emeraldstag (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emeraldstag) wrote2010-07-05 07:04 pm
emeraldstag) wrote2010-07-05 07:04 pm
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Moonday the Adaptation Thief
I forget where I read it, but some fantastic author had made the days of the week into a different form, with Moonday, Sunday, Starday, amongst others. That explains most of the title. Going to Disneyland on Friday and needing the weekend to recover explains my lack of presence here. I still need at least another day to get a post together for Disneyland. I've put some photos on my twitter today but different ones will be here and facebook eventually.
I wanted to talk about Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief after seeing it last night on Blu-Ray. It's not bad but the changes they made are drastic enough that it feels like they weren't expecting to make a franchise out of the film to parallel the book series. It reminds me a lot of the Eragon movie, the material is changed to make an entertaining film but the changes make it impossible to continue and disenchant book fans from the films which to me makes it obvious to respect the source material. But here we are. I was expecting since Chris Columbus was the director that the film would be very loyal to the book but I wonder if the negative criticism he got for being too exact with the Harry Potter films that he lashed in this direction of tweaking things here and there. I compare it to if the Harry Potter films started with Cuaron's Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, the changes are jarring and major pieces of the lore is left out but the movie is thematic and entertaining - just a terrible adaptation of the book. And it shows that part is important because Prisoner of Azkaban is the least successful Potter movie in the box office. Had it been the first, there might not have been a complete series of films made especially in the current state of the industry.
I think this is a genuine fear that faithful adaptations are going to be rare and even adaptations in general, The Golden Compass was a great production was successful in theatres and the studios shut down productions on future films on the other books. The Chronicles of Narnia adaptations barely are getting the third film made, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader after another studio picked it up and I have big doubt there will be a fourth film.
Back to Percy Jackson, it's disappointing because the series might have had the chance to become the American version of the Potter film success to a degree - there was even the great adult actor cast with Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean, just to name a few. I know the main actor, Logan Lerman became popular in recent months when his name was mentioned in the Spider-Man reboot casting search (I'll blog about that misstep sometime in the future) but watching him as Percy Jackson I couldn't help but notice how much he reminded me of a young Zac Efron.
I was really disappointed after hearing from a family member who is a major fan of the books that they really shortchanged 'Camp Half-Blood' the camp for the Demigods and thinking back, the film is only about 1hr 50 mins long, most of the Harry Potter films go nearly a half hour longer and if they could have used 15-20 mins of that time to flesh out the camp it would have been well worth it. To establish other supporting characters that are in the series and not just rush through the place without really explaining much and also pretty much skipping over Percy's training to use his water powers because in the movie it just progresses to HE CAN DO IT without any training. Nitpicks I know but in the overall it would have been well worth the use of time.
I wanted to talk about Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief after seeing it last night on Blu-Ray. It's not bad but the changes they made are drastic enough that it feels like they weren't expecting to make a franchise out of the film to parallel the book series. It reminds me a lot of the Eragon movie, the material is changed to make an entertaining film but the changes make it impossible to continue and disenchant book fans from the films which to me makes it obvious to respect the source material. But here we are. I was expecting since Chris Columbus was the director that the film would be very loyal to the book but I wonder if the negative criticism he got for being too exact with the Harry Potter films that he lashed in this direction of tweaking things here and there. I compare it to if the Harry Potter films started with Cuaron's Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, the changes are jarring and major pieces of the lore is left out but the movie is thematic and entertaining - just a terrible adaptation of the book. And it shows that part is important because Prisoner of Azkaban is the least successful Potter movie in the box office. Had it been the first, there might not have been a complete series of films made especially in the current state of the industry.
I think this is a genuine fear that faithful adaptations are going to be rare and even adaptations in general, The Golden Compass was a great production was successful in theatres and the studios shut down productions on future films on the other books. The Chronicles of Narnia adaptations barely are getting the third film made, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader after another studio picked it up and I have big doubt there will be a fourth film.
Back to Percy Jackson, it's disappointing because the series might have had the chance to become the American version of the Potter film success to a degree - there was even the great adult actor cast with Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean, just to name a few. I know the main actor, Logan Lerman became popular in recent months when his name was mentioned in the Spider-Man reboot casting search (I'll blog about that misstep sometime in the future) but watching him as Percy Jackson I couldn't help but notice how much he reminded me of a young Zac Efron.
I was really disappointed after hearing from a family member who is a major fan of the books that they really shortchanged 'Camp Half-Blood' the camp for the Demigods and thinking back, the film is only about 1hr 50 mins long, most of the Harry Potter films go nearly a half hour longer and if they could have used 15-20 mins of that time to flesh out the camp it would have been well worth it. To establish other supporting characters that are in the series and not just rush through the place without really explaining much and also pretty much skipping over Percy's training to use his water powers because in the movie it just progresses to HE CAN DO IT without any training. Nitpicks I know but in the overall it would have been well worth the use of time.