Comparative Analysis Of Movie And Book Percy Jackson & The Olympians
Thief used various literary techniques to make the movie very different from the book. One primary example is how the front cover of the book is made so that Percy looks much tinier than the lightning bolt so he looks less intimidating. On the movie poster there is a close up shot of him holding the lightning bolt so obviously he looks much scarier. The reason this was done was in order to make suspense for the movie and make it seem like there would be a lot of fighting involved. Also the plots of the two are drastically different.
For example in the book the god of war Ares plays a big role has he is the one who put Zeus’ lightning bolt in his shield. In the book Luke hides the lightning bolt in his shield. Ares plays no role in the movie and is on the screen for less than 15 seconds. Percy Jackson is characterized very differently between the book and movie. In the book when he is first introduced he is only 12 years old. In the movie it is said he is 16 years old. This is relevant because in the movie he is able to more quickly learn how to fight monsters and survive in the real world. The film crew did this so the story could progress more quickly as they only had a limited amount of time.
In the book he goes to Yancy Academy “a school for troubled kids in upstate New York” in the movie he still attends Yancy Academy but it’s in New York City. This is done so that that many extras could be in the film to make Percy Jackson seem like he didn’t fit in all the other kids. The first scene in the movie is Percy sitting in the bottom of a swimming pool holding his breath for an elongated period of time. This is to show how Percy is instantly unique from anyone else. In the book he isn’t described as being able to do this. There is a different setting in the movie that completely shapes it differently than the book. For example for Percy’s quest in the movie he has to go to the Parthenon in Nashville but in the book this does not happen. The film crew chose to had a separate journey for him is that they wanted the Parthenon to be in it. This is because people would understand that more (as people associate it as Greek).
Filmmakers often change major focal points of the book in order to make it more appealing to a general audience so that their profits will increase. As the textbook defines a familiar image is used to repeat in a movie to balance the narrative. In the book this does not happen because it’s unnecessary as the people who read the book can create images in their head instead of it being done for them. The scenes themselves are quite different in both stories. One scene in particular that I thought showed many different techniques was when Hades shows up in Camp Half-Blood looking for Percy in order to try and trade him his mother's life for the lightning bolt.
2 elements featured in the movie that were exceptional were the color and lighting. These elements have a strong influence on how a film feels and looks. The colors black and orange are associated with death. This was done to show Hades as a powerful figure who was threatening to the main characters. The lighting is purposefully to makes Hades’ body be dark and scary. Lots of films do this to antagonists. This is usually done by manipulating shadows. One thing that the movie crew could do was use different kind of camera shots to impact a viewer's emotions. During this same scene an aerial shot is used to show how the campers are running away from this figure. The film crew chose to do this to show how scared they were of him. Moments laters a low angle shot is used. This is typically used to make one character appear much larger than the other. This causes Hades to appear much dominant than Percy.
