{"id":18029,"date":"2010-08-02T18:47:44","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T00:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=18029"},"modified":"2014-06-13T17:05:14","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T23:05:14","slug":"a-pair-of-percys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/02\/a-pair-of-percys.html","title":{"rendered":"A Pair of Percy’s"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lighting<\/a>
Lighting Thief, the Movie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We watched Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief<\/em> — er, rather, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief<\/a> <\/em>— on DVD while at Jim and Ginger’s a few weeks ago.\u00a0 And this evening I just finished the book it was based on, The Lightning Thief<\/em><\/a>, by Rick Riordan.*<\/p>\n

Huh.<\/p>\n

Upon watching the movie, my impression was … well, okay.\u00a0 Nothing objectionable or particularly bad, but nothing all that good, either.\u00a0 I wasn’t quite sure what the fuss was about.\u00a0 It felt a bit like an adaptation, no real there there, but …<\/p>\n

The book is not spectacular.\u00a0 This is no Lord of the Rings<\/em>.\u00a0 This isn’t even Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone<\/em>.\u00a0 But the book has about ten times the personal voice, and five times the plottiness, of the movie.\u00a0 Looking at the creative decisions made in the adaptation to the screen, I can only shake my head — not just plot cuts for time (inevitable, even against a relatively short YYA novel), but a general sanding off of the plot, rearrangements solely for time that make the whole thing just a lot more blah.<\/p>\n

\"Lightning<\/a>
Lightning Thief, the Book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harry Potter hasn’t always been served well in adaptation to screen — every reader has the plot line, the character, the event that got ruthlessly cropped.\u00a0 Here the cropping isn’t quite as ruthless (though some significant characters and very significant subplots do get lopped away), but what’s left is not a lot of interesting episodes that hang together a bit tenuously, but a lot of compromised scenes that hang together but that’s about all.<\/p>\n

There were also some not-insignificant changes in the last quarter of the movie that were very\u00a0 clearly designed for Big! Excitement! on the screen (and others that, frankly, robbed the film of a lot of excitement). And the end of the film ends up much more neatly, and therefore much less interestingly, than in the book.<\/p>\n

Plus, the SFX just aren’t that great.<\/p>\n

I have no idea whether this will be the beginning of a film franchise, though I have serious doubts.\u00a0 The book is definitely worth reading.\u00a0 The jury is still out whether I want to see the movie again any time soon. If you’ve only seen the latter, don’t judge the book by that cover.<\/p>\n

*By the way, it’s pronounced with “Rye-or-dan,” rather than the authentic Irish “Rear-dan.”\u00a0 There was some amusement about that during his SDCC panel.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We watched Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief — er, rather, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief — on DVD while at Jim and Ginger’s a few weeks ago.\u00a0 And this evening I just finished the book it was based on, The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.* Huh. Upon watching the movie, my … Continue reading “A Pair of Percy’s”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,527,382,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-books","category-harry-potter","category-lord-of-the-rings","category-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/lightning-thief-book1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17910,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/07\/20\/tweets-from-2010-07-20.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":0},"title":"Tweets from 2010-07-20","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-Jul-10 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief doesn't give Harry Potter much competition, but it sparked K's interest in Greek myths, so I'm happy. # Okay, so 6 a.m. PDT phone conferences are much more irksome when, you know, I'm actually in the Pacific time zone. # OTOH, leaving the in-laws\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3109,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/08\/the_happiest_vi.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":1},"title":"The happiest victim","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Aug-02 12:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Woman's debit card is stolen from mailbox. Thief is caught. Woman discovers in statement that she's made money from the deal. Seems the thief used the debit card to place...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33024,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/02\/i-didnt-expect-another-percy-jackson-movie.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":2},"title":"I didn't expect … another Percy Jackson movie","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Apr-13 10:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The first one was ... okay. \u00a0Kay was wildly into the books at the time, and the movie was really sort of a second-rate adaptation. Also, that was 2010, and I hadn't hard anything about a sequel being greenlit.But, apparently ... August. \u00a0Okay. I'm game. We'll admit it: Percy Jackson:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2665,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/20\/a_message_to_my.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":3},"title":"A message to my Mom","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 20-May-02 4:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If you happen to discover that I am an accomplished art thief, and have been stashing my swag at your house, and if I am then caught by the police,...","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18655,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/more-on-the-don-armstrong-felony-thief-for-now-case.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":4},"title":"More on the Don Armstrong (felony thief, for now) case","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Sep-10 8:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"After a few days, a few more stories in the news illuminating how the\u00a0 Don Armstrong case went from 20-odd felony theft indictments by the grand jury to \"no contest\" on one felony theft and one misdemeanor theft case. First off, the Colorado Springs Gazette: As part of the agreement,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/don-armstrong-laughter-300x199.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":44042,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/01\/the-secret-life-of-dogs.html","url_meta":{"origin":18029,"position":5},"title":"The Secret Life of Dogs","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Aug-14 8:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, yeah.Reshared post from +Richard WilsonThief\ufeff View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42612,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18029\/revisions\/42612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}