In 2005, Rick Riordian released the first book in the Percy Jackson series called the Lighting Theif. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a series about the main character, Percy Jackson, and his struggles to accept his new found identity as a demigod.
This story was a hit with both children and teens, in an article by Wordrated it states that in the first 10 years of the series initial release, it sold over 20 million copies world wide. It was a very important part of many people’s childhoods. This is why it’s no shock many people are disappointed in both of its on-screen adaptations.
Its first adaptation, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, released in 2010 was not a success with the original book readers, as it changed many key aspects of the books that overall ruined the flow of the story. In the books, the 3 main characters are all twelve years old. However, in the movie, they aged them up to 18, which changes the whole point of the story.
Along with the fans hating the movie adaptations, the author, Rick Riordian also despised the movie adaptations, as he had no say in the direction the movies went. Over the years since the movie’s initial release, he has been seen many times, saying how much he despises the movie.
This is why when the Percy Jackson TV show was announced fans were excited because Rick Rioridan would be helping with the production. Which is why it’s confusing for fans to be so disappointed in the show.
Micheal Rowe, who’s been a fan of The Percy Jackson series since he was a kid says “The acting and writing can get a little cliche and guessable sometimes.”
While some of the cliche acting can be excused by the actors being in their teens, it can’t be denied that some scenes end up feeling dull due to the actor’s lack of expression in their speaking. Which can be attributed to the dull and uninteresting dialogue.
One of the best examples of this is in the first episode when Percy Loses his mother on their way to camp half blood. The scene should be incredibly sad, as Percy is incredibly close to his mother, Sally, however there is not much of a reaction from the actor.
This isn’t fully an issue of the actors, more of an issue of the fact that the show seems to zip past plot points constantly.
Fans have also pointed out that the show seems to have intense pacing issues. Fans online feel that when it comes to storyline progression, instead of flowing in an understandable way, it just feels like the show moves from scene to scene in a stagnant way.
It also feels like they remove incredibly important character moments, in the books the characters are slowly developed and come into their own personalities. However in the show it feels as though the characters are limited in their personalities. Many excellent character definition moments are removed from the show, such as the main characters: Percy, Annabeth, and Grover going to the Gateway Arch because Annabeth enjoys architecture and wishes to see it. In the show, this idea is scrapped, instead they only go to the Gateway Arch because it is a temple of Athena.
Christy Laneri, an avid book reader says “It’s also taking away a lot of key features that make those characters and the story itself so attractive to begin with.” Miss Christy than goes onto say “For example, Percy, in the books, Rioridan purposefully made percy have his disabilities but intricate it with really cool reasons why”
In the show, this aspect of Percy’s character is not shown as much or as well as it is in the books, and through that they lose a part of what made the books special to begin with.
While the Percy Jackson Show is a big improvement from the movies, it still has many flaws that will hopefully be fixed in season 2.