Why the "Percy Jackson" Movies are Some of the Saddest Ever Made

I remember how excited I was when I first heard that someone bought the movie rights to the Percy Jackson series of books, which, at the time, were my favorite books. EVERYONE was reading them. In fact, those were the only books my friends and I were talking about back in first year highschool. I mean, it's about a kid who interacts with the Greek gods of yore and fights the monsters Hercules used to fight.

No! Get it away from me!

My friends and I were expecting a lot of things from the movie because, let's face it, it would've been tantamount to the second coming of the Harry Potter series itself. The books were written from a point of view with which nearly every kid and teen could relate. There was no way this movie could fail.

Then we saw the trailer for The Lightning Thief.

Or, as I like to call it, lady boners.

What the world got was a teen chick-flick with enough bad CGI monsters to make Moby Dick cry tears of joy. Absolutely NOTHING in the trailer paid any respect at all to the source material. It was as if everything that COULD go wrong WENT WRONG. The disappointment was so heavy, you could almost feel it. They got the whole character demographic mixed up. Instead of a lanky, curly-haired, acne-ridden, teenage version of Mr. Tumnus, we get that dude from Tropic Thunder. And, instead of a beautiful, young, BLONDE girl with GREY eyes, we get a brunette in her mid-freaking twenties.

Oh yeah... with BLUE eyes.

It was on that fateful visit to my friend's house that we ALL vowed to not waste any money on it at the theatre. Why would we? I mean, sure, it's just a trailer, but I didn't think Greek demigods would look like the stars of the next Twilight rip-off.

We concluded that the trailer was pretty bad and that the movie was gonna be a huge, flaming pile of, to be nice, s**t. We just didn't know HOW huge of a flaming pile of s**t it would be. So came the day when it was released on DVD. You could imagine my outrage.

This movie really should've been called 'Percy Jackson & The Crushed Dreams of Children and Fans Everywhere'.

I was so upset and so sad when I watched the movie that my own father kicked me out of the viewing room because my comments were borderline profane. I felt the way EVERY devoted fan of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series felt. I was disgusted. I was outraged. I was betrayed.

How could I not have been? It was as if the director and writer themselves took a massive, fishy dump on the book and gave Rick Riordan the bird and went on to rape the series itself. They took everything that was good about the book and threw it out the window and replaced it with sex appeal and everything that would and could be found in your stereotypical teen fantasy flick.

I'm not even gonna go into detail about the second movie (which, by the way, should never have happened). I don't have to. I hated it, and I hated it pretty bad, but I didn't hate it as much as I did the first movie. Why? Well, with the second one, we were actually PROMISED and GUARANTEED to get a huge, flaming pile of money-grabbing, corporate, Hollywood, Twilight-ripping bullcrap. Sure, they raped Sea of Monsters and they changed an assload of characters into attractive young people in their early twenties and they freaking KILLED Tyson.

Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles have nothing on this abomination.

As much as they poured salt on the wound with Sea of Monsters, I could never hate it as much as I hated Lightning Thief. Why? Because Lightning Thief was, to me, the WORST movie adaptation (of a book, mind you) I have EVER seen in my life.

And it's sad. Not sad in the sense that it's a huge tear jerker like, let's say, Marley and Me or Click. It's sad because, at the helm of Lightning Thief, you had Chris Freaking Columbus. Who's he, you ask? Well, he's only the director of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE. He captured the magic of the Harry Potter books PERFECTLY and directed one of the greatest fantasy films ever made. Let that sink in.

"Logan, now we're gonna shoot the scene where you take your clothes off."

"Mr. Columbus, I'm afraid that's not in the book."

"It's a book?"

Still not sad? Watch Lightning Thief and watch Sorcerer's Stone. Is there a difference? Of course there's a difference. Sorcerer's Stone wasn't freaking about lady boners and Booty Sweat. It was about three awkward, underdog kids going on a near-impossible quest to stop the forces of evil. It was a movie about kids, for kids. It sparked a worldwide phenomenon that made people super stoked about the next movie. Parents were actually taking their children out to see these movies. Fans of the books were treated to something that did justice to the source material.

When I think about how the Percy Jackson movies could've been something just as good or even better - when I think about how they could've been the next Harry Potter - it does nothing but depress me. When I think of how completely alienated the entire fanbase felt, when I think of how painful it must've been for Rick Riordan to watch the movies, when I think of how large the feminine circle-jerk around Logan Lerman is just because of how "good" this movie was, when I think about how CHRIS COLUMBUS NEVER EVEN READ THE DAMN BOOK; it all does nothing but depress me.

How have adaptations of books come to this? How could we have come from the first Jurassic Park and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the entire Harry Potter series to this? Is it really so important for directors to sacrifice artistic integrity and faithfulness to the source material for sex appeal and cash? And, with regards to Sea of Monsters, did the director not learn anything at all from the first movie? Are we going to keep letting this happen to our favorite books? "If you're so passionate about your books then why don't you make your own movies?" It's because I don't have the proper resources. Trust me, if a devoted enough fan did have the proper resources, you'd all be seeing a better Percy Jackson movie.

PHOTO CREDITS:

http://screencrave.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Percy-JAckson-and-the-Olympians-international-trailer-11-12-09-kc.jpg

http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.12352515.1382/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130401182027/olympians/images/c/c4/Tysonsom.png

http://www.movieinsider.com/m2153/percy-jackson-and-the-lightning-thief/photos/

http://www.imdb.com/

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kya3nokNqh1qb7z1ko1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI6WLSGT7Y3ET7ADQ&Expires=1400400584&Signature=mTor4JmupNyKrnfrPDxjyl5SonA%3D#_=_

(c) Rafa Duran, 2014

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