Brent English

After watching this show I wonder how much Disney paid Rick Riordian to rewrite his magnum opus for this show. This series was barely a skeleton of the book at best. They changed the story in so many places that it almost made it unrecognizable to anyone who read the books. As someone who has read the books many times over I have to say that such high hopes for this series. I was willing to overlook the casting of certain characters and give it a chance but they didn’t even try to take it work. They just made changes and hoped nobody would care. On top of that they made MAJOR changes that most would see as minor but again as someone who read the book they hurt the show. Percy couldn’t breathe under water until the end of the series almost, ridiculous. Making Iris messages in a reflection instead of mist, hilarious. Having Percy’s mom and Gabe having a normal relationship, preposterous. That relationship was as close to abuse as it could get in the book but yet in the show they were just a mouthy couple. Meeting Hermes in the lotus casino was a fail in top of the kids knowing before they ever walked in that the casino was a trap. Then there was the small issue of Percy being given 4 pearls in the show but in the book there are only 3. This is a MAJOR difference because that was done to put the issue of making a choice to save his mom or not to be more difficult. There were so many times in this series when i wanted to turn it off and go online to bash it but I kept watching to give it a chance for redemption and all I got was a fantasy show with Percy, Annabeth, and Grover in it. AND don’t get me started on them stealing Hermes car to travel in instead of using Annabeth intelligence to figure out the way. They were given a perfect chance to build on her character and failed. Just another example of them letting the fans down The only reason this gets any stars at all is because I felt like the actors did the best job they could give the material they were working with and it wasn’t their fault that the story had so many changes. It’s always a letdown when there is a successful story already produced with a huge following that just wants a positive representation of the book but what they get is a quarter of the book, a quarter creative freedoms, and the other half complete changes from the material all together. If you have never read the books and are looking for an entertaining show then it’s not that bad but if you are looking for a “Percy Jackson and the lighting thief” series then this will let you down. The most depressing part of this whole series is knowing that they are moving forward to make a second season. After absolutely destroying the first book the couldn’t stop without doing the whole series..do yourself a favor and go into this show with a completely open mind and don’t compare it in any way whatsoever to the books and then you may enjoy it.