Disney's Percy Jackson Hates Action

The new Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney Plus does a lot right, from making Luke a better character than the movies did, to having some fun material for Grover and the others. But where it falls flat on its face is the action and suspense. In this video, I go over why.

[zarinakhtar]

I hate how they removed some of the goofier elements to make the show more serious. Like how Cerberus just wanted someone to play with him because he was lonely, Charon wanting a raise, Hades complaining about being overworked and many more.

[manuelrojas]

I don’t understand the argument for “the book readers already know what happens”. I reread the books every couple of years and I remember and know what happens, and it’s still great every time. People revisit things they like

[alenor]

I think my biggest complaint is how they made the kids more active in all their predicaments, while in the book they’re primarily reactive. In the book, they wander into a place, realize too late that it’s a monster trap, and have to improvise a way to escape/survive. It made for a fun adventure and served as a nice reference to the Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew did the exact same thing. But in the tv show, they spot every trap in advance and are always somewhat prepared for them, which makes the subsequent action feel less exciting.

[JustBenUnofficial]

I’m still holding out hope for a potential PJ animated series. Want fun action? Bam animation. Want to avoid all your actors aging out of their roles? Bam animation. Want a faithful adaptation? Umm... yeah can't help you there.

Edit: punctuation

[emmaelizabeth]

My biggest complaint for this series is that it just wasn't "fun." As you pointed out, it lacked that sense of urgency and excitement, plus the few attempts at humor just felt really off because of how somber the overall tone was. I get that some of the more off-the-wall elements of the book probably needed to be toned down to fit with the live action medium, but come on. "Fun" is probably the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Percy Jackson, so it's a real shame that the show wasn't able to truly capture that.

[MichaelFrontz]

My girlfriend and I watched this show week by week together, and it was concerning the amount of times we started a sentence about the show like this- "At least in the movie they...". The lack of tension and suspense was really frustrating- each episode felt like a flat line to me. Hopefully it will improve now that season 2 is confirmed! There is potential for sure.

[sabbyali]

The Percy Jackson tv show character act as if they’ve already read the books

[maja.z.pszczola]

The book and the show had a lot of “explanations” scenes, but in the book it made sense because Percy didn’t understand this new world he found himself a part of, and Annabeth was there to explain it to him, also showing how smart she was. The show, for whatever reason has Percy already be an expert in all these stories, and just kept Annabeth on the side looking out of place. It does make sense realistically that Sally would try to prepare Percy, but that’s just where you have to suspend your disbelief for the story tone to succeed …

[dyland]

Im glad someone agrees with me. Im definitely not happy with all the changes. Especially with how annabeth and grover dont seem to be scared of the gods.

Percy being not scared of the gods is supposed to be unique and strange, due to his unique situation, but here we have grover disobeying dionysius and manipulating ares, and annabeth shouting at hepheastus.

It just makes percy seem less... percy because as the megamind movie says, when everyone is super, no one is

[SlauncherLA]

The best part of the books that both the film and show failed to execute was Rick Riordan’s signature storytelling style of slowly revealing who/what the mythological characters and monsters were. That was always the most fun part of reading the books was trying to figure out who they were dealing with page by page, paragraph by paragraph until the reveal.

[Allinox]

I agree. No tension, no excitement, and never ending exposition talk made it a pretty boring watch. Not awful, just.. meh

[lollythefamouscommenter]

my brother made a point that i’m inclined to agree with; the thing about percy’s mom and all those flashbacks felt odd to me as well. i think the actress who plays percy’s mom must have had a particular contract (or something) that required her to be in a certain amount of scenes / screen time, which is why the show weirdly keeps coming back to percy childhood flashback scenes. there isnt really any other explanation i have, because my impression of all those flashback scenes were that they just felt really odd.

[liv]

I think my main problem with the whole show was how nothing felt urgent. They see the monsters, and they just... slowly walk away, while watching tensely. This happened so many times I actually found myself saying "why aren't they running?" out loud. Most of their hurdles felt incredibly easy to overcome, things got resolved in just a few minutes, which made the pacing so off - it somehow felt BOTH rushed and dragged out at the same time. I also think a better director could've gotten more out of the kids, and maybe they could've benefitted from some off-screen bonding time to make their relationships more realistic (I get that it's harder for kids to fake chemistry, which is why I say directing children is a very specific skill not all directors have). The trio is carrying so much of the show by themselves; they needed to have a better connection for their scenes and dialogues to feel more realistic, and not as clunky and performed as it did in my opinion. I also think most, if not all, changes made from the book were for the worse. Say what you will about the movie, it's a good film, even if it's not a good adaptation. It's exciting, the actors have chemistry, its thematically cohesive for the most part and it's pretty well paced for all the ground it has to cover. It's a great movie for pre-teens and it's how a lot of us discovered the book series, whereas the show feels much more geared towards people who are already fans. I don't see the first season being a "gateway" for people to discover the series in the same way the movie was.

[aaronjones]

dude. i totally had the same thoughts. on paper the show was accurate but the tension of Medusa, the lotus casino, ares, etc. just wasnt there.

[OstianOwl]

The "it was made for existing fans who want something different" excuse is so bizarre to me when we just got something like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off on Netflix that went out of its way to be a different story from the comics/movie and yet retained the writing style, character interactions and energized action sequences that made that series enjoyable to begin with.

"Different" doesn't have to mean "abandon the appeal of the source material".

[ardwark]

a small detail someone else pointed out but which bares repeating: at no point is percys sword ever properly introduced. Which is a great way to pinpoint one big issue throught the series: The whole thing is made with the assumption that people are familiar with the source material (and made by people familiar with the source material), so it tends to just gloss over and rush through some of the more exciting/fun/fascinating parts

[LeMelleKH]

This show reeked of everything wrong with Disney+'s production style. Everything felt so cheap, despite a big budget. Nothing is filmed with any sense of style and tension, and it just kills the suspense of any scene.

[artemis]

I checked Reddit after each episode and it was so funny because there are two PJO subreddits that kept popping up, one which had the general consensus of loving the show, and the other that absolute hated it. Eventually they started crapping on each other, it was hilarious 😂

[abdelali]

Disney be like: "Subtlety, what is even that?"

[Mobsie]

thank you!! couldn't quite put my finger on what it was that was missing. The show seemed to actively shy away from action, making it hard to really get into it.