Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (2/2)

The day I finished the book, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, my friends and I watched the movie as a comparison. I found myself doing a lot of the same things I did while watching M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Every couple of minutes I would raise my hand and comment “er….that didn’t happen”.

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Percy Jackson, the movie, felt like a complete disconnect from the actual story. It’s almost a guarantee that a lot of great things will be left out of the movie, but some of the most important things in the book didn’t even exist in the movie. Ares puppeteering didn’t take place, in fact Ares wasn’t in the movie at all. He was kind of a big deal in the book. Kronos also wasn’t in the book, he’s the one pulling the strings behind Luke’s betrayal (and the entire Olympian doomseday prophecy). Clarisse is introduced as Percy’s major rival, yet she’s nowhere to be found in the movie. Pair that with the additional (yet more understandable) content left out, such as Cerberus, the Furies, and the Hephaestus trap, and the actual relevance toward the book is disappointing.

On top of things taken out, the movie added random things in too. In the book, Nereid offers Percy the three pearls just before he leaves for the underworld. The movie takes this and makes it the central plot point. In doing so, the Hydra is randomly thrown in, and upon reaching the underworld (and skipping through the majority of it), Persephone shows up and helps them escape. That doesn’t happen in the book, in fact, the entire second half of the movie was completely different. Percy’s mother escapes the underworld, no problem, Hades isn’t missing his Helm of Darkness, Grover volunteers to stay behind and get raped by Persephone in the underworld, Hades never finds out the truth behind the theft, and Luke openly admits to the theft and claims to be the mastermind behind the whole plan.

And even further than that, a lot of the character portrayals were just unlikeable. I can understand making them teenagers rather than children. Children are going to age much faster than they’ll be able to make these movies (then again, Harry Potter managed). Aside from that though, the demographic is a little more widespread. While 11-year old Harry Potter was in school for most of the first few books, these 12-year olds are traveling the country, battling dangerous beasts in search of an ultimate quest. But if you move past that, the individual characters were quite different from how they were in the book.

Starting with Annabeth, she came off as a mix between Annabeth and Clarisse, and there was a weird love-connection between her and Percy throughout the movie. I don’t know if they hook up later on, but it was not at all implied in the book. Grover is supposed to be scared, fragile, and unconfident in the book, feeling he has something to prove after screwing up bad previously. Yet, in the movie, he’s confident, he’s arrogant, he acts like Percy’s protective older brother willing to take on the world, and the truth of his past is never mentioned. Zeus is forgiving and even somewhat charitable, not demanding Percy leave after having just spared them of war. Hades is easily tricked and not scary at all. Charon is exactly what he should be like in the original myth, not how he’s described in the 21^st century, the list goes on and on. And that’s not even counting Annabeth’s brunette hair, Medusa’s Caucasian appearance, and countless other physical discrepancies.

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Ultimately, however, I’m left with a different feeling with Percy Jackson than I was Avatar.  Although Percy Jackson made almost all of the same mistakes that M. Night made with The Last Airbender, there were two major differences. First, I felt that the production value was higher with Percy Jackson. The visuals were better, the acting was much better, and it just had that finished finesse you expect to see in a film these days. Second, the film was decent as a stand-alone movie. Despite how much was changed from the book to the movie, the plot wasn’t rushed, the revised plot still worked out, and it actually made sense. If Percy Jackson the Book had never existed, this could actually be a decent movie. Unfortunately though, it just makes and my friends wonder just how they plan to handle the next four movies.

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (1/2)

So I’ve recently gotten back into reading. Yes, reading. Reading is a form of entertainment just as much as television, music, film, or video games. I’ve been wanting to open myself up to more entertainment mediums because of the field I’m entering, so I’m going to keep a checklist per month of books that I read, movies I see, television I watch, games I play, music I listen to, and anything in addition to that such as graphic novels or performances. But you can look for that at the end of the month.

The point of this article in particular is Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I am currently on vacation with my school friends in Florida, and on the car ride down, the two that I happened to be riding with had already read it and were currently reading the rest of the series. Having a good 17 hours of driving ahead of me, I decided to pick it up and give it a shot.

I wasn’t very impressed with it at first. The writing felt juvenile, but I guess it makes sense because it’s clearly meant to be young adult fiction, possibly even children’s fiction. Even still, it felt I was reading a story I had written in tenth grade (which I happened to have re-read recently) and was giving me a sense of underdeveloped plot. Sentences were short, description was scarce, everything was a little too “too the point” and some of the plot points were just out-and-out silly. But the reason I gave it a shot in the first place was because it is so heavily based on Greek mythology. I’ve always been a sucker for Greek mythology, as were my comrades, so I kept reading.

It certainly got more addicting towards the middle. Once the actual quest started, I found it more difficult to put down. The premise of the story is that gods and monsters from Greek days of old existed then and still exist now. Ares, Medusa, the Lotus Eaters, everything from Hades to the Iliad is included here, and what I find interesting is the story’s interpretations of the characters. The gods and monsters have grown and evolved just as mankind has, so Zeus is wearing pinstripe and Medusa owns a statue emporium. But they’re the same gods and heroes as olden days, so seeing how they’ve changed over the past few millennia is interesting and fun to try and guess who their next supernatural encounter is.

If you’re into Greek mythology, give it a shot. If you want just a fun light-hearted story with an interesting take on and old mythos, try it out. There’s enough serious undertones in it so far, I mean remember how dark the first Harry Potter was? Exactly, and look where that story went. The way the stories are written show that the characters will be growing older and maturing as the quest gets darker and more important, so I’m sure it gets more serious throughout the books. The only other thing I can say is that the story does bare mild resemblance to Harry Potter. Confused boy hero, desires parental love, crappy homelife with an awful stepfather, cowardly but loyal male comrade, intelligent but somewhat snooty female comrade, destined jerk rival that loves beating him but hates losing (just wait till my father hears about this). All things aside though, I'm by no means saying this is a copy off of Harry Potter. It's still quite different. Really, if you can get past the mildly juvenile writing style, it’s a good read to try out.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2/2)

I had just finished the show, Avatar: The Last Airbender when the movie was released. I had heard how abysmally it did in the theatres, netting a pathetic 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, Rotten Tomatoes tends to be a bit harsher, where a good movie will receive a 70%. But to get an 8% is still quite an achievement. So after waiting a couple of months for Last Airbender to make its way to the dollar theatre, I finally saw it. I only had to pay $2.50 for this travesty, and even that was probably too expensive.

So what made The Last Airbender so bad? Well, M. Night was clearly given creative freedom for this production, and he made the most of it. In my previous article, I mentioned how the four nations in the show more or less represent the cultures of Japan, China, Tibet, and…wherever Inuits live. So why is it that a bunch of white kids replaced them for the movie? As it turns out, M. Night didn’t happen to like the white kids’ portrayals of characters. He specifically stated he wanted Caucasian children to be the ones auditioning.

As it turns out, even Zuko was originally supposed to be a white kid, but M. Night liked the Indian kid’s portrayal of him, so he changed the whole of the fire nation from Japanese, I mean Caucasian, to Middle Eastern. Zuko, Azula, Zhao, and Ozai, yes Ozai who’s not even supposed to be anything more than a silhouette in the first book shows up throughout the movie. Moreso, even the architecture of the Fire Nation was replaced with that of something you’re more likely to see in Indian culture, and their hairstyles were more American than anything. On top of that, the other three nations were a mixed salad of races if I’ve ever seen one. The Earth Kingdom was primarily Chinese looking, but there was a random African Tribe amongst them. The Southern Water Tribe was mostly Inuit citizens, with the exceptions of Katara, Sokka, and their grandmother, who were all mysteriously white. The Northern Water Tribe was mostly white, with a few darker skinned individuals thrown into the mix. The air nomads were part Tibetan, part Caucasian, part Indian, with a random black guy as Monk Giatsu. The races of all of the characters were just all wrong.

The sequence of events didn’t make sense either. They skipped over multiple plot lines, like the Kiyoshi warriors (and Suki altogether), Jet and his Freedom Fighters, Bumi and the city of Omashu, the pirates, the fortune teller’s love prediction, the Northern Air Temple, Aang’s first attempts at Earth and Fire bending, among others. I realize they can’t fit it all into at most a three-hour timeslot, but the only thing they even tried to incorporate was the Earth bender’s imprisonment, and that was probably only so they could include Earth bending at all. And even that was screwed up, because the Earth benders were surrounded by earth. They weren’t imprisoned at all!

It’s not even just because my friends and I are Avatar fans. I don’t believe this movie was good from a non-fan standpoint because the story was rushed, the acting was terrible, they were in too many places in too short of time, the dialogue was dramatized, the choreography was ridiculous, and the movie as a whole was just a mess. It felt as if he took his six favorite episodes, cut them into pieces, put them in a jar, shook them all up, mixed with wet plot devices and poured them out onto the editing table only to have them randomly taped together and put on the show floor as is.

The ending was different, the names weren’t pronounced correctly, the plot was out of sequence, Yue dies differently, Zuko’s scar is hardly visible, Pakku willingly teaches Katara, Sokka’s not comic relief, Aang isn’t light-hearted and childish, Aang is WAY too dramatic, the Avatar state is done at random times instead of during emotional turmoil, the giant blue monster never occurs at the end, the spirit world is always the same place, Roku’s dragon speaks to Aang instead of Roku himself, Katara’s grandmother willingly tells Katara to follow Aang, Zuko’s past is relayed via some random kid, bending requires a whole dance routine just to lift a rock, fire benders can only bend with already-existing fire, Iroh has dreadlocks, the water scroll is practically happened upon, Yue’s fiancé is nowhere to be found, Zhao instantly knows without proof who the Blue Spirit is, Aang’s capture is completely different, the list goes on and on and on.

Seeing this movie makes me wonder if M. Night even watched this show at all in the first place, considering Katara’s not a high-strung ninny, Sokka’s not the clumsy comic relief, Aang’s not a childish ball of sunshine, and Zuko’s not a vengeful douchebag. Not to mention that Aang became Ahng,  Sokka was Soak-ah, Iroh was Eeroh, and Agni Kai became Agni Kee, and not one character actually looks like they’re supposed to. Ultimately the movie was a box office failure, and it’s hard to believe that Paramount is more than happy to have M. Night finish the next two.  I don’t see how anyone can even look forward to an Airbender 2 and 3, even if M. Night somehow improves them because the first will still be horrendous. Like any good book, there’s just too much to the series to manage a perfect movie, but I think it’s possible to come close if it was at least two and a half hours long instead of a measly 90 minutes, had proper cultural casting, and M. Night was nowhere near the production of it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (1/2)

So I recently got into Avatar: The Last Airbender. With the impending release of M. Night’s newest flop, all of my friends were shaking with excitement over the live action title. Being that I never watched Avatar before, my friends demanded I watch it before the movie come out, so I finally gave it a shot. Now, Nickelodeon hasn’t been the same since I was a kid. Without shows like Doug, Hey Arnold and Rugrats before they were All Grown Up, the channel of my youth just isn’t entertaining with all the CG shows and bad acting jobs done by Disney Channel flunkies who think screaming about nothing is funny. I assumed Avatar would be no different, but I was quite wrong.

Starting off, the first book didn’t hook me yet. It was better than I expected, but wasn’t the groundbreaking television series I had heard it was. But it gave me enough to keep me interested in Books 2 and 3. What I found in this show was a well paced program that delved deep into the four elements with a cast of interesting characters. There were only a couple of characters I didn’t like in the show, but even those characters came around eventually. To be honest, I hated the primary antagonist, Zuko for the first two Books. It wasn’t until a certain event in Book 3 that I started to like him, but I loved him after that. Jet also was dislikeable for the first two seasons, but even he redeemed himself eventually.

Azula, Toph, and Iroh were among my three favorite characters. Azula was everything I ever wanted in a villain. She was cunning, she was sinister, she was sadistic, and she was crazy. She had her close allies, and she was very charismatic. She never lost sight of her goal, but she never obsessed over it like Zuko did. She was also patient, took her time, and didn’t take her losses too heavily. She of course wasn’t the only villain, but God was she a great villain. Toph was my favorite amongst the hero party, and Iroh was the best of the neutral characters. But I don’t need to go in depth on why I loved all three of them.

Another thing I loved was the way they physically and culturally portrayed the elements. I’ve been obsessed with the four primary elemental forces since I was a kid, and would like to someday incorporate them into my own projects for the industry I’m entering. As such, I really appreciated the fact that all four elements were extremely cool. I found myself making a difficult decision as to which was coolest. Air and Fire were pretty standard, but Water and Earth impressed me most. Earth benders for the most part with pretty standard, but I really liked the way they molded the earth into specific shapes to create specific objects. Alternatively, Water benders were really impressive because of the sheer amount of stuff they were capable of. Snow bending, Ice bending, Grass bending, Vine bending, Water Absorption, Sweat manipulation, Water Cutting, Mud bending, and Blood bending, just to give an idea of how versatile it was.

I also loved the way that the four nations were portrayed. Racially, the Fire Nation primarily resembled Japanese folk, Earth Kingdom represented Chinese, the Water Tribe favored Inuit, and the Air Nomads were based off of Tibetan monks. Each nation was represented by a different color, Fire being red, Earth green, Water blue and Air was yellow/orange. Their cultural aspects came in the form of their clothing, skin tone, hair color, hairstyle, architecture, military structure and general ways of city living. It really showed a separation between nations, but at the same time a cultural similarity between them, a theme that the show thrived heavily on.

My only complaints with the show were that Zuko was so dislikeable for a majority of the show. Aside from that, there were a couple of specific plot points that should have been developed better. The final battle, while exciting should have been longer. Also the final attack I felt was a bit of a cop out considering the training Aang was supposed to be enduring throughout the show. The characters interacted well with each other and various relationships were formed and dissolved differently throughout the show. The heroes were fun, the villains were great, and all of the additional characters helped move along the show in a fun and interesting manner. But how did the movie fair?

A Note on Live

I’ve been to a few concerts over the years. There’s a particular charm to seeing someone perform live that you don’t quite get just hearing the record/CD/digital copy of their music. And my experience with concerts has been mostly positive. I’d say that the sheer fact that you’re within water-bottle chucking distance of a celebrity that you’ll never be able to share ass space with almost negates all possibilities of throwing a bad concert.

But it’s possible.

I’ve compiled a list of the things I believe are essential to throwing a good concert. Assuming that none of my readers are celebrities looking to throw a benefit or otherwise rocking good time, my viewers can at least keep some things in mind to look out for.

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First thing is to understand that not every fan in the audience will be the same. Some are casual fans that don’t do this kind of thing often. Then there are more hardcore fans that have high expectations. There will also be concert-goers that don’t even know who’s performing and are only going for the thrill of watching a guitarist jump two feet off a drum set. Each of these, as well as any patron in-between should be catered to, though each has differing levels of expectations. To make sure everyone’s happy, a good concert should be unique. They can play a crappy song and look cool doing it, or they can play some sweet tunes that people will enjoy no matter how they’re playing it. But it’s not that simple. The performer(s) should make sure to do something special. This is, after all, a 50+ dollar concert, not a 12 dollar CD, and you deserve to hear and see something special. Something that won’t be on next year’s tour, something that non-concert goers will be jealous of. The premier of a song from the new album, an acoustic version of an originally electric song, or a special guest performer are all examples that fit this category.

An artist shouldn’t rely entirely on their hits. I’d say on average, a mildly successful artist probably gets around three albums of music, so if a concert allows for 15-20 songs, then at least a few from each album should be covered. If you’re seeing someone with a plethora of albums, like U2, Cher, or Goo Goo Dolls, then they should try and cover as many albums as possible. Of course we all want to hear their hits, especially the newer ones. But just because Bad Romance is newer than Pokerface, doesn’t make Just Dance old news. Die-hard fans such as myself will love variety, so a pleasant surprise may be the unpredicted return of a hit that came out 20 years ago. After all, let’s keep history in mind and honor those that made them famous in the first place.

Something that’s very important is that each tour should be different from the last. Now this goes with the first point, but there will always be fans who attend multiple concerts, and they shouldn’t have to pay for the same show twice unless it’s on the same tour. If there are a couple years of separation between tours, the fans who have already come before should be treated to something new. If the performer is just whipping out the same songs from the last tour, and giving the same performances, with maybe only three or four different songs, that’s just a sign of laziness. It’s acceptable if the tour is a revival of the last tour, but if it’s a new name, it should be a new show. Plain and simple. Likewise, the shows on the same tours should have the same performances. Scheduling conflicts with guest performers is one thing, but there’s no reason that the fans in Seattle should receive a lesser or different performance than the fans in Milwaukee. The top five songs will and frankly should be played at each show, but after that, the artist should at least try to mix it up per tour, otherwise what’s the point of having made the lesser-performed songs in
the first place.

My last point is that there is such a thing as too long of a solo. If it’s a rock concert, there will more than likely be one last solo to end the whole show on. Everyone likes a good solo, there’s just an exciting, epic euphoria you get from it, and what better way to end the show than an audio high? However, sometimes the solo just gets carried away. I recently saw Pat Benetar in concert, and Spider was jamming at the end of Heartbreaker. The solo was almost as long as the song itself, and it wasn’t even a good solo. I mean literally, the solo was exciting and getting everyone’s blood pumping at first, but then it died down a bit so I thought it was over. But then he kept playing very softly, very un-Heartbreaker like. Then he got back up into a whole new groove, which was still very out-of-place, then he went all kinds of crazy, and after two or three minutes of thinking they had started up a whole other song, it finally ended. The major problem with this wasn’t even so much the length, the solo just held a major disconnect from the song it had originally attached to. It didn’t belong at the end of Heartbreaker at all, and it went on for almost an entire song length. Leave the garage jams at home, because that’s not a good way to end a concert.

These are the four things that I believe make for a good concert. To sum up, keep it unique, play good songs, appeal to all types of fans, play more than just the same #1 hits everyone’s already heard, and don’t get too crazy with the final solo. This is only my opinion, so if you disagree and like different performances for different reasons, then by all means. I’m not telling you how to like a concert; just pointing out what I believe makes for a good one. This is nothing more than a hypothesis.