3 Versions of The Lightning Thief

Fair warning for anyone who absolutely hates the movie adaptations of Percy Jackson.

While the movie adaptations of “The Lightning Thief” and “Sea of Monsters” don’t get the same hate as Avatar (there is no movie in Ba Sing Se) they are almost universally disliked by diehard fans of the Percy Jackson fandom. Now that I’ve read the first book (working on “Sea of Monsters”) and watched the Disney Plus and movie adaptations, I wanted to compare and contrast the three versions of “The Lightning Thief”.

After recently rewatching the series and the movie and rereading the book, I picked seven scenes that take place in all three versions and picked my favorite presentation of each. Make sure you let me know your favorites too.

Percy Jackson vs. the Fury

Disney Plus Show - The book and the movie both had build-up towards Mrs. Dodds attacking Percy that kind of distracted me from the intensity of the moment. However, in the Disney Plus series, there was no need for taking Percy away from the group. The fury simply attacked Percy and let the mist obscure things for the rest of the group, throwing us quickly into the action.

Capture the Flag

Movie Adaptation - This is where I get controversial. Like many things in the movie, this scene had some major modifications from the source material. I like that Percy was opposed to Annabeth at first. It gave some solid grounding to their rivalry and makes the change in their relationship even more of a contrast. Although, I will say that the lack of Clarise made things confusing for me in the sequel.

Auntie Em's Garden Gnome Emporium

Original Book Material - I feel like the movie and the show both took away the mystery and intrigue of Medusa. The show gave away her identity so quickly and the movie made her a mindless monster. The book kept her a mystery until right before it was almost too late. We still got her tragic backstory and we still got an awesome fight scene, but she remained a mystery right through the end.

The Lotus Casino

Movie Adaptation - First off, this whole scene is set to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” so for years I always think fondly of this scene when I hear the song play on Spotify. I also liked that everyone had their weakness. In the show and book, they mostly stayed alert and together, while losing track of time, but in the movie adaptation our trio got individually tempted and not just distracted. Plus, I don’t know how you can hate on their epic escape.

The Underworld and Hades

Original Book Material - I loved the mystique of dropping below the shop, the detail of the underworld groups, Tartarus, and confronting Hades. Because the movie chose not to include Kronos (probably in case a sequel wasn’t ordered) we didn’t get any mention of Tartarus or the pit. And there was a lot of talking and exposition in this scene that wouldn’t have been interesting in the show. 

Percy Ascending to Olympus 

Original Book Material - Definitely didn’t care for the movie bringing Percy’s mom to Olympus. Nor did I care for the deadline passing in the show, so I preferred the original material bringing Percy to Olympus alone and talking to Zeus. I loved the internal dialogue Percy had, deliberating about how his father felt about him and vice versa. It hit on a very central theme: Family and family dysfunction. The show has done a great job expanding on this, but for this scene the book did it best.

Luke's Betrayal

Original Book Material - Again I’m going to default to the original source material. In the movie, we honestly didn’t even get a great explanation as to why and how Luke framed Percy (I’ll get to that another time). In the Disney Plus series, Annabeth’s saving Percy kind of took away from the dramatic betrayal. Another close encounter with death made the drama of Percy Jackson’s life more exciting again.

As announced at D23, season two of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is supposed to come out in 2025. While we wait, I plan to finish off “Sea of Monsters” and see how far I get through the books. But I think it’s safe to say you’ll see more Riordan content from me in the next several months.