Review of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) by Kyle B — 29 Feb 2016

I thought the book and the movie were really great but there was just so many differences between them. Some of the differences between them were just minor but some are really big to the story line.

For starters the plot was changed, the main idea of the entire story changed in the book he went on a quest to get to Hollywood, California with only the resources they could carry on their backs to retrieve the Master Bolt for Zeus and save his mother from the underworld and already had the pearls needed to get to and from the underworld. In the movie Percy goes on a quest to find the pearls needed to get to the underworld and retrieve the Master Bolt and save rescue his mother. A really big thing they changed between the book and the movie was that in the book the god of war Ares was the one who had the items to cause a war between the three most powerful gods in the world. Ares stole them from Lucas who had stolen them to begin with, while in the movie Ares wasn't even there he wasn't even involved in the movie and Hades helmet wasn't ever stolen it was just the Master Bolt and Lucas had hidden it in the shield he had given to Percy. The event coming after this was when Percy had retrieved the Helmet stolen from Hades after he injured Ares during the battle they had and went to Olympus to return it and tell Zeus who he thought was the culprit was. After that he has to make a choice between living at Camp-Half Blood year round or to live with his mom and while he was there the one who originally stole everything Lucas tried to kill him with a scorpion until Chiron saved his life and nursed him back to health.But in the movie none of that ever happened so instead he was heading to Olympus to return the Master Bolt him and Lucas had this battle on the rooftop to where Percy wins and returns the Master Bolt to Zeus.

A minor thing that they left out of the movie was when Percy notices the three fates across the road from him and grover. This wasn't too important of a part but it gave you a little bit more insight into what Percy had in stake for him further into the movie. The one part that I didn't mind them changing was the part about Medusa dying, in the book when Medusa was killed they didn't really do anything with it they just kinda left it be. While in the movie they brought it with them on their journey and it actually helped them throughout the it, but at the end something that was completely new to the story was that at the end Percy put it in his mom's old apartment and told his step dad that he didn't like to not open the fridge and when he opened it Medusa's head was staring back at him and turned him to stone. The other big detail that they changed that I thought was really interesting was at the Lotus Casino, in the book you really didn't know what put them in the drug like state that wouldn't allow them to leave the Casino. But in the movie it showed you exactly what it was, it was the cookies they were eating. The servers that were there kept coming around and bringing them cookies to eat so they stay there forever.

Overall the book and the movie was really great, but the adaptation to the book was pretty terrible they change a lot they shouldn't have and it made the comparison to the two of them really terrible. So of the changes made from the book to the movie were major and destroyed the plot of the book, some were minor and didn't change the book at all, and some changed it quite a bit but it changed it for the better.