were never found in the films. The training facility/demigod safe haven was a vibrant and diverse space that housed vastly different half-bloods, from beauty-loving children of Aphrodite like Silena Beauregard to the mischievous Stoll twins from the Hermes Cabin.
- Annabeth and Percy shouldn’t have romantic tension from the start: In the books, Percy and Annabeth are tweens so when they meet they don’t immediately fall in love. They find each other annoying and difficult to be around. They only join forces because of their mutual interests – Annabeth’s want to go on a quest and Percy wanting to find his mother. It is only when they spend more time together and fight monsters that their dynamic grows into an innocent friendship and eventually becomes love.
- Changing the motivation behind the quest for the master bolt: Out of all the changes the movies made to Riordan’s work, the most annoying were the plot modifications because they were simply illogical or not at all effective. One of the changes were, the three pearls. In the books, the trio sets out to find Hades who is suspected to have stolen the Lightning Bolt and fights monsters along the way using their masteries. On one occasion, one of Poseidon’s messengers also gives Percy three pearls that the trio can use to escape the Underworld. However, in the movie the main objective of the quest is to find the three pearls. Once they get that, the trio then heads out to the Underworld. Who approved this? Please tell me.
- Cutting the Ares subplot: In the books, the God of War – Ares was responsible to plant the Lightning Bolt on Percy so that a massive war will instigate between the three bigs of Greek mythology. The character is loved by readers, along with skipping a great character, we also lost the opportunity to see Percy fight with Ares. Cutting back Ares, also just delayed the introduction of Kronos who was the mastermind behind everything.
- Ruining Luke’s arc: Luke is one of the most interesting character from the books. His journey from being a brother to the trio to becoming a traitor to Olympus was tragic. When the truth was revealed each character from the trio reacted to it strongly but differently. Annabeth and Percy weren’t able to deal with their friend’s betrayal while doing their quests giving us some of the best moments in the franchise. The films barely set up the relationship of the main characters, so, Luke’s arc was not interesting and all we got was a surface level iteration.
- Changing the villain of the first movie: Hades is the King of the Dead and is often portrayed as an evil warlord or demon king in pop culture. Riordan broke this stereotype and wrote a Hades who was honorable, strong minded and for once not a bad guy. However, in the film he was presented as a rocker-type character with a sense of humor similar to that of his counterpart in Disney’s Hercules. Furthermore, Hades was made the main antagonist of the film, replacing Ares and Kronos as the instigators of the Master Bolt’s theft.
- Not giving Kronos’ storyline enough time: At first Kronos was cut from the first film and robbed off being the mastermind behind one of the most elaborate plans to destroy Olympus forever. The character was finally introduced in Sea of Monsters but because of the late introduction, his storyline was rushed. Also, instead of building his return over the years like the books, the movies made him attain full powers as he turned into a block of metal. This has to be one of the worst decisions ever made in show biz.
- The trio doesn’t have their unique personalities: I really hope the show gets this right. The movies had three good looking characters with no real personalities. Percy’s sass, Annabeth’s strategic brilliance and Grover’s flirting skills all were nowhere to be found. These were defining characteristics of our main characters that made them so interesting. In fact its not just this, every trait that made the main trio likable and relatable, like Annabeth’s love of architecture, Percy’s jokes, and Grover’s obsession with enchiladas, was completely erased from the movie script and replaced with awkward interactions and bland dialogue. If everything else didn’t get the movies on the fans’ bad side, then ruining these beloved characters surely did the trick.
The confirmed cast of the Disney+ series is Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson, Leah Sava Jeffries as Annabath, and Aryan Simhadri as Grover. Other actors involved in the series include Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysus, Glynn Turman as Chiron, Charlie Bushnell as Luke Castellan, Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue, Lance Reddick and more. Percy Jackson and The Olympians will drop its first episode on Disney+ on December 20th, 2023.
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