Teso Rambles: The Butchering of Percy Jackson ...via creation of adaptations

As I was musing about the Percy Jackson books in my review, I remembered (read: googled for fun instead of doing homework for my biology class) the Percy Jackson movies, which sent me into a spiral about the mistakes often made by book to movie adaptation. Sometimes it's minor things that they change. One character, one line, one teeny tiny little motion. Other times it's stuff like the Percy Jackson movies which makes you sad inside. This is now me rambling about Percy Jackson. I was originally going to do other movies too but I have feelings and they need to be shared with the three people who will probably read this.

Not that change is a bad thing. Sometimes you get great moments like "get off my roof"-the best thing to come out of the previously mentioned Percy Jackson movies-but usually changing (big) things to make it more suitable for television riles up the fans. Hi, I am fans.

Where does it start? So. Many. Changes. Now, now now. Settle down. I'm not mad about the appearance thing-honestly the last of our worries, Annabeth having brown hair is nowhere near as crazy as attempting to cram four books into an hour as they did-but I am mad about the fact that they rewrote the entire plot. They changed the timeline, which was one of the most important parts of the books in my opinion, because the timeline set up many things, which will be in the dropdown below because spoilers.

Things the timeline set up:

Percy and Annabeth

Percy and Annabeth's relationship needed the timeline as demonstrated by the movies because it allowed them to become friends without the hanging doom of the apocalypse. This also allowed them to shine as friends which gave you a reason to root for them, because their friendship was at the core of all their interactions, which gave us that whole "falling in love with your best friend" thing that is so pure about them.

I'm absolutely in love with their relationship, so I am supremely biased towards them. They are the reason I have standards.

Percy's Strong Feelings Towards Camp Half Blood

Sure, maybe in one summer you'll want to fight for the camp, but the reason that Percy fought so strongly for CHB was that it was like his home. Part of the reason for this were all the memories he had there over the summers, which gave him an incentive to fight for it. Also, another thing the timeline allowed is for us to see Percy's feelings to grow towards CHB which...important.

Relationships with Other Characters

Beckendorf giving Percy girl advice, Clarisse becoming Percy's friend after shoving his head into the toilet, Selena and her betrayal all of these "minor" details are important because they make sure that you, the reader, like the people PErcy is fighting for and give you, the reader a reason to keep reading and enjoying.

Growing Up with Percy

Percy changes a lot over five years.

1) Confidence. He becomes more confident due to his friendships and also the fact that he beat up a god, stopped a war, saved pirates from an island, was turned into a guinea pig, all important character building moments in a pre-teen/teen's life.

2) His voice changes. Figuratively. Well, literally probably since he goes from 12 to 16 in the five books but also because he begins becoming more refined with his choice of words and less repetitive (I should learn from him but as you can see it's not happening), which is important because he grows up before your very eyes. This leads you to love him more because you've loved him since he was a little lad (I'm not that much older than him so I shouldn't be calling him little but I do what I want), and you want him to kick actual monster butt. Hehe I said butt.

3) As he gets older, he becomes more of a character to look up to. This is important in his interactions with other characters because it lends to his effective leadership on and off the battlefield, as well as within our, the readers, hearts. And yes, Percy is my favourite character, can't you tell?

In other words, the timeline change was important.

Another failure of the movies was the fact that it lost its childish charm because Percy was not the sassy lil troublemaker he was in the books, which is what makes him an icon. Plus, half the funny one liner click baity moments got removed and that's just disappointing. This made him relatable to the people reading, mostly because the target audience is 11-13 year olds (and the older people who grew up with Percy, but that's not the point). Adults are more likely to watch something made for kids for the nostalgia than kids are to watch something made for adults, and by aging up Percy, they screwed that up tremendously. How do I know? Hi, I'm a kid watching Percy Jackson, but now Percy's really old and not as cool as he was to me when I was reading. Yeah, that's how I know.

Finally, if the original books were written the way the movie was, the spin off series would not be possible because half of the main characters in those series weren't introduced early enough for us to care about them the way we do when we read about them. Like Nico Di Angelo. By not introducing him in the third book, you don't have 1) the backstory needed to understand him as a character 2) the familiarity with him that you get from seeing him grow up and 3) his relationship with all the other characters. That's a lot to miss from a main character. Now, put it into perspective, any spin off series (there's like three set in the same place, and two that feature our characters in other people's stories to connect them) have a character in them that's important. I like to compare the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles to the Marvel Cinematic universe mostly because it's the only other set of interconnected stories that I know is relatively popular and that I have some semblance of knowledge on. It's like watching all the movies after civil war without watching civil war, or Captain America, or Iron Man, or Thor. You wouldn't know the characters or the inside jokes or the plot points from the previous members of the series so you don't actually know the story well enough to keep reading. Sure, you can get stuff from context clues, but really, who wants to do that?

Therefore, the Percy Jackson movies failed on three counts. One, changing the timeline two, changing the characters in irreparable ways and three, removing important contextual stuff needed to understand the novels. If you do watch them, don't think of them as supplemental knowledge for the books, think of them as like a poorly written "What if?" seires.

Hope you're not watching,

Teso

P.s. Thanks for sticking it out with me. Next time, I'll choose a slightly less exciting topic so I'm not too riled up. This is definitely nonsense but it's my nonsense.