Disney+’s Percy Jackson Adaptation Perfectly Serves the Novels (And Blows the Ill-Fated Films Out of the Water)

By Gillian Bennett  |  December 22, 2023 | 10:15am
Photo Courtesy of Disney+
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Disney+’s Percy Jackson Adaptation Perfectly Serves the Novels (And Blows the Ill-Fated Films Out of the Water)

Percy Jackson may not have wanted to become a demigod… but the rest of us probably do, so it’s through the new Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV show that we will live vicariously through him. 

Nearly 20 years ago, a writer from Texas named Rick Riordan released the first book in what would become a phenomenon akin to the successes of other similar middle-grade fantasy books from the late ‘90s and early aughts. It was called The Lightning Thief. 

On another equally-as-momentous (but perhaps not as fortunate) day five years later, then-18-year-old Logan Lerman graced our screens as Percy Jackson in the first book-to-screen adaptation, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Barring a few iconic scenes (we’ll never forget the Lotus Casino montage with “Poker Face” booming in the background), the movie was essentially a flop in every way imaginable. Even Riordan himself never shied away from publicly sharing his disdain, spearheading the campaign for a better adaptation of his life’s work. 

Both film adaptations (The Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters) are overly ambitious. The material being covered proves to be too big for its medium’s britches, particularly in the sequel film. While The Lightning Thief largely—and loosely—follows the events of the first book, Sea of Monsters chooses to combine huge plot points from the remaining four books into a runtime of under two hours. Ultimately, these previous adaptations fail to serve the source material while also stunting their own potential as films due to their scattershot execution—it’s difficult to make a coherent film while attempting to shoehorn in too many plot points from across the series. 

And even despite the glaring plotting issues and the failure to truly live up to the source material, the films also changed something instrumental to the DNA of Percy Jackson: the ages of the characters. The Lightning Thief film came out amid a YA renaissance separate from the likes of Harry Potter (think Divergent, The Hunger Games, and The Mortal Instruments). All the popular characters of the time were around sixteen or seventeen years old (or a 25-year-old playing a teenager). 

While Lerman was young when the film was released (17 during filming), he was still significantly older than Percy was written on the page, at just 12 years old.  Brandon T. Jackson was 26 when he played Grover (whose age is more unclear due to his being a satyr), and Alexandra Daddario was notably around 24 when she played Annabeth, once again making her much older than her book counterpart, who was half her age. 

What’s perhaps most unfortunate about the inappropriate aging-up of the book characters is that Lerman, whose looks matched the canon, and who had Percy’s quick wit and stubborn spirit to match, would’ve made an excellent Percy—had this been a film about the Heroes of Olympus spinoff, which takes place when Percy was finally 17. The same cannot be said for Daddario and Jackson, whose portrayals fell flat and were far removed from their book counterparts. For some reason, the films had their respective characters lean much flirtier and sexier, characteristics ill-suited for children’s media, seemingly in an attempt to inject a maturity that wasn’t needed. In short, the films did very little to serve the original works, and suffered both as films and adaptations because of it. 

But finally, after years of fighting tooth-and-nail for a proper adaptation, Riordan announced in January of 2022 that Percy Jackson would be given a second life on screen—this time as a series for Disney+. Newcomer Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) would play the titular, quippy demigod, and was to be joined by the fresh young faces of Aryan Simhadri (Cheaper by the Dozen) as Percy’s best friend Grover Underwood, and Leah Sava Jeffries (Beast) as Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena.

Opportunities to start over with a book-to-screen adaptation, especially when the first attempt failed so spectacularly, are few and far between. (The only popular one that comes to mind is The Mortal Instruments, which was then rebooted into the series Shadowhunters.) But this time, they finally got it right.

Due to the inherent differences between novels and visual mediums, films often feel too constraining to properly bring a novel, let alone a series as expansive as Percy Jackson, to life. A television show always feels like the right way to go for a book adaptation. Just like with predecessors such as A Series of Unfortunate Events, each individual season of the Percy Jackson show plans on centering around each book in the original series. Thus, Season 1 aptly follows The Lightning Thief. 

In comparison to the ill-fated cast of those original films, this new trio is truly what breathes life into Percy Jackson and the Olympians, marrying Riordan’s original written word with its visual counterpart and conjuring up images readers only thought would ever be in their heads. Despite initial backlash online over the new cast’s appearances compared to the canon, the three young actors are phenomenal in their roles and feel drawn straight from the page. More than anything, their stand-out performances and instant chemistry prove that looks aren’t everything; Percy Jackson wasn’t captivating because Percy had black hair and Annabeth was blonde, it’s the heart and soul of these characters that made them so relatable and beloved. And these three kids perfectly capture that beating heart and soul.

And beyond just looks, casting these roles age-appropriately and retaining the canonical book ages of these characters allows this series to capture its target audience, all while upping the stakes for its central trio. It’s harrowing to watch pre-teens battle Greek monsters, and the films never truly captured the danger and valor by aging up Percy and his pals. 

All that should matter to fans of the original books is that the characters’ personalities remain true to canon and that we feel like we’re truly watching these characters come to life on screen. Scobell, Jeffries, and Simhadri are the perfect trio, bursting with chemistry. It’s rare to see entirely screen-accurate depictions of book characters, particularly when said books are meant for children and therefore often taken less seriously by the general zeitgeist. But no one takes books more seriously than their author, and it’s incredibly felicitous that Riordan was able to be a creative force behind the Disney+ series. His involvement allows a liberty to be taken with these characters; they are strikingly familiar and yet each have a unique flair to these incredible new performers. 

Building off of the chemistry between the leads, Disney+’s adaptation also complements the found family through-line within the books. In a world where demigods grapple with absentee Greek gods and goddesses for parents, the trio always have each other. The camaraderie among Percy, Annabeth, and Grover is incontestable; they feel like a team, enough so that it’s easier to suspend disbelief when watching these three 12-year-olds slay a Minotaur or two. It also means that any other small hiccups (a few odd CGI choices, or oversized armor swallowing every kid who wears it) fade to the background, inconsequential against the rest. 

Book-to-screen adaptations will never fully satisfy every fan (that is, unless film studios decide to produce hundreds of hours of footage with nary a single detail left out from the books). But the new Percy Jackson TV show does a pretty darn good job, especially in a stark juxtaposition against its film predecessors. Scobell, Jeffries, and Simhadri bring the magic (and realities of being a tween!) to life, stirring up renewed nostalgia for old fans and introducing such a special world to new ones alike. The films will always exist for us to go back to, but I have a feeling that once the TV show has time to fully settle, the films will soon fade into a faint buzz… one reminiscent of a certain Lady Gaga song. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming on Disney+. 

Gillian Bennett is a writer and editor who has been featured in Strike Magazine, Her Campus, and now Paste Magazine. She enjoys watching copious reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and fantasizing about living in London. You can find more of her neverending inner monologue and online diary on her Twitter or her blog.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.

 
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