Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief is a movie based off of the book series, Percy Jackson & The Olympians, written by Rick Riordan. Rick Riordan is an American author who is most famous for writing the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, about a twelve year old boy who discovers that he is a son of Poseidon. His books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies in the United States.This movie is based on Greek mythology. The main character, Percy Jackson, is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, which makes him a demigod. He finds out one summer when he is attacked by a mythical creature and forced to live at a summer camp called Camp Half Blood, where he is ptotected from all gods and creatures.

Someone stole Zeus’ lightning bolt and naturally, Percy Jackson is to blame which then causes his mother to be kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld. So Percy Jackson takes it upon himself to find the lightning bolt and return it to Zeus in order to get his mother back safely.After reading this jaw dropping series, I could not wait for the movie to be released because there is just something special about seeing one of your favorite books finally come to life on screen. However, I was highly disappointed and unsatisfied in the movie because it did not demonstrate how truly amazing the books really are. I am sure I am not the only fan of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series that feels the same way. They left out many details about the characters that made readers fall in love with them. They also decided to not show some of the most important parts of the book that made the plotline even more intense and juicy. Lastly, there were several problems with the setting because it was described differentky in the book than how it was portrayedin the movie.

It was incredibly painful for a diehard fan like to see one of their favorite books completely butchered on screen.When the characters are introduced in the movie, they are completely different than what you would have imagined them to look like from reading the book. Percy Jackson has blonde hair and blue eyes in the book but in the movie he has dark brown hair and blue eyes. The same thing goes for Annabeth; she had curly blonde hair in the books and straight dark brown hair in the movies. The worst character mistake that they made was Grover the satyr. In the book he is portrayed as a redhead with pale skin and covered from head to toe in freckles. But in the movie he is African American?  It was very sad when I watched this movie because I was not even able to recognize my favorite characters from the story.

The directors also completely eliminated some of the most important characters in The Lightning Thief. For example, Ares (god of war), Clarisse, and Dionysus.Fans were also quite upset with how the plot from the movie and the book were entire opposites of each other. The book had a detailed and uniqe plot that took the reader on a trip across the United States to retrieve Persephone’s pearls and save Percy’s mother from Hades. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover can be seen fighting off many monsters and other challenges. However, the movie is compiled of some of the most unimportant and useless components of the book. The main idea in this movie is for the three young heroes to find Persephone’s pearls which will allow them to be able to escape the Underworld and save Percy Jackson’s mother.

Another disappointing flaw in the plot of the movie is the part where Percy’s godly parent is discovered. In the book, it takes so long for him to find out who his dad is that he begins to think that he doesn’t care about him. In the book, Percy is mauled by a hellhound which almost kills him but since he was attacked in a creek he is magically healed. This leads many of the camp members to believe that Percy is the son of Poseidon. In the movie, everyone already knew that he was Poseidon’s son. In the book, Percy’s attitude when he finds out that he is a demigod is totally different than in the movie because he didn’t believe it and was freaking out in the book but he was totally fine with it in the movie. In the book, when Percy discovers that he is the son of Poseidon, Chiron sends him to the oracle in the attack and he is then offered a quest to go find Zeus’ lightning bolt. Annabeth and Grover accompany him on his quest.

In the movie, Percy leaves at night and sneaks out of Camp Half-Blood alone to rescue his mother from Hades. The next big plot hole happens when Percy finds the master bolt inside the shield that Luke Castellan had given him to help him on his quest.  But in the book, Percy and his friends find the master bolt hidden in the backpack that they had received from the god of war. In the movie, Percy gives Hades the master bolt but in the book they escape the underworld with the master bolt. In the book, Percy saves his mother by fighting Ares for the Helm of Darkness and returning it to Hades. But, in the movie Percy saves his mother by trading Hades his mother for the master bolt. With all of these missing components, there is not much substance to this movie. Finally, the settings portrayed in the movie can not even compare to what we imagined from the book.

In the movie Camp Half-Blood has a beautiful arch in the woods that serves as its entrance but in the book there was not an entrance at all. Demigods and satyrs could enter from anywhere because of the magical boundaries that permitted monsters from entering. Also in the book Percy’s cabin is made of stone but in the movie it looks like a bungalow that you would see in Hawaii. It is also right on the edge of the water which was never described in the book. In conclusion, I know that movies have a time limit to portray the entire story correctly with every minor detail when a book has as many pages as it needs to showcase the minor details. However, there are a lot of unnecessary mistakes with the plot, characters, and the setting that have been woven into this failure of a movie.

If you want to become a fan of Percy Jackson, I recommend only reading the book to spare yourself from the emotional torture that this movie provides.