Monday, March 22, 2010

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: Epic Failure

Wherever he is, I need to find director Peter Jackson and give him a big hug: he seems to be the only living human being in Hollwyood who knows how to properly adapt a novel into a screenplay.
The "Harry Potter" flicks are great, though they have some fuzzy moments where they really make you wish you were reading the books instead. The "Lovely Bones" movie was enjoyable but unforgiveably left out too many important details. The "Golden Compass" movie bored the shit out of everyone and was completely abandoned. The "Eragon" movie was so poorly-executed that all of the people involved like to conveniently leave it off of their resumes.
And then there's the film adaptation of "Percy Jackson & the Olympians".
Let's play a game. It's called What The Fuck. Every time the Percy Jackson movie deviates from the book in a way so ridiculous that it has no justification, we say "What The Fuck". Ready? K, here goes:
BOOK: The Greek gods are featured a lot, especially Dionysus, Ares, Hades, and Poseidon. The Olympians are central to the entire series, and play key points in the first book. The book is essentially about them warring with each other.
FILM: The Greek gods argue a bit, but otherwise are barely seen. Hades' entire subplot disappears, and instead he's reduced to something much smaller and less significant. Dionysus and Ares (who is one of the main antagonists) are never even mentioned by name.
What the Fuck.
BOOK: Percy deals with a minotaur, the medusa, a chimera, clockwork spiders, enchanted Lotus flowers, Charon the boatman, Cerberus, and a host of other creatures from Greek myth. He is given pearls by a water nymph during his quest to retrieve the lightning bolt.
FILM: Percy deals with a minotaur, the medusa, enchanted Lotus flowers, and a hydra. They are guarding the pearls for some reason. They've been dumbed down.
What The Fuck.
BOOK: Percy's mother's soul gets trapped in the Underworld, and throughout the whole story he's debating about how to free her. When he finally reaches Hades, he makes the hero's decision to not be selfish, and chooses to save the world instead. He, Grover, and Annabeth escape the underworld and continue their quest.
FILM: Percy's mother's soul gets trapped in the Underworld. When he reaches Hades, he frees her without hesitating. but since only three of them can escape, he leaves with his mother and Annabeth. Grover stays behind and has sex with Hades' wife for some reason.
What The Fuck.
BOOK: There are 3 villains. Luke, who is a camper and friend of Percy's, working with the Titan Lord to wreak havoc against the gods. He steals the lightning bolt as part of the Titan's master plan. He remains a main villain throughout all 5 books; Kronos, the Titan Lord, who is struggling to be free of his prison and kill the gods. He uses Luke as his puppet to carry out his schemes. He remains a main villain throughout all 5 books; and Ares, god of war. He steals the bolt from Luke and tries to use it to start a war on Olympus, simply because he's a war-monger and loves bloodshed.
FILM: There is one villain: Luke. He steals the lightning bolt because he doesn't like the gods and he's a pissy emo kid. Percy kills him, thereby nulling his character progression throughout the remaining four chapters of the saga. Kronos and Ares are apparently nonexistent.
What The Fuck.
I could seriously do this all day. Long story short, this is THE worst adaptation I've ever seen of anything, ever. Period. It's like, you know how people say "Oh, the book is always better than the movie"? Well, it's like whoever wrote this movie was trying to prove those people right. Like, they had a bet going on with somebody who disagreed with that statement, and they said, "Oh yeah? Watch this. Books ARE better, and I'm gonna prove it. Bam! Here's the Percy Jackson screenplay!" What a shitload of ass.
This movie rates a 14% for me. May Zeus strike it down.

;)

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