#the movie was very fun. and also modernised. but not really Percy Jackson

[squiddieblogs]

Rambly post abot the pjo show.

I read the books after episode 3 to see what I liked about them PFF

maybe a 3/10 from me. I think I’m the wrong audience, but I’m not sure if kids would be the right audience either.

What I liked.. it wasn’t a lot.

- Blue food mention !! I am so easily swayed.

*tho they feel like they crammed in a bunch of character stuff in the last episode. Peter Johnson, Annabeth’s fear of spiders and Blue Pancakes..

- as a cringe non American it was fun to have visuals for all this stuff. Like in my head everything was so different lol. Olympus was also very pretty. I’d always imagined it to be made of minecraft quartz.

- Ares was fun, and I liked most of the actors. Tho of course I can nitpick pff (ie. I didn’t expect Zeus to be bald PFF sorry o7)

- I really loved the end credits lol, I watched most of them. It really loved that the gods shown all pretty much showed up in the series, except maybe Athena? Who didn’t show up physically as far as I’m aware.

- the amount of god appearances is kinda interesting. I am curious how it will be if they do later books, since there were random in world big 12 god appearances for every book (Ares in 1, Hermes in 2, Apollo, Aphrodite and Athena in 3, Hephaestus and Hera in 4. Hestia kinda in 5? I guess. Plus Dionysus being a mundane figure in camp halfblood). So I do kinda like they’re scattered around, and it makes sense to me. Tho of course there’s more of them the more crazy things get.

Observations (mostly what I didn’t like)

- the sheer mount of talking scenes. Additionally everyone is SO quiet in this show, and it’s hard to focus on what they’re saying cuz I’m partially deaf. I found the Hermes in the lotus casino kinda hard to follow and I need to rewatch it because I have no idea what they said in that scene lol.

- I didn’t really like the tunnel of love replacement because it was much more boring.

- so much happens in this show that falls flat, especially things they added. At least I didn’t feel much

Eg. The golden chair is like. Percy sacrifices himself > Hephaestus shows up and says some stuff (I need to rewatch because it was quiet and really dark again) > Percy is ungilded > they never speak of this again.

Eg. They miss the deadline. Oh no. Gives back the bolt and Poseidon surrenders so no more war. What was the point of there being a war? Like they mentioned that planes weren’t operating cuz of it and there wasn’t even an “oh shit how are we gonna get the state building before war gets super real”. The stakes that should come from an impending war just aren’t there. I don’t think it should it have been a thing at all (and it wasn’t in the book)

Eg. They go to the Arch for protection (not because of annabeth nerd reasons btw. I hate that they didn’t include that) and because Athena was offended by Medusa , Echidna is able to follow them in > annabeth is like, why would my mom do that? > Her faith is never brought up again.

I think a positive example of points not falling flat is the Medusa scene. Medusa kinda explicitly lays out a theme, then she is killed and as reaction Percy sends her head to Olympus. It’s also kinda neat cuz the head is brought back to deal with gabe at the end (even if he didn’t really deserve it from what we saw of the show) The main thing with Medusa tho is that the scene gets wrapped up with Percy deciding to do something with it and the others are like, why that’s a terrible idea. They actually react to what they just did and with an action.

- related, but the show is a kinda mix of episodic and narrative I feel? The last points are an example of stakes being kinda self contained. As well, they set up things as an episode happens it seems - ie. Flashbacks of Luke doing sword fighting with Percy in the last episode instead of in the first few episodes. Tho I can’t think of any more examples of that kind of set up atm, I just thought it was interesting.

However they did add some info about Luke from further on in the series, so idk.

- it’s brought up a tone but the fact they know everything removes so much tension and whimsy. It removes a lot of character and childishness to their actions as well. As well, it means they knowingly walked into traps 2-3 times. Also in the Lotus they kinda. Walked into a trap and then sent Grover away like? what are you doing !

It also removes some of the smartness of the characters like. They manage to get away from Medusa even after being lured in, Percy figures out that the Lotus Casino is a trap and he manages to trick waterbed guy in order to defeat him.

Despite disliking the scene I did like that they tied waterbed guy into finding the underworld. I don’t think he would’ve been in the series otherwise.

- the character relationships are really dumbed down. There is some hints that Luke cares for annabeth but not really any hints that it’s a mutual bond. The school scenes are altered in a way that Grover and Percy never really feel like best friends, and Grover ends up kinda a third wheel. Percy and Annabeth don’t hang out at camp before the quest like the book, and their nicknames aren’t used until like half way to the end of the series.

- THE PACING IS AWFUL!! In episode 1-2 and the finale there isn’t a lot of time to breathe. There’s no time to reflect on many scenes that happen in the book throughout tbh. And many of the talking scenes and flashbacks are long and quiet. If I had to guess, I feel like they adapted the book scenes to be appropriate length for the show but didn’t really with new scenes.

- lastly I hate the tone. It’s so serious and if I see “dramatic music” in the subtitles again im mclosing it. There is really a lack of fun in this show. The light hearted nature of the first book at least is lost. Even if the book is shown in Percy’s pov I think they could have retained the mood and tone but they really didn’t. The movie (agony) I think does a great job of having the fun of the book even if the finale gives me whiplash everytime (Movie Luke is iconic tbh who is this dude? Look?)

Maybe I am a Movie apologist smh. I really don’t mind if they make changes to the story. At least unlike the movies, I do see the show as being Percy Jackson - tho really watered down and boring adaptation of a book that I still really enjoyed reading it as a cringe ass adult.

I don’t think the changes break the story but I think they were done poorly. I think it would have been more interesting if they didn’t know about every threat and they kept elements of the book that conveyed the personality of the chars other than Percy.

Maybe I will like it more on a rewatch. But I think that’ll be a while lol. Of course I’d love to hear opinions on how others feel. This is a ramble off the top of my head so not really that serious