DVD Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief

When this movie first arrived in trailers, I like so many adults, who have become fans through our children was excited. We could overlook Pierce Brosnan playing Chiron which gets both the age and nature of the character wrong. We could overlook the character of Percy obviously being older than the books stated age of twelve, however almost everything else was so far removed from the books that have become so popular including storyline, that this movie should not even be allowed to carry the "based on the books" tag. The characters were completely miscast, the storyline was a weak abominational blend of books one and two….. kind of..!

He (Chris Columbus) invented places for the movie to go that have nothing to do with the story in its origination, he omitted too many details that are so pertinent to the actual storyline that it may be impossible for any new director (and I believe if future films are to take place a new Director IS NECESSARY) to repair the damage that has been done.

For a story that has millions of fans who will be buying tickets to movies for a very long time, this does heavy damage to Chris Columbus's reputation as evidenced by post movie chatter in which most if not all was incredibly negative. Negative both to the movie as a whole and to Chris Columbus personally. Many there seem to believe he did the same to the Potter movies he has been involved with and feel at this point anyway that they will think twice before seeing another movie with his name attached to it. Lets' face it, as one young fan said, "not sticking completely to a Potter book…understandable, they are 1,000 pages each…Not coming close on a book 350 pages long…not forgivable."

So, if you are going to see this movie because of the wonderful scenes in St. Louis, Denver, The Santa Monica pier, or to see his step father get his, etc etc etc etc save your money, they are not in there. Neither is Clarissa, Lukes scar, Mr. D, Aries, Kronos, and so on. If you would like to see a movie that completely rewrites the creation of Rick Riordan, then by all means, spend your money on a mildly entertaining theft of a wonderful idea.

Last night I took my 2 daughters and a friends to see the movie. All of the girls had read all the books in the series (including me) and had been anticipating the release of the movie for over a year. The book is fabulous!! I taught 4th grade for 4 years and read it to all my Language Arts classes every year. I never had a student not like the book. It contains humor, action, friendship themes, and characters that contain quite a bit of depth and growth throughout the 5 books in the series.

The movie was nothing like the book. The characters in the book are 12 years old. How are the next books to be made into movies if the culminating event of the series happens when Percy turns 16? The plot was totally changed. In the book the quest that Percy, Annabeth, and Grover embark on IS NOT to find 3 pearls so they can escape from the underworld after rescuing Percy's mom. In the book, he doesn't even know that she is alive. It is understandable that not all the adventures on the way to the underworld could be put in a 2 or even 3 hour movie, but don't make up new adventures that aren't even in the book.

The true villain in the book is not even mentioned in the movie and several main characters vital to the plot and character development of Percy and Annabeth are missing. My 13 year old daughter-who waited in line for hours to get Rick Riordan to sign her book- wanted to leave in the middle of the movie because she though it was the worst movie she had ever seen. If the director had stuck to the book, it could have been an amazing movie and people would not be comparing it to Harry Potter want-to-be.