The Percy Jackson Movies

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cherryalakei
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Re: The Percy Jackson Movies

Post by cherryalakei »

I honestly have not seen them yet, and just read the Percy Jackson series over the summer. I am kind of hesitant to see them though, since they only made the first 2, and I guess there is no possibility of adapting any of the rest of the saga.
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Post by ollesternberg »

Percy Jackson & the Olympians (also known as Percy Jackson) is an American feature film series based on the novel series of the same name by the author Rick Riordan. The series is distributed by 20th Century Fox, produced by 1492 Pictures and currently consists of two installments. The first film, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), was directed by Chris Columbus, and was released on February 12, 2010. The second installment, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013) was originally intended to be released in March 2013 but was instead pushed back to August 7, 2013, and was directed by Thor Freudenthal. The series has grossed nearly $430 million at the worldwide box office.
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Post by Boyko Ovcharov »

I watched the series and was fascinated by the unique interpretation of the ancient Greek mythology all along. The movie/s actually made me want to read the books, so I can't say I would or should be disappointed in any way.
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Post by nicsandmagic »

Indeed, look no more for the next Harry Potter book because a fresh idea of how gods and goddesses interact with humans, magic, action, adventure and a touch of history, all in one! We demigods, thank you, Mr. Rick Riordan for all that you've done for us (wink).

The Percy Jackson series was very well-written. It starded with the introduction of Percy Jackson himself, to his discovery of Greek mythology, which led him to Camp Half Blood, Annabeth and Grover, that's where the good part begins because he then starts to unravel the secrets of his family, his role in the war against Kronos, and eventually becoming the hero readers want him to be.

Nonetheless, being it a good book and everything, I am not very happy with its movie adaptation, and I guess that's why Percy Jackson isn't that popular compared to Harry Potter, and it's all because of the movies! The Lighting Thief was the first, followed by the Sea of Monsters, and if you read the book before watching the movies, you'll be quite dissappointed because in my opinion, they could've made it more realistic, but Logan Lerman did a good job though!
Harry Potter Series were well writter, the movie adaptations were equally as good as the books, the production staff of Percy Jackson must pit more efforts into making the movies better, if not, the best in our generation.
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Post by Lincoln »

Olivia Harris wrote:So I'm not sure if this has already been discussed (or ranted about) but I was so disappointed in the Percy Jackson movies. The books were so astounding and brilliant that I couldn't have been more disappointed in the films! I was excited to see how they would portray them but that was such a let down. I loved Logan Lerman in The Perks of Being A Wallflower, he was AMAZING, but in an interview with the cast, they claimed they had never heard of Blue Food.

I mean... wow.

Please somebody rant with me on this!!

Haven't seen the movies, loved the books. In general I steer clear lol.
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Post by Chitopogi »

The Percy Jackson Series books were rather good! I think there were five of them. The movies were also good but they paled in box office attraction compared to Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. All in all, I think they should have come out with the next Percy Jackson movie installment before the young actors grow old and have to be replaced.
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Post by csimmons032 »

The Percy Jackson series in general is not my favorite. I read the first book and it wasn't too fascinating to me. The first movie I didn't mind, but I didn't care for the second one too much. Neither the books or the movies are ones that I would rave about though.
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Post by khusnick »

I wish they had setup the movies in the same style as the Harry Potter movies. Cast at the right age. Keep the cast for the rest of the movies so they grow up with the characters. That kind of thing. It made me so mad that they used teenagers in the films because the entire series was supposed to lead up to Percy turning 16. They ruined the prophecy the second they casted for the movie, and that was fairly heartbreaking for me.

I didn't even watch the second movie because the first one upset me so much.
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Post by AuthoressWenona »

Olivia Harris wrote:So I'm not sure if this has already been discussed (or ranted about) but I was so disappointed in the Percy Jackson movies. The books were so astounding and brilliant that I couldn't have been more disappointed in the films! I was excited to see how they would portray them but that was such a let down. I loved Logan Lerman in The Perks of Being A Wallflower, he was AMAZING, but in an interview with the cast, they claimed they had never heard of Blue Food.

I mean... wow.

Please somebody rant with me on this!!
My then 16 yr old son BEGGED me to go see Percy Jackson

The worse movie ever '

-- 21 Jun 2017, 19:55 --
Olivia Harris wrote:So I'm not sure if this has already been discussed (or ranted about) but I was so disappointed in the Percy Jackson movies. The books were so astounding and brilliant that I couldn't have been more disappointed in the films! I was excited to see how they would portray them but that was such a let down. I loved Logan Lerman in The Perks of Being A Wallflower, he was AMAZING, but in an interview with the cast, they claimed they had never heard of Blue Food.

I mean... wow.

Please somebody rant with me on this!!
My then 16 yr old son BEGGED me to go see Percy Jackson

The worse movie ever '
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Post by Master Zak »

The book was interesting... Compared to the movie
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Post by Harmony Hills »

I was even looking forward to the movie adaptation and yet nothing good came out of it. I mean, i was hoping that the adaptation will also cover The Heroes of Olympus, but now that it's not even moving forward with Percy Jackson movies, what will i expect on HOO? I'm a huge fan of the series. It's unique, very relate-able, a learning experience about Greek Gods and demigods. It was very disappointing yet i am still hoping that in the near future, i'll watch 10++ movies in the theaters about Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus.
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Post by Anirudh Badri »

I started to watch the movie and gave up fairly quickly when I saw how bad it was. The books were enjoyable and the movies were just plain bad.
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Post by elderwand »

I agree 100%. After reading all of the books I expected a lot from the movies, but the movies seem totally different! They left out HUGE DETAILS and never lived up to the expectations of the books.
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Post by yodit »

I completely agree! I've reread the Percy Jackson series numerous times since they were first released, and a few weeks ago I decided to retry the movies, to see if they were as awful as I last remembered. They were worse. See- if the movies were a stand alone series about Ancient Greece gods, it would be amazing! The only issue is that they were supposed to be based on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, which they weren't. The biggest part of the second movie had to do with the fourth book- only it didn't involve most of the characters/plot involved in the book. We didn't even get to see Percy as a guinea pig in the movies! The drastic changes in the Percy Jackson story disappoints me the most.
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Post by dauntlesswitch »

The Ellipsis Writer wrote:The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series is my favorite book series of all time, so needless to say, I was beyond disappointed by the film adaptation of The Lightning Thief. I never even saw the second film adaption.

As so many people have said, the issue is that it is hard for filmmakers to recreate a book into a movie due to time challenges. However, I find that to be a sad and tired excuse too many people use to justify a poor film adaption of a wonderful book, video game, comic book, etc. The fact of the matter is that much longer and much more expansive books have been made into films in the past, and those film adaptions still uphold as some of the greatest in cinematic history. The obvious example are the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series. Those books were far longer and had a lot more chunk to their stories than the Percy Jackson book series (which in of itself is rather expansive, just not as huge as the others), and yet the film adaptions of those books brought forth some of the worlds best movies ever made.

It just boils down to who is adapting the books. As it turns out, the people who adapted PJATO into films were not as well prepared to do so. Oddly enough, Chris Columbus was the director of the first two Harry Potter movies, as well as the first Percy Jackson movie. How he could direct two amazing film adaptions so well, and then adapt a really poor film just goes to show that there are more people involved in a bad film than just the director. There were many people responsible for the film and how it turned out, and it is sad to say, but the way the movie came off, those people simply did not care enough. When a well known and beloved book has the chance to be adapted into a film, people will either take it seriously to make a good film, or abuse the devotion of the fans to make a big profit from a minimal effort of a film. From what we saw in the PJATO films, I can only guess what the motivation was behind that one.

It really is a shame in the end. I adore this book series more than any other, and to see it's cinematic debut do so bad is saddening. There were many efforts that could have been taken to make it a great film, including better casting (I find it repulsive that they cast a 26 year old woman to play a 12 year old girl), better acting (when the actors are poorly assigned to characters that do not fit with who is playing them, the acting will indeed suffer for it), the effects (it is one thing to have too much CG, but when there is too much bad CG, that makes things ten times worse), and the list goes on. Not to mention the film strayed from the plot in a lot of ways that it should not have. As a general rule of thumb, I feel that the filmmakers who are adapting an original work into a movie should not stray at all from the source material unless it makes sense for the timing of the movie, assuming a second film will be made. The film adaption of the Lightning Thief strayed in ways that did not make sense and I think it was a little presumptuous of the filmmakers to assume that a second film could be made... even though it was. :snooty:

In all, I agree that the film adaptions of the Percy Jackson book series are disappointing cases. Hopefully, so long as the people who made the first two movies keep their hands off of the books, in the future, better movie will be made, with actual children playing the roles and who can act worth a dime, as well as effects that make the movie a real visual experience and a plot that all readers of the books know to be true...

I've read the books and I was so excited when the movie came out. I was so disappointed. PJATO is one of my favorite book series. I know that the books are hard to adapt as a movie but there's just too many things that got to me. The movie plot is also quite different with the book.
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